In the afternoon of the same day (the 12th) the patient again took a good bath, fresh from the cistern. She slept considerably both forenoon and afternoon, and suffered positively no more pain. She sat up in her rocking-chair to rest herself in the afternoon and evening, at which time still another bath was to be repeated; but feeling so comfortable, and sleeping withal, she concluded to omit it.
The next morning (the 13th) the patient sat up and took her breakfast, namely, a small piece of simple brown-bread toast.
Thus she went on, bathing and using the fomentations freely each and every day, and very soon regained her full strength. Indeed, she was not at any time so weak as to prevent her walking. She always, after the first night, appeared happy, cheerful, and smiling. She now had no pains whatever, while always before, in childbed, she had suffered greatly for many days after the birth.
The peculiarities of this case are the following:
1. The patient bathed during the whole period of pregnancy daily, by means of that invaluable application, the dripping or rubbing wet-sheet.
2. She wore, of her own accord, the wet compress over the stomach the whole time of pregnancy, night and day; a means which seemed most effectually to prevent heart-burn, nausea, and a host of stomach difficulties, to which she had on previous like occasions been subject.
3. The very abstemious diet subsisted on. She ate much of the time but little else than brown bread and water, and this in small quantity.
4. The extreme heat of the weather.
5. The fact that epidemic cholera was raging most fearfully at the time, in the same neighborhood.
6. The great amount of treatment that was practiced.