NOTE: - 106 -

[...in order] to find [relief]. It often happens that they aggravate the illness, or add yet a new infirmity upon the original affliction. The illustrious physician Tisot advises letting blood only in the following occurrences: 1. At such times when it is plainly evident that one is possessed of a surfeit of blood, and the veins are distended and tautly swollen (strained). 2. When one has a violent inflammation, or an inflammatory fever. 3. When there is apprehension that inflammation will arise; as, for example, upon receiving a great wound, being severely bruised, falling from a high place, and also during times of exceedingly violent coughing in a pregnant woman. 4. When excessive pain or griping colic continues for a long duration. 5. If the patient feels a sudden boiling within the body, and it seems to him as though burning water were coursing through his veins. 6. If one has a severe itching over the entire body, which likewise recurs frequently at such times when the body grows warm. 7. If an unaccustomed flux of blood should occur. It is exceedingly useless, and indeed of great harm, to let blood when the following signs are brought to light: 1. For those advanced in years, and for women pregnant for the first time. 2. For those who are naturally of a feeble constitution, or have grown emaciated from a long illness or other causes. 3. For pale, leaden-complexioned persons, whose pulse beats small (faint), soft, powerless, and intermittent. 4. Those whose hands and feet frequently grow feeble, and whose flesh wastes away. 5. Those who have been forced to eat little for a long time, or who partake of foods that provide little nourishment, and who are themselves debilitated by various fluxes. 6. Those whose stomach is disordered, whose digestion is feeble, and whose blood naturally does not increase. 7. For those who, contrary to the usual [course], pass blood from various causes; or have diarrhea, or excessive urination (frequent voiding), or are vomiting, or sweating profusely. 8. If anyone has been ill and debilitated for a long time, has swellings or scrofulous tumors in the belly, or whose spleen is swollen, hardened, and bl[ood...]