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A Private Looking-glass For The Female Sex, a non-fiction book by Aristotle |
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Chapter 14. Directions for Pregnant Women |
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_ CHAPTER XIV Directions for Pregnant Women.
Before conception, if the body be too hot, dry or moist, employ such treatment as to counteract the symptoms; if the blood be vitiated purify it, if plethoric, open the liver vein; if gross, reduce it; if too thin strengthen and nourish it. All the diseases of the womb must be removed as I have shown. After conception, let the atmosphere be kept temperate, do not sleep too much, avoid late hours, too much bodily exercise, mental excitement, loud noises and bad smells, and sweet smells must also be avoided by those who are hysterical. Refrain from all things that may provoke either urine or menstruation, also salt, sour, and windy food, and keep to a moderate diet. If the bowels are confined, relieve the stomach with injections made of a decoction of mallows and violets, with sugar and salad oil; or make a broth with borage, buglos, beetroot, and mallows, and add a little manna to it. If, on the other hand, she be troubled with looseness of the bowels, do not check it with medical advice, for all the uterine fluxes have some bad qualities in them, which must be evacuated before the discharge is stopped. A cough is another thing to which pregnant women are frequently liable, and which causes them to run great danger of miscarrying, by the shock and continual drain upon the vein. To prevent this shave off the hair from the coronal commissures, and apply the following plaster to the place. Take half an ounce of resin, a drachm of laudanum, a drachm each of citron peel, lignaloes and galbanum, with a sufficient quantity of liquid and dry styrax. Dissolve the gum in vinegar and make a plaster, and at night let her inhale the fumes of these lozenges, thrown upon bright coals. Take also a drachm and a half each of frankincense, styrax powder and red roses: eight drachms of sandrich, a drachm each of mastic, benjamin and amber; make into lozenges with turpentine, and apply a cautery to the nape of the neck. And every night let her take the following pills:--Half an ounce each of hypocistides, terrae sigilatae and fine bole; two drachms each of bistort, alcatia, styrax and calamint, and one drachm of cloves, and make into pills with syrup of myrtles. In pregnant women, a corrupt matter is generated which, flowing to the ventricle, spoils the appetite and causes sickness. As the stomach is weak, and cannot digest this matter, it sometimes sends it to the bowels which causes a flux of the stomach, which greatly adds to the weakness of the womb. To prevent all these dangers the stomach must be strengthened by the following means:--Take one drachm each of lignaloes and nutmeg; a scruple each of mace, cloves, mastic, laudanum; an ounce of oil of spikenard; two grains of musk, half an ounce each of oil of mastic, quinces and wormwood, and make into an ointment for the stomach, to be applied before meals. Instead of this, however, you may use cerocum stomachile Galeni. Take half an ounce each of conserve of borage, buglos and atthos; two drachms each of confection of hyacinths, candied lemon peel, specierum, diamarg, pulo. de genunis: two scruples each of nutmeg and diambra; two drachma each of peony roots and diacoratum, and make into an electuary with syrup of roses, which she must take twice a day before meals. Another affection which troubles a pregnant woman is swelling of the legs, which happens during the first three months, by the superfluous humours descending from the stomach and liver. To cure this, take two drachms of oil of roses, and one drachm each of salt and vinegar; shake them together until the salt is dissolved, and anoint the legs with it hot, rubbing it well in with the hand. It may be done without danger during the fourth, fifth and sixth months of pregnancy; for a child in the womb is compared to an apple on the tree. For the first three months it is a weak and tender subject, like the apple, to fall away; but afterwards, when the membranes become strengthened, the fruit remains firmly fastened to the womb, and not subject to mischances, and so it remains, until the seventh month, until when it is near the time, the ligaments are again relaxed (like the apple that is almost ripe). They grow looser every day, until the appointed time for delivery; if, therefore, the body is in real need of purging, the woman may do it without danger in the fourth, fifth or sixth month, but neither before nor after that unless in the case of some violent illness, in which it is possible that both mother and child may perish. Apply plasters and ointments to the loins in order to strengthen the fruit in the womb. Take one drachm each of gum Arabic, galangale, bistort, hypocistid and storax, a drachm and a half each of fine bole, nutmeg, mastic, balaust, dragon's blood and myrtle berries, and a sufficient quantity of wax and turpentine and make into a plaster. Apply it to the loins in the winter, and remove it every twenty-four hours, lest the loins should become overheated by it. In the interim, anoint the private parts and loins with _countess' balsam_ but if it be summer time and the loins hot, the following plaster will be more suitable. Take a pound of red roses, two drachms each of mastic and red Sanders, one drachm each of bole ammoniac and red coral, two drachms and a half each of pomegranate seed and prepared coriander seed, two scruples of barberries, one ounce each of oil of mastic and of quinces, and plantain-juice. Anoint the loins also with sandalwood ointment, and once a week wash them with two parts of rose-water and one of white wine mixed together and warmed at the fire. This will assuage the heat of the loins, get rid of the oil of the plaster from the pores of the skin, and cause the fresh ointment or plaster to penetrate more easily, and to strengthen the womb. Some think that a load-stone laid upon the navel, keeps a woman from abortion. The same thing is also stated of the stone called _aetites_ or eagle-stone, if it is hung round the neck. Samian stone has the same virtue. _ |
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