Observations in midwifery : as also The country midwifes opusculum or vade mecum / by Percival Willughby (1596-1685); edited from the original MS. by Henry Blenkinsop, 1863.

  • Percivall Willughby
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations in midwifery : as also The country midwifes opusculum or vade mecum / by Percival Willughby (1596-1685); edited from the original MS. by Henry Blenkinsop, 1863. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    ]i all things proceed right in the birth, and the infant is not borne, it is to be feared that the infant's head is too great, or that some mole, or tumour is joined to the infant. If the passage tlu-ough the bones bee too narrow, or strait, if anointing with convenient oiles, or ointments, shall profit nothing, the infant perisheth, and it must bee drawn away by the Cliirurgion's hand, otherwise the mother wiU perish with the child. Si secundina exeat, manente fcetu, lethale. 304, Primrose. 14. Or from externaU causes, when the aire is too hot, or cold, or too much heat, or cold, in the chamber may hinder the birth, or too much feeding on grosse, or astringent meats, nigh the time of birth. 15. Also, the too forward hastines of the midwife may cause a difficult delivery, immoderate evacuations, or if, by the labour, vomiting, epilepsy, or convulsions, or fluxes of blood do happen. 16. Too much sleepines and stupidity retard the birth, and shew nature to bee weake. 17. The bladder, full of water, and the intestinum rectum, stuffed with excrements, will cause difficult labour. 18. When the child is dead in the womb, swoonings, and con- vulsions, and sleepines usually follow, and these accidents bee oft the forennmers of death. 19. Those that fall into travaile before the fuU and fixed time, are very difficult to dehver, because the fruit is yet uniipe. A weake infant is known by the mother's long sicknes, or that shee hath had a loosues, or if that shee hath been troubled with a flux of blood, or that her milk hath run iriuch out of her breasts.