in these cases the body
abounds with phlegmatic and crude humours. On this account, Hippocrates
advises the patient to go to bed supperless. Her food should consist of
partridges, pheasant and grouse, roasted rather than boiled, too much
sleep must be prohibited whilst moderate exercise is very advisable.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] The female flowing.

* * * * *

CHAPTER VI

_The Suffocation of the Mother._

This, which if simply considered, will be found to be merely the cause
of an effect, is called in English, "the suffocation of the mother," not
because the womb is strangled, but because by its retraction towards the
midriff and stomach, which presses it up, so that the instrumental cause
of respiration, the midriff, is suffocated, and acting with the brain,
cause the animating faculty, the efficient cause of respiration, also to
be interrupted, when the body growing cold, and the action weakened, the
woman falls to the ground as if she were dead.

Some women remain longer in those hysterical attacks than others, and
Rabbi Moses mentions some who lay in the fit for two days. Rufus writes
of one who continued in it for three days and three nights, and revived
at the end of the three days. And I will give you an example so that we
may take warning by the example of other men. Paroetus mentions a
Spanish woman who was suddenly seized with suffocation of the womb, and
was thought to be dead. Her friends, for their own satisfaction, sent
for a surgeon in order to have her opened, and as soon as he began to
make an incision, she began to move, and come to herself again with
great cries, to the horror and surprise of all those present.

In order that the living may be distinguished from the dead, old writers
prescribe three experiments. The first is, to lay a feather on the
mouth, and by its movements you may judge whether the patient be alive
or dead; the second is, to place a glass of water on the breast, and if
it moves, it betokens life; the third is, to hold a bright, clean,
looking-glass to the mouth and nose, and if the glass be dimmed with a
little moisture on it, it betokens life. These three experiments are
good, but you must not depend upon them too much, for though the feather
and the glass do not move, and the looking-glass continues bright and
clear, yet it is not a necessary consequence that she is dead. For the
movement of the lungs, by which breathing is produ