instances of Cheyne-Stokes breathing. Noticed by
the writer of these works, this important symptom
was overlooked until the eighteenth century.
10. πολύς AND ὀλίγος IN THE PLURAL.
It is at least curious that one of the translator's
greatest difficulties is to decide what are the
meanings of πολύς and ὀλίγος (also of σμικρά) when
used in the plural. The reader is at first sight
inclined to think that ῥεύματα πολλά (Epidemics III.
IV.) means "many fluxes," and so possibly it may.
But just above we have ῥεῦμα πολύ, "a copious flux,"
and so the plural may well mean "copious fluxes."
The ambiguity becomes more serious when the
words are applied to the excreta. Is frequency or
quantity the more dominant idea? It seems impossible
to say for certain, but the evidence tends
towards the latter view. From Prognostic Chapter XI
it seems that quantity is the more important thing,
and in the same passage πυκνόν is the word used
to denote frequency. The usage in Epidemics I. and
III. bears out this view. "Frequently shivering" is
φρικώδεες πυκνά (Epid. III. XIII.). In the same chapter
occurs the sentence, αἱ δὲ βῆχες ἐνῆς1αν μὲν διὰ τέλεος
πολλαί, καὶ πολλὰ ἀνάγουσαι πέπονα, where πολλαί
means "many" and πολλά "copious." In Epid. III.
Case II. (second series) βῆχες συνεχέες ὑγραὶ πολλαί
means "continued coughing with watery and copious
sputa." In Case IX. of the same series "frequent,
slight epistaxis" is ᾑμορράγει . . . . πυκνὰ κατ̓ ὀλίγον.
After long consideration of this difficult question I
conclude that πολύς and ὀλίγος in the plural, when
