For the expulsion of the dead fœtus, Pliny recommended a fumigation of horse-dung.—(Lib. xxviii. c. 77.)
And Sextus Placitus says: “Similiter, mortuum etiam partum ejicit. Idem facit ut mulier facile pariat si totum corpus suffumigaveris claudit et ventrem.”—(Cap. “De Equo.”)
Etmuller advises the use of these fumigations to aid in the expulsion of the fœtus and after-birth; a potion of the dung should also be administered in all such cases, being, in his opinion fully equal to the dung of dogs or swallows.—(Vol. ii. p. 263.)
A parturient woman in New Hampshire, drank the urine of her husband as a diuretic, forty or fifty years ago.—(Mrs. Fanny D. Bergen, Cambridge, Massachusetts.)
Flemming is another who recommends a draught of the husband’s urine to aid in delivery: “Porro, in partu difficili, urinam mariti calidam calido haustam esse” (p. 23).
“A urine tub was held above the head of a woman in labor to ward off all manner of evil influences.”—(Henry Rink, “Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo,” Edinburgh, 1875, p. 55.)
“Gomez” (which is the “nirang” or urine of the ox) was prescribed to be drunk as a purifying libation by a woman who had miscarried. (See Fargard V. Avendidad, Zendavesta (Darmesteter’s translation), Max Müller’s edition. “Sacred Books of the East,” Oxford, 1880, p. 62.) “She shall drink gomez mixed with ashes, three cups of it, or six or nine, to wash over the grave within her womb.... When three nights have passed, she shall wash her body, she shall wash her clothes, with gomez and with water by the nine holes, and thus shall she be clean.”—(Idem, pp. 63, 90.)
“Avec une tendre sollicitude, les bonnes amies versent sur la tête de la femme en travail le contenu d’un pot de chambre pour fortifier, disent-elles.”—(“Les Primitifs,” Elie Réclus, p. 43; “Les Inoits Orientaux.”)
“The Commentaires of Bernard the Provincial, informs us” says Daremberg, “that certain practices, not only superstitious but disgusting, were common among the doctrines of Salerno; one, for instance, was to eat themselves, and also to oblige their husbands to eat, the excrements of an ass fried in a stove in order to prevent sterility.”—(“The Physicians of the Middle Ages,” Minor, Cincinnati, Ohio, p. 6, translated from Dupouy’s “Le Moyen Age Médical.”)
Mr. Havelock Ellis calls attention to the use of cow’s urine after confinement by the women of the Cheosurs of the Caucasus. See also under “Witchcraft,” “Therapeutics,” “Divination,” “Amulets and Talismans,” “Cures by Transplantation,” “Ceremonial Observances.”