Source edition
Hippocrates. Oeuvres complètes d'Hippocrate, Vol. 2. Littré, Émile, editor. Paris: Baillière, 1840
Source data
A Digital Corpus for Graeco-Arabic Studies · CC BY-SA 4.0
Cloned and adapted by Humanitext, with ongoing edits.
Summary
This medical treatise expounds on the clinical significance and practical methodologies of "prognosis" (prognosis)—the art of foretelling the course of an illness and the patient's ultimate fate. The work asserts that predicting whether a patient will recover or die is crucial for successful treatment and establishing professional trust. The discussion begins with visual observations of the patient's physical appearance, describing the facial features (later known as the "Hippocratic facies") and the state of the eyes, before moving to bodily postures, respiration, perspiration, and excretions such as urine and sputum. It further details diagnostic criteria involving internal suppurations, localized pains, and the cyclical regularity of "critical days" (crisis) in acute fevers. Ultimately, the treatise concludes that a skilled physician must integrate these individual signs with broader factors, such as seasons and epidemic trends, to achieve a comprehensive and accurate prediction of life and death.