Tent (surgical). A bunch of some fibre such as sponge or horsehair introduced into an opening, natural or artificial, to keep it open, or increase its calibre.
PROPER AND SAFE REMEDIES
FOR
CURING ALL THOSE DISTEMPERS
THAT ARE PECULIAR
TO THE FEMALE SEX
AND ESPECIALLY THOSE OBSERVATIONS
TO BEARING OF CHILDREN
BOOK II
Having finished the first part of this book, and wherein, I hope, amply made good my promise to the reader, I am now come to treat only of those distempers to which they are more subject when in a breeding condition, and those
that keep them from being so; together with such proper and safe remedies as may be sufficient to repel them. And since amongst all the diseases to which human nature is subject, there is none that more diametrically opposes the very end of our creation, and the design of nature in the formation of different sexes, and the power thereby given us for the work of generation, than that of sterility or barrenness which, where it prevails, renders the most accomplished midwife but a useless person, and destroys the design of our book; I think, therefore, that barrenness is an effect that deserves our first and principal consideration.