7. The freedom from all after-pains, to which the patient had on all previous like occasions been subject.
8. The great rapidity with which she recovered her full strength.
Let those who would imitate a treatment of this kind, be sure of the principles on which they act. Experience is the great teacher in these things. The timid and inexperienced must be content to practice in a less heroic mode.
Case IX.—July 15, 1850.—This is the case of a lady who resided in our establishment, about thirty years of age, of delicate health, and scrofulous tendency. She bathed through her whole period, and paid tolerable regard to diet, but was too much encumbered with domestic duties to allow of suitable exercise in the open air. This was her second pregnancy.
She came to labor very suddenly on the evening of the above date—labor lasting only about half an hour. The pains were exceedingly severe. The presentation of the child was an obscure one, but I succeeded in bringing down the feet foremost, and then, by arranging successively the body and the head in a proper position, I met with no serious obstacle in effecting the delivery. The after-birth came away in a short time, with very little manual aid. Cold wet cloths were at once placed over the abdomen, genitals, and thighs, and often renewed. There were some after-pains. After resting half an hour, the patient was raised as she desired, placed in a hip-bath, and thoroughly washed all over with water, temperature of the Croton, and which produced an effect which she designated as “heavenly.” A folded wet sheet was placed about her body, and being left in a condition which would not allow of her becoming either too hot or too cold, she soon slept sweetly. She had also slept somewhat before the bath. Changing the wet application from time to time, she obtained a very good night’s rest.
The next day she used the wet applications according to her feelings of comfort, and was washed four times thoroughly from head to foot in a hip-bath. Immediately after the first bath, early in the morning, she sat in a rocking-chair, had water brought to her, and then washed her infant, unaided, with her own hands, because no one could perform this important duty so well as herself; she continued so to do daily from the first.
She was herself bathed three or four times daily until she was perfectly recovered, which was in a very short time. She sat up four hours the first day, and so onward. Her infant did remarkably well.
About midsummer, 1847, this same lady was confined, under my care. Not long before the beginning of pregnancy at that time, she had suffered from a very severe attack of fever; but by dint of perseverance in good habits, she got along very well through the period, though the labor was a severe one, and the perineum became torn. There was likewise some trouble from swelling of the breasts. But notwithstanding these drawbacks, she was able to sit up, walked out very soon, and on the whole recovered remarkably well. The sitting-bath and wet compresses had evidently a very salutary effect in healing the perineum; the child also thrived well. This lady had been some years, for the most part, a vegetarian, and drinks neither tea nor coffee.
Case X.—July 31, 1850.—A lady residing in a healthy part of the country was confined the tenth time at this date. She ate no flesh-meat during pregnancy; the diet was entirely vegetable, including the different kinds of berries and fruits in their season; her drink pure water only.
Living thus, she was able to attend to the dairy, making her own butter, and performing all the cooking herself for a family of eleven persons, up to the very day of her confinement.