that so it may receive the smell of it;
and let her chafe every part of its body well with warm cloths, to bring
back its blood and spirits, which being retired inwards through
weakness, often puts him in danger of being choked. By the application
of these means, the infant will gradually recover strength, and begin to
stir its limbs by degrees, and at length to cry; and though it be but
weakly at first, yet afterwards, as it breathes more freely, its cry
will become more strong.

SECT. III.--_Of the Fundament being closed up in a newly-born Infant._

Another defect that new-born infants are liable to is, to have their
fundaments closed up, by which they can neither evacuate the new
excrements engendered by the milk they suck, nor that which was amassed
in their intestines before birth, which is certainly mortal without a
speedy remedy. There have been some female children who have their
fundaments quite closed, and yet have voided the excrements of the guts
by an orifice which nature, to supply the defect, had made within the
neck of the womb.

_Cure_. Here we must take notice, that the fundament is closed two ways;
either by a single skin, through which one may discover some black and
blue marks, proceeding from the excrements retained, which, if one touch
with the finger, there is a softness felt within, and thereabout it
ought to be pierced; or else it is quite stopped by a thick, fleshy
substance, in such sort that there appears nothing without, by which its
true situation may be known. When there is nothing but the single skin
which makes the closure, the operation is very easy, and the children
may do very well; for then an aperture or opening may be made with a
small incision-knife, cross-ways, that it may the better receive a round
form, and that the place may not afterwards grow together, taking care
not to prejudice the sphincter or muscle of the rectum. The incision
being thus made, the excrements will certainly have issue. But if, by
reason of their long stay in the belly, they become so dry that the
infant cannot void them, then let a clyster be given to moisten and
bring them away; afterwards put a linen tent into the new-made
fundament, which at first had best be anointed with honey of roses, and
towards the end, with a drying, cicatrizing ointment, such as unguentum
album or ponphilex, observing to cleanse the infant of its excrement,
and dry it again as soon and as often as it evacuates them, th