But the better sort of women run the greatest hazard from too much heat. They are generally kept in a sort of bagnio for the first eight or ten days, and then dressed out to see company. The danger of this conduct must be obvious to every one.
The superstitious custom of obliging women to keep the house till they go to church, is likewise a very common cause of catching cold. All churches are damp, and most of them cold; consequently they are the very word places to which a woman can go to make her first visit, after having been confined in a warm room for a month.
OF BARRENNESS.
Barrenness may be very properly reckoned among the diseases of females, as few married women who have not children enjoy a good state of health. It may proceed from various causes, as high living, grief, relaxation, &c. but it is chiefly owing to an obstruction or irregularity of the menstrual flux.
It is very certain that high living vitiates the humours, and prevents fecundity. We seldom find a barren woman among the labouring poor, while nothing is more common among the rich and affluent. The inhabitants of every country are prolific in proportion to their poverty; and it would be an easy matter to adduce many instances of women, who, by being reduced to live entirely upon a milk and vegetable diet, have conceived and brought forth children, though they never had any before. Would the rich use the same sort of food and exercise as the better sort of peasants, they would seldom have cause to envy their poor vassals and dependants the blessing of a numerous and healthy offspring, while they pine in sorrow for the want of even a single heir to their extensive domains.
Affluence begets indolence, which not only vitiates the humours, but induces a general relaxation of the solids; a state, highly unfavourable to procreation. To remove this, we would recommend the following course: First, sufficient exercise in the open air; secondly, a diet consisting chiefly of milk and vegetables[[186]]; thirdly, the use of astringent medicines, as steel, allum, dragon’s blood, elixir of vitriol, the Spaw or Tunbridge waters, Peruvian bark, &c.; and lastly, above all, the cold bath.
Barrenness is often the consequence of grief, sudden fear, anxiety, or any of the passions which tend to obstruct the menstrual flux. When barrenness is suspected to proceed from affections of the mind, the person ought to be kept as easy and cheerful as possible; all disagreeable objects are to be avoided, and every method taken to amuse and entertain the fancy.
CHAP. XLIX.
DISEASES OF CHILDREN.
Miserable indeed is the lot of man in the state of infancy! He comes into the world more helpless than any other animal, and stands much longer in need of the protection and care of his parents; but, alas! this care is not always bestowed upon him; and when it is, he often suffers as much from improper management as he would have done from neglect. Hence the officious care of parents, nurses, and midwives, becomes one of the most fruitful sources of the disorders of infants[[187]].
It must be obvious to every attentive person, that the first diseases of infants arise chiefly from their bowels. Nor is this in the least to be wondered at, as they are in a manner poisoned with indigestible drugs and improper diet as soon as they come into the world. Every thing that the stomach cannot digest may be Considered as a poison; and unless it can be thrown up, or voided by stool, it must occasion sickness, gripes, spasmodic affections of the bowels, or what the good women call inward fits, and at last convulsions and death.