476 FLINT'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XXIII* 



cough.- asthma, and sprains, in which last case they are applied 

 in unclean sed wool. For all these purposes the wine is pre- 

 ferred which has naturally the flavour of pitch, 6 and is 

 thence known as "picatuin :" it is generally agreed, however, 

 that the produce of the vine called " helvennaca/' 7 if taken in 

 too large a quantity, is trying to the head. 



In reference to the treatment of fever, it is well known that 

 wine should never be given, unless the patient is an aged per- 

 son, or the symptoms are beginning to abate. In cases of acute 

 fever, wine must never be given, under any circumstance, 

 except when there is an evident remission of the attack, and 

 more particularly if this takes place in the night, for then the 

 danger is diminished by one half, there being the probability 

 of the patient sleeping off the effects of the wine. It is equally 

 forbidden, also, to females just after delivery or a miscarriage, 

 and to patients suffering from over-indulgence of the sexual 

 passions ; nor should it be given in cases of head-ache, of 

 maladies in which the attacks are attended with chills at the 

 extremities, of fever accompanied with cough, of tremulous- 

 ness 8 in the sinews, of pains in the fauces, or where the disease 

 is found to concentrate itself in the iliac regions. Wine is 

 strictly forbidden, too, in cases of induration of the thoracic 

 organs, violent throbbings of the veins, opisthotony, tetanus, 

 asthma, and hardness of breathing attended with fever. 



"Wine is far from beneficial for a patient, when the eyes are 

 fixed and rigid, and when the eyelids are immoveable, or else 

 relaxed and heavy ; in cases, too, where, with an incessant nic- 

 tation, the eyes are more than usually brilliant, or where the 

 eyelids refuse to close the same, too, if that symptom 

 should occur in sleep or where the eyes are suffused with 

 blood, or congealed matter makes its appearance in the corners 

 of those organs. The same rule should be observed, also, when 

 the tongue is heavy and swollen, or when there is an impedi- 

 ment from time to time in the speech, when the urine is passed 

 with difficulty, or when a person has been seized with a sudden 

 fright, with spasms, or recurrent fits of torpor, or experiences 

 eeminal discharges' during sleep. 



6 See B. xiv. cc. 3, 4. 



7 See B. xiv. c. 4 : Vol. III. p. 227. 



8 " Tremore nervorum ;" perhaps '* nervousness." 



