as eccentric and opinionated. For he says
in his treatment of thoracic diseases (f. 193c):

"_Etenim eleganter dedit Ipo. (Hippocrates) modum curationis, sed ne
a medicis nostri temporis videamur dissidere, secundum eos curam
assignemus._"

Gilbert was a scholastic-humoralistic physician _par excellence_,
delighting in superfine distinctions and hair-splitting definitions,
and deriving even pediculi from a superfluity of the humors (f. 81d).
Of course he was also a polypharmacist, and the complexity, ingenuity,
and comprehensiveness of his prescriptions would put to shame even
the "accomplished therapeutist" of these modern days. In dietetics
too Gilbert was careful and intelligent, and upon this branch of
therapeutics he justly laid great emphasis.

The first book of the Compendium, comprising no less than 75 folios,
is devoted entirely to the discussion of fevers. Beginning with the
definition of Joannicius (Honain ebn Ishak):

"Fever is a heat unnatural and surpassing the course of nature,
proceeding from the heart into the arteries and injuring the patient
by its effects."

Gilbert launches out with genuine scholastic finesse and verbosity
into a discussion of the questions whether this definition is based
upon the essentia or the differentia of fever; whether the heat of
fever is natural or unnatural, and other similar subtle speculations,
and finally arrives at a classification of fevers so elaborate and
complex as to be practically almost unintelligible to the modern
reader.

The more important of these fevers or febrile conditions are:

Ephemeral
Hemitertian
Double quartan
Interpolated
Synocha
Causon synochides
Epilala
Quotidian
Double tertian
Quintan
Continued
Causon
Putrid
Lipparia
Tertian
Quartan
Sextan
Synochus
Synochus causonides
Ethica
Erratica

Some of these names are still preserved in our nosologies of the
present day; others will be recalled by the memories of our older
physicians, and a few have totally disappeared from our modern medical
nomenclature.

Interpolated fevers are characterized by intermissions and remissions,
and thus include our intermittent and remittent fevers; synochus
depended theoretically upon putrefaction of the blood in the vessels,
and was a continued fever. Synocha, on the other hand, was occasioned
by a mere superabundance of hot blood, hence the verse:

"_Synocha de multo, sed synochus de putrefacto._"