8 But when the fever is that kind of tertian which the physicians call hemitritaion, great care is required to avoid a mistake, for it has a number of frequently recurring paroxysms and remissions, so that it can appear to be some other class of disease and the fever may last from twenty-four to thirty-six hours, so that what is really the same paroxysm may not seem to be the same. And it is then exceedingly important not to give food except in that remission which is a real one, and when that does come, to give it at once. Many die suddenly from error one way or the other on the part of the practitioner. And unless something strongly prohibits, blood should be let at the onset, then food is to be given, which, without exciting the fever, should yet sustain a long course of it.
De Medicina. Celsus. W. G. Spencer. Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard University Press. 1971 (Republication of the 1935 edition).
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