Page:A dissertation on the puerperal fever (1789).djvu/18

 well adapted to our climate. I have found very beneficial effects From emetics and ecoprotics, and sometimes cathartics; and in many instances I have taken away 2 oz. of blood with evident advantage; but in most cases, I am rather deterred from using venesection at all.

The best way of preventing this disease is to obviate costiveness in the last months of pregnancy, to keep the woman, after delivery, perfectly easy in mind, as well as in body.

Her food should be light, and in small quantities; her chamber should be properly aired, and every attention should be paid to cleanliness.

However ignorant we may be of the nature of the puerperal fever, of this we are certain, that the female system is in such a state, on delivery, that errors in either of these respects are apt to produce the disease; too much heat will cause it full as often as too much cold.

That particular state or predisposition of their bodies, must be inquired into, before we can throughly understand this disorder.

And indeed, from a view of the whole matter, I am induced to form the following opinion: That upon the nature of this predisposition, the disease depends; or, in other words, that the disorder, usually known by the name of the puerperal fever, or that fever to which lying-in women are more peculiarly incident, assumes its form principally from circumstanccs pre-existing in the system. The circumstance of parturition, I would consider only as as exciting cause. In