ced, may be checked,
so that she cannot breathe, and yet internal heat may remain, which is
not evident by the motion of the breast or lungs, but lies hidden in the
heart and arteries.

Examples of this we find in flies and swallows, who seem dead to all
outward appearances, breathless and inanimate, and yet they live by that
heat which is stored up in the heart and inward arteries. At the
approach of summer, however, the internal heat, being restored to the
outer parts, they are then brought to life again, out of their sleeping
trance.

Those women, therefore, who apparently die suddenly, and from no visible
cause, should not be buried until the end of three days, lest the living
be buried instead of the dead.

CURE.

The part affected is the womb, of which there are two motions--natural
and symptomatic. The natural motion is, when the womb attracts the male
seed, or expels the infant, and the symptomatical motion, of which we
are speaking, is a convulsive drawing up of the womb.

The cause is usually in the retention of the seed, or in the suppression
of the menses, which causes a repletion of the corrupt humours of the
womb, from which a windy refrigeration arises, which produces a
convulsion of the ligaments of the womb. And just as it may arise from
humidity or repletion, so also, as it is a convulsion, it may be caused
by dryness or emptiness. Lastly also, it may arise from abortion or from
difficult childbirth.

SIGNS.

On the approach of suffocation of the womb the face becomes pale, there
is a weakness of the legs, shortness of breathing, frigidity of the
whole body, with a spasm in the throat, and then the woman falls down,
bereft of sense and motion; the mouth of the womb is closed up, and
feels hard when touched with the finger. When the paroxysm or the fit is
over, she opens her eyes, and as she feels an oppression of the stomach,
she tries to vomit. And lest any one should be deceived into taking one
disease for another, I will show how it may be distinguished from those
diseases which most resemble it.

It differs from apoplexy, as it comes without the patient crying out; in
hysterical fits also the sense of feeling is not altogether destroyed
and lost, as it is in apoplexy; and it differs from epilepsy, as the
eyes are not distorted, and there is spongy froth from the mouth. That
convulsive motion also, which is frequently accompanied by symptoms of
suffocation, is not universal, as it