Aristotle's works: / Containing the Master-piece, Directions for Midwives, and Counsel and Advice to Child-bearing Women with Various Useful Remedies

by pseud. Aristotle

THE MATRIMONIAL STATE CONSIDERED.

The subject of Matrimony is one of deep interest to both sexes: and it behoves every one before marriage to study it with the most serious attention, and ponder over it with an earnest desire to acquire a full knowledge of its duties, responsibilities, and enjoyments. It is an attractive subject to both male and female, except those who subscribe to the principles of Malthus; and old bachelors and old maids are looked upon with contempt and scorn by the generality of young people. Celibacy is regarded now with different views from that with which it used to be some centuries back; and this change is perceptible in some portions of the Romish church. The celibacy of the priesthood is not now insisted on with that strictness which was the case in former times. Marriage is considered the legitimate and proper order of things: husband and wife the relative condition of male and female, and celibacy ought to be, if possible, avoided.

It is our intention to examine the subject in regard to the prejudicial influence which arises from the false steps which are often taken in matrimonial alliances; the original appointment of marriage; and the happy state of matrimony when in strict accordance with that which was originally appointed; with other subjects connected with Love and Marriage.

CHAPTER I.
FALSE STEPS IN MATRIMONIAL ALLIANCES.

When we peruse the yearly returns which are furnished by the Registrar General of the marriages which have taken place in our own country, we are forcibly struck with the many false steps which have been taken by both males and females, even in one year. Parties joined together of the most unequal ages—May and December—plainly declare that there are other motives actuating the one or the other, in the step taken, than the one that should always be predominant at the hymeneal altar.

Another list in the Registrar’s Return will show us what numbers enter the marriage state long before they have come to the age of maturity. In Oriental countries the custom is to marry at an early age; but there the climate, it is said, has an influence on the human frame which earlier developes the state of puberty than is the case in our own northern clime; and that in those countries human decay commences earlier than it does in Europe. Still we hesitate not to say, that early marriages even in hot climates, are injudicious. We are not advocating marriages taking place between the sexes when the vigour and stamina have begun to decay; on the other hand, we would say, that early marriages are preferable to those contracted when the bloom of youth has passed away. But when those are joined together who are not physiologically prepared for the requirements and enjoyments of the matrimonial state, they attempt that for which nature has not fitted them, and impair their physical organs, debilitate their vital powers, and exhaust their strength. We would, therefore, caution our readers not to marry too young.

Another false step taken by those who enter the marriage state is one that requires great discrimination and judgment to avoid: we allude to the bodily or mental disqualification of the one or the other for the true enjoyment of that state. What misery has been experienced by thousands for want of a thorough knowledge of each other bodily and mentally before the knot was tied. The Divorce Court has been, and is, crowded with applicants for redress, who are the victims of their own folly, and who rushed into the connubial state without having a clear and perfect understanding of each other’s qualifications for rendering the marriage state one of enjoyment.

Again, much misery is often productive of the want of a thorough knowledge of the temper and disposition of each other before the consummation of marriage. The lover finds in the object adored, all perfection; and neglects to view this object in its true light, until the irrevocable vow is uttered, and wedded life reveals the unwholesome truth that the temper and disposition of the one, or the other, or both, are of such a nature as to render the domestic hearth any thing but pleasant.

Again, a common error committed by those wishing to enter the marriage state, is that of being dazzled and decoyed by the beauty of the object sought. The beauty of the face is not among women one of universal agreement, as is generally supposed. Voltaire has said, “Ask a toad what is handsome, and he will answer, ‘My mate, with his big eyes and slimy skin.’” The negro’s type of beauty, no doubt, consists in a blackness equal to his own; but is there no specific and positive state of perfection, regularity, harmony, organization, in each species? Have not all their ideas of beauty, independent of the preferences or prepossessions of others? The face of a woman is a mirror of the affections of her soul, as has been often remarked, but the fact has not yet been promulgated, that the different features of a face indicate a particular species of affection.

Again, an error frequently committed by those anxious to enter the matrimonial life is that of seeking for wealth, not the true enjoyment of domestic happiness. Alas! what numbers have made fatal shipwreck by being dashed to pieces, like Sinbad, on this loadstone rock! The man that wishes to find the true enjoyment of married life should not look for a large dower along with the partner of his life, but for a woman of a virtuous, well-educated, and amiable disposition. Such a partner will be of more value than all the gold that has been discovered in California, Australia, and all the other El Dorados yet heard of. But although the lover should not be actuated by an inordinate craving after wealth, still there should be a due foresight exercised to provide for a proper maintenance before entering the marriage state. Many couples get united together before they have provided a home of their own wherein to dwell, and are therefore compelled to be dependent upon others, for a habitation. This is a sad state of things; and has frequently been the cause of embittering the married life of those who would otherwise have enjoyed much of its sweets.

Again, another error which is often committed by those entering the married state, is that of an utter disregard for the tastes and inclinations of each other. For want of due appreciation of the unity of feeling on this subject much unhappiness has been experienced by husband and wife. The husband, perhaps, has a taste for a particular class of literature, and takes a delight in perusing his favourite authors, whilst the wife takes a pleasure in reading works of quite a different description altogether, and persists in maintaining her judgment in opposition to that of her husband, hence unpleasant bickerings and recriminations take place. And as their tastes disagree in regard to the food for the mind, so also they disagree in regard to the food for the body. What she likes, he dislikes, and what he likes, she dislikes. It behoves every one, entering the matrimonial state to have a perfect understanding, and a reciprocity in taste and inclination with each other.

Again, another error into which many fall who are entering the wedded life, is a departure from that candour and uprightness which ought to govern and actuate mankind in every transaction of daily life but more especially in the important one now under consideration. What lamentable consequences have resulted from the deception and subterfuge which have been practised by both male and female, when about to be joined together in the holy bands of wedlock! The man who would deceive the partner whom he vows to cherish and comfort, or the woman who would practice deception on him whom she vows to honour and obey, deserve to taste the bitter fruit of their own sin and folly. It should ever be known by those who are about to become man and wife, that every matter which they are anxious to conceal before marriage, will, very probably, be disclosed at one time or another; and perhaps disclosed in such a way so as to make the secret appear of ten times more importance than it really is. Unbosom every secret, confide in each other; and be assured that, whatever may be the consequence, a clear conscience, truth, and uprightness will comfort and sustain you in every trouble.

CHAPTER II.
THE ORIGINAL APPOINTMENT OF MARRIAGE.

The Author of our being, when he formed the first pair of human beings, left them not to the mere instincts of nature, as he did in the case of the inferior animals; but for them he especially instituted the contract of marriage; so that marriage is a divine appointment. At the Almighty’s command the waters brought forth in abundance; myriads of fishes swam in the sea; innumerable birds of every description winged their way in the firmament; animals of all kinds, from the gigantic elephant to the smallest creature imaginable, wandered up and down on the earth, and every kind of creeping thing; the largest of the feathered tribe built nests on the inaccessible cliffs; the lion and the tiger, with other ferocious beasts, prowled the forests; cattle and sheep and the mild animals cropped the herbage; the dove chose her mate; the nightingale warbled her song; the small insects, to which the leaf was a world, and the minute animalcule, whose universe was a water-drop—all were formed by the Almighty—and He commanded that they were to “Be fruitful, and multiply, in the earth.”

It was different, however, with regard to the human family. As the members of that family were formed with an elaboration not displayed in other departments of creation, as their structure was different from that of any other creature, as man was formed from the dust of the earth, and God breathed into him the breath of life, as the woman was made from a portion of the man—bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh,—consequently there was a difference in the way in which they were directed to fulfil the great purpose of their creation, namely, to replenish the earth.

The Almighty declared that it was not good for man to be alone, therefore woman was formed for an helpmeet for him. Throughout the teeming earth, the blue expanse, and the deep water, there was not a creature but what had found a mate; our first parent stood alone, without the society of one bearing his nature—isolated from the company of one with whom he could hold converse, and who could share in the enjoyments of the happy sphere in which he was at first placed. The Great Creator made woman, brought them together, and instituted marriage. Equal power and dominion over the inferior creatures was given to the woman, as that exercised by the man; and it was not until the disobedience and sin of our first parents, that the original order of things was changed, and that anything was heard of the subjection of Eve to Adam.

The institution of Marriage was a wise and judicious arrangement, and peculiarly adapted to the position of the human race. It was of the greatest consequence to man that he should have a companion, a friend, a wife; and for this purpose it was ordained that a man should leave his father and mother, and cleave unto his own wife, and they twain should be one flesh.

In what emphatic language is the union of husband and wife enforced: “they twain shall be one flesh.” For the future their joys and their sorrows are to be identical. They are not separate individuals as two male persons are considered, but male and female—wife and husband—one. Alas! how frequently is this oneness marred and broken—a diversity of interest and feeling appears to exist between many married couples, and how often the adage of, “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” is verified. It would be well if such couples would oftener remember the solemn injunction—“they twain shall be one flesh.” It seems to an observer, that if such couples ever loved one another, they lavished and exhausted that love in the early days of marriage, and filled up the void by feelings of enmity and strife. This ought not to be the state of a domestic household; for though the wife may be possessed of the key of every drawer and cupboard in the house, if she does not possess the key of her husband’s heart, she is destitute of that which is of more value to her than every other earthly treasure. The husband may be affectionate, kind, and respectful to his wife, but if she is not identical with himself, the depository and confidante of all his feelings and aspirations, there is something amiss. It is an impossibility for married people to love and trust each other too much, and as impossible for them to feel a strong and deep affection for each other, if they do not consider their interests to be identical.

When Adam awoke out of the deep sleep into which he had been cast by the Almighty, and beheld the lovely being in his presence, he was told by his and her maker, that the woman was given to be with him, not given to him; for so we understand by the words of Adam, when he would have framed an excuse for his sin—“The woman that thou gavest to be with me.” Therefore the inference is plain that woman was not given to man to be his slave, nor the victim of his caprice or violence, nor the plaything of an hour, but a partner and confidante in all that concerned him; the sharer of his joys and sorrows, of his prosperity and adversity. Woman was not to be subjected to harsh and cruel treatment, but to be cherished and protected; and to be on an equality in every way with man. There is great force and truth in what was penned by an aged writer—“Man and wife are equally concerned to avoid all offences to each other in the beginning of their conversation; a very little thing can blast an infant blossom; and the breath of the south can shake the little rings of the vine, when first they begin to curl like the locks of a new-weaned boy; but when by age and consolidation they stiffen into the hardness of a stem, and have by the warm embraces of the sun, and the kisses of heaven, brought forth their clusters they can endure the storms of the north, and the loud noise of the tempest, and yet never be broken.”

Peculiar scope is given for the exercise of the highest qualities of the heart, through the obligations which belong to the state of matrimony. The presence of our Lord and Saviour at a marriage feast, and the example of the early Christians, give force to the statement that marriage is a divine institution. Marriage was held in great esteem by the venerable fathers of ancient days, and considered highly honourable, whilst celibacy was discountenanced by them.

Among the Jews, marriage was held in the greatest esteem and favour, and it is said that the early Christians would never allow any one to sustain the office of a magistrate except those who were married. Laws were made by the Pagans to promote the institution of marriage. A festival was instituted by the Lacedæmonians, at which those men, who were unmarried, were reviled and scourged by the women, and deemed unworthy to serve the republic. Among the Romans, those who had been several times married were distinguished, and received great honour from their fellow countrymen, crowns and wreaths, were placed on their heads, and in their public rejoicings they appeared with palms in their hands, signifying that they had been instrumental in adding to the glory of the empire. It is related by St. Jerome, that they covered a man with bays, and ordered him to accompany his wife’s corpse in funeral pomp, with a crown on his head, and a palm branch in his hand, it being considered highly necessary that he should be thus honoured and carried in triumph, seeing that he had been married twenty times, and his wife twenty-two.

The marriage ceremony being solemnized in accordance with the rites of the early Christian Church, the veil (a Pagan custom of former times) was preserved, and from this observance of veiling the word nuptials is derived. The use of the ring was also a matter of importance in the ceremony; the solemn kiss was imparted, and the practice of joining hands was observed. Usually, at the conclusion of the ceremony, the bride was crowned—occasionally both the bride and the bridegroom—with wreaths of myrtle.—The lace veil and the wreath of orange blossoms, which is now such a necessary adornment in bridal attire, may be traced to the practice pursued by bridal parties in former times.

The wedding ring is an emblem of many significant qualifications. Gold being the noblest and purest, as well as the most enduring—it is made of that metal.—Its circular form denotes that form to be the most perfect of all figures, and the hieroglyphic of eternity. Its being entirely free from ornament denotes the perfect simplicity and plainness of wedded life. The ring is put on the left hand because of its being nearest the heart; and on the fourth finger on account of some supposed connection between that finger, more than the others, with the seat of life. The ring is the acknowledged pledge of the bestowal of authority, as in former times the giving of it was regarded as the delegation of all the husband’s authority, and conferred upon the person receiving it, entire supremacy over every thing in the husband’s possession.

It would be an easy task to continue this chapter much farther, by attempting to pourtray the beauty and virtue of marriage, and endeavouring to enforce the obligation of it on all who are proper subjects to engage in it, but we will now close the chapter by saying, that the instincts of nature yearn towards the opposite sex. We long to love and be loved. We feel that within us which inclines us to seek the society of the other sex; a monitor that warns us to refrain from unhallowed love: and a voice which invites us to seek that state of matrimony, which is sanctioned by human and divine law.

CHAPTER III.
THE HAPPY STATE OF MATRIMONY.

Without doubt the uniting of hearts in holy wedlock is of all conditions the happiest; for then a man has a second self to whom he can reveal his thoughts, as well as a sweet companion in his labours, toils, trials, and difficulties. He has one in whose breast, as in a safe cabinet, he can confide his inmost secrets, especially where reciprocal love and inviolable faith is centred: for there no care, fear, jealousy, mistrust, or hatred can ever interpose. For base is the man that hateth his own flesh! And truly a wife if rightly considered, as Adam well observed, is or ought to be esteemed of every honest man as “Bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh,” &c. Nor was it the least care of the Almighty to ordain so near a union, and that for two causes; the first, for the increase of posterity; the second, to restrain man’s wandering desires and affections; nay, that they might be yet happier, when God had joined them together, he “blessed them,” as in Gen. ii. An ancient writer, contemplating this happy state, says, in the economy of Zenophon, “that the marriage-bed is not only the most pleasant, but profitable course of life, that may be entered on for the preservation and increase of posterity. Wherefore since marriage is the most safe, and delightful situation of man, he does in no ways provide amiss for his own tranquillity who enters into it, especially when he comes to maturity of years.”

Enviable is the state of that man who has fixed his choice upon a virtuous, chaste wife, centring her entire love upon her husband, and submitting to him as her head and king, by whose directions she ought to steer in all lawful courses, will like a faithful companion, share patiently with him in all his adversities, run with cheerfulness through all difficulties and dangers, though ever so hazardous, to preserve or assist him in poverty, sickness, or whatever misfortune may befall him, acting according to her duty in all things.

“Marriage,” says one of our most gifted poets—who had experienced some varieties of married life—“is a covenant, the very being whereof consists not in a forced cohabitation and counterfeit performance of duties, but in unfeigned love and peace. Matrimonial love, no doubt, was chiefly meant, which by the ancient sages was thus parabled: Love, if it be not twin-born, yet hath a brother wondrous like him, called Anteros; whom, while he seeks all about, his chance is to meet with many false and feigning desires, that wander singly up and down in his likeness: by them, in their borrowed garb, Love though not wholly blind, as poets wrong him, yet having but one eye—on being born an archer, aiming—and that eye not the quickest in this region here below—which is not Love’s proper sphere—partly out of the simplicity of credulity, which is native to him, often deceived, embraces and consorts him with these obvious and suborned striplings, as if they were her mother’s own sons; for so he thinks them, while they subtly keep themselves most on his blind side. But, after a while, as the manner is, when soaring up into the high tower of his opqueum, above the shadow of the earth, he darts out the direct rays of his then most piercing eye-sight upon the impostures and trim disguises that were used with him, and discerns that this was not his genuine brother, as he imagined. He has no longer the power to hold fellowship with such a personated mate; for straight his arrows lose their golden heads, and shed their purple feathers, his silken braids entwine, and slip their knots, and that original and fiery virtue given him by fate, all on a sudden goes out, and leaves him undeified and despoiled of all his force; till, finding Anteros at last, he kindles and repairs the almost faded ammunition of his deity, by the reflection of a coequal and homogenial fire.”

This is a deep and serious verity, showing us that love in marriage cannot live nor subsist unless it be mutual, and where love cannot be, there can be left of wedlock nothing but the empty husk of an outside matrimony, as undelightful and unpleasing to God, as any other kind of hypocrisy.

Man experiences a feeling of want for some one to whom he can unbosom himself of all his secrets, and tell the longings and aspirations of his heart; and who so fit and proper to be trusted as the partner of his joys and sorrows, and the wife of his bosom? In his boyish days he may confide in some youthful companion, but as he verges towards manhood, he hesitates to entrust the secrets of his heart to his equals in age, fearful of a betrayal of confidence. Men are following the bent of their inclinations and pursuits—seeking wealth, reputation, or pleasure—in various ways; and if you told your dearest friend the secrets of your heart, he would soon be wearied with your officiousness, however much he might appreciate your friendship, and might be anxious for your success, but your success, or even your friendship, are not of paramount importance in his estimation. Very different, however is the case with a wife. When you conducted her to the altar, and vowed to love and cherish her so long as life should last, she became one with you—“no more twain but one flesh.” To her you may safely confide all your wishes, difficulties, and disappointments. Pleasure is all the more ecstatic when there are two to partake of it; and every burden feels lighter, when there are two to help to bear it. Pliny, speaking of his wife, says,—“Her ingenuity is admirable; her frugality is extraordinary; she reads my writings, studies them, and even gets them by heart. You would smile to see the concern she is in when I have a cause to plead, and the joy she shows when it is over. She finds means to have the first news brought to her of the success I meet with in court, how I am heard, and what decree is made. She feasts upon my applauses. Sometimes she sings my verses, and accompanies them with the lute without any other master, except love, the best of instructors.” Ecstatic and soul-cheering are the delights which spring from a trusting, loving, and honourable marriage. How the very presence of the loved wife is prized! For should circumstances cause a short separation, with what anxiety does the fond husband look for the return of her on whom his soul doats; and whose returning presence throws a halo of sunshine over his domestic hearth, which gladdens the heart of the loving husband. How the faithful husband will seek to shield the loving wife from every harm; and how firmly he relies on her faith and purity! What energy does the thought of her sterling fidelity give him in life’s struggles! What a peculiar charm is imparted to enjoyments when we can share them with one whom we fondly love, and by whom we are fondly loved in return. Sympathy renders such communion ecstatic, but if that is taken away, the remains are but the hollow mockery of pleasure, vanity, and vexation of spirit.

A clever female writer thus speaks of marriage—“Many a marriage begins like the rosy morning, and then falls away like a snow-wreath. And why? Because the married pair neglect to be as well pleasing to each other after marriage as before. Endeavour always to please one another; but at the same time keep God in your thoughts.—Lavish not all your love on to-day, for remember that marriage has its to-morrow, likewise, and its day after to-morrow, too. Spare, as one may say, fuel for the winter.—Deceive not one another in small things or in great. One little lie has, before now, disturbed a whole married life.—A small cause has often great consequences.—Fold not the hands together and sit idle. ‘Laziness is the devil’s cushion!’ Do not run much from home. ‘One’s own hearth is gold-worth.’—The married woman is her husband’s domestic faith; in her hands he must be able to confide house and family; be able to entrust to her the key of his heart, as well as the key of his eating-room. His honour and his home are under her keeping; his well-being is in her hand. Think of this, oh wife!—Young men, be faithful husbands and good fathers of families. Act so that your wives shall esteem and love you. Read the word of God industriously; that will conduct you through storm and calm, and safely bring you to the haven at last.”

Much happiness may result from the state of matrimony. The good man beholds his children rising around him, like olive branches; he feels himself strengthened and encouraged to fulfil the responsibilities devolving upon him; and he had before no idea of the fountain of joy that was in the word “father.” It appears to him as if his boyish days were returned, when he is surrounded by two or three of the pledges of his affection, witnessing their youthful gambols, and listening to their clear ringing shouts of glee and delight as they scamper up and down before him. He takes a pride in his children. No toil or trial appears harassing which is endured for their benefit. He indulges in bright anticipations regarding their future career, and prays and hopes that they will be a comfort and honour to his declining years; and he endeavours to train them up in the way they should go, trusting that when they are old, they will not depart from it. And this is not a selfish feeling; he is well aware that the man who gives a brave son or a virtuous daughter to society, has conferred an inestimable blessing on society. When declining age approaches, and the partner of his joys and sorrows manifests the effects of time’s corroding blight on the fair structure which won his youthful affections,—still the flame of love burns as pure if not as ardent, as when they stood before the hymeneal altar. The aged pair are still happy in each other’s smile; and the reflection that they have led their children in that good path which shall make their memory blessed, sustains and comforts them in life’s closing scene.

An old divine says, “They that enter into marriage, cast a die of the greatest contingency, and yet of the greatest interest in the world, next to the last throw for eternity. Life or death, felicity or lasting sorrow, are in the power of marriage.—A woman, indeed, ventures most; for she hath no sanctuary to retire to.—The man can run from many hours of sadness, yet he must return to it again, and when he sits among his neighbours, he remembers the dejection that is in his bosom, and sighs deeply.—After the hearts of the man and wife are endeared and strengthened, by a mutual confidence and experience longer than artifice and presence can last, there are a great many remembrances, and some things present, that dash all little unkindnesses in pieces.—Let man and wife be careful to stifle little things, that as fast as they spring they be cast down and trod upon; for if they be suffered to grow, by numbers, they make the spirits peevish, and the society troublesome, and the affections loose and easy by an habitual aversion. Some men are more vexed with a fly than with a wound; and when the gnats disturb our sleep, and the reason is disquieted but not perfectly awakened, it is often seen that he is fuller of trouble than if, in the day-light of his reason he were to contest with a potent enemy. In the frequent little accidents of a family a man’s reason cannot always be awake; and when the discourses are imperfect, and a trifling trouble makes him yet more restless, he is soon betrayed to the violence of passion.—Let them be sure to abstain from all those things which by experience and observation, they find to be contrary to each other.—Let the husband and wife avoid a curious distinction of mine and thine; for this hath caused all the laws, and all the suits, and all the wars of the world.—Let them who have but one purse, have but one interest.—There is nothing that can please a man without love; for nothing can sweeten felicity itself but love.—No man can tell, but he that loves his children, how many delicious accents make a man’s heart dance in the pretty conversations of those dear ones; their childishness, their stammering, their little angers, their innocence, their imperfections, their necessities, are so many little emanations of joy and comfort to him that delights in their persons and society.—A man should set a good example to his wife.—Ulysses was a prudent man, and a wary counsellor, sober and severe; and he formed his wife into such imagery as he desired; and she was chaste as the snows upon the mountains; diligent as the fatal sisters; always busy and always faithful, she had a lazy tongue and a busy hand.—A husband’s chastity should be unspotted, his faith inviolable, for this is the “Marriage Ring;” it ties two hearts by an eternal band; it is like the cherubim’s flaming sword, set for the guard of paradise.”

“Let a man love his wife even as himself,” and “be not bitter against her.” Marcus Aurelius said, that “a wise man ought often to admonish his wife, to reprove her seldom, but never to lay his hands on her.” The marital love is infinitely removed from all possibility of such rudeness; it is a thing pure as light, sacred as a temple, lasting as the world.

There is nothing can please a man without love; and if a man be weary of the wise discourses of the Apostles, and of the innocency of an even and private fortune, or hates peace or a fruitful year, he has reaped thorns and thistles from the choicest flowers of paradise, “for nothing can sweeten felicity itself, but love;” but when a man dwells in love, then the breasts of his wife are pleasant as the droppings upon the hill of Hermon, her eyes are fair as the light of heaven, she is a fountain sealed, and he can quench his thirst, and ease his cares, and lay his sorrow down in her lap, and can retire home to his sanctuary and refectory, and his gardens of sweetness and chaste refreshment.

CHAPTER IV.
PRECAUTIONARY HINTS.

He that proposes to marry, and wishes to enjoy happiness in that state, should choose a wife descended from honest parents, she being chaste, well bred, and of good manners. For if a woman has good qualities, she has portion enough. That of Alcmena, in Plautus, is much to the purpose, where he brings in a young woman speaking thus:—

“I take not that to be my dowry, which

The vulgar sort do wealth and honour call:

That all my wishes terminate in this,—

I’ll obey my husband, and be chaste withal:

To have God’s fear, and beauty, in my mind,

To do those good who are virtuously inclined.”

And undoubtedly she was right, for such a wife is more precious than rubies.

It is assuredly the duty of parents to be very careful in training up their children in the ways of virtue, and to have a due regard for their honour and reputation: and more especially to young women, when grown up to be marriageable. Parental authority in most cases ought to be obeyed by children; but when an undue severity is exercised by parents in attempting to thwart the affections of a son or daughter, and compel the one or the other to violently snap asunder the tenderest ties, then that authority becomes questionable; and except for the most weighty reasons, ought not to be exercised. Alas! what numerous lamentable illustrations of undue parental authority in regard to the affections of their children are constantly occurring—sons leaving the parental abode, rushing into the haunts of vice and dissipation, and wrecking their fair prospects on the numerous shoals and quicksands which are so fatal to the unwary—daughters flying from the domestic assylum, which ought to shelter them from every storm, and subjecting themselves to perhaps a far worse condition than that they are fleeing from, in being exposed to the attacks of the human wolves who are nightly prowling in the streets of our large cities, in search of the defenceless females who are wandering about homeless and disconsolate. And when these victims of parental severity have fallen into the pit which has been dug for them, probably the parents, too late, repent of their severity, which has brought an indelible stain upon their family. Parents, be cautious of thwarting the affection of your children.

Vicious indulgence is certain to produce its legitimate results, and bring down ruin upon the man or woman who is addicted to the same. Cast your eyes upon the blighted wrecks of what was once female beauty, but now loathsome to behold, notwithstanding the adventitious aid of paint, and all the adjuncts of tawdry finery that may be put on to hide the miserable wrecks of humanity. Traverse the streets in our large cities, and though illuminated by the glare of gaslight, numbers with unblushing fronts meet you at almost every step. These are the victims of vicious indulgence. Ask any of these to tell you whether she feels herself happy in the “gay” life she is pursuing; and if she is sincere, she will answer you with a heart-breaking sigh that she is far from being happy—that she is most miserable—that she remembers a happier time—remembrances which she attempts to stifle by quaffing liquid slow poison at the gin-palace. She had a home once—and she remembers her mother—dead a long time ago—and oh, agony! she remembers the day when her own foot first turned into the path of guilt. Peradventure she was the victim of some base libertine, and was decoyed away from virtue’s path by a deceptive tale; or, probably, she may have willingly swerved from that chaste and virtuous life which is the brightest adornment in female attire. Whatever was the cause there she is—a miserable wreck of humanity! Better, far better, that she had died; that the grass had grown rank over her corpse as it mouldered away in the portion of ground allotted to the pauper dead. Thus it is with the wretched female who gives way to vicious indulgence.—The once gay courtezan eventually is bereft of all splendour; no devoted admirer rushes to her aid; she coughs her way through life; and sinks into an early grave—perhaps a watery grave. Beware, young women, of the siren tempter! Deviate not in the least from the paths of virtue! Chastity is your brightest adornment, and that once sullied, your fair fame is irretrievably damaged.

The baneful effects of giving way to vicious indulgence may probably not, in every case, be so serious to the male portion of the creation as to that of the female, yet there are numerous instances of the libertine and debauchee having had to pay the penalty of their misdeeds by an emaciated frame, a broken constitution, and an early death. How many young men have commenced the struggle of life with fair fame and bright prospects, with business habits which gave them buoyant hopes of gaining an independence, who, giving way to vicious indulgence, have ruined their health, blighted their fair fame, and become bankrupts in every thing that belongs to the man of honour and integrity. Young man, beware of giving way to vicious indulgence!

Love is a passion of the human soul; and when properly under control, it is capable of affording the greatest amount of happiness; but, like other passions of the heart, when uncontrolled, or wrongly directed, it entails great misery on those who experience it. This may be the case with that love which is called forth by family relationship and intimate friendship, as well as that intense love which is felt by the opposite sex, man for woman, woman for man.

Various are the means which the libertine and debauchee adopt to gratify their sensual appetite. Some will follow the “strange woman”—the street harlot to her den of infamy and shame; others will attempt to allure the simple trusting maiden by promises, oaths as false and deceitful as ever were uttered by the arch enemy of our souls:—and by these means the trusting and confiding are lured to commit the sin which society condemns in the female, but which is treated with lenity and forbearance in regard to the male transgressor.

Examine the first of these two cases. “A young man deficient in understanding,” seeks the company of unfortunate women, and exhausts his precious vigour and stamina in criminal pleasure. The period of youth is the heyday of nature, and the healthful development of all the resources of strength in our nature is the glory of our youth. It is a most lamentable spectacle to behold, in the streets of the metropolis, and large towns, such numbers of men, young in years, but through sensual gratification, broken down in strength, emaciated in body, and apparently worn-out decrepid old men. And alas! how numerous are the allurements spread to entrap the unwary, and cause them to enter on a vicious course of life. “The lips of a strange woman drop as a honey-comb, and her mouth is smoother than oil.” Every attraction which beauty can borrow from art is employed; prostitution wears various kinds of guises to accomplish its object, but is most dangerous when decked out the fairest, and sports the best. And, therefore, the wise teacher before quoted, very appropriately remarks, “Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eye-lids.” The disastrous consequences of such “pleasures,” are as certain as they are terrible. The sweetness of the honey never provides an antidote for the sting. Such a course most frequently ruins the prospects of success in life—“a man is brought to a piece of bread;” “it ruins the health,”—“thy flesh and thy body are consumed, till a dart strike through thy liver.” And along with property and health goes the character, for “the name of the wicked shall rot,” and their end is shrouded in gloom; their “feet go down to death, and their steps take hold on hell.”

CHAPTER V.
THE VAGARIES OF NATURE, IN THE BIRTHS OF MONSTERS.

The pleasing anticipations of the wedded pair are sometimes disappointed and seriously blighted by the birth of a deformed and malformed offspring. Sometimes the child is born with some one or more of the usual members of the body deficient; at others there are births of children possessed with more than the usual members of the body; and in various ways the eccentricities of nature are displayed in the production of the fruits of the womb contrary to the usual construction of the human frame.

It would be presumptuous in any finite creature to attempt to give a clear and uncontrovertible reason for these monstrous births. Suffice it to say, that several have at various times been recorded in history; a few of those we shall now introduce to the notice of the reader.

We are told by old historians of a monster which was born at Ravenna, in Italy, about the year 1512, which had wings instead of arms; and some peculiar marks on its body. We present the following figure of this singular creature.

Another monster was born about the year 1603, which from the account handed down to us, was from the navel upwards like a woman, and the lower parts like those of a beast. The following figure of this curious creature is taken from an ancient record of the subject. This monster appears to approach nearer to the figure of the fabled satyrs than any we have before seen, and may probably have given rise to those fabled monsters.

Where children thus are born with hairy coats,
Heaven’s wrath unto the kingdom it denotes.

Another monster was produced, representing a hairy child. It was all covered with hair like a beast. That which rendered it more frightful, was, that its navel was in the place where its nose should stand, and its eyes placed where the mouth should have been; and its mouth placed in the chin. It was of the male kind, and was born in France, in the year 1597, at a town called Arles, in Provence, and lived a few days, frightening all who beheld it. It was looked upon by the superstitious as a forerunner of those desolations which soon afterwards happened to that unhappy kingdom, where men to each other, were more like beasts than human creatures. The foregoing engraving from an old print—with two lines attached—give a clearer idea of the monster than any description of ours.

In the year 1581, a monster was born at Nazara, which had four arms and four legs, of a similar form to the figure above. Whether this monster lived for any length of time after its birth, or whether it perished soon after, we have no reliable account on which to rest our conclusions. There is no doubt but that many such unnatural births would be concealed: for the doctors of a former age would consider themselves justified in putting an end to the existence of such monsters. With regard to the formation of the child in this case, so far as can be gathered from the account of it, there was nothing to prevent it living: its vital organs were single, it was only the arms and legs that were double.

In the reign of Henry III. of England, there was a woman delivered of a child, having two heads and four arms, and the bodies were joined at the back; the heads were so placed, that they looked contrary ways; each had two distinct arms and hands; they would both laugh, both speak, and both cry, and be hungry together; sometimes the one would speak, and the other would keep silent, and sometimes both speak together. It lived several years, but one outlived the other three years, carrying the dead one, (for there was no separating them), till it fainted with the burden, and more with the stench of the dead carcase.

In Flanders, between Antwerp and Mechlin, in a village called Uthaton, a child was born which had two heads and four arms, seeming like two girls joined together, having two of her arms lifted up between and above their heads: the thighs being placed as it were across one another, according to the following figure. How long they lived is not known; but, probably, life would not be sustained for any length of time; for, even supposing the vital organs were unaffected, by the curious junction of the two bodies, the singular position of the limbs would, to some extent, interfere with the free actions of life, as well as produce misery to the creature all its days. These vagaries of nature happily seldom occur, and when they do, the friendly stroke of death gives relief.

The following figure shows that though some of the members of the body may be wanting, yet they are commonly supplied by others—by members which serve the same purpose as those which are deficient.

Without doubt some of the stories of monsters are fabulous, but we hesitate not to state that we believe many of them to be true. Nearly every accoucheur has, at some time or other, had cases when they have had to assist in bringing into the world specimens of the freaks of nature, either deficient of their natural properties, or a superabundance of them. It frequently happens that these prodigies exist but for a short time—death speedily putting an end to what must otherwise be a miserable existence, and little is said about them. The surgical museums in our country contain sufficient proof of the birth of monsters: and there is no denying the fact, that there are cases in which people are born into the world, and from certain peculiarities in their structure have been exhibited to the public as monsters.

CHAPTER VI.
OF THE WOMB IN GENERAL.

Herein I propose to treat of the womb, and the various maladies to which it is subject. By the Grecians it is called metra, the mother; adelphos, says Priscian, because it makes us all brothers.

It is placed in the hypogastrium, or lower part of the body, in the cavity called pelvis, having the strait gut on one side, to keep it from the other side of the backbone, and the bladder on the other side to defend it from blows.

It is divided into the neck and the body. The neck consists of a hard fleshy substance, much like cartilage, at the end whereof is a membrane transversely placed, called hymen, or engion. Near to the neck there is a prominent pinnacle, which is called by Montinus the door of the womb, because it preserves the matrix from cold and dust; by the Grecians it is called clytoris; by the Latins, præputium muliebre.

The body of the womb is that wherein the child is conceived; and this is not altogether round, but dilates itself into two angles, the outward part of it nervous and full of sinews, which are the cause of its motion, but inwardly it is fleshy. In the cavity of the womb there are two cells or receptacles for the seed, divided by a line running through the midst of it. In the right side of the cavity, by reason of the heat of the liver, males are conceived; and in the left side, by the coldness of the spleen, females. Most of our moderns hold the above as an infallible truth, yet Hippocrates holds it but in general: “For in whom (saith he) the spermatic vessels on the right side come from the reins, and the spermatic vessels on the left side from the hollow vein, in them males are conceived in the left side, and females in the right.” Empedocles, in giving his opinion, says, “Such sometimes is in the power of the seed, that the male may be conceived in the left side, as well as in the right.” In the bottom of the cavity, there are little holes called the cotiledones, which are the ends of certain veins and arteries, serving in breeding women to convey substance to the child which is received by the umbilical veins; and others to carry their courses into the matrix.

The menstruals are a monthly flux of excrementitious blood, which is to be understood of the surplus or redundance of it. For it is an excrement in quality, its quality being poor and corrupt, like unto the blood in the veins. This is proved two ways; first, from the final cause of the blood, which is the propagation and conservation of mankind, that man might be conceived; and being begotten, he might be comforted and preserved both in the womb and out of the womb. And all will grant it for a truth, that a child, in the matrix, is nourished with the blood. And being out of the womb, it is still nourished with the same; for the milk is nothing but the menstruous blood made white in the breast. Secondly, it is proved to be true, from the generation of it, it being the superfluity of the last aliment of the fleshy part.

The natural end of man and woman’s being is to propagate; and this injunction was imposed upon them by God at their first creation, and again after the deluge. Now, in the act of conception, there must be an agent and patient; for if they be both every way of one constitution, they cannot propagate: man therefore is hot and dry, woman cold and moist; he is the agent, she the patient or weaker vessel, that she should be subject to the office of the man. It is necessary the woman should be of a cold constitution, because in her is required a redundancy of nature for the infant depending upon her; for otherwise, if there were not a surplus of nourishment for the child, more than is convenient for the mother, then would the infant detract and weaken the principal parts of the mother, and like unto the viper, the generating of the infant would be the destruction of the parent.

The monthly purgations continue from the 15th year to the 46th or 50th; yet often there happens a suppression, which is either natural or morbical: they are naturally suppressed in breeding women, and such as give suck.

CHAPTER VII.
OF THE RETENTION OF THE MENSES.

The suppression of the terms is an interception of that accustomed evacuation of blood which every month comes from the matrix, proceeding from the instrument or matter vitiated. The part affected is the womb, and that of itself or by consent.

Cause.—The cause of this suppression is either external or internal. The external cause may be heat, or dryness of air, immoderate watching, great labour, vehement motion, &c. whereby the matter is so consumed and the body so exhausted, that there is not a surplus remaining to be expelled. Or it may be caused by cold, making the blood vicious and gross, condensing and binding up the passages, that it cannot flow forth.

The internal cause is either instrumental or material, in the womb or in the blood. In the womb it may be divers ways; by imposthumes, humours, ulcers, by the narrowness of the veins and passages, or by the omentum, in fat bodies, pressing the neck of the matrix, but then they must have hernia, zirthilis, for in mankind the caul reacheth not so low; by overmuch cold or heat, the one vitiating the action, the other consuming the matter by an evil composition of the uterine parts, by the neck of the womb being turned aside, and sometimes, though rarely, by a membrane or excrescence of the flesh growing about the mouth or neck of the womb. The blood may be in fault two ways, in quantity or quality: in quantity, when it is so consumed that there is not a superplus left, as in viragos, or virile women, who, through their heat and strength of nature, digest and consume all in their last nourishment. The blood likewise may be consumed, and consequently the terms staid, by bleeding at the nose, by a flux of the hemorrhoids, by a dysentery, or bloody flux, by many other evacuations, and by continual and chronical diseases. Secondly, the matter may be vicious in quality; and suppose it to be sanguineous, phlegmatical, bilious, or melancholic; every one of these, if they offend in grossness, will cause an obstruction in the veins.

Signs.—Pains in the head, neck, back, and loins; weariness of the whole body, (but especially of the hips and legs, trembling of the heart.) If the suppression proceed from cold, she is heavy, sluggish, of a pale colour, and has a slow pulse; the urine curdles, the blood becomes waterish and much in quantity, and the excrements are retained. If of heat, the signs are contrary to those now recited. If the retention come of conception, this may be known by drinking of water and honey, after supper, going to bed, by the effect which it worketh; for if, after taking of it, she feels a beating pain upon the stomach, and the lower part of the belly, it is a sign she hath conceived, and that the suppression is natural; if not, then it is vicious, and ought medicinally to be taken away.

Prognostics.—With the evil quality of the womb, the whole body stands charged, but especially the heart, the liver, and the brain; and betwixt the womb and these three principal parts there is a singular concert: First, the womb communicates to the heart by those arteries which come from the aorta. Hence, the terms being suppressed, will ensue faintings, swoonings, intermission of pulse, cessation of breath. Secondly, it communicates to the liver by the veins derived from the hollow vein. Hence will follow obstructions, jaundice, dropsies, hardness of spleen. Thirdly, it communicates to the brain by the nervous membrane of the back: hence will arise epilepsies, frenzies, melancholy passion, pain in the after parts of the head, fearfulness, and inability of speaking. Hippocrates says, if the months be suppressed, many dangerous diseases will follow.

Cure.—The suppression is a plethoric effect, and must be taken away by evacuation; and therefore we begin with the phlebotomy. In the midst of the menstrual period open the liver vein; and for the reservation of the humour, two days before the evacuation, open the saphena in both feet; if the repletion be not great, apply cupping-glasses to the legs and thighs, although there should be no hopes of removing the suppression. As in some the cotiledones are so closed, it will be convenient, as much as may be, to ease nature of her burden, by opening the hemorrhoid veins with a leech. After bleeding, let the humours be prepared and made flexible with syrup of calamint, betony, hyssop, mugwort, horehound, fumitory, maiden-hair. Bathe with camomile, pennyroyal, savin, bay-leaves, juniper-berries, rue, marjoram, feverfew. Take of the leaves of maiden-hair, succory, and betony, of each a handful, make a decoction; take thereof three ounces. Syrup of maiden-hair, mugwort, and succory; mix of each half an ounce. After she comes out of the bath, let her drink it off. Purge with pill de agarice, fley-bang, corb, feriæ. Galen commends pilulæ de caberica, coloquintida; as they purge the humour of offending, and open the womb, and strengthen the faculty by their aromatical quality.

If the stomach be overcharged, let her take a vomit, such a one as may work both ways, lest working only upward, it should too much turn back the humour.

After the humour hath been purged, proceed to more proper and forcible remedies. Take of troschisk of myrrh one drachm and a half; of musk ten grains with the juice of smallage; make twelve pills; take six every morning, or after supper going to bed. Take of cinnamon half an ounce, smirutium, valerian aristolochia, of each two drachms; roots of astrumone, drachm saffron, of each two scruples; spec. diambia, two drachms; troschisk of myrrh, four scruples; make half into a powder; with mugwort water and sugar a sufficient quantity, make lozenges, take one drachm of them every morning; or mingle one drachm of the powder with one drachm of the sugar, and take it in white wine. Take of prepared steel, spec. hair, of each two drachms; borax, spec. of myrrh, of each one scruple, with the juice of savin; make it up with the lozenges, and take three every other day before dinner. Take of castor one scruple, wild carrot seed half a drachm, with syrup of mugwort, make four pills; take them in a morning fasting, for three days together, before the wonted time of the purgation. Take of juice of horehound, of each five drachms; rhubarb, spikenard, aniseed, galbanum, asafœtida, marrow root, gentian, with honey, make an electuary, take of it three drachms for a dose. In phlegmatic bodies nothing can be better given than the decoction of the wood guiacum, taken in the morning fasting, and so for twelve days together, without provoking of sweat.

Administer to the lower parts by suffumigations, pessaries, unctions, injections: make suffumigations of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, bay berries, mugwort, galbanum, molanthium, amber, &c. Make pessaries of figs, and the leaves of mercury bruised, and rolled up with lint. Make injections of the decoction of origane, mugwort, betony, and eggs; inject it into the womb by an instrument for that purpose. Take of oil of almonds, lilies, capers, camomile, of each an ounce; laudani, oil of myrrh, of each two drachms; with wax make an unguent, with which let the place be anointed; make infusions of fenugreek, camomile, melilot, dill, marjoram, pennyroyal, feverfew, juniper-berries, and calamint; but if the suppression comes by a defect of matter, then ought not the menses to be provoked until the spirits be animated, and the blood again increased; or, by proper effects of the womb, as dropsies, inflammations, &c. then must particular care be used.

If the retention comes from repulsion or fulness, if the air be hot or dry, use moderate exercise before meals, and your meat and drink attenuating; use with your meat garden savory, thyme, origane, and cyche peason: if from emptiness or defect of matter, if the air be moist and moderately hot, shun exercise and watching; let your meat be nourishing and of light digestion, as raw eggs, lamb, chickens, almonds, milk.

CHAPTER VIII.
OF THE OVERFLOWING OF THE MENSES.

I shall now treat on the overflowing of the menses, an effect no less dangerous than the former. This immoderate flux is a sanguineous excrement, proceeding from the womb, exceeding both in quantity and time. First, it is sanguineous: the matter of the flux being only blood, wherein it differs from that which is commonly called the false menses, or the whites. Secondly, it proceeds from the womb: for there are two ways from which the blood flows; one by the internal veins of the body of the womb,—and this is called the monthly flux; the other is by those veins which are terminated in the neck of the matrix,—and this is called the hemorrhoids of the womb. Lastly, it is said to exceed both in quantity and time. In quantity, saith Hippocrates, when they flow about eighteen ounces: in time, when they flow about three days: but it is inordinate flowing, when the faculties of the body are thereby weakened. In bodies abounding with gross humours, this immoderate flux sometimes unburdens nature of her load, and ought not to be staid without the counsel of a physician.

Cause.—The cause is internal or external. The internal cause is threefold; in the matter, instrument, or faculty. The matter, which is the blood, may be vicious, by the heat of constitution, climate, or season, heating the blood, whereby the passages are dilated, and the faculty weakened, that it cannot retain the blood; and, by falls, blows, violent motion, breaking of the veins, &c. The external cause may be lifting, carrying of heavy burdens, unnatural child-birth, &c.

Signs.—The appetite is decayed, the conception is depraved, and the actions weakened; the feet are swelled, the colour of the face is changed, and a general feebleness of the body. If the flux comes by the breaking of a vein, the body is sometimes cold, the blood flows forth in heaps, and that suddenly, with great pain. If it comes through heat, the orifice of the vein being dilated, then there is little or no pain, yet the blood flows faster than it doth in an erosion, and not so fast as it doth in a rupture. If by erosion, or sharpness of blood, she feels a great heat scalding the passage; it differs from the other two, in that it flows not so suddenly, nor so copiously as they do. Lastly, if it proceeds from bad blood drop some of it on a cloth, and when it is dry, you may judge of the quality by the colour. If it be choleric, it will be yellow; if melancholy, black; if phlegmatic, waterish and whitish.

Prognostics.—If with the flux be joined a convulsion, it is dangerous, because it intimates the more noble parts are vitiated: and a convulsion caused by emptiness is deadly. If it continues long, it will be cured with great difficulty: for it was one of the miracles which our Saviour, Christ, wrought, to cure this disease, when it had continued twelve years. If the flux be inordinate, many diseases will ensue, and without remedy; the blood, with the native heat, being consumed, either cachetical, hydropical, or paralytical diseases will follow.

Cure.—The cure is, first, in repelling and carrying away the blood: Secondly, in correcting and taking away the fluxibility of the matter: Thirdly, in incorporating the veins and faculties. For the first, open a vein in the arm, and draw out so much blood as the strength of the patient will permit; and at several times, for thereby the spirits are less weakened, and the refraction so much the greater.

Apply cupping-glasses to the breasts, and also the liver, that the reversion may be in the fountain.

To correct the fluxibility of the matter, cathartical means, moderated with the astrictories, may be used.

If it be caused by erosion, or sharpness of blood, prepare with syrup of violets, wormwood, roses, citron-pill, succory, &c.

If by adust choler, prepare the body with syrup of roses, myrtles, sorrel, and purslain, mixed with water of plantain, knot-grass, and endive. Then purge with rhubarb, one drachm, cinnamon fifteen grains; infuse them one night in endive water; add to the straining, pulp of tamarind, cassia, of each half an ounce; make a potion. If the blood be waterish as it is in hydropical bodies, and flows forth by reason of thinness, to draw off the water it will be profitable to purge with agaric, coloquintida: sweating is proper, for thereby the matter offending is taken away, and the blood carried to the other parts. To procure sweat, use cardus water, with mithridate, or the decoction of guaiacum, and sarsaparilla. The pills of sarsaparilla are commended.

Take of bole ammoniac one scruple, London treacle one drachm, old conserve of roses half an ounce, with syrup of myrtle make an electuary: or, if the flux hath continued long, take of mastic two drachms, olibani troch de carbara, of each one drachm; balustium, one scruple; make a powder;—with syrup of quinces make it into pills; take one before meals. Take the juice of knot-grass, comfrey, and quinces, of each one ounce, camphor, one drachm; dip silk or cotton therein, and apply it to the place. Take of oil of mastic, myrtles, quinces, of each half an ounce; fine bole, trock, decarda, of each one drachm; sanguis draconis a sufficient quantity; make an unguent, and apply it before and behind. Take the plantain, shepherd’s purse, red rose leaves, of each one ounce:—boil all these in plantain water, and make of it two plasters; apply one before and one behind. If the blood flow from those veins which terminated in the neck of the matrix, then it is not the overflowing of the terms, but the hemorrhoids of the womb; yet the same cure will serve both, only the instrumental cure will a little differ: for, in the uterine hemorrhoids, the ends of the veins hang over like teats or bushes, which must be taken away by incision, and then the veins closed up with aloes, fine bole, burnt alum, troch de terrs fiall; myrrh, mastic, with the juice of comfrey and knot-grass, laid plaster-ways thereto.

The air must be cold and dry. All motion of the body must be forbidden. Let her meat be pheasant, partridge, mountain birds, coneys, calf-feet, &c.

CHAPTER IX.
OF THE WEEPING OF THE WOMB.

The weeping of the womb is a flux of blood, unnaturally coming from thence by drops, after the manner of tears, causing violent pains, keeping neither period nor time. By some it is referred unto the immoderate evacuation of the menses, yet they are distinguished in the quantity and manner of overflowing, in that they flow copiously and free; this is continual, by little and little, and with great pain and difficulty.

The cause is in the faculty, by being enfeebled that it cannot expel the blood resting there, makes that part of the womb grow hard, and stretcheth the vessels; from whence proceeds the pain of the womb. It may be the matter of the blood which may offend in too great a quantity; or it may be so gross and thick as to flow by drops. The signs will be pains in the head, stomach, and back, with inflammations, suffocations, and excoriations of the matrix. If the strength of the patient will permit, first open a vein in the arm, rub the upper parts, and let her arm be corded, that the force of the blood may be carried backwards: then apply such things as may laxate and mollify the strengthening of the womb, and assuage the sharpness of the blood, as cataplasms made of bran, linseed, and mallows. If the blood be vicious and gross, add thereto mugwort, calamint, dictam, and betony; and let her take of Venice treacle the size of a nutmeg, and the syrup of mugwort every morning; make an injection of the decoction of mallows, linseed, groundsel, mugwort, with oil of sweet almonds.

Sometimes it is caused by the wind, and then phlebotomy is to be omitted, and instead, take syrup of feverfew one ounce; honey, roses, syrup of roses, of each half an ounce; water of calamint, mugwort, betony, and hyssop, of each an ounce; make a julep. If the pain continues, employ this purgation: take of hieræ one drachm; syrup of roses and luxative one ounce; with the decoction of mugwort make a potion. If it come through the weakness of the faculty, let that be corroborated. If through the grossness and sharpness of the blood, let the quality of it be altered, as I have shown in the foregoing chapter. Lastly, if the excrements be retained, provoke them by a clyster of the decoction of camomile, betony, feverfew, mallows, linseed, juniper berries, aniseed, adding thereto of diacatholicon, half an ounce; hiera picra, two drachms; honey and oil, of each one ounce; nitre a drachm and a half.

CHAPTER X.
OF THE FALSE MENSES, OR WHITES.

From the womb proceed not only menstruous blood, but a distillation of a variety of corrupt humours through the womb, keeping neither courses nor colour, but varying in both.

Cause.—The cause is either promiscuously in the whole body, by a cocochymia, or weakness of the same, or in some of the parts, as in the liver, which causeth a generation of corrupt blood, and then the matter is reddish; sometimes the gall being sluggish in its office, not drawing away those choleric superfluities engendered in the liver, the matter is yellowish; sometimes in the spleen, not deficiating and cleansing the blood of the excrementitious parts. It may also come from the catarrh in the head, or from any other corrupt member; but if the matter of the flux be white, the cause is in the stomach by a crude matter there, and vitiated through grief and melancholy, for, otherwise, if the matter were only pituitous, crude phlegm, it might be converted into blood; for phlegm in the ventrical is called nourishment half digested; but being corrupt, though sent into the liver, yet it cannot be turned into nutriment; for the second decoction cannot correct that which the first hath corrupted; and therefore the liver sends it to the womb, which can neither digest nor repel it, and so it is voided out with the same colour it had in the ventricle. The cause also may be in the reins being over-heated, whereby the spermatical causes may be moistness of air, eating of corrupt meats, anger, grief, slothfulness, immoderate sleeping, costiveness.

The signs are, extenuation of the body, shortness and stinking of the breath, loathing of meat, pain in the head, swelling of the eyes and feet, and melancholy: humidity from the womb of divers colours, as red, black, green, yellow, and white. It differs from the menses, in that it keeps no certain period, and is of many colours, all of which generate from blood.

Prognostics.—If the flux be phlegmatical, it will continue long and be difficult to cure, yet if vomiting or diarrhœa happeneth, it diverts the humour and cures the disease. If it be choleric, it is not so permanent, yet more perilous, for it will cause a cliff in the neck of the womb, and sometimes make an excoriation of the matrix; if melancholic, it must be dangerous and contumacious. Yet the flux of the hemorrhoids administer cure.

If the matter flowing forth be reddish, open a vein in the arm; if not, apply ligatures to the arms and shoulders. Galen cured the wife of Brutus, by rubbing the upper part with crude honey.

If it be caused by a distillation from the brain, take syrup of betony, and marjoram; with sugar and betony water make lozenges, to be taken every morning and evening; Auri Alexandria, half a drachm at night going to bed. If these things help not, use the suffumigation and plaster, as they are prescribed.

If the flux be melancholic, prepare with syrup of maiden-hair, borage, buglos. Purges for melancholy are stamped prunes, two oz.; senna, one drachm; fumitory, a drachm; sour dates, one ounce; with endive water, make a decoction; take of it four ounces, add unto it confections, hamesech three drachms, manna three drachms. Take conserves of borage, violets, buglos, of each a drachm; citron peel candied one drachm; sugar, seven ounces; with rose-water make lozenges.

Lastly, let the womb be cleansed from the corrupt matter. Make injections of the decoction of betony, feverfew, spikenard, bistort, mercury, and sage, adding thereto sugar, oil of sweet almonds, of each two ounces; pessaries also may be made of silk or cotton, mollified in the juice of the aforesaid herbs.

A dry diet is commended as the best, because in this effect the body most commonly abounds with phlegmatical and crude humours. For this cause Hippocrates counsels the patient to go to bed supperless. Let her meat be partridge, pheasant, and mountain birds, rather roasted than boiled. Immoderate sleep is forbidden, moderate exercise is commended.

CHAPTER XI.
OF THE SUFFOCATION OF THE MOTHER.

This is called in English, “the suffocation of the mother;” because it causeth the womb to be choked. It is a retraction of the womb towards the midriff and the stomach, which so presseth and crusheth up the same, that the instrumental cause of respiration, the midriff, is suffocated, and causes the animating faculty, the efficient cause of respiration, also to be intercepted, while the body being refrigerated, and the action depraved, she falls to the ground as one dead. Many instances are recorded of those who have been considered dead, even by the medical men, in this disorder.

To distinguish the living from the dead the ancients prescribe three experiments: the first is, to lay a light feather to the mouth, and by its motion you may judge whether the patient be living or dead: the second is to place, a glass of water on the breast, and if you perceive it to move, it betokeneth life: third, to hold a looking-glass to the mouth and nose; and if the glass appears thick, with a little dew upon it, it betokens life. You ought not to depend upon these; for the motion of the lungs, by which the respiration is made, may be taken away so that she cannot breathe, yet the internal transpiration of the heat may remain; which is not manifest by the motion of the breast or lungs, but lies occult in the heart and inward arteries: examples whereof we have in the fly and swallow, who, in cold winters, seem dead, and breathe not at all; yet they live by the transpiration of that heat which is reserved in the heart and inward arteries: therefore, when the summer approacheth, the internal heat being revocated to the outer parts, they revive out of their sleepy ecstacy.

Those women therefore, who seem to die suddenly, let them not be committed unto the earth until the end of three days, lest the living be buried for the dead.

Cause.—The part affected is the womb, of which there is a twofold motion—natural and symptomatical. The natural motion is, when the womb attracteth the seed, or excludeth the infant or secundine. The symptomatical motion, of which we are to speak, is a convulsive drawing up of the womb.

The cause is the retention of the seed, or the suppression of the menses, causing a repletion of the corrupt humours in the womb, from whence proceeds a flatuous refrigeration, causing a convulsion of the ligaments of the womb. And as it may come from humidity or repletion, being a convulsion, it may be caused by emptiness or dryness. And by abortion, or difficult child-birth.

Signs.—At the approaching of the suffocation, there is a paleness in the face, weakness of the legs, shortness of breath, frigidity of the whole body, with a working in the throat, and then she falls down as one void of sense and motion; the mouth of the womb is closed up, and being touched with the fingers feels hard. The paroxysm of the fit being past, she openeth her eyes, and feeling her stomach oppressed, she offers to vomit.

It differs from apoplexy, by reason it comes without shrieking out; also in the hysterical passion the sense of feeling is not altogether destroyed and lost, as it is in the apoplectic disease: and it differs from the epilepsies in that the eyes are not wrested, neither doth any spongy froth come from the mouth; and that convulsive motion, which sometimes, is joined to suffocations, is not universal, and it is in the epilepsies, only this or that matter is convulsed without vehement agitation. In the syncope, both respiration and pulse are taken away, and she swoons away suddenly; but in the hysterical passion, there is both respiration and pulse, though it cannot be well perceived; her face looks red, and she hath a fore-warning of her fit. Lastly, it is distinguished from the lethargy by the pulse, which in one is great, and the other little.

Prognostics.—If the disease arises from the corruption of the seed, it foretells more danger than if it proceed from the suppression of the menses, because the seed is concocted, and of a purer quality than the menstruous blood; and the more pure being corrupted becomes the more foul. If it be accompanied with a syncope, it shows nature is weak, and that the spirits are almost exhausted; but if sneezing follows, it shows that the heat begins to return, and that nature will subdue the disease.

Cure.—In the cure observe: first, that during the paroxysm, nature must be provoked to expel those malignant vapours which stupify the senses, that she may be called out of that sleepy ecstacy. Secondly, that in the intermission of the fit, proper medicines may be applied to take away the cause.

To stir up nature, fasten cupping-glasses to the hips and navel, apply ligatures unto the thigh, rub the extreme parts with salt, vinegar, and mustard: cause loud clamours and thundering in the ears. Apply to the nose asafœtida, castor, and sal volatile; provoke her to sneeze by blowing up into her nostrils the powder of castor, white pepper, and hellebore; hold under her nose partridge feathers, hair, and burnt leather. The brain is sometimes so oppressed, that there is a necessity for burning the outward skin of the head with hot oil, or with a hot iron. Sharp clysters are available. Take of sage, calamint, horehound, feverfew, marjoram, betony, hyssop, of each one handful; aniseed, half an ounce; coloquintida, white hellebore, of each two drachms; boil in two pounds of water to the half; add the straining oil of castor two ounces, hiera picra two drachms, and make a clyster of it. Hippocrates writes of an hysterical woman, who could not be freed from the paroxysm but by pouring cold water upon her; yet this cure is singular, and ought to be administered only in the heat of summer.

If it be caused by the retention and corruption of the seed, let the midwife take oil of lilies, marjoram, and bays, dissolving in the same two grains of civet, and musk; let her dip her finger therein, and put into the neck of the womb, tickling and rubbing the same.

If it arise from the suppression of the menses look to the cure in chap. XVI. If from the retention of the seed, use such things as will dry up and diminish the seed, as diacimina, diacalaminhes, &c. Amongst potions, the seed of agnus is well esteemed, whether taken inwardly, applied outwardly, or received as suffumigation. Make an issue on the inside of her leg, a hand-breadth below the knee. Make trochisks of agaric, two scruples, wild carrot seed, lign-aloes, of each half a scruple; washed turpentine, three drachms; with conserve of anthos make a bolus. Castor is of excellent use in this case, eight drachms of it taken in white wine: or make pills of it with mithridate, and take them going to bed. Take of white briony root, dried and cut after the manner of carrots, one ounce put in a draught of wine, placing it by the fire, and when it is warm, drink it. Take myrrh, castor, and asafœtida, of each one scruple; saffron and rue-seed, of each four grains; make eight pills, and take two every night going to bed.

Galen, by his own example, commends unto us agaric pulverized one scruple in white wine. Lay to the navel, at bed-time, a head of garlic bruised, fastening it with a swathed band. Make a girdle of galbanum for the waist, and also a plaster for the belly, placing in one part of it civet and musk, which must be laid upon the navel. Take pulveris, benedict, trochisk of agaric, of each two drachms; of mithridate a sufficient quantity; and so make two pessaries, and it will purge the matrix of wind and phlegm; foment the natural part with salad oil, in which hath been boiled rue, feverfew, and camomile. Take of rose leaves a handful, cloves two scruples; quilt them in a little cloth, and boil them in malmsey the eighth part of an hour, and apply them to the mouth of the womb, as hot as may be endured, but let not the smell get to her nose. A dry diet must still be observed. Let her bread be aniseed biscuit, and her flesh meat roasted.

CHAPTER XII.
FALLING OF THE WOMB.

The falling down of the womb is a relaxation of the ligature, whereby the matrix is carried backward, and in some hangs out the size of an egg. The falling of the womb is, when it sinks down to the entrance of the privities, and appears to the eye either very little or not at all. The precipitation is, when the womb, like a purse is turned inside outward, and hangs betwixt the thighs in the size of a cupping-glass.

Cause.—The external cause is difficult child-birth, violent pulling away of the secundine, rashness and inexperience in drawing away the child, violent coughing, sneezing, falls, blows, and carrying heavy burdens. The internal cause is overmuch humidity flowing into these parts, hindering the operations of the womb, whereby the ligaments by which the womb is supported are relaxed. The cause in particular is referred to be in the retention of the seed, or in the suppression of the monthly terms.

Signs.—The intestines and bladder are oftentimes so crushed, that the passage of the excrements is hindered; if the urine flows forth white and thick, and the midriff moistened, the loins are grieved, the privities pained, and the womb sinks down to the private parts, or else comes clean out.

Prognostics.—In an old woman it is cured with great difficulty; because it weakens the faculty of the womb, and therefore, though it be reduced to its proper place, yet upon very little illness it returns; and so it is with the younger sort, if the disease be inveterate. If it be caused by a putrefaction of the nerves, it is incurable.

Cures.—The womb being naturally placed between the strait gut and the bladder, and now fallen down, ought not to be put up again, until the faculty, both of the gut and of the bladder, be stirred up. Nature being unloaded of her burden, let the woman be laid on her back, her legs higher than her head; let her feet be drawn up to her hinder parts, with her knees spread; then mollify the swelling with oil of lilies and sweet almonds, or with the decoction of mallows, beets, fenugreek, and linseed; when the inflammation is dissipated, let the midwife anoint her hand with oil of mastic, and reduce the womb into its place. The matrix being up, the situation of the patient must be changed, let her legs be put out at length, and laid together; six cupping-glasses to her breast and navel; boil mugwort, feverfew, red roses, and comfrey in red wine; make a suffumigation for the matrix; and at her coming out of the bath, give her syrup of feverfew one ounce, with a drachm of mithridate. Take laudani, mastic, of each three drachms, make a plaster of it for the navel; then make pessaries of asafœtida, saffron, comfrey, and mastic, adding thereto a little castor.

The matrix seated in its natural abode, the remote cause must be removed. If the body be plethoric, open a vein; prepare with syrup of betony, calamint, hyssop, and feverfew. Purge with pil. hierac, agaric, pil. de colocin. If the stomach be oppressed with crudities, unburden it by vomiting; sudorifical decoctions of lignum sanctum, and sassafras, taken twenty days together, dry up the superfluous moisture, and consequently suppress the cause of the disease.

Let the air be hot and dry, your diet hot and attenuating; abstain from all motion, both of body and mind; eat sparingly, drink little, sleep moderately.

CHAPTER XIII.
OF THE INFLAMMATION OF THE WOMB.

The inflammation of the matrix, is a humour possessing the whole of the womb, accompanied with unnatural heat, by obstructing, and gathering of corrupt blood.

Cause.—The cause of this effect is suppression of the menses, repletion of the whole body, difficult child-birth, vehement agitation of the body, falls, blows, &c.

Signs.—Anguish, pain in the head and stomach; vomiting, coldness of the knees, convulsion of the neck, trembling of the heart; a straitness of breath, by reason of the heat which is communicated to the midriff, the breasts sympathising with the womb, pained and swelled. If the fore part of the matrix be inflamed, the privities are grieved, the urine is suppressed, or flows forth with difficulty. If the after part, the loin and back suffer, the excrements are retained on the right side, the right hip suffers, the right leg is heavy and slow to motion; and so if the left side of the womb be inflamed, the left hip is pained, and the left leg is weaker than the right. If the neck of the womb be refreshed, the midwife shall feel the mouth of it retracted, and closed up with a hardness about it.

Prognostics.—All inflammations of the womb are dangerous, if not deadly; and especially if the total substance of the matrix be inflamed; but they are very perilous if in the neck of the womb.

Cure.—Let the humours flowing to the womb be repelled, for effecting which, after cooling clysters, open a vein in the arm, if she be not enceinte; the day after strike the saphena on both feet, fasten ligatures and cupping-glasses to the arm, and rub the upper part. Purge gently with cassia, rhubarb, and senna two drachms, aniseed one scruple, barley-water a sufficient quantity; make a decoction. At the beginning of the disease anoint the privities and reins with oil of roses and quinces; make plasters of plantain, linseed, barley-meal, white of eggs, and, if the pain be vehement, a little opium; ferment the genitals with the decoction of poppy heads. In the declining of the disease, use incisions of sage, linseed, mugwort, pennyroyal, horehound, and fenugreek; anoint the lower part of the belly with the oil of camomile and violets.

Take lily roots and mallow-roots, of each four ounces; mercury one handful; mugwort, and feverfew, camomile flowers, and melilot, of each a handful and a half; bruise the herbs and fruits, and boil them in a sufficient quantity of milk; then add fresh butter, oil of camomile, and lilies, of each two ounces; bean meal a sufficient quantity; make two plasters,—one before, the other behind.

If the tumour cannot be removed, but tends to suppuration, take fenugreek, mallow-roots, decocted figs, linseed, barley-meal, turpentine, of each three drachms; deer’s suet, half a drachm, opium half a scruple; with wax make a plaster.

Take wormwood and betony of each half a handful; white wine and milk, of each half a pound; boil them until one part be confirmed; then take of this decoction four ounces, honey of roses two ounces, and make an injection. Yet beware that the humours are not brought down to the womb. Take roasted figs and mercury bruised, of each three drachms; turpentine and duck’s grease, of each three drachms; opium, two grains; with wax make a pessary.

CHAPTER XIV.
OF SCHIRROSITY OR HARDNESS OF THE WOMB.

Of phlegm neglected, or not perfectly cured, is generated a schirrus of the matrix, which is a hard unnatural swelling, insensibly hindering the operation of the womb, and disposing the whole body to slothfulness.

Cause.—One cause of this disease may be ascribed to want of judgment in the physician; as many empyrics ministering to an inflammation of the womb, do overmuch refrigerate the humour, that it can neither pass forward nor backward; hence the matter being condensed, degenerates into a hard substance. Other causes may be the suppression or the menstruous retention of the lochi, or after purging; eating of corrupt meats, &c. It may proceed also from obstructions and ulcers in the matrix, or from evil effects in the liver and spleen.

Signs.—If the bottom of the womb be affected, she feels a heavy burden representing a mole; yet differing in that the breasts are attenuated, and that the whole body becomes less. If the neck of the womb be affected, no outward humours will appear; the mouth of it is retracted, and feels hard.

Prognostics.—Schirrus confirmed is incurable, and will turn into a cancer, or incurable dropsy, and ending in a cancer, proves deadly.

Cure.—Where there is a repletion, bleeding is advisable; open the medina on both arms, and the saphena on both feet, more especially if the menses be suppressed. Prepare the humour with syrup of borage, succory, and clarified whey: then take of the following pills according to the strength of the patient:

Take of hiera picra six drachms, black helebore, polybody, of each two drachms and a half; agaric, lapis lazuli, abluti salindiæ, coloquintida, of each one drachm and a half; mix them and make pills. The body being purged, proceed to mollify the hardness as follows: the privities and neck of the womb with unguent, decalthea, and agrippa; or take opapanax, bdellium, ammoniac, and myrrh, of each two drachms, saffron half a drachm; dissolve the gum in oil of lilies and sweet almonds; with wax and turpentine make an unguent; apply below the navel diacoon, ferelina; make infusion of figs, mugwort, mallows, pennyroyal, althea, fennel roots, melilot, fenugreek, boiled in water. Make an injection of calamint, linseed, melilot, fenugreek, and the four mollifying herbs, with oil of dill, camomile, and lilies dissolved in the same. Three drachms of the gum bdellium; cast the stone pyrites on the coals, and let her receive the fume into the womb. Foment the secret parts with the decoction of the roots and leaves of danewort. Take gum galbanum, opapanax, of each one drachm, juice of danewort, mucilage, fenugreek, of each one drachm; calf’s marrow an ounce, wax a sufficient quantity; make a pessary.

The air must be temperate; use no salt meats.

CHAPTER XV.
OF THE DROPSY IN THE WOMB.

The uterine dropsy is an unnatural swelling, by the gathering of the wind and phlegm in the cavity, membranes, or substance of the womb, by reason of the debility of the native heat and aliment received.

The causes are overmuch cold or moistness of the milt and liver, immoderate drinking, eating of crude meats; all which, causing a repletion, do suffocate the natural heat. It may be caused by the overflowing of the menses, or by any other immoderate evacuation, and by abortions, phlegmons and schirrosities of the womb.

Signs.—The lower parts of the belly, with the genitals, are puffed up, and pained; the feet swell, the natural colour of the face decays, and the appetite is depraved. If she turns herself in the bed, a noise like the flowing of water is heard. Water sometimes comes from the matrix. If the swelling be caused by wind, the belly sounds like a drum; and the wind breaks through the neck of the womb with a murmuring noise. It is distinguished from a general dropsy, in that the lower parts of the belly are most swelled.

Prognostics.—This effect foretells the ruin of the natural functions, by that singular consent the womb hath with the liver, and that therefore general dropsy will follow.

Cure.—Mitigate the pain with fomentation of melilot, mercury, mallows, linseed, camomile, and althea; then let the womb be prepared with hyssop, calamint, mugwort, with the decoction of elder, marjoram, sage, pennyroyal, betony; purge with senna, agaric, and rhubarb. Take rhubarb, and trochisks of agaric, of each one scruple: with juice of iros make pills.

In diseases which have their rise from moisture, purge with pills. And in these effects which are caused by emptiness or dryness, purge with a potion. Fasten a cupping-glass to the belly, with a great fume, and also the navel, especially if the swelling be flatulent: make an issue on the inside of each leg, a hand-breadth below the knee. Apply to the bottom of the belly, as hot as may be endured, a little bag of camomile, cummin, and melilot, boiled in oil of rue; anoint the belly and secret parts with unguent agrippa and unguent aragons; mingle therewith oil of iros: cover the lower parts of the belly with the plaster of bay-berries, or a cataplasm made of cummin, camomile, and briony roots.

Our moderns ascribe great virtues to tobacco-water distilled, and poured into the womb by a metrenchyta. Take balm, southernwood, origen, wormwood, calamint, bay-leaves, marjoram, of each one handful: juniper-berries four drachms; with water make a decoction: of this may be made fomentations and infusions: make pessaries of storax, aloes, with the roots of dictau, aristolochia, and gentian.

The air must be hot and dry; moderate exercise. She may eat the flesh of partridges, larks, chickens, mountain birds. Let her drink be thin wine.

CHAPTER XVI.
OF MOLES AND FALSE CONCEPTIONS.

This disease is called by the Greeks mole; and is taken from the load or heavy weight of it, it being a mole or great lump of hard flesh burdening the womb.

It is an inarticulate piece of flesh without form, begotten in the matrix as if it were a true conception. Note two things: first, a mole is said to be inarticulate and without form, it differs from monsters, which are both formate and articulate: secondly, it puts a difference between a true conception and a mole; first, in the genus, in that a mole cannot be said to be an animal: secondly, in the species, because it hath no human figure, and bears not the character of a man: thirdly, in the individual, for it hath no affinity with the parent, either in the whole body or any particular part.

Cause.—The true cause of this fleshy mole proceeds from both the man and from the woman, from corrupt and barren seed in man, and from the menstruous blood in the woman, both emitted together in the womb, where nature finding herself weak, labours to bring forth a vicious conception rather than none; and instead of a living creature, generates a lump of flesh.

Signs.—The menses are suppressed, the appetite is depraved, the breasts swell, and the belly is suddenly puffed up, and waxeth hard. Thus the signs of a breeding woman, and one that breedeth a mole, are one. The first sign of difference is in the motion of the mole; it may be felt to move in the womb before the third month, which an infant cannot; yet the motion cannot be understood of any intelligent power in the mole, but the faculty of the womb and the animal spirits diffused through the substance of the mole; for it hath not an animal but a vegetative source of life, in manner of a plant: secondly, if a mole, the belly is suddenly puffed up; but if a true conception, the belly is suddenly retracted; and then riseth up by degrees: thirdly, the belly being pressed with the hand, the mole gives way; and the hand being taken away, it returns to the place again; but a child in the womb, though pressed with the hand, moves not presently; and being removed, returns slowly, or not at all: lastly, the child continues in the womb not above ten months, but a mole continues sometimes four or five years, more or less, according as it is fastened in the matrix. I have known a mole to fall away in four or five months. If it remain until the eleventh month, the legs wax feeble, and the whole body consumes.

Prognostics.—If, at the delivery of a mole, the flux of the blood be great, it shows the more danger, because nutrition, having been violated by the flowing back of the superfluous humours, where the natural heat is consumed; and parting with so much of her blood, the woman is so weakened in all her faculties, that she cannot subsist without difficulty.

Cause.—We are taught by Hippocrates, that phlebotomy causeth abortion by taking all that nourishment which should preserve the life of the child: wherefore, open the liver vein and saphena in both feet, fasten cupping-glasses to the loins and sides of the belly, let the uterine parts be first mollified, and then the expulsive faculty provoked to expel the burden.

To laxate the ligature of the mole, take mallows with the roots, three handfuls; camomile, melilot, pelitory of the wall, violet leaves, mercury, root of fennel, parsley, of each two handfuls; linseed, fenugreek, each one pound; boil them in water, and let her sit therein up to the navel. At her going out of the bath, anoint the privities and reins with the following unguent. Take mercury and althea roots, of each half a handful: flos, bracho, ursini, half a handful; linseed, barley-meal, of each six ounces; boil all these with water and honey, and make a plaster; make pessaries of the gum galbanum, bdellium, antimoniacum, figs, hog’s suet, and honey.

After the ligaments of the moles are loosed, let the expulsive faculty be stirred up to expel the moles. Take troch de myrrh, one ounce; castor astrolochia, gentian, dictam, of each an ounce; make a powder; take one drachm in four ounces of mugwort water. Take of hypericon, calamint, pennyroyal, betony, hyssop, sage, horehound, valeria, madder, savine: with water make a decoction; take three ounces of it, with one ounce and a half of feverfew.

But if these things prove not available, then must the mole be drawn away with an instrument put up into the womb, which may be performed by a skilful surgeon. After the delivery of the mole let the flux of blood be stayed as soon as may be. Fasten cupping-glasses to the shoulders and ligatures of the arms. If this help not, open the liver vein in the right arm.

CHAPTER XVII.
OF CONCEPTION, AND HOW A WOMAN MAY KNOW WHETHER SHE HAS CONCEIVED OR NOT, AND WHETHER MALE OR FEMALE.

The natural instinct that nature has implanted in men and women to propagate their own species, puts them upon making use of those ways that nature has ordained for that end, which, afterwards, the woman many times, through ignorance of having conceived, is little better than a murderer of her child: for, after conception, finding herself not well, and not knowing what is the matter with her, goes to a doctor; and he, not thinking of her being enceinte, gives cathartical potions, which destroy conception. And some, out of a foolish coyness, though they know they have conceived, will not confess it, that they might be instructed how to order themselves.

Signs.—If under the eye the vein be swelled, the veins in the eyes appearing clearly, and the eyes sometimes discoloured, if the woman has not the terms upon her, nor watched the night before, you may certainly conclude her to be with child; the first two months I never knew this sign to fail.

Keep the urine of the woman close in a glass three days, and then strain it through a fine linen cloth; if you find small living creatures in it she hath conceived.

A coldness and chillness of the outward parts, the heat being retired to make conception. The veins of the breast are more clearly seen than usual. The body is weakened, and the face discoloured. The belly waxeth very flat, because the womb closeth itself together to nourish and cherish the seed. If cold water be drank, a coldness is left in the breasts. Loss of appetite to victuals, sour belchings, and exceeding weakness of the stomach. The breasts swell and wax hard, not without pain and soreness. Griping pains, like the cramp, in the belly about the navel. Divers appetites and longings. The veins of the eyes are clearly seen, and the eyes discoloured. The excrements of the guts are voided painfully, because the womb swelling thrusteth the guts together. Take a handsome green nettle, put it into the urine of the woman; cover it close, and let it remain a whole night; if the woman be with child, it will be full of red spots on the morrow; if she be not, it will be blackish.

Signs of a Male Child.—The woman breeds a boy easier and with less pain than a girl, and is more nimble. The child is first felt by her on the right side; for male children lie on the right side of the womb. The woman, when she riseth up from a chair doth sooner stay herself upon her right hand than her left. The belly lies rounder and higher than when it is a female. The right breast is more hard and plump than the left, and the right nipple redder. The colour of a woman is not so swarthy as when she conceives a girl. The contrary to these are signs of the conception of a female.

If the circle under the eye is of a wan blue colour, be more apparent and most discoloured, she is enceinte of a boy; if the marks be most apparent in her left eye, of a girl.

Again, let a drop of her milk fall into a basin of fair water; if it sinks to the bottom, as it drops in, round in a drop, it is a girl; but if it be a boy, it will spread and swim on the top.

CHAPTER XVIII.
OF UNTIMELY BIRTHS.

When the fruit of the womb comes forth before the seventh month, before it comes to maturity, it is abortive; and, in effect, the child proves abortive in the eighth month. And why children born in the seventh and ninth month may live, and not in the eighth month may seem strange, yet it is true. Hippocrates gives a reason, viz. the infant being perfect in the seventh month, desires more air and nutriment; and it labours for a passage to get out; and if it has not strength sufficient to break the membranes and come forth, it shall continue in the womb till the ninth month, and in that time may again be strengthened; but if it strive again in the eighth month, and be born, it cannot live, because the day of its birth is either past or to come. For, in the eighth month, saith Aven, he is weak and infirm; and, therefore, being then cast into the cold air, his spirits cannot be supported.

Cause.—Untimely births may be caused by cold; or by humidity weakening the faculty; and the fruit cannot be retained till the due time; by dryness or emptiness, defrauding the child of nourishment; by fluxes, phlebotomy, and other evacuations; by inflammations of the womb. Sometimes it is caused by laughter, joy, anger and fear. Abortion also may be caused by corrupt air, filthy odours, and especially by the smell of the snuff of a candle; also by falls, blows, violent exercise, leaping, dancing, &c.

Signs.—Signs of future abortion are, extenuation of the breasts, flux of watery milk, pain in the womb, heaviness in the head, unusual weariness in the hips and thighs, flowing of the menses. Signs foretelling the fruit of the dead in the womb, are hollowness in the eyes, pain in the head, anguish, horror, paleness of the face and lips, gnawing of the stomach, no motion of the infant, coldness and looseness of the mouth of the womb, and thickness of the belly, and watery and bloody excrements come from the matrix.

CHAPTER XIX.
DIRECTIONS FOR PREGNANT WOMEN.

Before conception, if the body be over hot, dry, or moist, correct it with the contraries; if couchmical, purge it; if plethoric, open the liver vein; if too gross, attenuate it: if too lean, nourish it.

After conception, let the air be temperate; sleep not overmuch, avoid watchings, much exercise, passions of the mind, filthy smells, and sweet odours are hysterical. Abstain from things which provoke urine; from salt and windy meats.

If the excrements be retained, lenify with clysters made of the decoction of mallows, violets, with sugar and common oil. If with looseness, let it not be stayed without the judgment of a physician; for all the uterine fluxes have a malign quality in them, which must be evacuated before the flux is stayed.

The cough of pregnant women puts them in danger of miscarrying. To prevent which, shave away the hair on the coronal coiffure, and apply thereon the following plaster: take of resinæ half an ounce, laudana one drachm, citron peel, lign-aloes, olibani, of each a drachm; stirachis liquidæ, and sicca, a sufficient quantity; dissolve the gums in vinegar, and make a plaster; at night going to bed let her take the fumes of these trochisks cast upon the coals. Also take of frankincense, storax powder, and red roses, of each a drachm and a half, sandrich eight drachms, mastic, benjamin, amber, of each one drachm; with turpentine make trochisks, apply a cautery to the nape of the neck. Every night let her take these pills following: take hypocistides, terriæ, sigillate, fine bole, of each half an ounce; bistort, alcatia, styracis, calamint, of each two drachms, cloves, one drachm; with syrup of myrtles make pills.

In pregnant women there is often a flux which greatly distresses the womb. To prevent this danger, the stomach must be corroborated as follows: take lign-aloes and nutmeg, of each one drachm; mace, clove, mastic, and laudanum, of each two scruples; oil of spike an ounce; musk, two grains; oil of mastic, quinces, and wormwood, of each half an ounce; make an unguent for the stomach to be applied before meals. Take a conserve of borage, buglos, and atthos, of each half an ounce; confect. de hyacinth, lemon-peel candied, specie-rum, dismarg. pulv. de gemnis, of each two drachms; nutmeg and diambra, of each two scruples; peony roots and diacorati, of each two drachms; with syrup of roses make an electuary; of which she must take twice a day, two hours before meals. A pregnant woman is subject to swelling of the legs, which happens the first three months, by humours falling down from the stomach and liver: for the cure, take oil of roses, two drachms, salt and vinegar, of each one drachm; shake them together until the salt be dissolved, and anoint the legs therewith hot, chafing it with the hand; it may be done without danger in the fourth, fifth, or sixth months of pregnancy. And if the body is in real need of purging, she may do it without danger in the fourth, fifth or sixth months; but not before nor after, unless in some sharp diseases, in which the mother and child are like to perish. Apply plasters and unguents to strengthen the fruit of the womb. Take of gum agaric, galagane, bistort, hypocostid, and storax, of each one drachm; fine bole, nutmeg, mastic, bollust, sanguis draconis, and myrtle-berries, a drachm and a half; wax and turpentine a sufficient quantity; make a plaster. Apply to the reins in the winter time, and remove it every twenty-four hours, lest the reins be over hot therewith. In the interim anoint the privities and reins with unguent and censitisssæ; but if it be summer time, and the reins hot, the following plaster is more proper; take of red roses one pound, mastic and red sanders of each two drachms; bole ammoniac, red coral and bistort, each two drachms; pomegranate peel prepared, and coriander, of each two drachms and a half; barberries, two scruples; oil of mastic and quinces, of each an ounce; juice of planastic two drachms; with pitch make a plaster; anoint the reins with unguentum sandal. Once every week wash the reins with two parts of rose-water, and one part of white wine mingled together and warmed at the fire.

CHAPTER XX.
DIRECTIONS TO BE OBSERVED BY WOMEN, AT THE TIME OF THEIR FALLING IN LABOUR.

The time of birth drawing near, let her send for a skilful medical man or midwife; let her prepare a bed or couch, and place it near the fire, that the midwife and assistants may pass round, and help on every side as occasion requires, having a change of linen ready, and a stool to rest her feet against, she having more force when they are bowed.

When the pain comes, let her walk about the room, resting by turns upon the bed, and so expect the coming down of the water, which is a humour contracted in the outward membranes, and flows thence when it is broke by the struggling of the child. Motion causes the womb to open and dilate itself, when from lying long in bed it is uneasy. If the patient is weak, let her take some gentle cordial to refresh herself, if her pain will admit.

If her travail be tedious, she may take chicken or mutton broth, or poached egg.

In delivery, the midwife must wait with patience till the child bursts the membrane; for if she tear the membrane with her nails, she endangers both the woman and the child; for by lying dry, and wanting that slipperiness that should make it easy, it comes forth with great pains.

When the head appears, the midwife must gently hold it between her hands, and draw the child at such times as the woman’s pains are upon her, and at no other, slipping by degrees her forefingers under its arm-pits, not using a rough hand, lest the tender infant may receive any deformation of the body. As soon as the child is taken forth, let it be laid on its back, that it may freely receive external respiration; then cut the navel-string about three inches from the body, tying that end which adheres to the body with a silken string; as near as you can; then cover the head and stomach of the child well.

Let the midwife regard the patient in drawing forth the secundine, by wagging and stirring them up and down, afterwards with a gentle hand drawing them forth; if the work be difficult, let the woman hold salt in her hands, shut them close, breathe hard into them, and thereby she will know whether the membrane be broken or not.

CHAPTER XXI.
IN CASES OF EXTREMITY, WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE.

The woman being across the bed, let the operator put up his or her hand, if the neck of the womb be dilated, and remove the contracted blood that obstructs the passage of the birth; and having by degrees gently made way, let him tenderly move the infant, his hand being first anointed with sweet butter or a harmless pomatum. And if the waters be not come down, then without difficulty may they be let forth; when, if the infant should attempt to break out with the head foremost or cross, he may gently turn it to find the feet; which having done, let him draw forth the one and fasten it to the riband, then put it up again, and by degrees find the other, bringing them close and even, and let the woman breathe, urging her to strain, in helping nature to perform the birth, and that the hold may be surer, wrap a linen cloth about the child’s thighs observing to bring it into the world with its face downwards.

In case of a flux of blood, if the neck of the womb be open, it must be considered whether the infant or secundine come first, which the latter sometimes happening to do, stops the mouth of the womb, and hinders the birth, endangering both the woman and child; but in this case the secundine must be removed by a swift turn; and they have by their so coming down deceived many, who feeling their softness supposed the womb was not dilated, and thus the woman and child have been lost. The secundine moved, the child must be sought for, and drawn forth; and in such a case if the woman or child die, the midwife or surgeon is blameless, because they did their best.

If it appears upon inquiry that the secundine comes first, let the woman be delivered with all convenient expedition, because a great flux of blood will follow.

In drawing forth a dead child, let these directions be carefully observed by the surgeon, viz. If the child be found dead, its head being foremost, the delivery will be more difficult; for it is an apparent sign, by the woman’s strength beginning to fail her that the child being dead, and wanting its natural force, can be no ways assisting to its delivery; wherefore the most safe way for the surgeon is to put up his left hand, sliding it as hollow in the palm as he can into the neck of the womb, and into the lower part thereof towards the feet, and then between the head of the infant and the neck of the matrix; then having a hook in the right hand couch it close, and slip it up above the left hand, between the head of the child, and the flat of his hand, fixing it in the bars of the temple towards the eye. For want of a convenient coming at these in the occiputal bone, observe still to keep the left hand in its place, and with it gently moving and stirring the head, and so with the right hand and hook draw the child forward, admonish the woman to put forth her utmost strength, still drawing when the woman’s pangs are upon her. The head being drawn out, with all speed he must slip his hand under the arm-holes of the child, and take it quite out; giving these things to the woman, viz. a toast of fine wheaten bread in a quarter of a pint of Ipocras wine.

ARISTOTLE’S WORKS.

THE MIDWIFE.
GUIDE TO CHILD-BEARING WOMEN.