[p. 51] But if brought up
long after the commencement of the pain, and of a yellow or ruddy
color, or if it occasions much cough, or be not strongly mixed, it
is worse; for that which is intensely yellow is dangerous, but the
white, and viscid, and round, do no good. But that which is very green
and frothy is bad; but if so intense as to appear black, it is still
more dangerous than these; it is bad,
if nothing is expectorated, and the lungs discharge nothing, but are
gorged with matters which boil (as it were) in the air-passages. It
is bad when coryza and sneezing either precede or follow affections
of the lungs, but in all other affections, even the most deadly, sneezing
is a salutary symptom. A yellow spittle mixed up with not much blood
in cases of pneumonia, is salutary and very beneficial if spit up
at the commencement of the disease, but if on the seventh day, or
still later, it is less favorable. And all sputa are bad which do
not remove the pain. But the worst is the black, as has been described.
Of all others the sputa which remove the pain are the best.
PART 15
When the pains in these regions do not cease, either with the discharge
of the sputa, nor with alvine evacuations, nor from venesection, purging
with medicine, nor a suitable regimen, it is to be held that they
will terminate in suppurations. Of empyemata such as are spit up while
the sputum is still bilious, are very fatal, whether the bilious portion
be expectorated separate, or along with the other; but more especially
if the empyema begin to advance after this sputum on the seventh day
of the disease. It is to be expected that a person with such an expectoration
shall die on the fourteenth day, unless something favorable supervene.
The following are favorable symptoms: to support the disease easily,
to have free respiration, to be free from pain, to have the sputa
readily brought up, the whole body to appear equally warm and soft,
to have no thirst, the urine, and faeces, sleep, and sweats to be
all favorable, as described before; when all these symptoms concur,
the patient certainly will not die; but if some of these be present
and some not, he will not survive longer than the fourteenth day.
The bad symptoms are the opposite of these, namely, to bear the disease
with difficulty, respiration large and dense, the pain not ceasing,
the sputum
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