Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 2 of 2).djvu/29

 ON PARTURITION. 547

uterus is, and how readily it closes on the approach of danger, especially when urgent symptoms accompany the puerperal state. Women are peculiarly subject to these accidents, especially those among them who lead a luxurious life, or whose health is naturally weak, and who easily fall into disorders. Country women, and those accustomed to a life of labour, do not become dangerously ill on such small grounds. Some of them may be found pregnant a month after delivery; whilst two months fre- quently elapse before others are able to set about the ordinary occupations of life.

It is laid down by Hippocrates, 1 that as many days are re- quired for the " after-purgings" as there are for the formation of the foetus ; therefore there are more for a female than a male child. "But this," says Scaliger, 2 "is false; for in none of our women do "the cleansings" last more than a month; in very many they cease on the fifteenth day ; in some even on the seventh day : and I have seen a case where they lasted only until the third day, although the woman had borne twins." Galen has many observations on this subject in his work 7i-f>t Kvovjuivuv, (On the Formation of the Foetus.) In the New World, it is said that the woman keeps apart the day only on which she is delivered, and then returns to her ordi- nary occupations.

I will add, in conclusion, an extraordinary instance told me by the noble Lord George Carew,Earl of Totness, and long Lord- Lieutenant of Munster in Ireland he who wrote the history of these times. A woman, great with child, was following her husband, who served as a soldier, and it happened that the army, when on the march, was compelled to halt for the space of an hour near a small river which impeded their passage; whereupon the woman, who felt her labour at hand, retired to a neighbouring thicket, and there, without the aid of a mid- wife or any other preparation, gave birth to twins; after she had washed both herself and them in the running stream, she wrapped the infants in a coarse covering, tied them on her back, and the same day marched barefoot twelve miles with the army, without the slightest harm ensuing. The following day the Viceroy, Earl Mountjoy, who at that time was leading an

1 Lib. de Foetu. * Com. in Arist. Hist. Anim. lib. vii, cap. 3.

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