The Signs and Causes of Empyema, or Suppuration

Abstract

Whoever has the empyema feels a heaviness beneath the breast: he coughs uselessly and sweats and his cheeks are red in hue and his eyes sunken: his fingernails are seen to be curved and the fingertips inflamed. And this is accompanied by fever, by pustules erupting round the body, dyspnoea and swollen feet, and by aversion to food and drink. And if his health is endangered, then the sputum is foamy, green or livid pus. A subtle flux from the brain, peripneumonia, pleurisy or the quinsy overflows the mid-space of the chest and is converted into pus and makes the empyema, which must be voided in the sputum within 40 days if the patient is not to waste away.