As headach is not the same complaint as fever, so neither are
insomnolency, loss of appetite, heaviness of the whole body, and a sense
of lassitude; and yet each of these symptoms, although different from
fever, announces its approach. A fever setting in, and more especially
in an acute manner, cannot escape our notice, nor even that of a person
unacquainted with these matters. Or, if we should suppose that it might
escape us, I should wonder if the patient himself could be ignorant of it
for more than an hour. Wherefore I call that time the commencement of the
disorder, when those who are beginning clearly to be affected with the
fever betake themselves to bed.
* * * * *
COMMENTARY. The whole of this Section is taken from Galen (de Diebus
criticis), where the question is fully discussed. Aëtius, like our
author, defines the commencement of a fever to be the time when the
strength of the patient being overcome by the complaint, he is obliged
to take to bed. On this point the Arabians venture to differ from the
Greeks. Thus, Rhases and Avicenna reckon the commencement from the time
when the patient first feels a departure from health.
The disagreement among the authorities upon this point is to be
regretted, as it tends to obscure the doctrine of the critical days.