st compress the belly, that they could not be well
digested, whence the wind is afterwards generated and, by consequence,
the gripes which the woman feels running into her belly from side to
side, according as the wind moves more or less, and sometimes likewise
from the womb, because of the compression and commotion which the
bowels make. This being generally the case, let us now apply a suitable
remedy.

1. Boil an egg soft, and pour out the yolk of it, with which mix a
spoonful of cinnamon water, and let her drink it; and if you mix in it
two grains of ambergris, it will be better; and yet vervain taken in
anything she drinks, will be as effectual as the other.

2. Give a lying-in woman, immediately after delivery, oil of sweet
almonds and syrup of maiden-hair mixed together. Some prefer oil of
walnuts, provided it be made of nuts that are very good; but it tastes
worse than the other at best. This will lenify the inside of the
intestines by its unctuousness, and by that means bring away that which
is contained in them more easily.

3. Take and boil onions well in water, then stamp them with oil of
cinnamon, spread them on a cloth, and apply them to the region of the
womb.

4. Let her be careful to keep her belly warm, and not to drink what is
too cold; and if the pain prove violent, hot cloths from time to time
must be laid on her belly, or a pancake fried in walnut oil may be
applied to it, without swathing her belly too strait. And for the better
evacuating the wind out of the intestines, give her a clyster, which
may be repeated as often as necessity requires.

5. Take bay-berries, beat them to a powder, put the powder upon a
chafing-dish of coals, and let her receive the smoke of them up her
privities.

6. Take tar and bear's grease, of each an equal quantity, boil them
together, and whilst it is boiling, add a little pigeon's dung to it.
Spread some of this upon a linen cloth, and apply it to the veins of the
back of her that is troubled with afterpains, and it will give her
speedy ease.

Lastly, let her take half a drachm of bay-berries beaten into a powder,
in a drachm of muscadel or teat.

II. Another accident to which women in child-bed are subject is
haemorrhoids or piles, occasioned through the great straining in
bringing the child into the world. To cure this,

1. Let her be let blood in the saphoena vein.

2. Let her use polypodium in her meat, and drink, bruised and boiled.

3. Take an on