Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
A Treatise on Fevers (Author: [unknown])
Section 23
{TCD 1302 fol col and line fol 7b1line5} Let it be asked here what diet should be given in chronic fevers. It seems it should be heavy diet, for Galenus says in the commentary to the Aphorisms that fish and eggs and flesh should be given in chronic fevers and these constitute heavy diet according to Avicenna, so heavy diet should be given in chronic fevers. Then Avicenna says in the chapter on quartana that piglets' brains roasted, and cocks' genitals, and thick infusion, should be given to quartana
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patients, and these are reckoned as heavy diet, so heavy diet should be given in chronic fevers. Then Avicenna says the energy should be maintained in chronic illnesses and the same man says energy is not maintained by light diet, so heavy diet should be given in chronic levers. This is opposed on the authority of Isaac, for he says heavy diet should be given to healthy people, and a diet contrary to that of healthy people is ordered for invalids, so light diet should be given to patients in chronic fevers. And Avicenna says chronic illnesses are divided in two ways i.e. simple illness and compound illness; simple illness, i.e. an illness that comes from one humour as tertian comes from reddish bile and quotidian from phlegm; compound illness, i.e. illness caused by a mixture of humours such as anthrax and the like. Then again these illnesses are divided in two ways, i.e. a group of them called acuta, and a group called chronica, i.e. acute illness and chronic illness. And acuta is divided in three ways, i.e. acuta, peracuta, and acutissima. And acuta is a fever terminating on the seventh day. Peracuta terminating on the fourth day. Acutissima i.e. an illness terminating on the second or third day. And there is another acute illness called acuta absoluta terminating on the ninth day. Acuta non absoluta terminates on the twentieth day. And there is another acuta, i.e. acuta residiuaciones i.e. an acute illness with relapse which terminates in a month. And there is acuta chronica terminating on the thirty-first day, or the thirty-fourth day, or in forty days, as Aristotle says they are chronic from that out. And diet too is {TCD 1302 fol col and line fol 7b2line1} divided in three ways i.e. light diet and heavy diet and a mean diet, and light diet is the offering (?) of suitable food and drink according to time and order and number, and heavy diet is ..... healthy, and mean diet is partial diet helping (?) each of them as ..... infusion and cold moist pottage as ..... woodbine and the like. And ... feet and snouts of piglets and little wild birds and soft ... and small fish ... and white bread soaked in cold water and mellicratum and the like. And Avicenna says the habit of people should be studied in giving diet i.e. people accustomed to
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food twice or thrice in health, should have it the same number of limes in illness, as Hippocrates says. And diet is given with respect to the energy from two causes, i.e. to maintain the energy for fear it should decrease. The second cause [is] to stir up nature against the matter of the disease. And there is another diet which stirs up nature and maintains [it] at the same time, and this diet should be given in illnesses terminating on the seventh day, such as acuta, and these constitue that diet, namely mellicratum and julep and refined infusion ... and the like. We answer this question and say every chronic illness due to a humour should have light diet and every chronic illness due to evacuation should have heavy diet.