ion, and having made a hole in the middle, of it, fill it
full of oil, roast it and having bruised it all together, apply it to
the fundament.

4. Take a dozen of snails without shells, if you can get them, or else
so many shell snails, and pull them out, and having bruised them with a
little oil, apply them warm as before.

5. If she go not well to stool, let her take an ounce of cassia fistula
drawn at night, going to bed; she needs no change of diet after.

III. Retention of the menses is another accident happening to women in
child-bed, and which is of so dangerous a consequence, that, if not
timely remedied, it proves mortal. When this happens,

1. Let the woman take such medicines as strongly provoke the terms, such
as dittany, betony, pennyroyal, feverfew, centaury, juniper-berries,
peony roots.

2. Let her take two or three spoonfuls of briony water each morning.

3. Gentian roots beaten into a powder, and a drachm of it taken every
morning in wine, are an extraordinary remedy.

4. The roots of birthwort, either long or round, so used and taken as
the former, are very good.

5. Take twelve peony seeds, and beat them into a very fine powder, and
let her drink them in a draught of hot cardus posset, and let her sweat
after. And if the last medicine do not bring them down the first time
she takes it, let her take as much more three hours after, and it seldom
fails.

IV. Overflowing of the menses is another accident incidental to
child-bed women. For which,

1. Take shepherd's purse, either boiled in any convenient liquor, or
dried and beaten into a powder, and it will be an admirable remedy to
stop them, this being especially appropriated to the privities.

2. The flower and leaves of brambles or either of them, being dried and
beaten into a powder, and a drachm of them taken every morning in a
spoonful of red wine, or in a decoction of leaves of the same (which,
perhaps, is much better), is an admirable remedy for the immoderate
flowing of the term in women.

V. Excoriations, bruises, and rents in the lower part of the womb are
often occasioned by the violent distention and separation of the
caruncles in a woman's labour. For the healing whereof,

As soon as the woman is laid, if there be only simple contusions and
excoriations, then let the anodyne cataplasm, formerly directed, be
applied to the lower parts to ease the pain, made of the yolks and
whites of new laid eggs, and oil of roses, boiled a