The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher - Aristotle (ebook reader for pc TXT) 📗
- Author: Aristotle
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The eighth month is commonly called the most dangerous; therefore the greatest care and caution ought to be used, the diet better in quality, but no more, nor indeed, so much in quantity as before, but as she must abate her diet, she must increase her exercise; and because then women with child, by reason that sharp humours alter the belly, are accustomed to weaken their spirits and strength, they may well take before meat, an electuary of diarrhoden, or aromaticum rosatum or diamagarton; and sometimes they may lick a little honey. As they will loathe, nauseate their meat, they may take green ginger, candied with sugar, and the rinds of citron and oranges candied; and let them often use honey for strengthening the infant. When she is not very far from her labour, let her eat every day seven roasted figs before her meat, and sometimes let her lick a little honey. But let her beware of salt and powdered meat, for it is neither good for her nor the child.
Rules for the Ninth Month.In the ninth month let her have a care of lifting any great weight, but let her move a little more, to dilate the parts, and stir up natural heat. Let her take heed of stooping, and neither sit too much nor lie on her sides, neither ought she to bend herself much enfolded in the umbilical ligaments, by which means it often perisheth. Let her walk and stir often, and let her exercise be, rather to go upwards than downwards. Let her diet, now especially, be light and easy of digestion and damask prunes with sugar, or figs with raisins, before meat, as also the yolks of eggs, flesh and broth of chickens, birds, partridges and pheasants; astringent and roasted meats, with rice, hard eggs, millet and such like other things are proper. Baths of sweet water, with emollient herbs, ought to be used by her this month with some intermission, and after the baths let her belly be anointed with oil of sweet roses and of violets; but for her privy parts, it is better to anoint them with the fat of hens, geese or ducks, or with oil of lilies, and the decoction of linseed and fenugreek, boiled with oil of linseed and marshmallows, or with the following liniment:—
Take mallows and marshmallows, cut and shred, of each one ounce; of linseed, one ounce; let them be boiled from twenty ounces of water to ten; then let her take three ounces of the boiled broth, of oil of almonds and oil of flower-de-luce, of each one ounce; of deer's suet, three ounces. Let her bathe with this, and anoint herself with it, warm.
If for fourteen days before the birth, she do every morning and evening bathe and moisten her belly with muscadine and lavender water, the child will be much strengthened thereby. And if every day she eat toasted bread, it will hinder anything from growing to the child. Her privy parts must be gently stroked down with this fomentation.
"Take three ounces of linseed, and one handful each of mallows and marshmallows sliced, then let them be put into a bag and immediately boiled." Let the woman with child, every morning and evening, take the vapour of this decoction in a hollow stool, taking great heed that no wind or air come to her in-parts, and then let her wipe the part so anointed with a linen cloth, and she may anoint the belly and groins as at first.
When she has come so near to her time, as to be ten or fourteen days thereof, if she begins to feel any more than ordinary pain let her use every day the following:—"Take mallows and marshmallows, of each a handful; camomiles, hard mercury, maidenhair, of each a handful; of linseed, four ounces; let them be boiled in a sufficient quantity of water as to make a bath therewith." But let her not sit too hot upon the seat, nor higher than a little above her navel; nor let her sit upon it longer than about half an hour, lest her strength languish and decay, for it is better to use it often than to stay too long in it.
And thus have I shown how a child-bearing woman ought to govern herself each month during her pregnancy. How she must order herself at her delivery, shall be shown in another chapter, after I have first shown the intended midwife how the child is first formed in the womb, and the manner of its decumbiture there.
CHAPTER IIIOf the Parts proper to a Child in the womb; How it is formed there, and the manner of its Situation therein.
In the last chapter I treated of conception, showed what it was, how accomplished and its signs, and how she who has conceived ought to order herself during the time of her pregnancy. Now, before I come to speak of her delivery, it is necessary that the midwife be first made acquainted with the parts proper to a child in the womb, and also that she be shown how it is formed, and the manner of its situation and decumbiture there; which are so necessary to her, that without the knowledge thereof, no one can tell how to deliver a woman as she ought. This, therefore, shall be the work of this chapter. I shall begin with the first of these.
In this section, I must first tell you what I mean by the parts proper to a child in the womb; and they are only those that either help or nourish it; and whilst it is lodged in that dark repository of nature, and that help to clothe and defend it there and are cast away, as of no more use, after it is born, and these are two, viz., the umbilicars, or navel vessels, and the secundinum. By the first it is nourished, and by the second clothed and defended from wrong. Of each of these I shall speak distinctly; and first,
Of the Umbilicars, or Navel Vessels.These are four in number, viz.:—one vein, two arteries, and the vessel which is called the urachos.
(1) The vein is that on which the infant is nourished, from the time of its conception till the time of its delivery; till being brought into the light of the world, it has the same way of concocting the food we have. This vein ariseth from the liver of the child, and is divided into two parts when it has passed the navel; and these two are divided and subdivided, the branches being upheld by the skin called chorion (of which I speak by and by), and are joined to the veins of the mother's womb, from whence they have their blood for the nourishment of the child.
(2) The arteries are two on each side which proceed from the back branches of the great artery of the mother, and the vital blood is carried by those to the child being ready concocted by the mother.
(3) A nervous or sinewy production is led from the bottom of the bladder of the infant to the navel, and this is called urachos, and its use is, to convey the urine of the infant from the bladder to the alantois. Anatomists do very much vary in their opinion concerning this, some denying any such thing to be in the delivery of the woman, and others on the contrary affirming it; but experience has testified there is such a thing, for Bartholomew Carbrolius, the ordinary doctor of anatomy to the College of Physicians at Montpellier in France, records the history of a maid, whose water being a long time stopped, at last issued out through the navel. And Johannes Fernelius speaks of the same thing that happened to a man of thirty years of age, who having a stoppage at the neck of the bladder, his urine issued out of his navel for many months together, and that without any prejudice at all to his health, which he
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