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CHAPTER XIV

     Directions for Pregnant Women.

The prevention of untimely births consists in removing the aforementioned causes, which must be effected both before and after conception.

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,