ge, and make into pills with savine
juice, to be taken every morning. Make an infusion of hyssop, bay
leaves, bay berries, calamint, camomiles, mugwort and savine. Take two
scruples each of sacopenium, mugwort, savine, cloves, nutmeg, bay
berries; one drachm of galbanum; one scruple each of hiera piera and
black hellebore, and make a pessary with turpentine.

But if these medicaments are not procurable, then the mole must be
pulled out by means of an instrument called the _pes gryphis_,[9] which
may be done without much danger if it be performed by a skilful surgeon.
After she has been delivered of the mole (because the woman will have
lost much blood already), let the flow of blood be stopped as soon as
possible.

Apply cupping glasses to the shoulders and ligatures to the arms, and if
this be not effective, open the liver vein in the arm.

The atmosphere of the room must be kept tolerably dry and warm, and she
must be put on a dry diet, to soothe the system; she must, however,
drink white wine.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] _Mole_: "A somewhat shapeless, compact fleshy mass occurring in the
uterus, due to the retention and continued life of the whole or a part
of the foetal envelopes, after the death of the foetus (_a maternal or
true mole_); or being some other body liable to be mistaken for this, or
perhaps a polypus or false mole." (_Whitney's Century Dictionary_.)

[9] _Griffin's claw_, a peculiar hooked instrument.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XII

_Of Conception and its Signs, and How a Woman may know whether it
be Male or Female._

Ignorance often makes women the murderesses of the fruit of their own
body, for many, having conceived and finding themselves out of order,
and not rightly knowing the cause, go to the shop of their own conceit
and take whatever they think fit, or else (as the custom is) they send
to the doctor for a remedy, and he, not perceiving the cause of their
trouble, for nothing can be diagnosed accurately by the urine,
prescribes what he thinks best; perhaps some diuretic or cathartic,
which destroy the embryo. Therefore Hippocrates says, it is necessary
that women should be instructed in the signs of conception, so that the
parent as well as the child may be saved from danger. I shall,
therefore, lay down some rules, by which every woman may know whether
she is pregnant or not, and the signs will be taken from the woman, from
her urine, from the c