ABSTRACT
In the perusal of the Hippocratic writings one is struck by the fact that infectious diseases, such as puerperal fever, pyaemia and suppurating wounds, are extremely well described with a profusion of detail of the symptoms. Erysipelas is well treated of in the Hippocratic writings. Hippocrates points out that the fever and chills were due to the pus and that the only means of saving the patient was an operation which would allow the surgeon to cleanse the wound completely. Fever results from a heating of the bile and a chill indicates that phlegm has become mixed with the blood. But another theory of fever is to be found in the Hippocratic Collection, according to which the rise in temperature is due to an exaggerated production of phlegm, which causes the tissues to swell, thereby interfering with the secretions.
