Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/59

 special care should be exercised by her to avoid excesses or errors of any kind. When the ninth month is reached she should take up her abode in the small cottage in which she is eventually to be confined—a building erected with special religious ceremonies and thoroughly fitted with everything that is likely to conduce to her comfort. At the time of the actual confinement she should have with her four female assistants, and all those measures, of either a religious or a practical character, which have in view the hastening of the birth of the infant, should be scrupulously carried out. If any delay in the delivery of the after-birth occurs, the removal of the mass may be promoted by the employment of well-directed pressure over the lower part of the abdomen, by shaking the body, and also, if necessary, by giving an emetic. The woman in childbed should not be allowed to get up before the tenth day after her confinement, and for a period of six weeks her diet should be most carefully watched. On the third day the child should be put to the mother's breast; up to that time it should be given only honey and butter. If the mother, for any reason, is not able to suckle the infant, a wet-nurse should be employed for the purpose, but not until the physician shall have subjected her to a most thorough examination and shall have instructed her minutely in regard to her own diet. The subsequent care of the child was provided for in the most particular manner: It was restricted to a carefully planned diet; it was not allowed to sit or to lie except in certain prescribed positions; its times for sleeping were strictly ordered; it was permitted to amuse itself only in certain ways;—in brief, everything was done according to strict rules, even special precautions being taken to guard the child, during the first years of life, against dangerous demons. Weaning began after the sixth month, and for a certain length of time the child was fed largely on rice. In cases of difficult labor and in their gynaecological practice the physicians of ancient India did not manifest any special knowledge or skill.

One of the instructions given to young physicians in India when they were about to enter upon the practice of