Take bay leaves, sage, hyssop, camomiles, and mugwort, and make an infusion in water.

Take half a handful of wormwood and betony and half a pint each of white wine and milk, boil them until reduced to half; then take four ounces of this decoction and make an injection, but you must be careful that the humours are not brought down into the womb.  Take three drachms each of roast figs, and bruised dog’s mercury; three drachms each of turpentine and duck’s grease, and two grains of opium; make a pessary with wax.

The room must be kept cool, and all motions of the body, especially of the lower parts, must be prohibited.  Wakefulness is to be recommended, for humours are carried inward by sleep, and thus inflammation is increased.  Eat sparingly, and drink only barley water or clarified whey, and eat chickens and chicken broth, boiled with endive, succory, sorrel, bugloss and mallows.

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CHAPTER IX

     Of Scirrhous Tumours, or Hardness of the Womb.

A scirrhus, or a hard unnatural swelling of the matrix is generally produced by neglected, or imperfectly cured phlegm, which, insensibly, hinders the functions of the womb, and predisposes the whole body to listlessness.

CAUSE.

One cause of this disease may be ascribed to want of judgment on the part of the physician, as many empirics when attending to inflammation of the womb, chill the humour so much that it can neither pass backward nor forward, and hence, the matter being condensed, turns into a hard, stony substance.  Other causes may be suppression of the menses, retention of the Lochein, commonly called the after purging; eating decayed meat, as in the disordered longing after the pleia to which pregnant women are often subject.  It may, however, also proceed from obstructions and ulcers in the matrix or from some evil affections of the stomach or spleen.

If the bottom of the womb be affected, she feels, as it were, a heavy burden representing a mole,[7] yet differing from it, in that the breasts are attenuated, and the whole body grows less.  If the neck of the womb be affected, no outward humours will appear; its mouth is retracted and feels hard to the touch, nor can the woman have sexual intercourse without great pain.

PROGNOSTICS.

Confirmed scirrhus is incurable, and will turn to cancer or incurable dropsy, and when it ends in cancer it proves fatal, because as the innate heat of these parts is almost smothered, it can hardly be restored again.

CURE.

Where there is repletion, bleeding is advisable, therefore open a vein in one arm and in both feet, more especially if the menses are suppressed.