The Female Physician / Containing all the diseases incident to that sex, in virgins, wives, and widows; together with their causes and symptoms, their degrees of danger, and respective methods of prevention and cure: to which is added, the whole art of new improv'd midwifery; comprehending the necessary qualifications of a midwife, and particular directions for laying women, in all cases of difficult and preternatural births; together with the diet and regimen of both the mother and child.

by John Maubray

AS the Widow has in her former Days, tasted both of the Sweets and the Sours of the Maiden, as well as of the marry’d State; so she is now also subject to all the Affections of the One, as well as to some of the Other. Whatever she may judge of her self, and however she may, in some measure, be liberated from the Solicitudes of the First, and freed from the Anxieties of the other; yet she is still so far from being exempted from the Morbifick Consequences of the Natural Imbecillity of her tender Sex; that she now, tho’ in different Respects and various Cases, participates of the Indispositions of Both.

HOWEVER yet, notwithstanding this Variety of Afflictions, to which the Widow is actually expos’d; I confess, that, I know not so much as one Disease or Symptom, which is singularly peculiar to Her self, that is, but what either the Maiden or the Wife may be lyable to, as well as the Widow: Tho’, in the mean time, I must also acknowledge, that, Those which I am now about to touch upon, may however, be justly esteem’d to be more familiar to Her, than to either of These, as will by and by more evidently appear.

UPON which Consideration, I hope the following Heads may here pertinently take place; not but that the others, I mean the Maid and the Wife, may also sometimes, and perhaps frequently too, find their Case included in the Theme of this Section, as well as the Widow Her self, according to the Diversity of their Circumstances.

FOR these Reasons, I shall begin with That, from which none of the Three, that is, neither the Maid, nor the Wife, nor the Widow, can altogether plead Exemption, which notwithstanding, according to my best Judgment, is more immediately the particular Root and Source of the most, if not of all, the Widow’s Distempers, which however, that I may not too much over-run my Design of Brevity, I shall briefly comprehend under One or Two Heads, viz.——

CHAP. II.
Of the Hysterick Passion.

WELL might the excellent Democritus write to his Scholar, the far more excelling Hippocrates, that the Womb is the Source of Six Hundred Griefs, and the Spring of innumerable Sorrows to the Woman: Because of the manifest Sympathy or Affinity, which the Womb has with almost all the other Parts of the Body. And as we may reasonably conclude from such an Affinity, that these Symptoms must needs be both Numerous and Different in Kind; so I think, for the same Reason, they may be All pertinently comprehended under the General Title of Hysterick Maladies.

BUT before we enter upon the Particulars of these Uterine Affections, it may be first requisite to make out the Reality of this Affinity or Consent; which will be no difficult Matter, when we consider First, the three Principles, in which the same consists, viz. in a Similitude of Parts; in a Vicinity of Parts; and in a Connexion of Vessels. Secondly, how by these, as the Womb is a Membranous Substance, it has a Substantial Affinity with the Membranes: And by its Vicinity, with the Bladder, Rectum, and Intestines; As by its Veins, Arteries, and Nerves, it has with almost all the other Parts of the Body; such as with the Brain, by Veins and Arteries, as well as by the Nerves and Spinal Membranes; with the Heart, by Arteries; with the Liver, by Veins; with the Stomach, by certain Anastomoses, betwixt the Veins of the Womb, and those of the Mesentery, as well as by Arteries; with the Spleen by Arteries; with the Breasts, partly by Veins,[^[230]] and partly by Nerves, &c.