If the Patient become worse and worse, Doctor Death is coming to cure him.

 

Presages by the face.

If in a sick body the face look as it did in the time of health, or but little different, the hope of recovery is not small. Signs of death in the face of a sick body are these.

The nostrils are extenuated and very sharp.

The eyes are hollow.

The skin of the forehead or eyesbrows hard, dry and loose, and looks as though it were tan'd.

The ears are cold, shrunk and almost doubled.

The face is black, pale or swarthy or deformed, he looks but ill-favouredly.

If these, or most these appear (be not to rash neither, for rashness is the daughter of ignorance, but be sober-minded) and first enquire whether the patient has not fasted much, or wanted to sleep, or had a flux a long time. If these or any of these had not a being before the sickness, the danger of death is to be feared. 

If the sickness have been four or five days before you see these symptoms, they are but the harbingers of death, and he follows them at the tail. 

Presages by the eyes and lips.

Signs of death by the eyes are if they be deprived of sight, or weep against the patient's will.

If they seem as if they would fall out of his head.

When one of the eyes become less than the other.

When the white of the eyes become reddish.

When they are blear-eyed, or dim-eyed, and not used to be so before.

When they are very movable, gashful, staring up and down, or sunk deep into the head.

When the sick grows squint-eyed and not so before, and stares up and down as though he was frighted.

When the patient sleeps with his eyes open, and was not so accustomed to do. 

Then enquire if these come not by flux, nor laxative medicines; if not, they are signs of death.

When the eyelids, nose and lips are crooked, or drawn into one side.

If the lips are thin, cold, pale and hanging down, and the nose very sharp, it denotes death. 

Presages by the manner of lying in bed.

It is best when men lie in bed, in that form in sickness as they did when they were in health. Mortal signs are first:

When the neck, hands and feet are extended stiff and inflexible, not to be moved.

Sudden starting up out of the bed.

Casting their head down to the feet of the bed.

Sleeping with their mouth open, contrary to former custom.

Tossing and rumbling, or throwing himself from one end of the bed to the other, shows the man in a terrible condition, if not in a dying condition.

To sleep with the belly downward, contrary to custom, shows aches of the belly, or little less than madness.

If the desire in sickness be to go out of one room into another, mistake not the room for a world.

He that is impatient and forces himself to rise upon a critical day, puts himself in great danger; if the disease be violent and touch his lungs, the critical day may prove mortal.

Presages by the teeth. 

Gnashing of teeth in a fever, if not naturally, is a dangerous sign.

If withal he be deprived of his senses, and his sickness only a fever, not a frenzy and gnashing his teeth; he calls for death, and he will quickly come.

Presages by ulcers and issues.

If a sick person have an ulcer or issue, whether it came before the sickness or with it (there is not a half-penny to choose), and it dry up and become green, black or swarthy, if the patient become worse and worse, Doctor Death is coming to cure him.

Presages by the hands.

If in fevers (or any other acute diseases, frenzy excepted), the sick by peddling or plucking the bedclothes, or pulling straws if he could find them, a thousand to one if he live the age of a little fish. Judge the like, if he take violent hold of the bedclothes, ceiling or wall.

Presages by the breath.

By the breath is best judgement given upon the spirits, heart and lungs. 

If a disease have invaded the spirits (and that is the quickest way to kill a man) carry a urinal full of piss to the doctor, and he will say he ails nothing, the reason is there is no digestion found in the urine, because the disease not the body but the spirits. A man is troubled in mind, his wife and children do not please him; being troubled, is sick for madness; his wife, as bad as she is, loves him and will carry his piss to the doctor; he looks on it, and thinks the man as well as himself (and that is bad enough), only his trouble is so great, he knows as much by his urine as if he had looked into a crow's nest; he has no more skill in astrology than I have in making of candles; the man speaks out all his wit at once, and saith her husband ails nothing; it may be he ail nothing but only to be out of the world.

The drift of this discourse is only to show you some diseases seize only upon the spirits, others only upon the body. To this purpose:

The distance between breathing, if it be too long and coldness of the breath, shows death is not above two or three foot off. Gentle breath in hot diseases is an argument of death. 

Presages by sweat.

Those kind of sweats which happen upon judicial or critical days are wholesome, commendable and good, for they are sent by Doctor Health.

If sweat be universal, 'tis excellent, and if the patient mend by his sweating, 'tis a forerunner of a cure.

Mortal sweats are first of all cold.

Only in one part of the body, usually in the forehead and face, if the patient afflicted by such sweats die not, his disease will continue longer than he would have it.

Presages by tumours.

If the patient that lies sick of a fever feels neither pain, inflammation, tumour not hardness upon or near about his ribs, 'tis a very good sign.

If any of these be there, and upon both sides, 'tis but a bad sign at the best.

If he feel great motions and pulsations in one of his sides, it prognosticates great pain and deprivation of his senses.

If with his pulsation, his eyes move faster than they should do, the patient is in danger to fall into a frenzy, if not to mischief himself. 

The last chapter, of aposthumes.

The collection of an aposthume in both sides in a burning fever is more dangerous than if it had been but upon one side, for two men will sooner kill a man than one.

'Tis more dangerous on the left side than on the right.

If it continue twenty days and the fever ceases not, neither the aposthume diminishes, it will come to muturation.

If there come a flux of blood through the nose upon the critical day, it eases the patient, only he will be pained in his head and troubled with dimness of sight at noonday, chiefly if he be about thirty or thirty-five years of age. 

When the aposthume is soft, and with pain when 'tis handled, it requires a longer time to cure than the former did, but not half so dangerous.

Such a one may continue two months before it comes to be ripe.

That aposthume that is hard, great and painful, if it be not mortal, I am sure it is dangerous.

Aposthumes of the belly are never so great as they that grow under the midrise, and yet those that grow under the navel are less than they, and usually come to suppuration.

'Tis a good sign when they purge by a flux of blood in the nostrils. 

Some aposthumes purge only outwards, and they are little, round and sharp-pointed, and they are most healthful, less morta;.

Such as are large, gross or round but flat are most dangerous.

Those that purge and break within the belly and make tumours outwardly are as bad as the Devil himself or Robin Goodfellow, and are very pernicious; those that make no rumour outwardly, excel them as far as the shot of a cannon does that of a pistol.

The matter which comes out of the imposthumes, being white and not unsavoury, is very good and healthful.

The more the colour differs from white, the worse it is.

And thus much for the first book.