The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher Part 8

CURE.

In the cure, first of all, let the humours which flow to the womb be expelled. To effect this, after the bowels have been loosened by cooling clysters bleeding will be necessary. Therefore, open a vein in the arm, if she is not with child; the day after strike the saphena in both feet, fasten ligatures and cupping gla.s.ses to the arm, and rub the upper part.

Purge gently with ca.s.sia, rhubarb, senna and myrobalan. Take one drachm of senna, a scruple of aniseed, myrobalan, half an ounce, with a sufficient quant.i.ty of barley water. Make a decoction and dissolve syrup of succory in it, and two ounces of rhubarb; pound half an ounce of ca.s.sia with a few drops of oil of aniseed and make a draught. At the commencement of the disease, anoint the private parts and loins with oil of roses and quinces: make plasters of plantain, linseed, barley meal, melilot, fenugreek, white of eggs, and if the pain be intense, a little laudanum; foment the genitals with a decoction of poppy-heads, purslace, knot-gra.s.s and water-lilies. Make injections of goat's milk, rose water, clarified whey and honey of roses. When the disease is on a decline, use injections of sage, linseed, mugwort, pennyroyal, h.o.r.ehound, fenugreek, and anoint the lower parts of the stomach with oil of camomiles and violets.

Take four ounces each of lily and mallow roots, a handful of dog's mercury, a handful and a half each of mugwort, feverfew, camomile flowers and melilot, bruise the herbs and roots, and boil them in a sufficient quant.i.ty of milk; then add two ounces each of fresh b.u.t.ter, oil of camomiles and lilies, with a sufficient quant.i.ty of bran, make two plasters, and apply one before and the other behind.

If the tumour cannot be removed, but seems inclined to suppurate, take three drachms each of fenugreek, mallow roots, boiled figs, linseed, barley meal, dove's dung and turpentine; half a drachm of deer's suet, half a scruple of opium and make a plaster of wax.

Take bay leaves, sage, hyssop, camomiles, and mugwort, and make an infusion in water.

Take half a handful of wormwood and betony and half a pint each of white wine and milk, boil them until reduced to half; then take four ounces of this decoction and make an injection, but you must be careful that the humours are not brought down into the womb. Take three drachms each of roast figs, and bruised dog's mercury; three drachms each of turpentine and duck's grease, and two grains of opium; make a pessary with wax.

The room must be kept cool, and all motions of the body, especially of the lower parts, must be prohibited. Wakefulness is to be recommended, for humours are carried inward by sleep, and thus inflammation is increased. Eat sparingly, and drink only barley water or clarified whey, and eat chickens and chicken broth, boiled with endive, succory, sorrel, bugloss and mallows.

CHAPTER IX

_Of Scirrhous Tumours, or Hardness of the Womb._

A _scirrhus_, or a hard unnatural swelling of the matrix is generally produced by neglected, or imperfectly cured phlegm, which, insensibly, hinders the functions of the womb, and predisposes the whole body to listlessness.

CAUSE.

One cause of this disease may be ascribed to want of judgment on the part of the physician, as many empirics when attending to inflammation of the womb, chill the humour so much that it can neither pa.s.s backward nor forward, and hence, the matter being condensed, turns into a hard, stony substance. Other causes may be suppression of the menses, retention of the _Lochein_, commonly called the after purging; eating decayed meat, as in the disordered longing after the _pleia_ to which pregnant women are often subject. It may, however, also proceed from obstructions and ulcers in the matrix or from some evil affections of the stomach or spleen.

If the bottom of the womb be affected, she feels, as it were, a heavy burden representing a mole,[7] yet differing from it, in that the b.r.e.a.s.t.s are attenuated, and the whole body grows less. If the neck of the womb be affected, no outward humours will appear; its mouth is retracted and feels hard to the touch, nor can the woman have s.e.xual intercourse without great pain.

PROGNOSTICS.

Confirmed scirrhus is incurable, and will turn to cancer or incurable dropsy, and when it ends in cancer it proves fatal, because as the innate heat of these parts is almost smothered, it can hardly be restored again.

CURE.

Where there is repletion, bleeding is advisable, therefore open a vein in one arm and in both feet, more especially if the menses are suppressed.

Treat the humours with syrup of borage, succory made with a poultice, and then take the following pills, according to the patient's strength.

Hiera piera six drachms, two and a half drachms each of black h.e.l.lebore and polypody; a drachm and a half each of agaric, lapis lazuli, sal Indiae, coloquintida, mix them and make two pills. After purging, mollify the hardness as follows:--the privy parts and the neck of the womb with an ointment of decalthea and agrippa; or take two drachms each of opopanax, bdellium, ammoniac and myrrh, and half a drachm of saffron; dissolve the gum in oil of lilies and sweet almond and make an ointment with wax and turpentine. Apply diacatholicon ferellia below the navel, and make infusions of figs, mugwort, mallows, pennyroyal, althea, fennel roots, melilot, fenugreek and the four mollifying herbs, with oil of dill, camomiles and lilies dissolved in it. Take three drachms of gum bdellium, put the stone pyrites on the coals, and let her take the fumes into her womb. Foment the privy parts with a decoction of the roots and leaves of dane wort. Take a drachm each of gum galbanum and opopanax, half an ounce each of juice of dane wort and mucilage of fenugreek, an ounce of calve's marrow, and a sufficient quant.i.ty of wax, and make a pessary. Or make a pessary of lead only, dip it in the above mentioned things, and put it up.

The atmosphere must be kept temperate, and gross and salt meats such as pork, bull beef, fish and old cheese, must be prohibited.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] _Mole_: "A somewhat shapeless, compact fleshy ma.s.s 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_.)

CHAPTER X

_Of Dropsy of the Womb._

Uterine dropsy is an unnatural swelling, caused by the collection of wind or phlegm in the cavity, membranes or substance of the womb, on account of the want of innate heat and of sufficient alimentation, and so it turns into an excrescence. The causes are, too much cold and moisture of the milt and liver, immoderate drinking, eating insufficiently cooked meat, all of which by causing repletion, overpower the natural heat. It may likewise be caused by undue menstruation, or by any other immoderate evacuation. To these may be added abortions, subcutaneous inflammations and a hardened swelling of the womb.

SIGNS.

The signs of this affection are as follows:--The lower parts of the stomach, with the genitals, are swollen and painful; the feet swell, the natural colour of the face is lost, the appet.i.te becomes depraved, and there is a consequent heaviness of the whole body. If the woman turns over in bed a noise like flowing water is heard, and sometimes water is discharged from the womb. If the swelling is caused by wind and the stomach feels hot, it sounds like a drum; the bowels rumble, and the wind escapes through the neck of the womb with a murmuring noise. This affection may be distinguished from true conception in many ways, as will be shown in the chapter on _conception_. It is distinguished from common dropsy, by the lower parts of the stomach being most swollen.

Again, it does not appear so injurious in this blood-producing capability, nor is the urine so pale, nor the face so altered. The upper parts are also not so reduced, as in usual dropsy.

PROGNOSTICS.

This affection foretells the ruin of the natural functions, by that peculiar sympathy it has with the liver, and that, therefore, _kathydria_, or general dropsy will follow.

CURE.

In the cure of this disease, imitate the practice of Hippocrates, and first mitigate the pain with fomentations of melilot, dog's mercury, mallows, linseed, camomiles and althoea. Then let the womb be prepared with syrup of s...o...b..s, hyssop, calamint, mugwort, with distilled water, a decoction of elder, marjoram, sage, origan, spearage, pennyroyal, and betony. Purge with senna, agaric, rhubarb, and claterium. Take spicierum hier, a scruple each of rhubarb, agaric lozenges, and make into pills with iris juice.

When diseases arise from moistness, purge with pills, and in those affections which are caused by emptiness or dryness, purge by means of a draught. Apply cupping gla.s.ses to the stomach and also to the navel, especially if the swelling be flatulent. Put a seton on to the inside of each leg, the width of a hand below the knee. Take two drachms each of sparganium, diambrae, diamolet, diacaliminti, diacinamoni, myrrh lozenges, and a pound of sugar; make these into lozenges with betony water, and take them two hours before meals. Apply a little bag of camomiles, c.u.mmin and melilot boiled in oil of rue, to the bottom of the stomach as hot as it can be borne; anoint the stomach and the privates with unguent agripp, and unguent aragon. Mix iris oil with it, and cover the lower part of the stomach with a plaster of bay berries, or a cataplasm made of c.u.mmin, camomiles, briony root, adding cows' and goats' dung.

Our modern medical writers ascribe great virtues to tobacco-water, injected into the womb by means of a clyster. Take a handful each of balm of southernwood, origanum, wormwood, calamint, bay berries and marjoram, and four drachms of juniper berries; make a decoction of these in water, and use this for fomentations and infusions. Make pessaries of storax, aloes, with the roots of dictam, aristolochia and gentian, but instead of this you may use the pessary prescribed at the end of Chapter XVII. Let her take aromatic electuary, disatyrion and candied eringo roots, every morning.

The air must be hot and dry, moderate exercise is to be taken and too much sleep prohibited. She may eat the flesh of partridges, larks, grouse, hares, rabbits, etc., and let her drink diluted urine.