The reason for crisis days and periods of crisis

Most people believe that the reason for determining the days of crisis in acute diseases depends on the moon. They assert that the power of the moon is the force that passes on the moisture in our world, and that this force causes various changes in them and promotes ripening and digestion, or acts in the opposite way, depending on the disposition of the matter. To prove this, they refer to the phenomenon of ebb and flow, to the enlargement of the brain when the light of the moon increases, and to the fact that during the full moon fruits on trees and vegetables ripen quickly. According to them, the moisture in the body is also affected by the moon, and its condition changes in accordance with the change in the position of the moon, and this change is more pronounced the more the change in the position of the moon is manifested. It happens most of all when the moon finds itself in a position exactly opposite to its previous one; then in relation to the influence there follows a change in the position of the moon by one quarter; in this case, the circle of the moon is divided in half and then into half of half.

These people say: Since the moon completes its circuit in approximately twenty-nine days with a third, from which the days of conjunction with the sun are subtracted, that is, about two days and a half and another with a third, since the moon does not exert its influence at this time, twenty remain. six and a half days. Half of this will be thirteen days and a quarter, a quarter will be six and a half and another eighth, and the eighth will be three days and a quarter and another half an eighth, and this is the smallest part of its circuit. But sometimes they calculate differently, and the result diverges slightly from the given calculation and slightly exceeds it, but some arbitrariness is allowed here. The mentioned periods of time are the periods that determine the appearance of great changes at this time, and these are the essence of the days of small periods.

If at the beginning of the segment the matter was good, then by the end of it it changes even more for the better, and if the segment began when the matter and all circumstances were bad, then by the end of this period of time a change for the worse will appear. As for disease crises that last a long time, over a month, then the first periods are then counted by the sun.

There is something dubious in this calculation and research and there are grounds for dispute, but it is appropriate for a natural scientist to do this, and there is no benefit from it for a doctor. A doctor should only know what follows from many experiments, but he is by no means obliged to know the reason for this, because explaining the reason would lead him to another art. No, reasoning about the days of crisis must be reasoning expressed on the basis of experience or on the basis of reliable provisions and assumptions.

Know that most doctors call a period a period of time, the doubling of which does not change its type; this means that doubling does not lead to a non-crisis day. An example of this is the four-day or seven-day period - doubling them always leads to a crisis day in accordance with the calculation of the days of crisis that fall in diseases for which four-day and seven-day periods are suitable in this regard. There are three main, correct periods: a four-day period - it is complete, a seven-day period - also complete, and a third period - ten days - the most complete, because the fortieth, sixtieth and eightieth days are all days of crisis, while the first two periods are less complete. -for fractions that should be taken into account. Therefore, three seven days make twenty days, but not twenty-one days; the first four-day period ends on the fourth day, and in the second four-day period the fraction is corrected so that it ends on the seventh day, for it includes six days and a significant part of the seventh and turns out to be connected with the second four-day period. The third four-day period begins on the eleventh day, and by the time the double seven-day period ends, the fraction is corrected so that the four-day period overtakes the second seven-day period and ends on the fourteenth day.

Next, we correct the third seven days, and it ends on the twentieth day. And with four-day periods the situation is this way: the first and second four-day periods are connected, the second and third are not connected, the third and fourth are connected.

When the fourteenth day passes in the calculation, a disagreement arises: some worthy scientists, for example, Hippocrates and Galen, begin with the connected day, and then the order of the days is as follows: the twenty-seventh day, if counted by four days, is connected, and the twenty-first is the product of the seven days, taken separately.

Thus, we see two unrelated seven days, followed by a third, connected, and ending with twenty days, and then a four-day, not connected with the twentieth day and ending. on the twenty-fourth day; then follows the connected twenty-seventh day and then the thirty-first day, coming after three unrelated seven days. Next comes the thirty-fourth day, following the connected four days, and the unconnected week, and the fortieth day comes. Then follow the intervals that make up the product of three weeks, which are counted twenty days each, and it turns out, counting in a row, sixty, eighty, one hundred and one hundred and twenty days, and they do not pay much attention to the days between twenty days.

But other doctors, for example, Archigen, claim that after the fourteenth day, the day of crisis is the eighteenth day, and then the twenty-first, twenty-eighth and thirty-second, with which the next week is associated, and then the day of crisis turns out to be the thirty-eighth. And some classify the forty-second, forty-fifth and forty-eighth days as crisis days, but here they allow arbitrariness: look for yourself what happens when they separate four-day and seven-day periods.

The four-day periods have great power in determining crisis days until the twentieth day, and then, until the thirty-fourth day, the power passes to the seven-day periods; therefore, when a patient with a chronic illness passes the twentieth day, keep in mind mainly the seven days. According to Archogen, the twenty-first day more often gives a good crisis than the twentieth, and the twentieth testifies to the greater significance of the seventeenth day, taken separately, than the eighteenth, if counted by weeks. However, Hippocrates, Galen and subsequent doctors do not believe that this is the case.

There is also disagreement regarding the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth days; Archigen's opinion differs from the opinion of those two doctors, and he gives preference to the Twenty-eighth Day. The same is true for the thirty-first and thirty-second days, the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth days, the fortieth and forty-second Days.

Know that there are diseases that give a crisis after seven months and even after seven years, after fourteen years or after twenty-one years. Some people think that after forty days there is no crisis through strong bowel movements, but this is not the case; This also does not require that the disease become acute or that a return occurs, or that there is a combination of several diseases. It is not impossible that in case of a chronic illness, nature would continually continue to promote the maturation of matter and then immediately overcome it and bring it out. However, this is rare, and in most cases the case is as the doctors mentioned above say, and such diseases are resolved either by an incomplete crisis, or by a slow-moving eruption, or the matter is dissolved.

Hippocrates says that crisis days are even and odd, and odd days give a crisis stronger and more often and with a greater number of diseases. Even days are, for example, the fourth, sixth, eighth, tenth, fourteenth, twentieth, twenty-fourth and others that we have listed, expounding the teachings of both schools, and odd days are, for example, the third, fifth, seventh, ninth, eleventh, seventeenth , twenty-first, twenty-seventh, thirty-first. Further, Galen does not approve of what is said in this aphorism regarding the eighth and tenth days, and finds that it contradicts other sayings of Hippocrates; It is possible that these words were spoken by Hippocrates before he firmly grasped the doctrine of the days of crisis, or they must be interpreted differently.

Know that several days of crisis sometimes combine and it turns out to be one day; most often this happens after the twentieth day, no matter whether the crisis is expressed in bowel movements or a rash.

Know that if on the day of a good crisis bad signs appear, this is worse, and such a circumstance more definitely indicates imminent death. Most often, any bad signs are observed on the seventh and fourteenth days.