Body is only supported by the stability of these Bones wherefore we must rather believe as most probable that such a disjunction and separation was caused either by the falling of this Womans Corps from the high Gibbet to the ground after execution or rather by some impetuous blow on that place received from some hard or solid thing If we examine well the different figure and structure of these Bones between a Man and a Womans Sceleton we shall find a larger empty space and distance between these Bones much more considerable in Women than Men and that to this purpose the least Women hath the Bones of the Ischion more distant the one from the other than the biggest Man they have all likewise the os sacrum more outwards and the pubis flatter which makes the passage from this capacity larger and more able to give issue to the Child at the time of Labour they have besides this the Bones illia much more turned outward that the Womb being impregnated may have more room to be extended on the sides and be more at ease supported by such a disposition as is here represented These two Figures of Bones represent the Bones that form the whole capacity of the Hypogastrium A shews the Mans Bones B the Womans for to know the difference that the Womans is more capacious and spacious than the Mans for C C D D E E are at a larger distance one from the other in the Womans than they are in the Mans and besides that Women have the Coccyx marked F more turned outwards than the Men which gives way to the Infants Head to pass without great difficulty through the large passage there is between the two Bones of the Ischion marked E E without any necessity for the separation of the Os pubis as some have imagined contrary to truth Chap I. lib. 2. pag. 144. Moreover having often seen and dissected Women dead a few dayes after delivered I found it very difficult to separate these bones with a strong sharp Penknife where I could never find the least appearance of any preceding separation And if the advanced in years have more pain with the first Children than younger Women it doth not proceed from the difficulty of the separation of these bones which never is for the reasons above but because the membranes of their Womb are dry hard and callous and particularly its internal orifice which therefore cannot so easily be dilated as young Womens being more moist Having sufficiently explained what is Delivery and all its differences we must now examine what signs usually precede and what accompany a natural Delivery and an unnatural which shall be the subject of the next Chapter CHAP. II. The Signs that precede and accompany aswel a natural as an unnatural Delivery WHen Women with Child chiefly of their first perceive any extraordinary pains in their Belly they immediately send for their Midwife taking it for their Labour who when she is come ought to be well informed of the matter and careful not to put her in Labour before there is a disposition to it for many times both Mother and Child lose their lives when it is excited before the due time Those pains which may be called false are usually caused by a Cholick proceeding from Wind which come and go griping the whole Belly without any forcing downwards or into the Womb as those do which proceed or accompany Labour and this Cholick is dissipated by warm clothes applied to the Belly and a Clyster or two by which true Labour-pains are rather furthered than hindered A Woman may feel other kind of pains coming from an emotion caused by the Flux of the Belly which are easily known by the frequent stools that follow The signs preceding a natural Labour few dayes before are that the Belly which before lay high sinks down hinders a Woman at that time from walking as easie as she used and there flows from the Womb slimy humours appointed by nature to moisten and smooth the passage that its inward orifice may the more easily be dilated when it is necessary which beginning to open a little at that time suffers that slime to flow away which proceeds from the humours that strain through the thin substance of the Infants membranes and acquires a viscous consistence by the heat of the place The signs accompanying present Labour that is shewing that the Woman is effectively in Labour are great pains about the region of the Reins and Loins which coming and redoubling by intervals answers in the bottom of the Belly with reiterated throws The face red and inflamed because the Blood is much heated by the continual endeavours a Woman makes to bring forth her Child as also because that during these strong throws her respiration is ever intercepted for which reason much Blood hath recourse to the Face Her privy parts are swell'd because the Infants Head lying in the Birth often thrusts and causeth the neighbouring parts to distend outwards which thence appear swelled in this manner She is often subject to vomitting which makes many believe who know not the cause of it that the Women to whom it happens are in danger but on the contrary it is ordinarily a signe of speedy delivery because the good pains are then excited and redoubled every moment until the business be finished This Vomitting comes from a sympathy between the Womb and Stomach by reason of the ramifications of the nerves of the sixth pair of the Brain which are distributed to both the one and the other and by which it communicates the pain it feels at that time arising from the agitation the violent and frequent motions of the Child causeth and the strong compression the muscles of the lower Belly makes during the throws for to help the issue of the Child besides when the birth is very near Women are troubled with an universal trembling and principally of the Legs and Thighs not with cold as at the beginning of an Ague-fit but with the heat of the whole body and the humours which then flow from the Womb are often discoloured with Blood which with the signs above mentioned is an infallible mark of the nearness of the birth 't is that the Midwives usually call Shows and if one then puts up their finger into the neck of the Womb they will find the inner Orifice dilated at the opening of which the membranes of the Infant containing the Waters present themselves and are strongly forced downwards with every pain the Woman hath at which time one may perceive them to resist and appear to the finger so much the more or less hard and extended as the pains are stronger or weaker These membranes with the waters in them when gathered that is when they are advanced before the head of the Child which makes the Midwives call it the gathering of the waters presenting themselves at this inward Orifice do then resemble very well to the touch of
brain upon the sharp Artery and the Lungs and sometimes from a blood of the like nature which flowes from the whole habit towards the Breast upon the suppression of the Terms as also from having breathed in too cold an air which irritates the parts and excites them to move in that manner but being begun by these causes it is very often augmented by the compression the Womb of the pregnant Woman makes upon the Diaphragma which cannot have its free liberty in those that bear their Children high because by its great extension it bears up almost all the parts of the lower Belly towards the Breast and principally the Stomach and Liver forcing them against the Diaphragma which is thereby compressed as we have said This may be remedied by the Womans observing a good diet something cooling if sharp humours cause it avoiding all meats salted spiced or hautgoust she must forbear sharp things as Orenges Citrons Pomgranats Vinegar and others of the like nature because they yet more and more by their pricking quality excite the Cough but she may make use of Lenitives and such as sweeten the passages as juice of Liquorish Sugarcandy and Syrup of Violets or Mulberries of which they may mix some spoonfuls with a Ptysan made with Jujubes Sebestens Raisons of the Sun and French Barly alwayes adding a little Liquorish to it It may not likewise be amiss to turn the abundance of these humours and draw them downwards by some gentle Clyster If this regimen prevails nothing and that there appears signs of fulness of blood it will be necessary at whatsoever time it be of her going with Child to bleed her in the Arm and though this remedy be not usually practised when they are young with Child yet in this case it must for a continual Cough is much more dangerous than moderate bleeding If the Cough comes of cold let her be kept in a close Chamber with a Napkin three or four times double about her Neck or a Lambskin that it may keep her warm and going to bed let her take three or four spoonfuls of Syrup of burnt Wine which is very pectoral and causeth a good digestion if it be made in the following manner Take half a pint of good Wine two drams of good Cinamon bruised half a dozen Cloves with four ounces of Sugar put them together in a Silver Porenger and cause them to boil upon a Chafindish of coals burn it and afterwards boil it to the consistence of a Syrup which let the Woman take at night an hour or two after a light supper It must alwayes be observed from whatsoever cause the Cough proceeds that the Woman go loose in her clothes for being strait-laced the Womb is the more thrust down by the endeavours the Cough causeth it to make And because sleep is very proper to stay defluxions it may be procured if there be occasion by some small Julip using by no means the strong Stupesactives which are dangerous to a Woman with Child if there be not a very great neceâ—sity as there was in my Kinswoman who had furious accidents by the hurt she got from the stumble of which I gave you an account in the 12th Chapter of this Book There are Women that carry their Children so high especially their first because the large Ligament which support the Womb are not yet relaxed that they think them to be in their Breast which causeth so great an oppression and difficulty of breathing that they fear they shall be choaked assoon as they have either eaten a little walked or gone up a pair of Stairs which comes as I said before by reason the Womb is much enlarged and greatly presseth the Stomach and the Liver which forces the Diaphragma upwards leaving it no free liberty to be moved whence is caused this difficulty of breathing Sometimes also their Lungs are so full of blood which is driven thither from all parts of the body when with Child that it hardly leaves passage for the air if so they will breath more easily as soon as a little blood is taken from the Arm because by that means the Lungs are emptied and have more liberty to be moved But if this difficulty of breathing comes from a compression made by the Womb against the Diaphragma in forcing the parts of the lower Belly against it the best remedy is to wear their clothes loose about them and rather eat little and often than to fill their Bellies too much at once because it is thereby more pressed against the Diaphragma and so augments the accident Neither must she use any viscous or windy meats as Pease c. but only such as are of an easie digestion she must all the while avoid any occasion of grief and fear because these two passions drive the blood to the Heart and Lungs in too great abundance so that the Woman who can hardly already breath and hath her Breast stuft will be in danger of being suffocated for the abundance of blood filling at once and above measure the Ventricles of the Heart hinders its motion without which one cannot live CHAP. XVI Of the swelling and pains of the Thighs and Legs IT is very easie for them that are acquainted with the Circulation of the Blood to conceive the reason why many big-bellied Women have their Legs and Thighs swelled and pained and sometimes full of red spots from the swelling of the Veins all along the inside of them which extreamly hinders their going Many think which is in some measure true that the Woman having more Blood than the Infant needs for its nourishment Nature by vertue of the expulsive faculty of the upper parts which are alwayes most strong drives the superfluity of it upon the lower which are the Legs as most feeble and aptest to receive it because of their scituation to explain it thus is something to purpose but I think the Circulation of the Blood will teach us better how this comes than that we need to have recourse to this expulsive faculty It is then thus according to my opinion Following the ordinary motion of the Blood the Crural and the Saphene Veins receive into them what is brought to the lower parts by the Arteries and convey it along the Leg and Thigh ascending still by the Iliacks towards the Heart which are emptied into the Cava to ascend again by it to the Heart and so successively This being so de facto as need not be doubted since it is a verity founded upon experience when a Woman is with Child and chiefly towards the last months and the Womb is much extended and possesseth a great part of the lower Belly then it begins to press the Iliack Veins by its greatness and heaviness and so hinders the Blood from following its course and having its motion so free as before she was with Child which being so the inferior parts which are the Crural and Saphene Veins become swelled much in the same manner as the
Veins of the Arm do upwards when bound with a Ligature for bleeding or by any strong compression upon the upper parts which happens because the Veins being compressed the Blood is there stopt finding its passage more difficult The Iliack Veins being then so pressed by the bigness and heaviness of the Womb all those of the Legs and Thighes swell in such a manner as that they empty themselves into the substance of the parts and throughout the five Coverings which thence become swelled yea and these Veins and amongst the rest the Saphenes dilated and become varicose sometimes from the inward and upper parts of the Thigh to the very extremity of the Foot in which the Blood stagnating without its free circulation is altered and corrupted which causeth great pains and swellings in all these parts This oftner befalls Women that are very sanguine walk much and use great exercise which aided with a fulness of the Vein makes a rupture of the Valvules which serve to facilitate the motion of the Blood as the suckers of a Pump which retain the water when it is raised thither which Blood falling down again not being so supported causeth by its quantity and stay these dilatations of the Veins which are called Varices For to remedy this when a Woman hath her Veins dilated let her only use whilst she is with Child a palliative cure in swaithing this Varicos-part with a swaith three or four fingers broad according to the bigness of it beginning to swaith from the bottom and conducting it upwards to the beginning of the Varices that by this means these varicos Veins which are alwayes outward being moderately closed should be hindred by this compression from further dilating and the Blood not be corrupted by the stay it makes there which after this will not want its circular motion because the greatest part of it passeth then by the Vessels deeper placed A Woman in this condition should likewise keep her bed if she can because by this scituation her body being equally layed the Blood circulates much the easier and is not then so much troubled to return by these Veins to the Heart as when it must ascend by them the Woman standing upright which is the cause the Legs alwayes are more swell'd at night than mornings if there be in any other parts of the Body signs of plenitude and abundance of Blood they may bleed her without danger There are other Women whose Legs only swell because of their weakness and not for the reason just above mentioned and are so oedematous that when you press them with your Finger the print of it remains there which is because they want natural heat sufficient to concoct and digest all the nourishment sent to them and to expell the superfluities of it which by that means remaining there in great quantity leaves them so oedematous For to resolve these sort of Tumours you may use a Lee made with the Ashes of Vines and the Decoction of Melilot Camomile and Lavender afterwards they may be somented with Aromatick Wine in which they may moisten their compresses to be laid upon them repeating them three or four times a day to fortifie them which may be made with Rosemary Bayes Tyme Marjoram Sage and Lavender of each an handful of Province-Roses half a handful Pomegranat flowers and Alum each an ounce boil them together in strong Red-Wine three pints to the consumption of a third part strain it and keep it for the use above mentioned But since Pregnancy for the most part causeth these tumours they likewise ordinarily cease when the Woman is brought to bed because then she purgeth forth the superfluity of her whole habit by means of her Lochia CHAP. XVII Of the Hemorrhoids THe menstrous Blood that used to be purged away every month being collected in a great quantity near the Womb which permits it not now to be evacuated by the usual passage being so exactly closed during Pregnancy is forced to flow back into the whole habit and chiefly upon the neighbouring parts of the Womb and causeth in many the Hemorrhoids both internal and external All the several sorts of them which we shall not describe may as well happen to them at this time as at another but we will only speak of that sort which is caused by pregnancy because our design is only to make known some particulars of the maladies Women are in this condition subject to Hemorrhoids are tumours and painful inflammations ingendred by a flux of humours upon the extremities of the Hemorrhoid Veins and Arteries and are caused in great-bellied Women by the abundance of Blood which is cast upon these parts because the body at this time is not purged of its superfluities as it was accustomed before It is likewise very often caused by the great endeavours that Women sometimes make to go to stool when they are costive because the Womb being placed upon the Rectum hinders by pressing it the excrements contained in it from being easily extruded and by these endeavours the Blood which is in the neighbouring Vessels being likewise expressed swells and blows up their extremities upon which comes these painful inflamations call'd Hemorrhoids of which some are internal some external some small and with little or no pain and some extreamly big and painful This may suffice for their general differences without coming to their particulars which would require a more ample explication If they are small and without pain either internal or external it is easie enough to prevent their further growth by Remedies which hinder and turn the flux from those parts but there is more reason to cure the great and painful ones by easing first the great pain for as long as that continues the Flux is ever augmented To this purpose if the big-bellied Woman have in the rest of her body other signs of repletion she may safely be once let blood in the Arm and sometimes if there be great necessity twice for to turn away the humours and to evacuate the fulness by which the pain will likewise be appeased If the gross excrements retained in the right Gut be the cause of it and that she be costive let her take an emollient Clyster of the Decoction of Mallows Marshmallows Pellitory and Violets with Hony of Violets to which may be added Oyl of sweet Almonds or sweet Butter being careful to add nothing that may irritate lest it augment the Disease especially when they are inward Piles And to the end the Women may then the better receive the Clyster t is fit that a small end of a Pullets gut be put upon the end of the pipe to cover it on the outside that so it may be put up the Fundament with less pain afterwards let her keep a moderate and cooling diet and continue in bed till this flux of humours be passed and the mean time anoint the Piles with hot stroakings from the Cow or foment them with the Decoction of Marsh-mallows White-broth
being taken away lay some fine Rags dipt in Oyl of St Johns-wort on each side the bearing-place and renewing them twice or thrice a day foment these parts with Barley Water and Honey of Roses to cleanse them from the Excrements which pass and when the Woman makes Water let them be defended with fine Rags to hinder the Urine from causing smarting and pain by touching them Sometimes the Bruises are so great that the Bearing-place is inflamed and a very considerable Abscess follows which I have met with in which case it must be opened just below the swelling in the most convenient place and after the matter is evacuated a Detersive Injection must be injected into the Cavity with the same Fomentation above-mentioned viz. Barley-water and Oyl of Roses which may be a little heightned with Spirit of Wine if there be any danger of Corruption and afterwards the Ulcer must be dressed according to Art But sometimes it happens by an unlucky and deplorable accident that the Perinaeum is rent so that the Privity and Fundament is all in one if it were so let alone without reunion the Woman afterwards happening to be with Child would indeed be delivered with more ease and without danger of suffering the same again as is usual when healed after such an accident but likewise if it remains in this manner 't is so great an inconvenience that her Ordure comes both waies Wherefore having cleansed the Womb from such Excrements as may be there with red-Wine let it be strongly stitched together with three or four stitches or more according to the length of the separation and taking at each stitch good hold of the flesh that so it may not break out and then dress it with an agglutinative Balm such as is Linimentum Arcei or the like clapping a Plaister on and some linnen above it to prevent as much as may be the falling of the Urine and other Excrements upon it because their acrimony would make it smart and put it to pain and that these parts may close together with more ease let the Woman keep her Thighs close together without the least spreading until the cure be perfected But if afterwards she happen to be with Child she will be obliged to prevent the like mischief to anoint those parts with emollient Oyls and Ointments and when she is in Labour she must forbear helping her Throws too strongly at once but leave Nature to perform it by degrees together with the help of a Midwife well instructed in her Art who being warned by the first disgrace will do her best to avoid a second for usually when these parts have been once rent it is very difficult to prevent the like in the following Travail because the Scar there made doth straighten the parts yet more wherefore it were to be wished for greater security against the like accident that the Woman should have no more Children Now if by neglecting such a rent the Lips of it be cicatriced and that Cure be desired you must with a good pair of Scissers cut off those Scars in the same manner as is done in a Hare-lip and it must afterwards be drest accordingly or as if it newly happened CHAP. VIII Of after-Pains which happen to a Woman new-laid and of their several causes THe most common accident that usually troubles most Women during their lying in is after-Pains We have formerly shewed how they are accustomed to be prevented in giving the Woman immediatly after she is laid two Ounces of Oyl of sweet Almonds drawn without fire with as much Syrup of Maiden-hair but since notwithstanding this Remedy the Woman is much pained in her Belly let us enquire what may be the cause of all these gripes which are usually called without distinction After-pains and are sometimes felt about the Reins Loins and Groins sometimes in the Womb only and sometimes about the Navel and all over the Belly either continually or by fits with some remission in a certain place or sometimes on one side and somtimes on another all which reflections teach exactly their several causes and accordingly the Remedies must be varied The Pains of the Belly for the most part proceed from one only of these four causes or several of them together the first is by Wind contained in the Bowels by which they are easily filled after Labour as well because they have more room to dilate then when the Child was in the Womb by which they were comprest as also because the nourishment and matter contained as well in them as in the Stomach have been so confused and agitated from side to side during the pains of Labour by the frequent Throws which alwaies much compress the Belly that they could not be well digested whence this wind is afterwards generated and consequently the Gripes which the Woman feels running in her Belly from side to side according as the Wind moves more or less and sometimes also towards the Womb because of the compression and commotion which the Bowels make being extremely thereby agitated The Second Cause of these Gripes which torments the Woman as much as the former is that which proceeds from some strange body resting in the Womb after Labour which it endeavors to expel by continual Throws and it is sometimes a false Conception or a piece of the Burthen and very often clodded Blood which cause this torment and never cease til what is so contained in the Womb be come away these Painâ— are very like the same that a Woman endures before she is delivered and are not abated by Clysters as those are that proceed from Wind but on the contrary are rather thereby excited and augmented Thirdly These Pains are often caused by the sudden suppression of the * Childbed cleansing Lochia which abundantly filling the whole substance of the Womb causeth a great distention and by its long stay an inflammation which is communicated by means of the Peritonaeum to all the parts of the lower Belly by eason whereof it swells and is extended and grows extreamly hard which accident continuing very often kills the Woman in a short time after The Fourth and last cause of these Pains is the great extension of the Ligaments of the Womb by reason of a hard Labour here they remain more fixt about the Reins Loins and Groins than any other part because they are the places where these Ligaments are fastened however these Pains do sometimes communicate themselves by continuity to the whole Womb and the rather when it hath been bruised by a violent Labour 'T is commonly held that a Woman is not troubled with these Pains so much of her first Child as of the following but daily experience confirms us that it happens indifferently according as the present and various dispositions contribute to it either more or less there being no certain rule in respect either to first or last Labours All these Pains must be cured according to their several causes and to prevent thoes
be a greater hinderance to the Childs sucking and that it turn not into an ill natured Ulcer CHAP. XXIV Of Gripes and Pains of the Belly of a young Child MAny Children are so griped that they cannot forbear crying night nor day for the great pains they feel in their Belly with which some are so vext and tormented that they dye of it 'T is very often the first and most common distemper which happens to little Infants after their Birth which in general and for the most part comes from the sudden change of their nourishment forasmuch as having alwaies received it by the Umbilical Vessels whiles they were in their Mothers Belly they come to change it of a sudden not only the manner of receiving it but the nature and quality of it assoon as they are born for instead of purified Blood only which was conveyed to them by means of the Umbilical Vein they are obliged for want of it to be nourished with their Mothers Breast-milk which they suck with their Mouth and from which are engendered many Excrements causing the Gripes as well because it is not so pure as the Blood with which it was fed in the Womb as because the Stomach and Intestines cannot yet make a good Digestion nor an easie Distribution being not accustomed to it The particular causes of these Gripes are either when the Moeconion amassed during all the time of Pregnancy is not evacuated soon after the Infants birth and that by its too-long stay in the Intestines it acquires a sharp and pricking Acrimony or that becoming hard the Infant cannot void it nor the new Excrements which proceed from the Milk which he hath taken at the first 't is also sometimes because the Child not being able to suck with ease he swallows in sucking the Milk with difficulty much air and wind which being retained in the Stomach and sliding into the Intestines doth painfully distend them This Wind sometimes is caused when a Child takes a greater quantity of Milk than he can digest or because of its ill quality as when the Woman gives her Breast-milk assoon as she is delivered without staying to have it purified Cold may also make it suffer the same But very often it is for giving him Pap too soon as also when it is not enough boiled because this nourishment which is gross and viscous cannot be easily digested by a new-born Babe whose Stomach is not yet accustomed to it and Worms that are engendred in the Intestines by their stirring and biting do also much torment them Besides all these things already mentioned the Midwife also may cause great pains in the Childs Belly by driving back into it the cold and clodded Blood out of the Navel-string before it be tyed For to remedy all these pains in the Belly which Women usually call all by one common name of Gripes respect must be had to their different causes as to that which is the general cause the too sudden change of the nourishment To avoid it one must forbear giving the Child suck until the next day lest the Milk being mixt with the Phlegm which is then in the Stomach corrupt and at first it must suck but little until it be accustomed to digest it If it be the Moeconion of the Intestines which by its long stay causeth these pains for to help to discharge them of it give them at the Mouth a little Oyl of sweet Almonds and Syrup of Roses as we have directed before and to provoke it further give it Beets-stalk covered over with Honey for a Suppository or a sugar'd Almond also dipt in common Honey or one may give it a small Clyster If a Child cannot suck with ease regard must be had to that which hinders it for if it be Tongue-tyed it must be cut as is above directed and if it be because the Nurse is hard milcht change her for one whose Milk is better purified and let her rather suckle it a little and often than more at once than the little Stomach can easily digest at a time And above all whiles the Child is griped give it no Pap because this food by its viscositie doth easily cause obstructions which afterwards engender Wind. If it be Wormes lay a cloath dipt in Oyle of Wormwood mixt with Ox-gall upon the Belly or a small Cataplasme mixt with Powders of Rue Wormwood Coloquint Aloes and the seed of Citrons incorporated with Ox-gal and flower of Lupines and to draw drive them more downwards if the little Infant can take any thing by the Mouth give it a small infusion of Rhubarb or half an Ounce of compound Syrup of Succory having before given it a small Clyster of sugar'd Milk for by this means the Wormes which shun the bitterness of the Medicines and seek after the sweetness of the Milk are easily brought away by Stool When these Gripes are caused by Wind as it often happens or by any sharp Humours in the Intestines anoint the Childs Belly all over with Oyl of Violets or with Oyl of sweet Almonds or else with Oyl of Walnuts Camomil and Melilot mixt together having first warm'd them in which also a Cloath may be dipt to lay upon it or a small Pancake may be made with an Egg or two fried in Oyl of Walnuts for to be applied to it and they may take a little Anodine or Carminative Clyster according as the cause of the Gripes is known above all ever keeping the Child very warm CHAP. XXV Of the Inflamation Ulceration or shooting forth or rupture of the Navel of a young Infant THe continual cries of little Children because of the Pains and Gripes which they feel at the beginning doth somtimes cause such an agitation of the Belly that the Navel-string falling off too soon and before it be entirely closed and cicatrized there happens there an Inflammation and Ulceration at other times also for the same reason although it be outwardly healed not being so within it is dilated and thrust outward the bignesse of a small Egg and sometimes bigger which is usually called Exomphale or shooting forth of the Navel There are some who imagine when it is so inflamed and ulcerated that it was because the String was tied too-near the Belly which caused a great pain and inflamation to follow Others say that Nature having used to discharge the Urine by this part during the Childs being in the Mothers Belly doth at first still continue to send it this way and that it causeth this Accident by its acrimony for which there is no reason for 't is impossible the Urine should regorge from the Bladder to the Navel by the Urachus forasmuch as it is not hollow in an humane Foetus as we have elsewhere made appear And how near the Belly soever the Navel-string is tied and how hard provided some of the true skin which is sensible be not also tied with it it can cause no manner of pain to the Child because it is a dead and
much more credible that the cause of the small Pox is the corruption of a contagious Air which doth principally infect and spoil the blood of Infants and Youth who are more disposed to it than they that are further advanced in years because of the tenderness and softness of their Bodies and more at certain years and some seasons than at others as it may easily be perceived every day for in pestilential times the small Pox is much more common in the Spring and Summer than at the end of Autumn or in Winter The small Pox doth differ from the Meazels though they are so like in the beginning that often it is difficult to distinguish them one from the other 'till after the second or third day when the small Pox which at first appeared like the Meazels begins to rise into Pustules and to whiten The Meazels are caused of a Blood bilious and over-heated which only makes red spots throughout the Skin without or with but very little elevation which comes soonest and principally on the Face but the small Pox proceeds from a sanguine and pituitous matter which being more thick and viscous produceth many Pustules rising high and by degrees growing white and ripening after which their matter drying away they are converted into Scabs Of the Signs of the small Pox some precede and others accompany them they that precede are a Fever Sottishness Dizziness and Pain in the Head very troubled Urine weariness and pains in the Reins and Loins reachings and vomitings difficulty of breathing frequent Yawnings Sneezing itching of the Nose redness of the Eyes and universal weariness all over the Body but when the small Pox begins to come forth there appears about the third or fourth day many Pimples rising every where which grow and augment as well in bigness as number 'till the eighth or ninth day during which time they ripen and whiten by degrees the Head and Face swells the Eyes are closed by a great flux of humours thither the Nose is stopped with excrements which there dry the Patient is troubled with a hoarse Voice a dry Cough sore Throat and great difficulty to breath and then all the parts of the Body are so swelled through the abundance of Pimples that it appears blown up and monstrous There may be two kinds of small Pox according as it is more or less malignant the first is that which is accompanied with but a simple emotion of a Fever only stirred up by an ebullition of Blood and Humours soon ceasing from the beginning without any evil accident which ripens suppurates and is easily and speedily cured the Pustules of these do rise full and the matter is white smooth and well concocted and the Infants easily escape it if they are but well tended But the other sort of small Pox totally malignant is that which is caused from some contagious and pestilential humour where the Pustules are flat brown obscure or livid having small black spots in their middle they come forth but slowly and no Suppuration follows or 't is very bad sanious watry and accompanied with pernitious accidents as a malignant Feaver Phrenzy great difficulty of Breathing Faintness Dysenterie and others which often are mortal or at least malignant Ulcers foulness of the bone loss of sight disfigurement and great deformity of the Face or lameness of some member according to the places where these vitious humours are conveyed and retained These havocks are caused by that which all Women call usually the Master-pock which is nothing else but many Pimples by their neerness and bigness joining together and mixing their matter which being thus in great quantity amassed into one place gnawes and corrodes the part deeper than if they were spread and disperst in many distinct Pustules for which cause its cavity remains much more hollow and deformed by reason of the great loss of substance there usually made and depositing or transporting this villanous matter upon the Bones or other parts it foules them or causes their other accidents as we have recited The Prognostick is drawn from the different nature which we have now explicated for if the Fever be small and that it ceases proportionably to the coming forth of the Pimples if they be not in too great quantity and that they ripen and whiten speedily it is a good sign but if the Feaver be violent in the beginning and augments every day with difficulty of Breathing and other accidents according as the Pimples come forth if they are in great number black flat dry and without Suppuration it is a sign of death besides Infants are not in so great danger as elder persons in as much as this Disease is more agreeable to their Age and Nature and that they also have a thinner and softer Skin through which this matter is easier expelled than through theirs that is harder and whose Pores are less open As to the Meazels they are never so dangerous as the small Pox because its matter being more subtile is much easier and sooner evaporated which usually terminates in three or four daies at the end of which sometimes follows the small Pox which often makes some as we have said take them one for another in the beginning at which time they appear almost the same The Cure of the small Pox particularly consists in the force and vertue of nature that endeavours to expel these malignant humours wherefore it must be assisted to overcome them as much as may be and fortified that it may be able to finish the work it hath undertaken being very careful not to divert it from its operation by an untimely bleeding or a Medicine unseasonably given To remedie this Malady keep the Child to a good diet avoiding solid meats all the time giving it only Spoon-meats as Broaths made with Veale and Fowl or a little of a good Jelly let his drink be Ptysan made with cleansed French-Barly the roots of Dogs-grass and Liquorice and a few Raisons of the Sun If it be a sucking Infant he must have no Pap 'till he be perfectly cured and since then by reason of his age he cannot receive Remedies often enough nor other food at the Mouth than Nurses milk let her observe a good Diet her self to refresh and temper her Milk as much as may be let her not carry the Child into the Aire but keep it in a close Room neither too hot nor cold for too hot Air weakens it extreamly by greatly resolving and dissipating the spirits and a too cold Air drives the Humours back into the Body and hinders the coming forth of the small Pox. Some advise it to be kept in a Bed hung round with Red Curtains because this Colour doth ordinarily move the Humours from the Centre outwards but this often hurts the Eyes and inflames them by its vivacity to which also in this disease there happens a great flux wherefore I believe a softer Colour what ever it be ought to be preferred but custome
but left for the Printer to make choice of the most familiar of them which he mistaking was to prevent further trouble suffered to be so printed I do not intend this work to incourage any to practise by it who were not bred up to it for it will hardly make a Midwife though it may easily mend a bad one Yet notwithstanding I do recommend it to the perusall of all such women as are carefull of their own and their friends safeties there being many things in it worthy their noting And designing it chiefly for the female sex I have not troubled my self to oppose or comment upon any Physical or Philosophical Position my Author proposeth I hope no good Midwives will blame me or my Author for reprehending the fault of bad ones who are onely aimed at and admonished in this work and I am confident none but the guilty will be concerned and take it to themselves which I desire they may and amend Farewell Hugh Chamberlen From my House in Prujeans-Court in the Old-Baily London this 15th of May 1672. ERRATA PAge 8. line 8. for Intestin read Intestinum Pag. 13. lin 1. r. such as P. 19. l. 3. f. upper parts r. Nipples l. 19. r. Womb is free P. 58. l. ult r. that miscarried P. 63. l. 24. r. Hypogaster P. 95. l. 9. r. Corroberatives P. 96. l. 4. r. a Wafer will be very fit P. 101. l. 18. f. Iorn r. Iron P. 132. l. 11. the Comma behind together must be before it P. 133. l. 15. f. the r. a. l. 28. f. which it yet does r. as it also doth P. 213. l. 1. f. capable r. able P. 224. l. 24. f. marked D. r. C. and the same in pag. 236. l. 9. P. 287. l. 1. f. an r. a. P. 301. l. 3. f. brannes r. meales P. 430. r. CHAP. XXXVI l. 24. r. requisite Books newly printed Aurora Chymica or A rational way of preparing Animals Vegitables and Minerals for a Physical use c. Authore Edw. Bolness Med. R. Ord. A Philosophical Essay Declaring the probable Causes whence Stones are produced in the greater World as also the Causes and Cure of the Stone in the Kidnies and Bladders of Men c. By Dr. Thomas Shirley Physician in Ordinary to his Majesty Sold by W. Cadman at the Popes-head in the lower Walk of the New-Exchange Praxis Medicorum Antiqua Nova The Antient and Modern Practice of Physick examined stated and compared By E. Manwaringe Dr. in Physick Sold by Tho. Archer Bookseller under St. Dunstans-Church in Fleetstreet The First Book Of the Diseases and different Dispositions of Women with Child from the time of Conception to the full time of Reckoning MAny Indispositions may arrive to Women from the time of Conception to the full term of Labour because they are then not only subject to those which are caused by pregnancy but to those also which happen at other times It is not my design so to enlarge as to examine all but onely to enquire into the principal and most usual Maladies that accompany Great-Bellies and have during their course some particular Indications for their Cure for as for those which have only general Indications and may happen indifferently to a Woman at any time they may easily be known and redressed by the ordinary means provided that you have all the while regard to the disposition of the Great-Belly It would be sufficient to my purpose of a through examination in pursuance of my intention of every circumstance of a Great-Belly to begin with the explication of a Conception which must precede it but since that cannot happen but to a fruitfull Woman I will before I discourse of it that you may the better understand it from its original give you some considerable Observations concerning the Fruitfulness and Barrenness of Women for Barrenness proceeds oftner from Women than Men for there are many conditions required in a Woman which Men have no occasion of who only need to provide a small quantity of their Seed and that at once to generate but Women besides their Seed must have a fit place to receive both as the Womb is when well disposed and matter appointed for the Child's nourishment during its whole stay there as is the menstruous blood This is the cause that for one impotent Man there may be above thirty barren Women found Let us therefore first of all see what are the signs of Fruitfulness and Barrenness in Women CHAP. I. Of the signs of Fertility and Sterility in Women By the Fertility of a Woman I understand a natural disposition of her Body by means of which with the assistance of a Man she may engender her like And by Sterility which is directly contrary I intend an * Incapacity Impotency which proceeds from some vice or fault either of her whole body or of some particular part We must how make some enquiries after the most notable signs of the one and the other and chiefly of those which may be perceived by our sight or touch by which we may better judge than by many others that for the most part are uncertain For those which are taken from different temperaments may easily deceive us forasmuch as we may often find Women of a very ill habit and full of ill humours notwithstanding fruitful First therefore we affirm the Womb to be a part absolutely necessary to fertility and the principal object to be represented and examined to make a judgment of it but as we find not every Ground proper to yeeld Fruit and that some are so ungrateful as to produce nothing so likewise it is not enough for a Woman to have a Womb to be capable of Conception since we find divers that have them barren We have already * In his Anatomy not yet printed shewed you exactly what the composition and natural structure of it ought to be for to serve to so admirable an end as generation Wherefore we will now speak no further of that but refer you to that place to be informed You must know then in general that the signs of fecundity in a Women are that her Womb be well disposed that she be at least thirteen or fourteen years of age and at most but 45 or 50 generally and for the most part though some yet very rarely conceive sooner or later according to their different natures and dispositions that they be of a good temperament and indifferently sanguine that they have their Courses in due time of good blood and laudable in coulour quantity quality and consistance and regularly every month at once without interruption from the time they begin to flow till the time the evacuation is compleated We say that the bloud ought to be good and laudable because it is a regurgitation and natural evacuation only of what is superfluous in Women not with Child and yet of age capable of Conception which hath no malignity in it self as many falsly imagine for in healthful women
it hardly differs either in colour consistence or quality from that which remains in the vessels except in the small alteration which is caused by the heat of the place whence it proceeds and by the mixture of some humours with which the womb is alwayes plentifully furnisht This evacuation if in order ought to be every month but once though some have them every fourtnight or at the end of three weeks according as they are more or less sanguine or cholerick or have their blood heated and to continue two or three days together or six at most and that by little and little constant without interruption and also more or less according to the difference of their particular temperaments If a Woman have few of them as when she grows in years she becomes barren forasmuch as this blood seems to nourish the Child in the Womb and likewise if she have too many because the Woman thereby grows too weak and the Womb too cold There are notwithstanding some Women who void more of them in two days than others in eight They must flow by little and little without interruption and not all at once for great and sudden evacuations cause great dissipation of spirits of which abundance are necessary for generation and the interruption of these evacuations shews some impediment in nature or some vice or evil disposition of the Womb. If all these signs concur we may very probably judge the Woman fruitful I say probably because there are many who have them all and yet cannot conceive though they do their endeavours and observe thereto all the requisite and necessary circumstances which we shall hereafter mention There are likewise others who notwithstanding they have not all these conditions are fruitful Now if all the above named patticulars are found in a Woman that is barren and that you desire to inquire more narrowly and to be informed more certainly whether she be capable of conception Hippocrates teacheth a way to know it to which I give little credit because the reasons of it are very obscure It is in his 59 Aphorism of his 5th Book where he saith Si mulier non concipiat scire placet an sit conceptura vestibus undique obvolutam subter suffito ac si odor corpus pervadere videatur ad nares os usque non sua culpa sterilem esse scito If a Woman doth not conceive and you are desirous to know whether she is capable or no wrap her close round with clothes and put a perfume under her and if she perceive the sent to pass through her body to her nose and mouth be assured saith he it is not her fault she is barren Fertility was anciently so esteemed by our fore-fathers that they believed Barrenness to be a mark of reprobation by reason of which the fruitfull Servant despised her barren Mistress as we reade in the 16th Chapter of Genesis where mention is made of Sarai Abraham's Wife who seeing that she could have no Children and being past the age of hoping for any and that her Husband was displeased at it bid him take her Aegyptian Chamber-maid named Agar to lie with him that by her means the might give him lineage which good Father Abraham quickly did and had by her afterwards a Son which was called Ishmael but from the time this Maid had conceived she began to despise her Mistress Sarai who was as yet barren The Women of our times are not so earnest to have lineage after this fashion there being but few that will suffer their Husbands to caress their Chamber-maids much less * Lovingly charitably to excite them to follow this example which custom is abolished amongst us I also admire the great passion which many have who complain of nothing with greater regret than to the without Children especially without Sons For my part I believe they that descend from Caesar or the Family of Bourbons may with some reason be led away with this superstitious and common inclination of preserving their kind and be vexed with these sorts of inquietudes which no wayes become ordinary people though excusable and may be permitted to great Monarchs and illustrious men When we perfectly understand the natural dispositions we may the easier discern those contrary to nature wherefore the signs of fruitfulness easily teach us those of barrenness The signs and causes of barrenness proceed either from the age or evil temperature and vicious conformation of the Womb and parts depending on it or the indisposition and intemperature of the whole habit The evil conformation of the Womb renders Women barren when its neck called the Vagina is so narrow that it cannot give way to penetration and when it is wholly or in part closed by some external or internal membrane which is very rare if at all or by any tumour callosity or cicatrice which may hinder the Woman from the free use of copulation But it is not sufficient that the Man's Yard enter the Vagina which is the anti-chamber to the Womb for if in the act of copulation he knocks at the door which is the internal orifice and it be not opened all is to no purpose This orifice is likewise hindred from opening by some callosity proceeding from abundance of ill humours which usually slow down from the Matrix or by some tumour which may happen to it or also by some part which may so compress it that it cannot dilate to receive the Seed as doth the Epiploon or cawl in fat Women according to the opinion of Hippocrates in his 46th Aphorism of his 5th Book where he saith Quae praeier naturam crassae non concipiunt iis os uteri ab omento comprimitur priusquam extenuentur non concipiunt Women exceeding fat do not conceive because the Cawl compresseth the orifice of their Womb neither can they till they grow lean I do not willingly admit amongst the causes of barrenness this compression of the inward orifice by the Epiploon forasmuch as Aritin hath very well remedied it by some of the postures invented by him by which this orifice need not be so compressed in the action The most frequent reason why this orifice opens not in this act to receive the Man's Seed is the insensibility of some Women who take no pleasure in the venerial act but when they have an appetite the Womb desirous and covetous of the Seed at that instant opens it self to receive it and be delighted with it But though the Vagina or neck of the Womb and the inward orifice opens to give passage to the Seed yet may they very often continue barren if the scituation of this orifice be not rightly placed but either backwards towards the * Great or right Gut Intestin rectum or towards either side all which hinders the Man from †shooting darting his Seed directly into it and consequently the Woman from conceiving Hippocrates seems to have noted all the signs and causes of barrenness which usually
proceed from the evil temper of the Womb in his 62 Aphorism of the 5th Book where he saith Quae frigidos densos habent uteros non concipiunt quae praehumidos habent uteros non concipiunt extinguitur enim in ipsis genitura Et quae plus aequo siccos adurentes Nam alimenti defectu semen corrumpitur Quae vero ex utrisque nactae sunt moderatam temperiem eae faecundae evadunt All such Women whose Womb is cold and close cannot conceive nor they who have it too moist because the Seed is extinguished in it And likewise such who have it too dry and hot because for want of aliment the Seed corrupts but such as are of a moderate temperament are fruitful Of all these which Hippocrates recites in this Aphorism the most common according to my opinion is the continual Humidity of the Womb fed by an abundance of the Whites with which many are very much inconvenienced the humours of the whole Body being accustomed to steer their course this way which can very hardly be turned away when inveterate and the Womb being imbued with these vicious moistures becomes inwardly so unctuous and slippery that the Seed though viscous and glutinous cannot cleave to it nor be retained within it which is the cause that it slips immediatly away or in some short time after it is received Barrenness may also proceed from the whole habit of the Body as when a Woman is too old or too young for the Seed of the young is not yet prolifick neither have they the menstruous blood which two things are requisit to fruitfulness and that of the aged is in too small a quantity and too cold who likewise want the menstruous blood An universal intemperature though the Woman be of convenient years renders them however barren as it happens when they are hectick hydropick feaverish and sickly and especially so much the more as the noble parts are fallen from their temperament and natural constitution There are however many Women which seem barren for a long time because of some of the fore-mentioned Reasons yea till they are thirty five or forty years old and sometimes longer who yet at last conceive being cured of the indispositions which hindred them and having changed their temperament by their age of which we have had a remarkable example in the person of Queen-mother lately deceased who was above two and twenty years married and without Children and yet afterwards to the great joy and content of all France she had our invincible Monarch Lewis the 14th now reigning to whom God grant a long and happy life Some of these Barrennesses may sometimes be cured by removing their causes and procuring the dispositions we have said are necessary to fruitfulness yea of those which proceed from an universal intemperament by reducing the Body with a good and convenient regimen to a good order and this according to their respective indispositions Wherefore if a Woman have naturally the Vagina too narrow and not from some of the causes above-mentioned she ought to be joyned to a Man whose Member is proportionable if possible and if that will not do which happens very seldom she must endeavour to relax it and dilate it with emolient Oyls and Oyntments if the neck of the Womb be compressed by any humour it must be resolved and suppurated according to its nature and scituation having alwayes care to prevent the corruption of these parts which being hot and moist are very subject to it because the womb serves as a sink by which all the ill humours of the body are purged so that you must take great care that these kind of Tumours turn not to a Cancer which is a very mischievous malady and causeth the poor Women miserably to languish which are afflicted with it and which after many insupportable pains brings them almost alwayes to an inevitable death When the Vagina is not clear in its capacity because of any scar after a rent caused by some force or violence to the Woman or of some hard labour or after an ulcer which caused the two sides to be agglutinated whether inwardly or outwardly it must be separated the best that may be with a * A kind of large Incision-knife Bistory or some other Instrument according as the case requires hindring by interposed Linnen that it do not again agglutinate When a Woman hath no Vulva or outward entry of the Womb pierced which is very rare it must be opened by making a long Incision Fabricius recites the like case in a Girl of thirteen years of age who was like to die of it because her Terms could not come down there being no perforation wherefore he did the like operation which succeeded very well and made her by that means capable of generation As to the inward orifice of the Womb if it be displaced either towards the back or sides it may be in some sort remedied by making the Woman to observe in the act of generation a convenient posture that the Man's Seed may be ejaculated towards the orifice and if the Whites or other Impurities of the Womb cause barrenness as it is for the most part by the discharge of the whole habit on this place it must be helped by Evacuations Purgations and a regular Diet according to their different causes and qualities of these ill humours Having thus discovered the most certain signs of Fertility and the marks of Sterility I will now the better to pursue the order I have proposed treat of Conception CHAP. II. Of Conception and the conditions necessary for it IT is most certain according to the Rule of Nature that a Woman is incapable of conceiving if she have not the conditions requisit for fruitfulness we have mentioned them in the foregoing chapter let us now examine in this what is Conception and how it is caused Conception is nothing else but an action of the Womb by which the prolifick seeds of the Man and Woman are there received and retained that an infant may be engendred and formed out of it There are two sorts of Conceptions the one true according to Nature to which succeeds the generation of the Infant in the Womb the other false which we may say is wholly against Nature and there the seeds change into water false-conceptions moles or any other strange matter The qualifications requisit for a Woman to conceive according to Nature are that the Woman receive and retain in her Womb the Mans and her own prolifick seed without which it cannot come to pass for it is necessary that both seeds should be there nor is it at all true what Aristotle and some other of his followers affirm that the Woman neither hath nor can yeeld any seed a great absurdity to believe for the contrary may easily be discovered by seeing the Spermatick Vessels and Testicles of a fruitful Woman appointed for this use which are wholly filled with this seed which in coition
most essential and ordinary by which a Chirurgeon may be assured of it of which some may presently be perceived others not till afterwards He shall first examine and inform himself whether the Woman hath all or most part of the signs of fertility which are already named in the discourse of them if not he must impute them to some other cause and supposing she be fruitful you may then know whether she have conceived by their agreement and more then ordinary delight in the act It is not enough for a Woman to be certain she hath conceived and to yeeld and receive her seed with the Man 's into her Womb unless it close at that instant and retain it There is an Article amongst the customs of Paris in which it is said that to give and keep is not good but it is not so in Conception for a Woman gives and casts her Seed into her Womb and there retains it She may know whether she retains the Seeds if she perceives nothing flow down from the Womb after Copulation The Woman some few months after perceives also some small pain about her Navel and some little commotions in the bottom of her Belly caused by the Womb 's closing it self to retain the Seeds and contracting it self so as to leave no empty space the better to contain them and embrace them the closer The light pain of the Navel comes from the Blader of the Urine from the bottom of which proceeds the Urachus which is fastened to the Navel which is a little agitated by that contraction and kind of motion that happens to the Womb when it is closed to retain the Seeds and from the like agitation comes also those little commotions of the Belly These are the signs of Conceptions which may be known at the moment they happen and may be yet more certainly known if you perceive the inward Orifice exactly close Besides these signs there are others which cannot be known till some time after as when the Woman begins to have loathings having no other Distemper loseth her appetite to meats which she did love longs to eate strange things to which she was not accustomed which happens according to the quality of the humours predominating in her and with which her stomach abounds She hath often nauseatings and vomitings which continue a long time the Tearms stopping no other cause appearing having alwayes before been in good order her Breasts swell wax hard and cause pain from the flowing of the blood and humours to them wanting their ordinary evacuation their upper parts are firmer and larger because of the repletion the Navel starts her Nipples are very obscure or dark coloured with a yellowish livid circle round about her Eyes are dejected and hollow the whites of them dull and troubled her blood when she hath conceived some time is alwayes bad because the superfluities of it not being then purged as accustomed is altered and corrupted by their mixture Moreover there is a sign which all the Women esteem and hold in this doubtful case for very certain which is en ventre plat enfant y a in a flat Belly there is a Child Indeed there is rime in this proverb and something of reason but not as they imagin that the Womb closing it self after Conception draws in a manner the Belly inwards and flatten's it which cannot be because the Womb free and wavering not fastened forwards to the Belly whereby to draw it back after that manner but it may possibly be by reason that Women grow lean by the indispositions of their pregnancy and wax thinner and smaller not only in their Belly but also throughout their whole body as may be known the two first months of their pregnancy during which time that which is contained in the Womb is yet very small but when the Womans blood begins to flow to it in abundance then the Belly waxeth daily bigger and bigger afterwards until her reckoning be out All these signs concurring in a Woman who hath used copulation or the most part of them together and successively according to their seasons we may pass our judgment that she hath conceived notwithstanding that many of them may happen upon the suppression of the Terms which usually produce the like for every one knows that it causeth also in Virgins disgusts nauseatings and vomitings but not so frequently the swelling hardness and pains of the breasts as also extravagant appetites a livid colour of the Eyes and others to which you must have regard The Matrix may be yet exactly close and the Woman not conceived Yea there are some in whom they almost never open unless very little to give passage to the Tearms which happens to some naturally to others by accident as by some callosity proceeding from an Ulcer or other malady If all these signes of Conception which sometimes may deceive us though rarely if they concur together do not give us a sufficient assurance of it and that we desire a better Hippocrates teacheth us a way to know it which I believe to be no more certain than the rest it is in his 42d Aphorism of his 5th Book where he speaks in this sort Si velis noscere an conceperit mulier dormiturae aquam mulsam potui dato si ventris tormina patiatur concepit sin minus non concepit If you desire to know whether a Woman hath conceived or no give her going to rest a draught of Metheglin and if afterwards she feels pains in her Belly caused by wind she hath conceived if none she hath not as he saith Which is grounded as I believe upon the supposition that Metheglin breeds wind which cannot pass easily downwards because the Womb being full compresseth with its greatness the * The great Gut Intestin rectum on which it is scituated and causeth those winds to rumble which are constrained to recoyl back into the other Intestines If there be any occasion where Physicians or Chirurgeons ought to be more prudent and to make more reflections upon their Prognosticks for an affair so important as this is it is in this which concerns their Judgments as to conception and Womens being with child to avoid the great accidents and misfortunes which they cause who are too precipitate in it without a certain knowledge The faults which are committed through too much fear at such a time are in some sort excusable and to be pardoned but not those caused by temerity which are incomparably greater There are but too many poor Women who have been caused to miscarry by Medicines and bleeding not beleiving they were with Child which are so many murders they are guilty of who caused it either through ignorance or rashness besides the death which they bring to those little innocent creatures by destroying them in their Mothers belly they often thereby put the Mothers into great danger We have lately had in Paris in the year 1666 a miserable example of this kind in a Woman hanged and
to be of an opinion that the Males have sooner life than the Females because he saith their heat is greater but for my part I do not beleive that the Male is sooner formed than the Female and that which thus perswades me is because if it were so the Male must likewise be at its full term sooner than the Female proportionable to the same time that the one is animated sooner than the other which wee see the contrary in that the Women are brought to Bed indifferently both of Sons and Daughters at the ordinary terme of nine months Let us therefore say that towards the fifth or sixth week as well Males as Females have all the parts of their body though small and very tender entirely formed and figured at which time it is not longer than a finger and from thence afterwards which is our third time the blood flowing every day more and more to the Womb not by Intervals as the Courses but continually it daily grows bigger and stronger to the end of the ninth month which is the full term of ordinary labour Having explicated Conception and Generation let us now consider great Bellies and their differences CHAP. V. Of big Bellies and their differences with the signs of the true and false great Bellies THE great Belly of a Woman properly taken is a tumour caused by the Infants scituation in the Womb. There are natural great Bellies which contain a living Child and these we call true and others against nature in which instead of a Child is ingendred nothing but strange matter as Wind mixed with Waters which are called Dropsies of the Womb False-Conceptions Moles or Membranes full of blood and corrupted seed for which reason they are called false great Bellies We have already where we treated of Conception and Generation mentioned the causes and signs of a great Belly in its beginning notwithstanding we will again repeat the most certain and ordinary of them which are nauseousness vomittings loss of appetite to things the Woman was accustomed to eat and like longings for strange and naughty things suppression of the Terms without Feaver or Shiverings or other cause pains and swelling of the Breasts all which may be found in Virgins by the retention of their Courses but the most certain is if putting the finger into the Vagina you perceive the inward Orifice exactly close as also the distention of the body of the Womb considerable more or less according to the time the Woman is gone with Child and the Childs stiring in the Womb gives us indubitable proofs of it It is fit we should be alwayes careful not to be deceived by what we feel stir in the Womb forasmuch as the Infant of it self hath a total and a partial motion the total is when it removes the whole body and the partial is when it moves but one part at a time as the Head Arm or Leg the rest of the body lying still but the Womb blown up in fits of the Mother yea and some Moles have by accident a kind of total motion but never a partial one That of a Mole is rather a motion of falling down than otherwise to wit a motion by which heavy things fall downwards for a Woman who hath a Mole of any bigness considerable whatsoever side she turns her self to her belly falls immediatly the same way like a heavy bowl About the time or very near when the Infant quickens if the Woman be certainly with Child these humors which are carried to the Breasts by the stoppage of her Courses are turned to Milk which when it happens is usually an assured testimony of pregnancy though some Women have been found with Milk in their Breasts but rarely and yet not with Child nor ever having had any which Hippocrates also confirms in his 39th Aphorism of his 5th Book where he saith Si mulier quae nec praegnans nec puerpera est lac habet ei menstrua defecerunt If a Woman hath milk in her Breasts and is neither with Child nor ever had any it comes from the stoppage of her Courses But it is rather whey than milk which in that case hath not the consistence as the Milk of a Woman in Childbed nay the Milk of a Woman with Child is yet but waterish and becomes neither thick nor very white till after labour she begins to suckle her Child The Infant moves it selfe manifestly about the fourth month or sooner or later according as it is more or less strong some Women feel it from the second others about the third month yea some before that time In the beginning these first motions are very small and very like to those of a little Sparrow when first hatched but grow greater proportionably as the Infant grows bigger and stronger and at last are so violent that they force the Womb to discharge its self of its burden as in Travail The common opinion is that the Males quicken before the Females because their heat is greater but that is almost equal for there are some Women perceive their Daughters others their Sons soonest which happens indifferently to Males and Females according as there was a more or less vigorous disposition at their Generation Very often Women who daily use Copulation are subject to be deceived for they usually believe they are with Child if their Courses stop and withal are a little qualmish which is not always true for false conceptions cause almost the same accidents as true which cannot easily be distinguished but by its consequences This false great-Belly is as we have already said often caused by wind which blows up and distends the Womb and which Women oft-times discharge with as much noise as if it came from the Fundament sometimes 't is nothing but water which is gathered there in such abundance as some Women have been seen to void a pail full without any Child though they verily believed they were with Child as did that Wood-Merchant whose story you have in the end of the third Chapter who did not void it till the end of the tenth mouth till when she alwayes believed her self with Child There are others who conceive only fals-conceptions and Moles which may be known by the Infants different motions already mentioned and by the Moles continuing in the Womb often after the ordinary time of labour some Women having them a whole year yea many years according as these Moles are more or less adhering to the inner parts of the Womb and are there entertained and nourished by the blood that flows thither Moles alwayes proceed from some false-conceptions which continuing in the Womb grow there by the blood that flows to them by the accumulation of which they are by little and little augmented if the Womb expels it before two months it 's call'd a fals-conception some are only but as it were the Seed involved in a membrane like that geniture which that Woman voided after six or seven dayes of whom Hippocrates speaks
A Vomitu singultus malum Some advise that after all these things have been tryed in vain great Cupping-glasses should be applyed to the region of the stomach to keep it firm in its place but I believe it to be a Chip in Pottage which doth neither good nor hurt because the stomach is loose and no wayes adhering to this upper part of the belly but since these Vomitings cool it and daily weaken it I should advise a big-bellied Woman to wear in the Winter upon its region a good piece of warm Serge or soft Lambskin which would a little warm those parts and help digestion which is alwayes weak The Italians have a Custom which is not bad they wear to the same purpose a fair piece of Stuff under their Doublets upon the region their stomach of which they are so careful that if they should leave it off but two dayes in the Winter nay even in the Summer they would think themselves sick and they are so grear lovers and so curious of it that this Stomacher is often their greatest bravery enriching it with Gold and Silver Embroidery and Ribonds of very fine colours We have discoursed enough about Vomiting caused by Pregnancy wherefore we will pass forwards to some other Accidents CHAP. XII Of Pains of the Back Reins and Hips ALL these Accidents are but the effects of the dilatation of the Womb and the compression it makes by its greatness and weight on the neighbouring parts which are much greater the first time the Woman is with Child than afterwards when the Womb only receives the same dimensions it had already before but when it hath not yet been dilated it is more sensible of this extention and the ligaments which hold it in its natural scituation suffer a greater stress in the first pregnancy having never before been forced to lengthen to answer the extent of the Womb than in the following Great-Bellies to which it obeys more easily the second time These ligaments as well round as large cause these pains being much straitned and drawn by the bigness and weight of the Womb which contains a Child to wit the large ones those of the back and loyns which answer to the reins because these two ligaments are strongly fastened towards these parts the round ones cause those of the groins share and thighs where they terminate They are sometimes so violently extended by this extream bigness and great weight of the Womb especially of the first Child as I said before that they are lacerated and torn being not able to yeeld or stretch any farther and chiefly if the Woman in that condition makes a false step which causeth in them almost insupportable pains and other worse accidents as it happened two years since to a near Kinswoman of mine who being six months gone or thereabouts of her first Child felt the like after she had stumbled and perceived at the same moment something crack in her Belly towards the region of the Reins and Loins which was one of these large ligaments with a kind of noise by the sudden jolt she received At the same instant she felt extream pains in her Reins and Loins and all the one side of her Belly which made her immediately vomit very often with much violence and the next day she was taken with a great continued Feaver which lasted seven or eight dayes without being able to sleep or rest one hour all which time she continued to vomit all she took with a strong and frequent Hiccough having also great pains which seemed as if they would hasten her Labour which for her sake I was very apprehensive of as also of her death but with the help of God having put her immediatly to bed where she continued twelve whole dayes in which time I bled her thrice in her Arm on several dayes and made her take at two several times a small grain of Laudanum in the yolk of an Egg a little to ease her violent pains by giving her rest alwayes ordering her from time to time good strengthning Cordials all these symptoms which at first seemed desperate ceased by little and little and she went on her full time when she was happily delivered of a Son which lived fifteen months notwithstanding all those mischievous accidents she met with which were enough to have kill'd half a dozen others but God sometimes is pleased to work Miracles by Nature aided with Remedies fit for the purpose as well as by his Grace This History informs us I think very well how these Pains of the Loins Back and Reins come and the pregnant Womb causeth also those of the Hips by its greatness and weight in compressing them and bearing too much upon them There is nothing will ease all these sorts of Pains better than to rest in Bed and bleed in the Arm if there were any great extension or rupture of any ligament of the Womb as was in the case recited And when the Womb bears and weighs too much upon the Hips if the Woman cannot keep her Bed she ought to support and comfort her Belly with a broad Swaith well fitted for the purpose and to bear it as patiently as she can to the time of her Labour which will free her from all these accidents CHAP. XIII Of the Pains of the Breasts AS soon as a Woman conceives her Tearms wanting the ordinary evacuation the passages being stopt and the Woman breeding daily blood there is a necessity she consuming but little whilst young with Child the fruit being yet very little also that the vessels which are too full should disgorge part as it doth upon the parts disposed to receive it such as are the kernels and glandulous parts especially the Breasts which imbibe and receive a great quantity of it which filling and extreamly swelling them causeth this Pain in them which Women feel when they are with Child and happens also to those whose Terms are only suppressed In the beginning we ought to leave the whole work to Nature and the Woman must only have a care she receives no blows upon those parts which are then very tender nor be straight laced with her Bodies or other stiff Wastcoats that might bruise and wound her upon which follow Inflamations and Abscess But after the third or fourth month of going with Child the blood being still sent to the Breasts in great abundance 't is much better to evacuate it by bleeding in th' Arm than to turn or drive it back on some other part of the Body by repercussive or astringent Medicines because it cannot flow to any part where it can do less hurt than in these Wherefore I should rather prefer the Woman being very plethorick to evacuation by bleeding in the Arm than any other way because of shunning thereby the Accident of which speaks Hippocrates in his 40th Aphorism of the 5th Book Quibus Mulierilbus in Mammas sanguis colligitur furorem significat If the blood be carried in too great abundance to
the Breasts it signifies that the Woman is in danger of being frantick because of the transport which may be made thence to the Brain which accident is avoided by moderate bleeding in the Arm as also by a regular cooling dyet moderately nourishing for to diminish the quantity and temper the heat of the humours of the whole habite CHAP. XIV Of Incontinence and difficulty of Urine THe scituation of the Bladder which is placed just upon the Womb is sufficient to instruct us wherefore pregnant Women are sometimes troubled with difficulty of urine and the reason why they cannot often hinder nor scarce retain their water which is caused two wayes 1. Because the Womb with Child by its bigness and weight compresseth the Bladder so that it is hindred from having its ordinary extension and so incapable of containing a reasonable quantity of urine Which is the cause that the bigger the Woman grows and the nearer her time she approaches the oftner she is compelled to make water which for that reason they cannot keep 2. If the weighty burden of the Womb doth very much compress the bottom of the Bladder it forceth the Women to make water every moment but contrarily if the neck of it be pressed it is filled so extreamly with urine which stayes there with great pain being not able to expel it forasmuch as the Sphincter because of this compression cannot be opened to let it out Sometimes also the urine by its acrimony excites the Bladder very often by pricking it to discharge it self and sometimes by its heat it makes an inflamation in the neck of the Bladder which causeth its suppression It may be likewise that this Accident is caused by some Stone contained in the Bladder then the pains of it are almost insupportable and much more dangerous to Woman with Child than to one that is not because the Womb by its swelling causeth perpetually the stone to press against the Bladder and so much the violenter are these pains as the stone is greater or the figure of it unequal and sharp It is of great consequence to hinder these violent and frequent endeavours of a big-bellied Woman to make water and to remedy it if possible both in one and the other indispositions because by long continuance of alwayes forcing downwards to make water the Womb is loosned and bears very much down and sometimes is forced the inconvenience not ceasing to discharge it self of its burden before the ordinary time This is that should be endeavoured to be hindred having respect to the different cause of the distemper as when it comes from the bigness and weight of the Womb pressing the Bladder as it is for the most part the Woman may remedy it and ease her self if when she would make water she lift up with both her hands the bottom of her belly she may wear a large Swaith accommodated to this use which will bear it up if there be occasion and hinder it from bearing too much upon the Bladder or to do better she may keep her Bed If it be the acrimony of the urine that makes the inflammation on the neck of the Bladder it may be appeased by a regular cooling dyet drinking only Ptisan and forbearing the use of Wine and all sorts of Purgations because they send the filth of the whole body to the part affected and by their heat do yet more augment the acrimony and inflammation but she will do well to use mornings and evenings Emulsions made with the cold Seeds or Whey mixt with Syrup of Violets This Remedy is proper by refreshing gently to cleanse the urinary passages without prejudicing either the Mother or Infant If the inflammation and acrimony of the Urine be not removed by this Rule of Dyet they may let her blood a little in the Arm to prevent any ill accident that may happen they may likewise bath her outward entry of the neck of her Bladder with a Decoction of emollient and cooling Herbs as the leaves of Mallows Marsh-mallows Pellitory and Violets with a little Linseed which being viscous will help the conduit of the Urine to dilate it self the easier there may be also Injections given into the Bladder of the same Decoction to which may be added Honey of Violets or else of lukewarm Milk But if the Woman notwithstanding she observes these Directions cannot make water recourse must be had to the last remedy which is to draw it forth by a Catheter represented and marked with the Letter M in the Table of Instruments at the end of the second Book which being anointed with Oyl Olive or sweet Almonds having first lifted up and thrusted the Belly a little upwards must be gently introduced by the urinary passages into the very hollow of the Bladder and then the Urine will immediately pass away which being finished the Catheter must be taken forth and if the suppression continues it may be used again in the same manner until the accident quite leave her and then they may try whether she can urine naturally If she be in very great extremity she may use an half-Bath luke-warm provided she be not too much moved by this Remedy abstaining also from all Diureticks which are very prejudicial to big-bellied Women because they provoke abortion If on the other side this evil arises from the Stone which presenting it self to the neck of the Bladder stops the urinary passage whilst with Child she must be contented to have it only thrust back with a Catheter but if it be small one may try to draw it forth with a small Probe fit for the purpose putting the fore-finger into the Vagina to keep it in subjection that it recoyl not back towards the Bladder which is only to be done to the small ones for she must be delivered before the great ones can be drawn forth it being better to leave her in that condition than to endanger her life or the Childs by drawing it CHAP. XV. Of the Cough and difficult breathing WOmen whose Children lie low are oftener troubled with difficulty of Urine as we have mentioned in the foregoing Chapter than they whose Children lie higher who are indeed exempted from this and the like inconvenience but are then more subject to a Cough and difficulty of breathing than the former A Cough if violent as sometimes even to vomiting is one of the most dangerous accidents which contributes to Abortion because it is an essay by which the Lungs endeavour to cast forth of the Breast that which offends them by a compression of all its Muscles which pressing all the inclosed air inwards with which the Lungs are much extended thrusts also by the same means with a sudden violence the Diaphragma downwards and consequently all the parts of the lower Belly but particularly the Womb of the pregnant Woman which accident continuing long and violent often causeth her to come before her time This Cough proceeds sometimes from sharp and biting rheumes which distill from the
Belly which is likewise more equally in its circumference extended than if there were a Child she will also have the Lips of the Womb her Thighs and Legs swell'd aedematous and a worse colour in her Face than when she is with Child Now as this Dropsie may come alone so likewise may often happen together with a true Conception these Waters being then contained without the membranes of the Child in the capacity of the Womb for though there may be much Water within these membranes it is not properly the Dropsie of the Womb because there must ever naturally be some in the midst of which the Faetus is contained Notwithstanding sometimes there is such a quantity of them which doth so prodigiously swell the Womans Belly that one would believe she had two or three Children when she hath but only one which is much weakned by it because the greatest part of its nourishment is resolved into these Waters which almost extinguisheth and suffocates that little natural heat which is there Some Women have evacuated three or four quarts above two months before they were brought to bed when this happens they are then contained in the Womb without the Membranes for else the Child would be necessitated to be born presently after these Evacuations * That being the right time of Labour if it were the Waters that ought naturally to be contained in the membranes that came away The best Remedy for this kind of Dropsy the Woman being vvith Child is to vvait vvith patience the hour of her delivery observing the mean time a drying dyet but vvhen it is only Water contained in the Womb she must use Diureticks to cause the Womb to open to evacuate them and her Courses must be endeavoured to be provoked having alwayes a care to destroy by convenient Purges the cause of the generation of such superfluities The Womb is sometimes so full of these humours that it dischargeth some on the outward parts and principally upon those vvhich are near as the lips of the Privities vvhich often are thereby so swelled that they become quite blown up and sometimes in some Women are so big and swelled that they cannot close their Thighs together for them vvhich hinders their vvalking unless vvith pain and great inconvenience This Swelling is then livid and almost transparant even as a Hydrocele because of the quantity of clear Water vvhich filled it and because it may be painful and inconvenient to the Woman during her labour by reason they straiten the passages it vvill be necessary to remedy it before vvhich for the greater certainty must be done by the operation of the hand making many scarrifications vvith a Lancet all along the lips vvhereby the humours will sweat out and distil forth by little and little after vvhich Compresses dipt in Aromatick and Astringent Wine must be put upon it to prevent Relapses by fortifying the parts causing the Patient to observe all the vvhile a good dyet fit for the Dropsie Some vvould apply Leeches to avoid the pain of the Lancet but they are not so proper because the small orifices they make assoon as they are taken off immediately close again which happens not so soon to the Scarrifications made as big or little as one will and may be kept open by oyntments applied to them as long as may be thought fit or necessary CHAP. XXIII Of the Venereal Disease in Women with Child IT is not very hard to imagine how a breeding-Woman that hath the Pox can communicate it to a Child in her belly because this contagious disease corrupting all the mass of the Mothers blood it is necessary the Infant which hath then no other sustenance should be infected with it converting this bad blood into its own substance the acrimony of which Blood easily causeth in an Infants tender body those malignant ulcers which all such whose Mothers are contaminated with it usually bring with them at their birth The Pox which in its essence is of the same species and is only distinguished by degrees according as it is greater or less communicating it self by the means of the Mothers blood will make more or less impression on the Infants body according to its strength or weakness and if the big-bellied Woman have Ulcers very near the Womb as in the neck and neighbouring parts by this proximity the venom will be very easily conveyed to it I do not design here to enquire into the bottom of this Venereal Disease nor to write particularly of the cure of it but intend only to shew vvhether the Woman may undergo the Cure vvhilst with Child or ought therefore to defer it till after they are brought to bed That this may be the better determined we must make some distinction for when the Woman is towards the end of her Account it ought to be deferred till after she is brought to bed when both she and the Child if infected may be taken in hand because the labour coming on when the Woman is in the midst of her Cure she may run the hazard of her life and besides if the Child should be then still-born one would be apt to think it was killed by the violence of the Medicaments and blame the Chirurgeon of rashness When the Pox is but in the first degree and hath caused no great accidents one ought then likewise to remit the eradicating Cure till after Childbed and be contented only with the palliating by a convenient dyet and gentle purgers from time to time to prevent the evils encreasing but if the Woman when young with Child hath the Pox in the highest degree accompanied with very great and continual accidents which threaten danger if her Cure be protracted till after Delivery because in so long a time these accidents augmenting more and more it would be impossible but her Fruit should be corrupted and very hard if she did not miscarry that the greatest of these two evils be avoided she having strength enough ought to be taken in hand for to imagine the worst that the Remedies make her miscarry it is no more than the greatness of the Disease would otherwise certainly do Let her then be taken in hand without suffering the accidents longer to augment vvhich by continuance render themselves much more dangerous both to her and her Child being careful to give her the gentlest Remedies and with more preparation and circumspection so that the Evacuation procured to her by Salivation be rather by little at a time and the longer than too great and sudden and above all that it be rather by anointing the upper parts only with * As Unguentum Neapolitanum Mercurial Oyntments and not by Perfumes which sooner endanger miscarrying by opening the Womb besides that they sooner cause the Fruit to perish if it had life For the same reason also no Mercurial Medicine must be taken in at the mouth vvherefore frictions of the upper parts are to be preferred endeavouring alwayes as much
as may be to be Masters of the Evacuation and to hinder it from causing a Loosness for that is more dangerous than Salivation because of the continual forcing downward in going to stool by which the Womb receives great commotion and is extreamly agitated I know very well that many will not easily be perswaded but that either it is impossible to cure a Woman of the Pox whilst she is with Child or that she and her Child cannot undergo the Remedies without inevitable danger of death however the experience I have had of it my self makes me to be of another opinion which I am vvilling to communicate for an example in the like case In the Year 1660 when I practised Midwifery in the Hostel de Dieu at Paris a young Wench not above twenty years old came thither to lie-in of her second Child that had had the Pox before ever she conceived the first time and after miscarried of a dead Child rotten with the Pox therefore being big this second time and perceiving the accidents of ber disease to augment more and more she concluded there was no hopes this great Belly would succeed any better than the first because she had all over her Body especially upon both her Breasts very many malignant Ulcers which encreased day by day and fearing it might turn to a Cancer before her Reckoning was compleat being but three months gone she resolved to submit to a thorough-Cure then and to hazard her life in that condition to save her Child's having no other hopes to effect it nor being able her self to resist the growing disease She acquainted three or four Chirurgeons both vvith her disease and design not at all concealing her great-belly who for that cause would not undertake her although she was fully resolved upon it and promised to pay them vvell telling her that their Conscience would not suffer them to do it in the condition she was in and that it would be better she would patiently submit to it aswell as she could till she was brought to bed and then they vvould very vvillingly undertake her But when she found none would undertake her unless she concealed her great-belly vvhich was not hard to be done being but three months gone and believing there was no better an expedient She met with another to whom she mentioned nothing of her great Belly that put her into the ordinary course as if there had been no Conception and besides the common Remedies used in this disease he gave her a Salivation by five or six reiterated Frictions of the Oyntment vvhich followed her very plentifully five vvhole vveeks so that she vvas vvell and perfectly cured without leaving the least ill accident behind of her disease When she was almost recovered and that all had succeeded wel she told her Chirurgeon she was four months a half gone with Child for she was three months when she came to him where she lodged six weeks intire without having it in the least perceived which at first he could hardly believe but perceiving her Belly rather grown bigger than lesser during the Evacuation the Physick had made he was immediately assured of the truth of it She informed him that the reason why she had concealed her great-Belly was the refusal four Chirurgions to whom she had confest it made to take her in hand From the time she was cured she suffered not the least inconvenience during all the remainder of her time except a little want because all the money she had was given the Chirurgeon for her Cure which made her come to the Hostel de Dieu to lie-in where I delivered her of a Child at the full time as big fat and healthy as if the Mother never had had the least touch of that disease in her whole body and which was very remarkable the Burthen which is a part very susceptable of the least impression of a Woman 's corrupt humours was as neat fair and ruddy as could be imagined This example which is very true may convince us that a big-bellied Woman may be taken in hand for the Pox and more safely if the Precautions noted above be carefully observed For it is without contradiction that if this Woman had not been cured she had this second time been brought to bed of a rotten Child as before Relating once this History to a Chirurgion a Friend of mine he told me that himself twice in two different persons had the same success who were very well cured and their Children likewise well born at the full time without having the least impression of the venom in any part of their Body Varandaeus confirms to us this truth in the second Chapter of his second Book of Womens Diseases where he precisely tells us that he had seen big-bellied Women who had had this disease eradicated by anointings with Mercury and Salivation prescribed by Empericks which may convince us that this Cure will easily have a better success when governed and managed by a knowing and methodical person In a word 't is easie to be perswaded that they can endure it although with Child because many very often have continual Feavers for twelve or fifteen dayes and other acute distempers for which they have been necessited to be nine or * Such frequent bleeding Women with Child in so short a space is not approved in England ten times blooded and yet notwithstanding have oft-times gone through with their Children to their full account and been delivered of them as well as if they never had had any ill accident CHAP. XXIV Of Abortion and its Causes WHen a Woman casts forth in the beginning what she had retained by conception in the Womb 't is called an Effluxion or a sliding away of the Seeds because they have not yet acquired any solid substance if they miscarry of a false-conception which is ordinarily from the later end of the first to the end of the second month it is called an Expulsion but when the Infant is already formed and begins to live if it comes before the time ordained and prescribed by Nature it is an abortion which may happen from the second to the beginning of the seventh month for afterwards it is accounted a Birth because the Infant being strong enough and having all its perfections may then live which is impossible if he comes before These things thus understood we then say that an Abortion is an issuing forth of the Child yet imperfect out of the Womb contrary to Nature before the term limited which is the cause that for the most part it is dead or if sometimes alive it dies in a short time after We may in general assert that every acute Disease easily makes a Woman miscarry because they destroy her fruit which being dead never stayes long in the Womb and also puts the Woman in great hazard of her life as saith Hippocrates in the 30th Aphorism of his 5th Book Mulierem gravidam morbo quopiam acuto corripi
lethale The particular causes of Abortion are all the accidents mentioned in the preceding chapters as violent and frequent vomitings because there is not only want of sufficient nourishment for Mother and Child when the food is so continually vomited up but also great reachings and endeavours by which the Womb being often compressed and as it were shaken is at last constrained to discharge it self before its time Pains of the Reins great Cholicks and Gripes may likewise cause the same accident as the Strangury also for there are then made strong compressions of the Belly every moment to expel the Urine Great Coughs by their frequent agitation suddenly thrusting the Diaphragma with force downwards give also violent shocks to the Womb. Great Loosnesses endanger a Woman to miscarry according to the 34th Aphorism of the 5th Book and sooner if a Tenesmus follows which is great needings whereby the right Gut seeks to expel the sharp humours that irritate and provoke it This makes us take notice of the 27th of the 7th Book Mulieri utero gerenti si tensio supervenerit facit abortum for in this case the Womb which is scituated upon the Rectum receives a great commotion by its continual needings If a Womans Courses flow immoderatly it is impossible her Fruit can be in health as it is in the 60th Aphorism of the 5th Book for besides that the Infant is not sufficiently nourished the Womb also by being too much moistened is easily relaxed and opened Letting Blood immoderately doth the same for the same reason especially if the Child be great according to the 31th Chapter of the same Book But one of the worst accidents which cause Abortion is that Flooding which proceeds from the separation of the After-birth from the Womb of which we treated in the 20th Chapter of this first Book The Dropsie of the Womb hinders the Child from growing to perfection for the great abundance of Water extinguisheth the natural heat which is already at that time much debilitated and the Pox in the Mother infects the Child and often Kills it in her Belly as we have demonstrated in the preceeding Chapter and whatever very much agitates and shakes the big-bellied Womans body is capable of making her miscarry as great labour strong contorsions or violent motions of what manner soever in falling leaping dancing and running or riding going in a Coach or Waggon crying aloud or laughing heartily or any blow received on the Belly because that by such agitations and commotions the ligaments of the Womb are relaxed yea and sometimes broken as also the After-birth and Membranes of the Faetus are loosned A great noise suddenly and unexpectedly heard may make some Women miscarry as the noise of a Cannon and chiefly Thunderclaps and yet more easily if to this noise be added the fear they usually have of such things which happens rather to the young than elderly Women because their bodies being more tender and transpirable the air which is strongly forced by that noise being introduced into all her pores offers a great violence by its impulsion on the Womb and on the Child within it which the elder being more robust thicker and closer resist with more ease Great watchings causing a dissipation of the Womans strength and much fasting for want of food hinders the Infant from acquiring its perfection fetid and stinking smells do much contribute to abortion and amongst others the smell of Charcoal as appears by the History recited in the 10th Chapter of this Book The indispositions of the Womb produce the same effect as when it is callous or so small or so much compressed by the Epiploon that it cannot be extended as it ought to be sufficient to contain the Child and Burthen with ease together with the Waters which may likewise happen if the Woman be too strait laced or keeps in her Belly with strong and stiff Busks for to be well shap'd or by this subtilty to conceal a great-belly as some do frequent copulation especially towards the end of her reckoning may effect the same thing because then the Womb being very full bears much downwards and its inward orifice being very near is subjected to violence If a Woman miscarries without any of these accidents and that one desires to know the cause of it Hippocrates explains it in his 46th Aphorism of the 5th Book where he saith Quae veró mediocriter corpulentae abortum faciunt secundo mense aut tertio fine occasione manifesta iis acetabula uteri mucoris sunt plena nec prae pondere faetum continere possunt sed abrumpuntur any Woman indifferently corpulent that miscarries the second or third month without manifest or apparent cause it is because the Cotylâ—dons of the Womb which are the inward closures of its vessels are full of viscous filth by reason of which they cannot retain the weight of the Faetus which is loosened from it To this accident phlegmatick Women are very subject and those who have the Whites exceedingly which by their continual affluence moisten and make the Womb within so slippery that the After-burthen cannot adhere to it which also relaxeth it and its inward orifice that the least occasion causeth abortion But if the passions of the body cause so much hurt to a big-bellied Woman those of the mind do no Iess and specially Choler which agitates inflames disperses and troubles all the Spirits and mass of Blood by which the Child suffers extreamly because of the tenderness of its body but above all sudden fear and the relation of bad news are capable to make the Women miscarry at that instant as it happened to the Mother of that Cousin of mine whom I mentioned in the 10th Chapter of this first Book which likewise the other passions may cause according as they are more or less violent but not so easily There are yet other causes of miscarrying which may be said to proceed from the Infant as when they are monstrous because they do not then follow the rule of Nature as likewise when they have an unnatural scituation which makes them torment themselves because of their incommodity and they oblige the Womb to expel them not being able to endure the pains they cause which it yet does when it is so great that it cannot contain it to the full time nor the Mother furnish it with sufficient nourishment If we find one or more of the above specified accidents and that the Woman withall hath a great heaviness in her Belly so that it falls like a ball on her side when she turns and that there proceeds out of her Womb stinking and cadaverous humors it is a sign she will soon miscarry of a dead Child moreover her Breasts will confirm it if having been hard and full in the beginning they become afterwards empty and flabby as is specified in the 37th Aphorism of the 5th Book and the 38th of the same Book saith That if one of a big-bellied Womans Breasts who hath
two Children begins to flag it is a sign she will miscarry of the Child of that side and of both if both flag in the same manner It is most certain a Woman is in more danger of her life when she miscarries than at her full time because as we have said before abortion is wholly contrary to Nature and very often accompanied with flooding and in more danger of miscarrying alwayes if she miscarries of the first and some apprehend then an impossibility of ever having Children after to which young married people are very subject because of the violent emotion and perturbation of the whole body excited by ardent and frequent copulations but notwithstanding they may preserve their fruit when their greater vigour is over and their loves a little moderated We have taught in each of the foregoing Chapters how to prevent all the accidents before recited any of which is sufficient to make her miscarry and the easier if many are complicated wherefore to avoid a troublesome and needless repetition you may have recourse to the Remedies there taught by which both Women and Children may escape the danger of death They that are subject to abortion ought above all to take their ease and keep in bed if they can observing a good diet and refraining copulation assoon as she believes her self to be with Child avoiding the use of all Diureticks and Aperitives which are very pernicious as also violent passions of the mind because they are very prejudicial She ought likewise to be loose in her dress that she may breath the freer and not strait laced and rackt as most of them are ordinarily with their Busks under their cloths to make their bodies strait and amongst other things they had need take heed of slipping and falling in their walking to which big-bellied Women are very subject because the bigness of their Bellies hinders them from seeing their way they will therefore do well to wear low-heeld shoos with large soals to prevent hurting themselves as too many daily do I admire in this case the superstition of many Midwives and some Authors who order a Woman with Child to take assoon as she hath hurt her Belly with a fall some Crimson Silk small minced in the yolk of an Egg or the grains of * Kermes Scarlet and treddles of several Eggs put into the yolk of one as if that entring the stomach were able to fortifie the Womb and the Child in it and to keep it there for which there is no appearance of reason or truth but quiet rest indeed contributes much to it which for this reason is usually directed for nine dayes although such a one hath need of 15 dayes or more for her hurt or commotion and to others five or six is sufficient during which time may be applied hot to the Belly Compresses steeped in Aromatick and Astringent Wine But because there are many Women so infatuated with this superstitious custom that they would not believe themselves out of danger if they took not that Crimson Silk or the Treddles of the Eggs which is a pure conceit one may give it to those that desire it to content them because these Remedies though useless can yet do no hurt It is now time to make an end of this first Book in which I have only mentioned the most ordinary distempers which have some particular indications in their cure during the Womans being with Child of which I have not treated very exactly because it may be supposed that one may elsewhere have a more perfect knowledge of them with all their circumstances let us now pass to the second Book to treat of Deliveries not only the natural but likewise all that are contrary to nature it being the principal motive that induced me to write and to teach as well as I can the best and most methodical deportment in it The End of the first Book BOOK II. Of Labours Natural and Unnatural with the way how to help Women in the first and the right means of remedying the rest AS it is very unprofitable to those that imbark on the Sea for a long Voyage as for example to the Indies or the like if after having by their prudence escaped all the dangers they could meet with in so long a Voyage they are shipwrackt in the Haven So likewise it is not sufficient that a great-bellied Woman should be preserved from all the Diseases mentioned in the preceding Book for nine whole months if at the end of that time she be not well delivered of it by a happy Labour This therefore shal be the whole subject of this second Book where we will treat as well of the Natural as Unnatural Labours and teach the manner of aiding and comforting Women in the first and the means to remedy all the rest CHAP. I. What Labour is and the diffenrences of it together with its different terms BY a Delivery we understand either an emission or extraction of the Infant at the full time out of the Womb. This definition may comprehend as well the Natural which is accomplished by emission when the Infant coming in a commodious and natural Figure the Womb sends it forth without extraordinary violence as the delivery contrary to Nature which we are often obliged to perform extracting it by manual operation Every time the Womb le ts pass or sends forth whatsoever it had retained and formed after conception must not be call'd a labour for observing what I have already noted above and what I will here again repeat that it may be more plain If a Woman voids by the Womb what is contained in the beginning after she had conceived it is properly called an effluxion or slip because at that time there is nothing formed or figured neither have the Seeds yet any firm consistence which is the cause why it flips away so easily with the least opening of the Womb as often happens between the first conceiving and the seventh and eight day only after which until the end of the second month the Woman somtimes le ts slip false-conceptions which turn to Moles if they continue any longer in the Womb which is then called an Expulsion And if after the third month or thereabouts the time when the Faetus is wholly formed and animated it is sent forth before the seventh in that case it is an Abortion which is alwayes the cause either that the Infant comes dead into the World or dies soon after But we properly call Labour or Delivery every issuing forth of an Infant which happens after the end of the seventh month to all the remaining part of the time afterwards because there is then a sufficient perfection as also strength enough to come into the World and live in it afterwards As to the general differences of Labour we must take notice that the one is legitimate or natural the other illegitimate or against nature To come to the knowledge of each we say that four conditions must
Twins sometimes both are of the same Sex sometimes not and indifferently scituated on the right or the left This is all can be said in general of the scituation of Children in the Womb. But in particular when we consider the several Figures it makes it differs according to the different times of Pregnancy for when the Woman is young with Child the little Foetus called Embryo is alwaies found of a round Figure a little oblong having the Spine moderately turned inwards the Thighs folded and a little raised to which the Legs are so joined that the Heels touch the Buttocks the Arms are bending and the Hands placed upon the Knees towards which the Head is inclining forwards so that the Chin toucheth the Breast It resembles in this posture very well one sitting to void his Excrements and stooping down his head to see what comes from him The Spine of its Back is at that time placed towards the Mothers the head uppermost the face forwards and the feet downwards and proportionable to its growth and grandeur it extends by little and little its members which were exactly folded in the first months It keeps usually this posture till the seventh or eighth month at which time the head being grown very big is carried downwards by its weight towards the inward orifice of the Womb tumbling as it were over its head so that then the feet are uppermost and the face towards the Mothers great gut Some believe that only Males are so turned downwards when they are born and that the Females are with their face upwards but both the one and the other are alwaies turned downwards with their face towards the Rectum of their Mother as is abovesaid and when it happens otherwise it is unnatural for the Childs face coming upwards will be extremely bruised and the nose wholly flatted because of the bones hardness in the passage It may be noted that when the Child hath thus changed its first scituation being not yet accustomed to this last it stirs and torments it self so much sometimes that the Woman by reason of the pains she feels is apt to believe it her Labour And if this circumstance be well considered they will find it to be that first pretended endeavour which Authors imagine the Child makes for to be born in the Seventh moneth and not being able to accomplish it remains so till the Ninth and that reiterating it in the eighth if it be born it lives not long because it was not able to endure two such puissant endeavors so near together But it is a meer abuse for if the Child turnes it self so with the head downwards or rather is turned it is but by a natural disposition of the weight of the upper parts of the body and if it stirs much at that time and soon after it is not from a desire to be born but from the inconvenience it receives from this new posture to which it was not before accustomed as already hath been mentioned And it begins to turn thus sometimes from the Seventh month rarely before but by accident oftenest about the eighth Moneth and sometimes in the ninth only and at other times also it doth not turn at all as we way easily perceive in those that come in their first scituation that is with their feet foremost From whence it is easie to conjecture and I hold it for a certain truth that the Children are the more strong and robust and consequently may more likely live by how much the nearer they approach to the more natural and perfect time which is at the end of the ninth Month. The Infant then is turned on this manner with his Head downwards towards the latter end of the Reckoning to the end only that he may be the better disposed for its easier passage into the world at the time of Labour which is not then far off For in this posture all its joints are easily extended in comming forth and the Arms and Legs cannot hinder its birth because they cannot be bended against the inward orifice of the Womb and the rest of the body which is very supple passeth very easily after the Head which is hard and big be once quite born When there are many Children they ought if it be natural to come in the same Figure as when there is but one but usually by their different motions they do so incommode one the other that almost alwaies one of them presents wrong at the time of Labour yea and before which is the cause that one comes often with the Head the other with the Feet or any other worse posture and sometimes both come wrong However the Infant may be scituated in the Mothers belly or in whatsoever fashion it be that it presents at the birth if it be not according to the posture above described it is alwaies against Nature and the natural scituation is so necessary to a good and legitimate Delivery that those which are against nature do cause for the most part bad Labours When a big-bellyed Woman is happily arrived near her haven she ought then to take great care she suffers not shipwrack there which she will avoid if she observes exactly at the end of her reckoning the Rules which follow CHAP. VI. What a Woman ought to do when she hath gone her full time I Am not of the opinion of most Mid-wives who advise Women with Child that they may as they say have the better labour to use more than ordinary exercise towards the end of their reckoning as Liebaut also directs who orders them to ride in Coaches or trotting Horses which is a very dangerous advice and causeth daily many wrong Births for as we said in the precedent Chapter 't is about that time that ordinarily the Child turns its head downwards and its heels upwards for to be born right and the poor Women often believing they may procure an easie labour make it by this extraordinary exercise very unhappy which because of the agitation and commotion of the body causeth the Child to take a wrong posture or makes the Womb so to bear down and be engaged in the cavity of the Hypogastrium that afterwards it hath not at due time liberty to be turned which is often the reason why it comes in its first posture that is with the feet besides that labour which ought to be Natures work if the Child come right is thereby excited before the full time and though it were but four or five days it hinders not as I have said elsewhere from being as prejudicial to them as we see it is to the taste goodness and conservation of Fruit gathered but few days before its perfect maturity Wherefore I counsel a Woman though almost contrary to the unreasonable opinion of every one to keep her self more quiet than ordinary when she draws near her time that so her Child may be able to turn it self directly right and that she by all means avoids being strait laced that so
cleave to it notwithstanding that it is then a little wrinkled and uneven because its Membranes which were very much enlarged contract themselves immediatly after the Child and its Waters which kept them extended are excluded * Be careful of those that are not but they that are expert in this Art can easily judge of it If you find the Burthen wholly loosened from the Womb it will not be difficult to draw it forth when you have got it in your Hand but if it cleaves finding the side where it sticks least begin there to separate it gently by putting some of your Fingers between it and the Womb continuing by little and little to do so till it be quite loose and afterwards to draw it forth very carefully observing the whilst if it cannot be otherwise rather to leave some part of it behind than to scrape or scratch the least part of the Womb for fear of a flooding inflammation or Gangrene which cause death being also careful not to draw it forth till it be wholly or the most part of it separated for fear of drawing forth the Womb with it and preserving it as whole as these reflections will permit because of shewing it to the company that they know the Operation is well done When the Chirurgeon finds not the Womb open enough for to direct his hand immediatly into it let him * Danger in delays presently anoint all the Womans Privities with Hogs-grease that they may be dilated with more ease afterwards let him by little and little put up his Hand but without much violence the Woman may likewise contribute to this dilatation as also to the exclusion of the Burthen if she bears strongly down holding her Breath and exciting her self to vomit or sneeze and do those other things directed in the above mentioned Chapter but if notwithstanding all this she cannot void the Afterbirth and if the Womb cannot be dilated enough to fetch it or that it cleaves so fast as it cannot be separated then to avoid a greater mischief we must leave it to Nature assisting her with remedies which suppurates wherefore Injections into the Womb are proper made of Mallows Marsh-mallows Pellitory and Linseed in which is mixed a good quantity of Oyl of Lillies or fresh Butter This injection softens and tempers and by moistning and mollifying makes the Orifice to be the easier dilated and helps by Suppuration the loosenings of the Burthen And to hasten the expulsion of it give her a strong Clyster that so by the motions to go to Stool it may cause it to be voided as it hath arrived to many that have rendered it in the Bed-pan and sometimes when they have least expected it One may at the same time to prevent a Fever and many other accidents which usually happen bleed her in the Arm or Foot according as it may be necessary and convenient and strengthen her that the Foetus and cadaverous Vapours coming from the putrifaction of the Burthen ascend not to the Noble parts which may be done by good Cordials often used not such as are made of Theriacle Mithridate or the like for which no reason can be given but their specifick or rather imaginary Faculties and are fitter to cause Vomiting than comfort the Heart but true Cordials are such as yeeld good nourishment and at the same time comfort the Stomach without nauseating it as those Drugs do which are only good for them that sell them Wherefore let her have good Broaths and Gellies she may drink Limonade or Orengade or have in her Ptisan Syrup of Limons or Pomgranats or from time to time if she be weak and free from a Fever a little Wine and Water mixed which we say is the best in some cases but not alwaies and most natural of all Cordials besides other Remedies may be provided according to the accidents which happen by reason of the staying behind of the Burthen always endeavouring to bring it away assoon as possible for as long as it stays in the Womb the Woman feels continually great Pains almost like to them before her Child was born although there remained but a small piece of it and until the whole be voided the Pains will still be repeated although in vain unless the matter be well disposed before but the lesser the piece is of the Burthen retained the more difficult it is sometimes to be expelled because the impulses which the Woman can make by helping her Throwes are not so great when the matter contained in the Womb is small as when it is of a considerable bigness for then it is more strongly thrust and compressed which is the reason why a Woman miscarries with greater difficulty than when brought to Bed at her full time There are many Midwives who having broken the Navel-string as * This may happen to a good Midwife but the fault is when they do not discover it that seasonable help may be applied abovesaid leave their work imperfect and commit the rest to Natures work but very often the poor Woman dies because of the great mischiefs which happen usually before the suppuration of the Burthen so retained To avoid which assoon as they meet with the like case they must endeavour to fetch it according as we have directed or if they find themselves not capable to do it because the Hand must be put up into the Womb which is more properly the work of a Chirurgeon expert in those cases let them presently send for one that so he may be yet able before the Womb closeth to introduce his hand for the longer it is deferred the more difficult will be the work There are other Midwives bold enough to undertake this Operation but for want of industry or necessary knowledg they cannot effect it and leave the Woman oftentimes in a worse condition than if they had never medled with it as happened about a year or little more since to a poor Woman in the Fauxbourgh Sâ— Marcel whom I helped three days after she was delivered being half gone by a Midwife of the same Fauxbourgh at the desire of Mr. Bessier a Chirurgeon and my good Friend who conducted and accompanied me to her where I found her in continual pain all over her Belly which held her like throws of another Travail voiding black humours extremely stinking and offensive with which she had also a great pain in her Head and a Fever which in a short time would without doubt have augmented if I had not presently fetched what remained wherefore having enquired of the persons present in her Chamber how she was delivered and when they told me not yet three whole days but that the Midwife not being able to fetch all did only bring away some small pieces of the Burthen told them * An excuse of some of our Midwives that they need not be troubled at what remained perswading them alwaies that it would come away of it self and that nothing more was to be
Hand that so he may have more liberty to introduce it into the Womb and sliding it then along the Childs body either by the Belly or side as he finds it easiest he shall fetch the Feet and turning it bring them to the Passage and so deliver the Woman as is already directed If it be the Back which presents to the Birth it is also impossible to be born in that Posture what Pains soever the Mother endures and besides the Child having the Body folded inwards and almost double his Breast and Belly are so prest together that he usually wants little of being suffocated to avoid which the Chirurgeon must quickly slide up his Hand along the Back towards the inferiour parts until he meets the Feet for to bring it forth the same way as if it came Footling But when the Child comes with the Breech if it be small and the Mother big having the Passages very large he may sometimes with a little help be born so for though he comes double yet the Thighs being folded towards the Belly which is soft and gives way it passeth without much trouble Assoon as the Chirurgeon finds the Child to come with the Buttocks foremost he must not permit it to engage lower in the Passage for it will not come so unless it be very small and the Passage very large as we have already said This being then in good time perceived he must if he can thrust back the Breech and sliding up his Hand along the Thighs to the Legs and Feet of the Child he must bring them gently one after the other forth of the Womb by folding stretching wagging and drawing them gently towards the side being careful not to winde them too much or cause a dislocation and then let him draw forth the rest of the Body as if it came with the Feet foremost I have said that the Chirurgeon perceiving the Child to come with the Breech foremost ought to put it back if he can for sometimes he will be advanced so forward in the Passage that you may sooner destroy both Mother and Child than reduce it back when once strongly engaged When this happens he cannot hinder it from coming in this Posture in which his Belly is so pressed that he often voids the * Childs ordure meconium by his Fundament However he may much help this Birth by sliding up one or two Fingers of each Hand on each side of the Buttocks for to introduce them into the Groins and having crooked them inward he must draw the Breech just out to the Thighs then by drawing and wagging it from side to side he will disengage them from the Passage as also the Feet and Legs one after the other being careful of dislocating any part and then he may extract the rest as before when coming with the Feet The first Woman I ever layd was of a Child which I drew †This way ought to be avoided if possible thus forth with the Buttocks foremost being constrained to it because assoon as ever the Waters broke which happened before I could arrive to hinder it they were so forward that it was impossible to do it otherwise which I performed very well and in short time without prejudice to the Mother or Child doing as I have directed CHAP. XXV Of those Births wherein the Infant presents Belly Breast or Side THe Back-bone may easily be bent and turned forwards a little but by no means backwards without excessive violence Wherefore the worst and most dangerous Figure that a Child can offer in the Womb to the Birth is the Belly or the Breast for then its Body is constrained to bend backwards and whatever Throws or endeavours the Woman makes to bring it forth it will never be accomplished for she will sooner perish with her Child than ever advance it in this posture into the Passage wherefore it is in great danger if not timely succoured And in case it should escape which would be very strange it would be a long while after its birth weak in the Back But that which augments the danger much more is that for the most part the Navel-string comes forth when the Child comes with the Belly Therefore assoon as it is discovered to be so the Chirurgeon must apply the sole remedy of drawing it forth by the Feet as speedily as may be in the following manner Chap XXV lib. 2. page 248. When a Child comes with Breast or Belly the Chirurgeon must always proceed after the same manner in both inasmuch as they require the same circumstances An Infant may likewise come with the Side which way it is as impossible to pass as the two former but it is not so much tormented nor is this scituation so cruel for it may remain in it a longer time without dying than in the two former wherein it is much more racked than in this in which the Body may be bended forward and not backward as in the other neither doth the Navel-string come forth so easy as when it comes with the Belly first In this as in the other two Births the Chirurgeon must draw the Child forth by the Feet on this fashion having placed the Woman as she ought to be he may push back a little with his hand the Infants body the better to introduce it which he may slide along the Thighs till he finds the Legs and Feet by which he must turn it and afterwards draw it forth just in the same manner as before with the same observations Nor ought he to amuse himself in any of these three Births for to place the Head right that it might come naturally because it is in great danger of dying in these unnatural Positions if not drawn forth with speed which can never be effected unless it be by finding the Feet as I have directed CHAP. XXVI Of Labours wherein several Children present together in the different Postures above named IF all the unnatural Figures and Scituations which we have hitherto described that a single Child may come in do cause those many difficulties and dangers mentioned surely the Labour wherein several together come in these bad scituations must be much more painful not only to the Mother and Children but to the Chirurgeon also for they are then so constrained and pressed that for the most part they trouble each other and hinder both their births besides the Womb is then so filled with them that the Chirurgeon can scarce introduce his Hand without much violence which he must do if they are to be turned or thrust back for to give them a better position than wherein they present Chap XXVI lib. 2. pag 250. Sometime since I delivered two Women within a Week one of the other both of Twins one of each being dead and the other living the living Child of the first Woman was born before the dead and the dead of the second was expelled before the living And the same thing happens every day in respect
Mother and Child must afterwards be ordered and declare how at this time to prevent and remedy divers Indispositions which often happen to them both Let us first consider those that arrive to a Woman new layd and then we shall pass to those that regard a new-born Infant CHAP. I. What is fit to be done to a Woman new-laid and naturally delivered IMmediatly after the Woman is delivered and the Burthen come away care must be taken that the loosening of it be not followed with a Flooding which if it be not a soft Closure to the Womb must immediatly be applied five or six double to prevent the cold Air by entring in from sudden stopping the Vessels by which the Woman should cleanse by degrees whereby there would certainly happen many ill accidents as great Pains and Gripes of the Belly Inflammation of the Womb and divers others which we shall mention hereafter particularly and which may easily be the cause of her death When the Womb is so closed if the Woman was not delivered upon her ordinary Bed let her be presently carried into it by some strong body or more if there be need rather than to let her walk thither which Bed must be first ready warmed and prepared as is requisite because of the cleansings but if she were delivered on it which is best and safest to prevent the danger and trouble of carrying her to it then all the soul linnen and other things put there for the receiving the Blood Waters and other Filth which comes away in Labour must be presently removed and she must be placed conveniently in it for her ease and rest which she much wants to recover her of the Pains and Labour she endured during her Travail that is with her Head and Body a little raised for to breath the freer and cleanse the better especially of that Blood which then comes away that so it may not clod which being retained causes very great Pains All this will happen if they have not liberty to come freely by this convenient scituation in which she must put down her Legs and Thighs close together having a small Pillow for her greater ease if she desire it under her Hams upon which they may rest a little being so put to Bed let her lye neither of one side nor the other but just on the middle of her back that so the Womb may repossess its natural and proper place It is an ordinary custom to give the Women assoon as they are delivered two Ounces of Oyl of sweet Almonds drawn without fire and as much Syrup of Maiden-hair mixed together which is as well for to sweeten and temper the inside of the Throat which was heated and hoarse by her continual Cries and holding her Breath to bear down her Throws during her Labour as also to the end that her Stomach and Intestines being lined with it should not be so much afflicted with dolorous Gripes But this Potion goes so much against the Stomachs of some Women that being forced to take it with an aversion and disgust it may do them rather more hurt than any wise comfort them Wherefore let none have it but those that desire it and have no aversion to it I approve rather in this case of a good Broth to be given her assoon as she is a little setled after the great commotion of Labour because it will be both more pleasing and profitable than such a Potion And having thus accommodated her and provided for her Belly Breasts and lower parts after the manner we shall direct in the next Chapter leave her to rest and sleep if she can making no noise the Bed-curtains being close drawn and the Doors and Windows of her Chamber shut that so seeing no light she may the sooner fall asleep If she had endured a hard Labour she must be then ordered as the case requires and as shall be hereafter declared but what we have here directed is only for a natural Labour and where no extraordinary difficulty happens CHAP. II. Of convenient Remedies for the lower parts of the Belly and Breasts of Women newly delivered SInce the lower parts of a Woman are greatly distended by the birth of an Infant it is good to endeavour therefore the prevention of an inflammation there wherefore assoon as the Bed is cleansed from the foul linnen and other impurities of the Labour and that the Woman is therein placed according to the direction of the preceding Chapter let there be outwardly applied all over the bottom of her Belly and Privities the following Anodine Cataplasm made of two Ounces of Oyl of sweet Almonds with two or three new-laid Eggs Yolks and Whites stirring them together in an earthen Pipkin over hot Embers till it comes to the consistence of a Pultiss which being spread upon a Cloth must be applied to those parts indifferently warm having first taken away the Closures which were put to her presently after her Delivery and likewise such clods of Blood as were there left This is a very temperate remedy and fit to appease the Pains which Women ordinarily suffer in those parts because of the violence then endured by the Infants Birth it must lie on five or six Hours and then be renewed a second time if there be occasion afterwards make a Decoction of Barley Linseed and Chervil or with Marsh-mallows and Violet leaves adding to a Pint of it an ounce of Honey of Roses with which being luke warm foment three or four times a day for the first five or six days of Child-bed the bearing-place cleansing it very well from the Blood Clods and other Excrements which are there emptied This Stupe is likewise very good to temper and appease the Pains of those parts Some persons only use to this purpose luke-warm Milk and many Women only Barley-water Great care must be taken at the beginning that no stopping things be given to hinder the cleansings but when ten or twelve days are past and that she hath cleansed very sufficiently Remedies may then be used to fortifie the parts to which purpose a Decoction is very proper made of Provence-Roses Leaves and Roots of Plantane and Smiths water that Iron is quenched in and when she hath sufficiently and fully done Cleansing which is usually after the 18th or 20th day there may be made for those that desire it a very strong astringent Lotion to fortifie and settle those parts which have been much relaxed as well by the great extension they received as by the humours with which they have been so long time soaked This Remedy may be composed with an Ounce and an half of Pomegranate Peel an Ounce of Cypress Nuts half an Ounce of Acorns an Ounce of Terra Sigillata a Handful of Provence-Roses and two drachms of Roch-Allum all which being infused a whole night in five half Pints of strong red Wine or that it may not be too sharp a quantity of Smiths water mixed with that Wine afterwards boil it well to
neglect committed towards her in her tending For this Reason one must not be of the opinion of many Nurse-keepers who will have a new-laid Woman to be well fed as well to restore her lost strength by the tediousness of the Labour and by the quantity of Blood then evacuating for which cause they believe the Woman must be well nourished to make more Blood as also to fill up her Belly which is very much emptied by the Birth of the Child but it is much better to follow in this the counsel which Hippocrates gives us in his Tenth Aphorism of the Second Book where he saies Impura corpora quo plus nutriveris eo magis laeseris The more you nourish impure Bodies the more you hurt them Now it is certain that a Woman newly delivered is of this sort as you may know by the quantity of Cleansings and Superfluities which flow from her Womb at this time when for this reason they must be very regular in their Diet especially the three or four first daies in which time she must be nourished only with good Broaths new laid Eggs and Jellies without using at the beginning more solid Meats but when the great abundance of her Milk is a little past she may with more safety eat a little Broath at her Dinner or a small piece of boil'd Chicken or Mutton as she likes best afterwards if no accident happens they may by degrees nourish her more plentifully provided in the mean time that it be a third part less than she was accustomed to take in her perfect Health and that her Food be of good and easie digestion not suffering her to eat any of those Cakes Tarts or other Pastries which are usually provided at the Childs Baptism As for her Drink let it be Ptysan which is Liquorish Figs and Aniseeds boiled in Water or at least boil'd Water being careful not to give it her too cold she may also provided she be not Feaverish drink a little white Wine well mixed with Water but not till after the first Five or Six days Although I prescribe this Rule in general for all those who are newly brought to Bed yet there are some who must not observe it so exactly as laborious Women who being of a very strong and rebust constitution require a more plentiful feeding to whom notwithstanding if they do not change the quality they must at least retrench the quantity of their ordinary food having alwaies respect to what every person accustom themselves to which the same Hippocrates doth likewise teach us in the 17th Aphorism of the first Book where he saith Animadvertendi sunt quibus semel aut bis quibus copiosior aut parcior aut per partes Cibus est offerendus dandum verò aliquid tempori regioni aerati consuetudini Great care and notice must be taken to whom to give meat once only or twice as also to whom to give more or to whom less or by little and little but some allowance must be made in respect of Time Countrey Age and Custome What we have already said shall suffice for direction in their Meat and Drink The Child-bed Woman must likewise keep her self very quiet in her Bed lying on her Back with her Head a little raised and not turning often from side to side that so the Matrix may be the better setled in its first Scituation she must free her self at that time from all care of business leaving it to the management of some of her Kindred or Friends let her talk as little as may be and that with a low voice and let no ill news be brought to her which may affect her because all these things do cause so great a commotion or perturbation of her Humours that Nature not being able to overcome them cannot make the necessary evacuation of them which hath been the death of many The Citizens Wives have a very ill Custom which they would do very well to refrain that is they cause their Children to be baptized the second or third day after their Labour at which time all their Relations and Friends have a Collation in the Child-bed Room with whom she is obliged to discourse and make answers to the Gossips and all Comers a whole After-noon together with the usual Complements of those Ceremonies enough to distract her and though there is scarce any of the Company which do not drink her Health yet by the noise they make in her Ears she loses it besides all this she is often constrained out of respect to forbear the use of her Bed-pan and other necessaries which are very prejudicial to her and this happens just at the time when she ought to have most rest because about the third day the Milk flowes in greatest quantity to the Breasts this is the reason why ordinarily the next day they have a very great Feaver She ought alwaies to keep her Body open with Clysters taking one once in two daies which not only evacuate the gross Excrements but also by drawing downwards cause her to cleanse the better When she hath observed this Rule a fortnight or three weeks which is very near the time of having cleansed sufficiently that those parts may be throughly cleansed before she goes abroad and begins upon a New score let her take a gentle Purge made of Senna Cassia Syrup of Succory with Rhubarb which is good to purge the Stomach and Bowels of those ill Humours Nature could not evacuate by the Womb as it did the other Superfluities this Purge may be repeated if necessary all which being done and that no indisposition remain she may bath once or twice or to wash and cleanse her Body and afterwards she may govern her self according to her former Custome CHAP. IV. How to drive back the Milk in those Women who are not willing to give suck THere are many Remedies used to this purpose some of which hinder the afflux of humours to the Breast and others dissipate and in part dissolve the Milk therein contained Those which hinder the Humours from plentifully flowing thither are Oile of Roses well mixt with Vinegar with which the Breasts are to be anointed all over or Unguentum Populeum with Ceratum refrigerans Galeni equally mixt and extended upon a piece of Linnen or gray Paper and so applyed to the Breasts Others use Linnen dipt in luke-warm Verjuce in which a little Allom is dissolved that so it may be more Astringent and others lay to them the Lees of Red Wine alone or mixt with Oyl of Roses Those Remedies which dissolve and dissipate the Milk from the Breast is a Cataplasme of the four * Of Linseed Fenugreek Beans and Fitches Branns Honey and Saffron boiled with the Decoction of Chervil or Sage Others apply Honey only and some others rub the Breast alone with Honey and put upon it the Leaves of Red-Cabbadg the great Stalks first being taken away and they a little deadned before the fire this remedy doth very
readily drive away the Milk There are some which boil Sage and Box Leaves in Urine with which they do foment the Breasts pretty warm and lay a Cloth upon them dipt in it But great care must be taken in the application and change of these things that the Woman catch not the least cold as also that no Inflammation or Impostumation be caused instead of driving back the Milk Wherefore such Remedies are to be chosen as are restraining repercussive or resolving according to the different dispositions required I know some Women who hold it for a very great secret and most certain and fit to drive the Milk effectually back and that is to put on her Husbands shift yet warm immediatly after he hath taken it off and wear it until the Milk be gone but in case the Milk doth in the mean time vanish 't is superstitious to believe that this Shirt is the cause of it and that it can produce such an effect it happens rather because all the humours of the Body of their own accord taking another course than to the Breasts do not daily flow in so great abundance to them Wherefore in the use of all these Remedies the principal must not be forgotten which is to take care that they tend downwards procuring to that purpose a good and ample evacuation of the * Cleansings Lochia which is much furthered by keeping the Belly open by Clysters provoking them in doing whereof the Milk will soon vanish All that we have said in the former Chapters of this Third Book is only to be observed when the new-laid Woman hath no manner of Indisposition for in case that any happen she must be governed in another manner and according as the Accidents require of which we intend now to treat in the following Chapters CHAP. V. Of several Diseases and Symptomes which happen to a Woman new laid and first of Flooding WE have elsewhere mentioned the Flooding which precedes Labour and shewed the only means to remedy it which is to deliver the Woman assoon as possible let us now see what is fit to be done to that which happens immediatly or in a little time after proceeding from the late opening of the orifices of the Vessels of the Womb by the loosening of the Secondine which cleaved to it this Blood flowes then so much more abundantly by how much it is subtiler and hotter or by the agitation of a long and hard Labour and besides when a Woman is Sanguine or Plethorick This Accident may often happen by a too sudden or violent pulling away of the After-Burthen and sometimes from some part of it being left behind in the Womb or else some false Conception which then endeavouring to expel it presses and forceth forth the Blood out of the Vessels newly opened and sometimes a great Clod of Blood remaining in the bottom of the Womb will produce the same effect which by reason of the distention it often causes excites Pains like to those a Woman endures before Labour and doth not cease tormenting her until she hath voided it and then she is at ease but sometimes the Blood continuing still to flow and remaining in the bottom of the Womb becomes new Clods which is the cause why the accident renews again as before and continueth so by fits in the intervals of which there comes away some Serosities of the Blood retained which dissolves and makes some persons ignorant of the Art to think that the Flux is stopt although it still continues flowing within where it stops only by some blood so coagulated but when this Clod comes away the Flooding begins again pure Blood and in great abundance Flooding is a more dangerous Accident than any other which may happen to a Woman newly laid and which dispatches her so soon if it be in great quantity that there is not often time to prevent it Wherefore in this case convenient Remedies must be speedily applied as well to stop it as to turn it back from the places whence it flowes To which purpose 't is fit to consider what causeth this Flooding and if it be a false Conception piece of the Burthen or clodded Blood remaining behind all diligence must be used to fetch them away or to cause a speedy expulsion of them but if when nothing remains behind in the Womb the Blood doth notwithstanding continue to flow you must bleed the Woman in the Arm not so much thereby to empty the fulness as to make diversion let her Body be laid equally flat and not raised that so the Blood may not be sent down to the lower parts let her keep her self very quiet without turning from side to side that so the Humours may not be stirred the upper part of her Belly must likewise not be swathed or boulstered for such straitness augmens the evil let her Chamber be kept a little cool and let her not be too warm covered in her Bed that so the flooding through Heat may not be continued All the world forbids Clysters in this case lest as they say the humours be drawn down in great abundance but I have twice experimentally found the contrary where great Floodings have been stopt by Clysters of which I will give you a particular account that so it may be useful on the like occasion I was three years since called to a Woman who was surprized with a very great Flooding immediatly after the Midwife had delivered her which she had done with too much violence as the good Woman assured me who told me She felt a very great pain at the instant she pull'd away the After-birth and that she perceived at the loosening of it a Crack Now from the moment that she was so delivered she lost for five or six daies continually so great abundance of Blood that I could scarce believe she could without dying had I not seen it my self during all this time they had to no purpose used all the means they could imagine to stop this accident and because with it she complained of great pains in her Belly they gave her Anodine and cooling Clysters for fear lest giving her others more strong the Flooding would be more and more excited She had taken so four or five Clysters which came away as they were given without any Excrement which seeing and judging that assuredly some gross Excrements being retained in the Intestines from before the time of her Labour which could not be evacuated by these Anodine Clysters did cause so great a Chollick which she felt all over her Belly which appeared puft up I caused her to take one common and one pretty strong Clyster contrary however to the opinion of most persons who not knowing the cause of the distemper bade me have a care lest it should as they said cause a greater Flooding but the issue of it was quite otherwise than they expected for the good Woman voided with this Clyster a Pan full of gross Excrements which having staid there a long
time and being thereby hardened had stopt the Passage of much Wind which passed away at this time Now the Intestines full of this gross matter being every moment agitated by this Wind did likewise agitate and continually compress the Womb by means of which the Flooding was always maintained which did cease immediatly after this Chollck was dissipated by the evacuation of these Excrements and since that time being again called upon the like occasion of loss of Blood proceeding from the same cause and having taken the same course the issue of it was likewise the same Wherefore if there be the least appearance of Excrements contained in the Intestines make no scruple to give Clysters to evacuate them forbearing in this case those that are Astringent because they harden and retain yet more that which augments the distemper Chap VI. lib. 3. pag 307. These three Figures represent several Pessaries fit for the supporting and keeping up of the Womb that it may not fall out as it doth in a bearing down CHAP. VI. Of the bearing down and falling out of the Womb and Fundament of a Woman new-laid I Shall the better to explain the thing make two sorts of Bearings down or Relaxations as also two sorts of Fallings forth or Precipitations of the Womb all which differ but in the degree according as they fall down more or less for the Relaxation is when the Womb only bears down and comes not forth and the Precipitation is when it comes out of the Body The first sort of Bearing down is that in which the whole body of the Womb falls into the Vagina in such manner that putting up the Finger one may feel the orifice very neer The second sort of Bearing down is when the Womb being yet lower one can manifestly perceive this Orifice quite without The Falling-out is also of two sorts in the first the Womb comes quite forth but is not turned inside out nor can the inside of it be seen but only its Orifice which appears at the end of a great fleshy mass which makes the body of the Womb and this is called Prolapsus Uteri that is A falling forth of the Womb. And the other falling out of all is most dangerous and is called Perversio or turning inside out for then it is not only fallen forth but the bottom of it is turned quite out that so you may perceive it all even and without an Orifice because it is so turned The Womb turned on this fashion appears to be only a great piece of bloody flesh and almost like the * A mans Cod. Scrotum which hangs between the Womans Thighs and that which is wonderful in this case is that the Infants house which is the Womb goes forth at the Gate which is the inner Orifice The Bearing down of the Womb proceeds either from a Relaxation or Ruption of the Ligaments Women that have abundance of the Whites are subject to these Relaxations and the Ligaments are extended or broken by hard and violent Labour as also by too frequent bearing of great and heavy Children sometimes by a great Cough by strong and frequent Sneezings or having leaped or fallen from high places by going in a Coach Cart on Hors-back or in other rude and shaking Carriages by having lifted up beyond their strength heavy burthens by lifting up the Arms too much and putting them over the Head by a tedious loosness with great Pains and Needing forasmuch as all these things do shake and extremely thrust the Womb downwards when it is with Child and the Ligaments being by this means loosened or broken cannot keep it up any longer which is the cause that a bearing down doth easily follow the birth of a Child but the most ordinary cause of these Bearings down or fallings out of the Womb is violent and hard Travails which usually happens when a Child comes wrong so that it cannot be born and when it hath too big a Head or when the inner Orifice is not dilated sufficiently for to give it passage at that time for the Womb is then forced down with so much violence and yet the Child cannot advance into the Passage because the Ligaments are extremely rent or loosened and likewise when the Secondine cleaving closely to the bottom of the Womb is pulled away of a sudden or with too much violence and much the sooner if that putting up the Hand into it as it is necessary when the String is broke one takes hold and pulls the body of the Womb itself instead of the After-birth We have in the 13th Chap. of the Second Book given such directions as will prevent this mistake and bring it away safely A Woman troubled with this falling out of the Womb feels a great weight at the bottom of her Belly with an extreme pain in her Reins and Loins towards the place where these Ligaments are fastned and a reddish bloody moisture is perceived to pass through this mass of Flesh which hangs between her Legs A Relaxation may happen to all sorts of Women from any of the causes above mentioned but a falling out but seldom and a perfect Perversion never but upon a Delivery or immediatly after because then the inner Orifice is almost as wide as the bottom of it which is not so at other times when being closed there is no possibility for it to be thus turned inside out I have shown in the 16th Chap. of the Second Book how to prevent this Accident at the time of Labour in a Woman that is subject to it to which place you may have recourse to avoid repetition If a speedy remedy be applied to the Relaxation and falling out of the Womb by reducing and remitting it into its natural place a Cure may be easily expected and so much the rather by how much the Woman is young and the Malady fresh but if she be old and this Disease be already of a long standing she is so much the more incurable For the Cure of this distemper regard must be had to two things the First is to reduce the Womb into its natural place and the Second is to strengthen it and keep it there For the execution of the first which is to reduce it if the Womb be quite out or turned the Woman must first of all be made to render her Urine and a Clyster must be given her if it be necessary for to empty the gross Excrements that are in the Rectum that so the reduction may be the easier performed then place her on her Back with her Hips raised a little higher than her Head and then foment all that is fallen forth with a little Wine and Water luke-warm and having taken a soft Rag put it up into its proper place thrusting it back not all at once but wagging it by little and little from side to side and in case this be too painful because it is already too big and swelled anoint it with Oile of sweet Almonds for the
more easie reduction of it being careful assoon as it is reduced to wipe off the Oile as much as may be to avoid a Relapse But if notwithstanding all this the Womb cannot be put up because it is very much enflamed and tumefied which happens when it hath been a long time so without the use of necessary means during which time it is continually moistened with Urine and other Excrements which contribute very much to its corruption in this case there is great danger that it will gangrene and be afterwards the death of the Woman There have however some Women escaped this accident Pareus recites the History of such an one which Rousset doth also amongst his Caesarean-births but this happens very rarely As to the second part of this Cure which consists in the retention of the Womb in its place and the strengthening of it so reduced it will be done by a convenient scituation Let the Woman for this purpose keep her self in Bed on her back having her Hips a little raised her Legs something crossed and her Thighs joined together to prevent the falling of it out again but the best way is to put up a Pessary into the Neck of the Womb for to keep it firm There are two or three sorts made for this purpose the several Figures of which are at the beginning of this Chapter Some are round and a little longish of the figure of an Egg and of the length and bigness of the Neck of the Womb where it must be left after that it is introduced into it but these are often subject to fall out again and are not so useful and convenient as the other which are made of a piece of Cork that they may be light They ought to be of a thick circular figure like to a small wreath and pierced with a pretty big hole in the middle which serves aswel for the lodging supporting and receiving of the inner orifice of the Womb as for the giving passage to the superfluous humours which are thence evacuated These kind of Pessaries must be covered with white Wax that they may be more smooth and incapable of hurting the Woman that useth them they must be pretty large that they may be the easier kept when they are put up they may also have a small String fastened to them to pull them out at any time to clean But this String is not so very necessary because they may be easily enough taken out with one Finger they may be made some of them exactly round and others something of a square Figure or triangular the corners must be rounded or blunted These sometimes hold better and fall not so easily forth as the round but either the one or the other may be used as shall be thought most fit During the flowing of the Lochia from the Womb nothing els must be used to strengthen but only to keep it so in its natural place for astringent Remedies proper for the prevention of the Relaxation of it will very much prejudice the Woman by stopping of these evacuations and above all it must be observed in this distemper that the Womans Belly be not strait swathed any more than for a stay only in which many Midwives are deceived believing they keep it the better in its place by how much they swath the Belly the straiter for by this strong compression of it they force the Womb yet more down She must use the Bed-pan in Bed lying along if possible when she goes to Stool keeping her hand all the while on the bottom of her Belly to bear it up But when the time of her Purgations is fully over and that she hath cleansed very well astringent Injections may be then used without danger respect must likewise be had to the whole habit of the Body to dry up the humours by an universal course and the Woman must not rise out of her Bed in at least five or six Weeks time that so the Womb and its Ligaments may be restored and fortified in their natural Scituation It happens also sometimes that by the great Throwes the Woman endures at her Labour the Fundament falls quite out in this case if the Child be very forward in the Passage 't will be sufficient before this accident happens to hinder it if possible persuading the Woman not to help her Throwes so strongly but if it be already fallen down they must stay till the Child be born ere it can be put up for before that it will be difficult to do without much bruising the Intestine Assoon then as the Woman is delivered let it be reduced in the same manner as that of the Womb after having fomented bathed and anointed it if necessary forbearing afterwards during her Child-bed the giving of her Clysters because the force she useth in rendring of them will again cause the falling down of the Fundament CHAP. VII Of the bruises and rents of the outward parts of the Womb caused by Labour IT is no wonder that often and especially in first Labours there happens bruises amd rents in the lower parts of a Woman the cause of which is easily known if the bigness of the Childs Head be but considered which must needs make a great distention of those strait parts by passing and coming forth of the Womb which parts being thereby extremely pressed against the hardness of the bones thar surround it are easily bruised and when they are not able to be sufficiently dilated they must necessarily be torn asunder Almost all Women in their first Labours do very much complain when the Child is in the Passage that the Midwives prick and scratch those parts and do believe that the hurts and bruises which are there after Labour do happen because the Midwives handled them too roughly but they are very much mistaken for this comes because the Childs Head in passing makes a violent distention and separation of the four Caruncles and other adjacent parts which are bruised and sometimes rent by it from hence spring the pains of which they then complain as if they were pricked and scratched whereof they are never after sensible in their following Labours because those parts having once given way to an Infant are ever after very easily relaxed and extended and every Travail with less Pain than other These contusions and rents must never be neglected lest they degenerate into malignant Ulcers for the Heat and Moisture of these parts besides the filth which continually flows thence doth easily contribute towards it if convenient Remedies be not timely applyed Wherefore assoon as a Woman is laid if there be only simple Contusions and Excoriations apply the Cataplasme formerly directed to those lower parts to ease pain made of the Yolks and Whites of new-laid Eggs and Oyl of Roses seeth'd a little over warm Embers continually stirring it till it be equally mixt and then spread upon fine Cloth it must be applyed very warm to the bearing-place for five or six hours when
in the Womb. CHAP. XII Of the Inflammation of the Breasts of the new-laid Woman UNtil of late it was alwaies believed that the Blood was the matter whereof the Milk was made in the Breasts but it is much more probable that the Chyle onely and not the Blood is destined to its generation as well as it is the true matter out of which all the Blood of the Body is made That which easily makes us judg so is the new discovery of the Channel of the Thorax which conveighs the Chyle into the Subclavian Vein found out by Monsieur Pecquet Physician of the Faculty of Montpelier to whom all posterity will be eternally indebted for having means hereby of being disabused of several notable Errors which for want of so fair and necessary a knowledg was slid and entertained into the Practice of Physick until this time However since the Vessels which may for this purpose conveigh part of this Chyle to the Breasts are not yet manifestly known we will content our selves to explain after the following manner the cause of the Inflammation of the Breasts which doth very often happen to Women newly delivered All the Blood and Humours are so heated and agitated during Travail by the Pains and Throws of Labour that the Breasts composed of glandulous and spongious bodies easily receiving in too great abundance of these Humours which flow to them from all parts are soon inflamed thereby because this Repletion doth very sensibly and painfully distend them to this contributes very much the suppression of the Lochia and an universal fulness of the Body This Inflamation may likewise happen by the Womans having been too strait laced by some blow received upon the Breasts or for having lain upon them which easily bruise them as also for want of having given Milk to the Child in as much as by this means the Milk which is in great quantity in the Breasts not being evacuated is overheated corrupts by too-long stay there But from whatsoever cause this Inflamation of the Breasts in a Woman new-laid may proceed convenient Remedies must be speedily applyed lest it afterwards aposthumates or else that not suppurating there remains a scirrhous hardness which in time may degenerate into a Cancer a very pernitious Malady and for the most part incurable when confirmed Besides the danger that an Inflamation of the Breasts may be converted into these dangerous distempers there happens usually to the Woman in those parts which are very sensible an extream pain which often causeth shaking Fits and afterwards a Fever with so great a burning of the whole Body that she can scarce endure any Cloaths upon her and when she doth never so little uncover her self or put her Arms out of the Bed she hath new shaking fits which afterwards augment the heat of her Feaver it is no great wonder that a Feaver soon happens upon this occasion because the Breasts by their nearness to the Heart do easily communicate their Inflamation which sometimes excite Fury and Phrenzy if the Blood be suddenly and in great abundance carried thither as Hippocrates assures us in the 40th Aphorism of his 5th Book Quibuscunque Mulieribus ad Mammas sanguis colligitur furorem significat If saies he the blood be carried to and in great abundance collected in the Breasts it signifies that Fury and Phrenzy will follow Now the principal and most certain means to hinder the afflux of so great a quantity of Humours to the Breasts and prevent the coming of an Inflamation there is to procure a good and ample evacuation of the Locbia by the Womb. Wherefore if they are supprest they must be provoked by the means elswhere directed for by this evacuation all the Humours will take their course towards the lower parts The whole habit of Body may be emptied by bleeding in the Arm afterwards for a greater diversion and the better to bring down the Lochia bleed in the Foot during which Topical Remedies to the Breast must not be forgot as in the beginning to chase well into them Oile of Roses and Vinegar beat together laying upon them afterwards Unguentum refrigerans Galeni and a third part of Populion mixt with it or a Cataplasme made of the setlings found in a Cutlers Grin-stone-Trough Oile of Roses and a little Vinegar mixt together if the pain continue very great another Cataplasm may be made of the Crum of white Bread and Milk mixt with Oile of Roses and the Yolks of raw Eggs upon all these may be laid Compresses dipt in Vinegar and Water or in Plantane Water but great care must be taken that these Remedies applied to the Breast be only cooling and repressing without any great Adstriction for it may cause a scirrhous tumor which would remain a long time and it may be a worse distemper After the height of the Inflammation shall be past and the greatest part of the antecedent Humours evacuated and turned aside let Medicines a little resolving be used to digest resolve and consume the Milk which abounds in the Breasts to prevent corruption by its stay wherefore let them be drawn by the Child or some other person or else resolved unless that it be suppurated It may be resolved by the application of pure Honey to the Breasts which in this case is very effectual or else a red Cabbadg-leaf may be anointed with it and applyed to the Breasts having first withered it a little before the Fire and all the hard Stalks and Veins taken out do not lace the Breasts too strait nor apply any course or rough Clothes to them that they may not be therewith scratched and bruised A very good remedy for the same is a whole red Cabbage boiled in River water to a Pap and then well bruised in a wooden or marble Mortar and pulp'd through a Sieve which mixt with Oyle of Camomil may be applied as a Poultis to the Breasts In the use of all these means let the Woman observe a cooling Diet not very nourishing that too much Blood and Humours may not be engendered of which there is already too great a quantity she must alwaies keep her Body open that the Humours may be so much the more carried downwards and consequently turned from the Breasts During the whole time the Inflammation continues let her keep her Bed lying on her back that she may have the more ease for being raised the Breasts which are gross and heavy because of the abundance of humours with which they are repleted do very much pain her when they hang down let her stir her Arms as little as may be and after the fourteenth or fifteenth day of her Child-bed when she hath sufficiently cleansed and the Inflammation is abated and she no longer Feverish purge her once or twice as the case shall require to empty the ill humours which remain in the whole habit of her Body If notwithstanding all these Remedies the swelling of the Breast doth not go down and that she still
will alwaies be separated in the very same place just close to the Belly because it is a part which remains wholly * Without life inanimate after the Child is come into the World wherefore whether Boies or Girles let the Knot be made at least an inch from the Belly as we have already directed and not nearer lest it pain or inflame the Childs Navel It will not be from the purpose to mention here a business of great consequence which is sometimes capable to kill the new-born Babe without almost knowing the cause of it 't is a very bad custome some Midwives have before they make the Knot they drive all the blood out of the String into the Infants Belly believing that by this means they fetch it to it self and strengthen it when it is weak but 't is no such matter for assoon as these Vessels are never so little cooled the blood it contains quickly loses its spirits and is half coagulated in an instant which is the reason that being driven back into the Infants Liver it is enough to cause very great Accidents not because of its abundance but because having quite lost its natural heat it is afterwards soon corrupted and changeth and spoileth the Childs Blood with which it comes to mix They commonly put this ill custome in practice when the Child is weak but this doth sooner suffocate them for if they need Blood to give them vigour it must be good and laudable and not that which is half clodded and destitute of its natural heat Wherefore whether the Child be strong or weak if you will not put it in danger of its life or at least cause to him great oppressions pains and gripes forbear driving his blood thus out of the String into the Infants body Now having thus tyed and cut the String wash the Child presently all over for to swaddle it afterwards as we shall direct CHAP. XVII Hôw a new-born Babe must be washed and cleansed from the Excrements as also how it ought to be wrapped up in swadling Cloaths WHen the Midwife hath ordered the Childs Navel-string just as we have directed in the foregoing Chapter let her presently cleanse it from the Excrements it brings with it into the world of which some are within the body as the Urine in the Bladder and the Moeconion found in the Guts and others without which are thick whitish and viscous proceeding from the slimyness of the Waters there are Children sometimes so covered all over with this that one would say they were rubbed over with soft Cheese and certain Women of easie belief do really imagine it was because they had often eaten some while they were with Child that their Infants are thus full of this thick white Excrement which in colour and consistence is not unlike white Cheese Let the Child then be cleansed from all these Excrements with Wine and Water a little warmed and every part of his body where this Excrement is as principally the Head because of the Hair and the folds of the Groins and Arm-pits and the Cods which parts must be gently cleansed with a soft Rag or a soft Spung dipt in this luke-warm Wine If this viscous Excrement stick so close that it will not easily be wash'd off of these places it may be fetcht off with Oile of sweet Almonds or a little fresh Butter melted with the Wine and afterwards well dried off one must also cleanse and unstop with tents of fine Rags wet in this liquour the Ears and Nostrils for the Eyes they may be wiped with a soft dry rag not dipt in this Wine that it may not pain them and make them smart After the Child is thus washed and cleansed from these Impurities and Blood which comes away in the Labour with which sometimes its whole Body is besmeared all the parts of it must be visited to see if there be any fault or dislocation whether the Nose be straight or its Tongue tyed whether there be no bruise or tumor of the Head or whether the Mould be not overshotten or whether the Scrotum in case it be a Male be not blown up and swelled in short whether it suffered any violence in any part of its Body and whether they be well and duely shaped that so Remedies may be used according to the nature of the indisposition discovered But as it is not sufficient to cleanse the outside of the Childs body you must above all observe that it must discharge the Excrements retained within wherefore examine whether the Conduits of the Urine and Stool be opened for some have been born without having them perforated who have died for want of voiding their Excrements because timely care was not taken of it as to the Urine all Children as well Males as Females do render it assoon as they are born especially when they feel the heat of the fire and sometimes also the Maeconion of the Guts but nevertheless usually a little after If the Infant doth not render it the first day that it may not remain too long in his Belly and cause very painful Gripes put up into his fundament a small Suppository to stir it up to be discharged to this purpose a sugar'd Almond may be used anointed over with a little boiled Honey or else a small piece of Castile-soap rubb'd over with fresh Butter you may also give the Child to this purpose at the Mouth a little Syrup of Roses or Violets mixt with some Oyl of Sweet Almonds drawn without fire anointing the Belly also with the same Oyl or a little fresh Butter It may be known when the Child hath voided all its Maeconion if the Stools change from black and become pale which is about the second or third day losing by degrees this tincture in proportion to the generation of new Excrements from the Milk which about this time mixes with the first As to the Maeconion which is an Excrement in colour and consistence like to the Pulp of Cassia found in the Childs Guts when it comes into the World 't will be enough to the purpose to examine what it is and from whence it proceeds wherefore without dwelling upon the different explications of Authors touching its generation I will ingeniously give my thoughts of it which is that it comes from the superfluous Blood daily discharged as it doth in all persons and of all ages by means of the Hepatick channel which coming from the hollow of the Liver goeth and emptyeth into the Intestine Duodenum out of which is formed the Moeconion which afterwards serves to keep the Intestines of the Foelus open and dilated that so they may the better perform their office after its birth and to make it appear that it is truely thus made and that the superfluous Blood is continually discharged by the Hepatick channel into the Duodenum as I do say there are some people of Fourscore years of age that were never let Blood nor never lost any outwardly who nevertheless
at first it doth in some sort appear so to be if the Woman but a little before she was brought to Bed felt it to stir strongly if she did not flood much and if she had no very hard Labour but 't is very certain he is yet living although he do not cry nor move any part of his Body after he is born if laying the hand upon his Breast the motion of the Heart be felt or touching the Navel-string near the Belly there is yet perceived a small pulsation of the Arteries Then all sorts of means must be used to recover him out of this weakness Now the best help in this case is to lay him speedily in a warm Bed and Blanket and carry him to the fire and there let the Midwife sup some Wine and spout it into his Mouth repeating it often if there be occasion let her likewise lay Linnen dipt in warm Wine to the Breast and Belly let the Face be uncovered that he may draw breath the easier and to be yet more helpfull to him let the Midwife keep his Mouth a little open and cleanse the Nostrils with small linen tents also dipt in white Wine that so he may receive the smell of it let her chafe every part of his Body well with warm Clothes to bring back the Blood and Spirits which for being retired inwards through weakness put him in danger of being choaked in doing thus by little and little the Infant recovering his strength will insensibly come to stirr his Limbs one after another and so at first cry but weakly which afterwards as he breaths freer will augment and become stronger Besides these helps we have mentioned which certainly are the best and most certain for the weakness of a new-born Babe Midwives ordinarily make use of others which I do not approve of not only because they are useless but because some of them are very dangerous to the Child Some lay the After-burthen being very warm to the Belly and leave it there 'till it is cold I have elsewhere declared that the Burthen by reason of its heat may be something serviceable but notwithstanding because of its weight being so placed upon the Childs Belly which wanting a support is easily compressed it doth very much hinder his respiration which at that time is most necessary for him Others cast the Secondine into the Fire before it be parted and some put it in warm Wine believing that by this means the strength of the Wine conveighed through the Umbilical Vessels is able to give him new vigour But as this fleshy Mass and these Vessels are dead parts assoon as they are out of the Womb so there remains in them no spirits which can be communicated to the Infant And if this practice be continued it must rather be to satisfie custome than for any hope of benefit to be thereby received If these things do no good yet do they no great hurt but are only useless but this which follows is capable to suffocate a Child immediately that is when some do thrust back and make the Blood which is in the Umbilical Vessels to enter into the Body believing that it fortifies and recovers the Child out of its weakness but we have elsewhere declared that the Blood contained in these Vessels lose their spirits assoon as the Secondine is separated and come forth of the Womb nay it is there immediatly after half congealed Now if it be thus thrust back into a weak Childs Liver it remains there being no longer animated with any spirits and instead of giving him new strength it overcomes that little which remains and compleats the extinction of his languishing natural heat to avoid this be careful not to force back the Blood thus into the Infants Belly for besides in these weaknesses unless it should be otherwaies by the Mothers flooding before she was brought to Bed there is alwaies too much of it in the Infants body and instead of sending more to it there must be some drawn back from it towards the extremities that so its Ventricles being a little discharged may have afterwards a more free motion to send back the spirits to all parts which are deprived of them by these faintings Wherefore since the Child must receive nothing from the Vmbilical Vessels after its Birth let them be tyed assoon as may be and then ordered according as we have directed Very often the Children which are weak at their Birth are so by nature as when they come before their time and are so much the weaker by how much they want to compleat the end of the ninth Moneth and also when they are begotten by infirm and sick parents These are hard to remedy and there is nothing more to be done but to nourish and order them well according to our former directions but it will be rare for them to be long-lived and it is much if they do not dye by the least indisposition that befalls their natural weakness CHAP. XX. Of Contusions or Bruises of the Head and other parts of the Body of a new-born Babe THe Bodies of new-born Children are as we have said so tender and delicate that they are easily bruised and hurt and sometimes in a bad Labour their Members are dislocated either because it remained long in an unnatural Posture or because they were handled too rudely in the Operation the most usual and frequent bruise is for the most part on the top of their Head where sometimes at their Birth they have a Knob as big as half an Egg if not bigger as is usually seen in first Labours and which happens the sooner according as the Woman is advanced in Age because the inward orifice of the Womb called the Garland being more callous doth not dilate without much difficulty for which reason the Childs head pressing against it and the upper part of it which naturally presents first to the Passage being begirt with it as with a Garland is puft up and swelled because of the Blood and Humours which fall down and are retained in this part by the great compression which this inward orifice makes round about especially when the Throwes begin to be strong and the Child comes but slowly forward after the Waters which did a little defend it are broke away the Midwife also may do much ill in it if she toucheth it too-often or too-roughly with her Fingers when it lyes in the Birth but many times they are in this case wrongfully accused because for the most part the single compression this orifice makes in form of a Garland about the Childs Head is the cause of this kind of bruised Tumours This part swells after the same manner as we see all others which are either too-strongly prest bound or lased for by this means the Blood which cannot circulate being stopt in great abundance in one part obligeth it to swell and be blown up and by the repletion it makes renders it livid as if it were bruised Now this
compression is much greater in respect of the Veins which are alwaies more outward and ought to carry back the Blood to the Heart than of the Arteries by means of which it is carried to all the parts for besides that the Arteries lye deeper they have also a continual Pulsation by the favour of which a little Blood ever slides away and this is the reason that in all Compressions or Ligatures of parts provided they be not too-hard the Blood is easily carried into them by the Arteries and but very hardly or not at all carried back by the Veins which is the reason that the part receiving much more than it sends back or consumes for its nourishment must needs swell on this fashion by Repletion If they that practise Midwifery do but well consider what I have said when occasion offers which is very often they will find that these kind of Knobs or Tumours which many Children have on their Head at their birth proceed ordinarily from no other cause than what I have here explained These Tumours many times are so great and high that the Woman not being yet delivered nor having the inner Orifice of the Womb well dilated they do hinder the discovery of the part the Infant first presents making Midwives sometimes to imagine not being able to feel any bone of the Head with their Finger that it is the Childs Shoulder or some other part nay some of them cannot tell what that swelling is they feel but they may soon know it by reason these Tumours though feeling very fleshy at the touch are notwithstanding harder than any Shoulder or Buttock of a Child which parts are alwaies more soft and without hair as the Head hath the Bones of which may also be easily perceived if having the Finger anointed with Oyl or fresh Butter it can be introduced into the inner orifice for the parts of the Head within the Womb are not swelled 't is only this which offers to the Orifice and is prest and begirt by it as we have said If a Child comes with any other part besides the Head as an Arm or a Leg and that these parts likewise remain a long time prest in the Passage and in a posture much constrained or that they be come forth they likewise swell for the same reason There must not only be Remedies applied to these Knobs and Bruises of young Childrens Heads but endeavours must be to prequent them or at least to hinder them from becoming so big the means to prevent them is to procure the Delivery assoon as may be that the Infants Head may not rest so too long and be straitned by the Garland of the inner orifice of the Womb which must be well anointed with Oile or Emollient Ointment as well to further its dilatation as that the Head may the sooner and the easier pass Some may object That if these Tumours happen from the cause I have mentioned they would disappear assoon as the Infant is born because then the Head being no longer prest nothing hinders the Blood which had rumefied the part from returning having its motion free But they must know that by its too long stay it makes in one part it looseth the spirits which are there suffocated of which being destitute it can no longer move and being extravased without the Vessels out of its natural place as it will be when the Vessels containing it are too full it slides into all the little vacuities of the part for which cause it cannot afterwards return by the ordinary waies wherefore there is a necessity in this case either that it be resolved through the part or if it stay any time that it comes to Suppuration which however must be avoided if it be possible because of the nearness of the Brain which in Infants is not covered over with the Skull at the Sutures which are alwaies very open especially towards the Mould To resolve these Tumours then assoon as the Child is born foment them with warm Wine or Aquavitae and wetting a Compress in it put it upon them some Mid-wives only dip a Compress in Oyl and Wine beat together others in Oyl of Roses onely having first fomented them with Wine but if notwithstanding this they come to Suppuration the matter must not be suffered to remain there too long for fear lest the bones of the Head which are very tender and thin in new-born Children become altered and soule in this case it must be opened with a Lancet in a proper place according to Art putting upon it afterwards a Plaister of Bettony if a Leg or an Arm be thus swelled it must likewise be wrap'd up with Compresses dipt in Wine wherein Provence-Roses Camomil-Flowers and Melilot have been boyled Sometimes also Male-children have the Scrotum very much swelled which may happen to them by reason of some Waters contained in their Membranes or because they were bruised or too rudely handled by the Chirurgeon or Midwife in the Labour In these cases Compresses dipt in Wine with Roses are very proper to both Chap XXI lib 2 pag 381 CHAP. XXI Of the Mould of the Head and of the Sutures being too open VEry often Children who come before their time not having yet acquired their full perfection as also they which are by nature weak have the Mould of their Head and the Sutures so open by the distance and separation of the Bones one from another that it is very soft and almost without any support because the Bones easily yeild to every side these Children are not usually long-lived One must not think then to bring the bones close together by binding the Head strait for this would so presse the Brain which is very tender that it would cause a worse Malady in taking away the liberty of its motion whereby its functions would be depraved and afterwards totally abolished It will be sufficient to bind them softly with a small Cross-cloth lest they should be too unsteady and commit the rest to Natures work which by degrees will close up these Sutures in finishing to ingender and dry up and unite these bones of the Head which were not hitherto perfectly formed The place where the Sagittal Suture joins and terminates in the midst of the Coronal which it alwaies in every Child divides in two continuing to the very root of the Nose is called * Mould the Fountain of the Head because 't is the softest and moistest part of it which for this reason is the last dryed and closed up The Figure of it is represented in the Head placed at the beginning of this Chapter There are Children who have it sometimes open 'till they are three years old if not longer which is a great sign of the weakness of their natural Heat It is usually quite closed up at the end of two years and sooner or later according as the Infant is more or less moist or more or less strong Until these Bones are entirely closed 't is convenenient
though the Milk have no ill quality in it self it may however corrupt in the Childs Stomach because of its weakness or for some other indisposition in which acquiring an acrimony instead of being well digested there ariseth thence biting Vapours which forming a thick Viscosity sticking like a kind of white Soot all over the Mouth doth easily cause and engender these small Ulcers by reason of the tenderness and delicacy of it This Guido makes us take notice of when he saies that these Ulcers for the most part happen to Children by the badnesse of the Milk or by its ill digestion Of these Ulcers some are benigne as they that are caused by a simple heat of the Nurses Milk or by the Childs blood and humours being a little overheated or also for having had a small fit of a Feaver and they are then very superficial of small continuance and easily yeilding to Remedies Others are malignant such as are caused by a venereal Vnome or that happen after a malignant Feaver and are Scorbutick which are putrid corrosive and spreading and do not only possess the superficies of the membranes which covers the roof of the Mouth and Tongue but making its Scabs deeper is communicated to all the internal parts of the Throat as the Venereal ones especially which can never be cured by ordinary Remedies but must be handled with Specificks without which they ever augment and soon kill little Infants who are too weak to undergo the Remedies fit for their cure The Ulcers of the Mouth according to Galen are of difficult Cure because they are in hot and moist places where easily Putrefaction and Corrosion is augmented besides the Remedies applied cannot lodg there being soon washed away with Spittle To cure these Ulcers when they are small and without malignity you must take care to temper and cool the Nurses milk prescribing her a cooling Diet bleeding and purging her also if there be occasion wash the Childs mouth with Barley or Plantane-water and Honey of Roses or Syrup of drie Roses mixing with them a little Verjuice or juice of Lemmons as well to loosen and cleanse the viscous Humours which cleave to the inside of the Childs mouth as to cool those parts which are already overheated this may be done by means of a small fine Rag fastened to the end of a little stick and dipt in this Remedy wherewith the Ulcers may be gently rubbed being careful not to put them to too much pain lest irritating of them an Inflammation be caused to augment the malady The Childs body must not be kept open that the Humours being carried to the lower parts so many vapors may not ascend as usually do when the Excrements of the Belly are too-long retained If the Ulcers participate of any malignity let Topical Remedies then be used which do their work speedily and as it were in an instant for to correct the evil qualities of the humours that cause them and prevent their further augmentation for it being impossible if they should remain long in these parts but their effect and vertue would be hindered or much diminished by the moisture of the Mouth For this purpose touch the Ulcers with Water of Plantane sharpned with Spirit of Vitriol taking great care that the Infant swallows none of it and the Remedy must be so much the stronger and sharper as the Ulcers are profound and malignant assoon as they have been cauterized with this Water by only touching them once or twice with it according to their bigness depth or corruption that no sharp serosities may distill upon the places not yet ulcered and upon the Infants Throat wash its Mouth with Plantane water or with a Decoction of Barley Agrimony and Honey of Roses continuing to touch and wash the ulcers as it may be judged convenient and until you find that they spread no further To prevent that in the use of these sharp Medicines not the least portion of them may fall upon the Childs Throat and that by swallowing of them he may receive no great prejudice some chuse rather to cauterize these Ulcers with small Linnen tents dipt in boiling Oyl which though afterwards swallowed cannot in the least prejudice him It will also not be amiss to purge the ill Humours out of the whole habit of the Child giving him half an Ounce of Syrup of Succory with Rhubarb If these Ulcers are maintained by a Venereal venome these Remedies may for some time hinder their increase but they will never be cured unless such as are more specifick to that Malady be applied as we shall hereafter direct CHAP. XXVIII Of the pain in breeding the Teeth THe Teeth which were hidden in the Jaws usually begin to come forth not all at a time but one after another towards the fifth or sixth Month sometimes sooner and sometimes also later for to effect which they cut the Gums wherewith they were covered Then because of the exquisite sence of those parts there happens so great pains to the Children that many who hitherto were very well are now in great danger of their life and often die by reason of many mischievous accidents which happen to them at that time Hippocrates names the principal of them in the 25. Aphorism of his Third Book In progressu verò quum â—am dentire incipiunt gingivarum prurigines febres convulsiones alvi profluvia maximè quum caninos edunt dentes his praesertim pueris qui crassissimi sunt alvos duras habent When saies he Children begin to breed their Teeth they are troubled with ching of their Gums Feavers Convulsions and Loosnesses and principally when they breed their Tusks or Dog-teeth especially those Children who are fat or full of Humours and bound The Dog-teeth commonly called the Eye-teeth cause more pain to the Child than any of the rest because they have a very deep root and a small Nerve more considerable which 't is said hath communication with that that makes the Eye move and as Hippocrates also saith Those Children which are very gross and bound in their body are upon this account in much more danger than others because the pains in these causeth a much greater sluxion of humours upon the diseased part with which their bodies alway abound when they are costive The Teeth which are first bred are the cutting or fore-teeth as well because they are sooner perfect as because being smaller and sharper the Gums are easier pierced through and also with less pain than by the rest which are softer at the begining and being larger cannot so soon make their way at least not without greater efforts Signs when Children will breed their Teeth are when the Gumms and Cheeks are swelled they feel a great heat there with an itching which often makes them put their Fingers in their Mouths to rub them from whence much moisture distills down into the Mouth because of the pain they feel there the Nurse in giving them suck finds the Mouth hotter they
ones wherein no part falls down but only there is a distention of the Membranes of the Scrotum and Testicles caused by some matter there collected as well through the natural weakness of those parts as with being bruised and pressed in a bad Labour amongst which the watry and windy happen oftenest for as for the fleshy and varicose they happen never or but very rarely in little Infants For the cure of the watry called Hydrocele which is caused by waters contained in the common or proper membranes of the Testicles apply to the swelling Remedies that may resolve and dry up the Waters therein and dissipate the wind and afterwards fortifie the parts They may be resolved with Fomentations of the Decoction of Camomil Melilot Rue Majoram and Fennel in which also the Compresses to lay upon them may be dipt they may be dried with Lime-water wherein a little Allom is dissolved and after that the greatest part of Waters are resolved and dried away let the parts be fortified lest others be there ingendred by putting to it Compresses wet in red Wine wherein Roses and Allum have been boiled ever having respect to the cause of the Hydrocele and that which feeds it but if these Remedies prove in vain the Tumour must be opened to evacuate the Waters by a single prick of a Lancet with which one must be satisfied in little Infants who for the weakness of their Age tenderness of their Bodies and want of the use of their reason cannot then undergo a greater Operation for the Cure of an Hydrocele CHAP. XXXII Of the Scabs which are upon the Head and Face of young Children WE intend to treat here only of such Scabs as have no malignity and are only caused by the supurfluity of some Humors which for being simply over-heated are easily conveighed to the Head and Face where they make little Pimples in which these humours continuing are corrupted and converted into matter which after eat through and ulcerates the simple superficies of the Skin and drying round about the place where it came out make those crusts there usually called Scabs with which some Childrens Head and Faces are every where so covered that they seem to have a Cap and a Mask of a piece for which nothing can be seen but only the Eyes and edges of the Lips which are exempt from it Many persons will have these Scabs aswell as the Meazels and Small-pox to proceed for the most part from some superfluity and residue of the menstruous blood from which the Infant purgeth it self after it is born which because it cannot be well rectified is so driven out that it may be cast off as useless but it is often from the ill nourishment of the Children who sometimes suck more Milk than they can digest as also from the ill quality of it whence is engendred a quantity of viscous and corrupt humours causing these Scabs which come most upon the Head and Face because they are moister especially in Children than any other part of the body These Scabs may be known not to be malignant when they are superficial moist and yellowish and when the Scabs being taken off the Skin appears red and crimson without being deeply ulcered The course of these humours must by no means be hindered by driving them inwards because their evacuation defends little Infants from many ill Diseases and we ordinarily see them whose Bodies have a long time purged away such superfluities to be in better health after they have cast forth all this kind of corruption and as Guido saith very well Though to the sight these Scabs are ill yet in respect of their cause they may be very good because nature is thus accustomed to purge the Infants bodies in thrusting out these excrements but endeavours must only be used to hinder the generation of more of these ill humours in the Child wherefore a healthful Nurse must be provided for it whose Milk is perfectly purified and very cool the Childs Belly must ever be kept open and purged if necessary with a little Syrup of Roses or Succory that so the humours may not be sent in too great abundance to the Head nor the sanies under the Scabs may not eating and corroding the Skin cause deep Ulcers it will not be amiss also to make the Scabs fall off that there may be a freer vent or issue for which fresh Butter is ordinarily made use of rubbing them therewith to moisten them or with the Liniment of Oile of sweet Almonds laying afterwards a Cabbadg or Beet-leafe upon it changing them twice or thrice a day to avoid the offence and corruption of the moisture which these things draw forth These things ought to be continued till the Child be perfectly cured and no other because they do very much suppurate the Scabs and only draw away the superfluous humours which should in no wise be retained within for fear lest a worse malady happen after the evacuation of which the places will dry and heal of themselves all this while the Childs hands must be pinned down lest by rubbing and scratching the Scabs when they itch should by irritating these parts cause an inflammation whereby a yet greater abundance of humours will flow thither CHAP. XXXIII Of the small Pox and Meazels in Infants THe small Pox is a contagious Disease to little Infants which somtimes also happen though more rarely to persons already advanced in age in which abundance of Pustules all alike do break forth throughout the superficies of the Skin engendred from the impurity of the Blood and other Humours which nature there casts out as an universal emunctory to cleanse the whole body of them Many antient as well as modern Physicians attribute the cause of this disease to the residue of the menstruous blood wherewith the Infant was nourished in the Mothers Womb which after its birth coming to be heated and to boil in the Vessels is separated from the whole Mass of Blood which hath been since engendred and is spread throughout all the superficies of the Body to be in that manner rejected and expelled This reasoning according to my opinion is not very probable for we daily see many Men and Women who though very aged have never had this Malady which they could never have avoided if it proceeded from the remainder of the menstruous Blood wherewith every one without exception is nourished in their Mothers Womb. They which maintain this opinion reply that though some persons be exempted from this Disease 't is because their strong and robust nature could digest and consume those superfluities or else purge them off by other wayes as by a Loosness or in some manner more insensible However they must confess and agree that this menstruous Blood if it were that could not remain hid and quiet in the Body for 30 40 or 50 years after Birth without producing its effects as we see in several that have not this disease 'till those years but 't is