CONTINUANTUR SIGNIFICATIONES PULSUUM.

That which, *very frequent*, renews and repeats its stroke

Is contracted by fragile strength, and strong heat,

So that the acquired vapor of the heart can be refreshed

It demands a sufficient breath of soothing air,

Lest as much air as is appropriate for it be given to it all at once,

The oppressed strength denies it, therefore perplexed it repays

In a manifold number, what it has already failed in one,

And its frequent repetition compensates for the defect in quantity.

In a *rare* pulse the heat is weak, and the power is frail. —

By the motions of an *incident* pulse the power is repaired,

captive health becomes free, the sluggish strong,

the weak renews its forces, the oppressed rises again,

life is reformed, with the symptom vanquished the disease

is exiled, and having received the prize, nature triumphs. —

But through a *falling* pulse, the evening of life having already arrived,

the splendor of the animating breeze verges upon its setting,

the enervated power perishes, and upon the one drawing breath sparingly

Atropos assaults, so that she may cut short the use of life.

*Equality* joined to a good pulse becomes good, bad when joined to an unfavorable one,

rivalling it, it assumes the form of the joined structure. —

*Inequality* is to be reproved in a good pulse, praised in an unfavorable one:

For out of two things proposed to you, which are to be desired,

choose that which remains fixed in stable goodness;

Out of two things proposed to you, which are to be avoided,

choose the more mobile, avoid that which exists more constantly.

Equality can be found in any species of pulse

or inequality, but the single observation of one alone

does not make the pulse equally equal:

If a large pulse continues itself and preserves its proper tenor

unhindered, it falls into full equality;

When an alien species succeeds it, it is not called equal

simply, but in this respect, since it may not be equal in all things. —

The *retortiva* tail becomes null in the first stroke,

In the remainder it languishes, the third motion becomes gentle,

To the judgment of the senses the fourth manifests itself more,

The fifth thrives, the sixth is strengthened with robust vigor;

From the darkness of the senses and from the abyss of languor

It creeps to the heights, rising by a gradual path;

With this pulse nature reciprocates her accustomed acts. —

The *finitiva* begins its motions from on high,

Gradually it is depressed, declines, and is reduced to nothing,

And from open sensation it plunges into the lowest depth:

This brings the preludes of approaching death.

Flee with your little bags collected, craftsman of medicine,

Your expense of effort is worth nothing, your aids do no good,

The damages cannot be repaired now with death approaching,

Atropos shuts out Lachesis, breaks the vital

Threads, dissolves the fastenings, and banishes life:

Let the reverence of your brow remain safe for you, show forth

Your countenance; lest the approaching death produce shame for you,

Let your pronouncement anticipate the death-bringing events,

Retaining the office of a seer and the name of a prophet.

The physician does not always heal, nor does the rhetorician always plead to the end,

But nevertheless he concludes his duty with the supreme end,

Each thing which he owes, if he preserves the contingent circumstances,

If he dictates life to the one who will live, or death to the one who will die

With a stable judgment, what is the fault of the healer?

The curing of a disease is the common duty of two

A common action is scarcely consummated by one. —

The *caprinus* doubles its leap in one descent,

Leaping in the manner of a goat, which first strikes the air twice,

Before it seeks to plant its step on the ground once;

In this species, the first progression yields to the second.

If such a species results when genesis dictates,

By this sign a hard, rebellious substance of the vessel,

And a weak force of the vital aura is denoted;

The sense is dull, speech is precipitate, there is a stammering of the tongue,

Which, turned over in many ways so that it might utter words,

Releases the concept of the mind with a mutilated voice. —

If the caprinus pulse is without law or order,

The cause is a mixture of evil, a diverse diet,

Dissonant matter, and a great resolution of vapor. —

As a hammer strikes an anvil twice and is forced to rebound

By the persuasion of the mass of the interposed metal,

And the blow becomes divided, yet single in itself:

So the species, struck by the hard rigor of the member, rebounds

And thus the *martellina* species beats back the fingers;

Nor does it return to the center until it has doubled the blow,

(From which an immense native spirit is signified,

A dry heart, a discordant presumption of mind, and pride;)

In continuous fever, when the hammer-like pulse dominates,

The moisture of the heart is consumed by the febrile heat. —

The *ramosus* is split into branches, and the organs by its motion

Striking with a four-cleft beat, it runs through the fingers, in a single

impulse of different character, just as the confused sound resounds

of a cithara when its strings are touched together in a single row.

This species, prompted by the command of the *crasis*, figures forth

a mobile purpose, a changeable desire of the heart. —

If such a pulse should happen, compelled by a symptom of illness,

the matter of the disease becomes dissonant, its cause repugnant,

virtue fights on equal terms, blunts the symptom,

life is reformed, victorious nature rises again,

and, as the cloud of illness fades, the aura of health returns. —

The *stormy* pulse shakes the vessels with an enormous stroke,

it fluctuates, overflows, roars, boils, and the digital

bellies, pressed against itself, it embraces laterally,

part moves below or above, part backward or forward:

thence you may ascertain a sudden tumult of the mind and heart,

the motion of surging blood in a disturbed body. —

The empty *spasmodic* pulse, which grows stiff in the manner of a stretched

cord, serves the consumptive and the emaciated,

it absorbs, consumes, and depletes the moisture of the body. —

A fuller spasmodic species occurs, replenished

are the organs, a rheumatic humor is infused into the nerves,

and the injured limbs are bereft of their motive vigor. —

There are twin pulses, the *ant-like* and the *worm-like*,

which, especially in burning and highly acute fevers,

are the reliable heralds of death and smell of the tomb.

In a fever the ant-like is more to be feared than the worm-like,

Nor does it return to a better state, but lulls life to sleep in death.

More often syncope brings on these types, with the burning heat of fever excluded,

With no pressing danger of death. —

The *serrinus* type weakly meets the first finger,

Becomes languid in the remaining, and is nothing in the following;

This pulse draws related names from the saw,

Whose incision, when made by the first teeth

Is heavy, heavier in the rest, and fatal in the last;

With this pulse the fatal saw cuts off the body's vigor

And a lethal cloud overshadows life. —