For the cure of sterility, Pliny says that “authors of the very highest repute ... recommend the application of a pessary made of the fresh excrement voided by an infant at the moment of its birth.” The urine of eunuchs was considered to be “highly beneficial as a promoter of fruitfulness in females.”—(Lib. xxviii. cap. 18.)
“A hawk’s dung, taken in honeyed wine, would appear to render females fruitful.”—(Idem, lib. xxx. c. 44.)
“Ut mulier concipiat, infantis masculi stercus quod primum enatus emittet, suppositum locis mulieris conceptionem facit et præstat.”—(Sextus Placitus, “De Medicamentis ex Animalibus,” Lyons, 1537, pages not numbered, article “De Puello et Puella Virgine.”)
Schurig recommends an application of bull-dung to the genitalia of women to facilitate pregnancy. (“Chylologia,” vol. ii. p. 602.) The woman drank her own urine to ease the pains of pregnancy. (Idem, p. 535.) There is a method of inducing conception outlined in vol. ii. p. 712, by the use of a bath of urine poured over rusty old iron. Mouse-dung was applied as a pessary in pregnancy. (Idem, pp. 728, 729.) Hawk-dung drunk by a woman before coitus insured conception. (Idem, p. 748.) Goose or fox dung rubbed upon the pudenda of a woman aided in bringing about conception. (Idem, p. 748.) Leopard-dung was also supposed to facilitate conception; pastilles were made of it, and the sexual parts fumigated therewith; or a pessary was inserted and kept in place for three days and three nights: “Ea quamvis antea sterilis fuit, deinceps tamen concipiet.”—(Idem, p. 820.)
But Schurig warns his readers that care must be exercised in the use of such remedies. He gives an instance of a woman who applied the dung of a wolf to her private parts, and soon after bearing a child, found him possessed of a wolfish appetite.—(Idem, lib. i. cap. 1, article “De Bulimo Brutorum,” p. 24.)
“When ladies desire to know whether or not they are enceinte, Paullini recommends that they urinate in an earthen vessel wherein a needle has been thrown. Let it stand over night; should the needle become covered with small red spots, the woman is enceinte; but should it be black or rusty, she is not. To determine whether she is to have a son or daughter, dig two small pits; put barley in one, and wheat in the other; let the enceinte lady urinate into both; then cover up the vessels with earth; if the wheat sprout first, it is to be a son; if the barley sprout before the wheat, it is to be a daughter.”—(Paullini, p. 163.)
Or, throw a pea into each parcel of urine; then the pea which germinates first, etc., etc. “Aut injiciatur lens in unius cujusque urina et cujus efflorescit, ille culpa caret,” is the method suggested by Danielus Beckherius.—(“Med. Microcos. aut Spagyria Microcosmi,” pp. 60, 61, quoting from still older authorities.)
He gives still another plan: “If you wish to determine whether a woman is to bear children, pour some of her urine upon marsh-mallows; if they be found dry on the third day, she’ll not conceive.” “Si explorare volueris, utrum mulier ad concipiendam sit idonea, tunc super malvam sylvestram urinam ejus funde; si ille tertio die arida fuerit, omnino minus idoneam illam habeto.”—(Idem, p. 61.)
Paullini urges that the excrements of goats, hawks, horses, geese, and the urine of camels be taken to remedy sterility (p. 161).
And the very same remedies are given by Beckherius and still older writers.
English women, in some localities, drank the urine of their husbands to assist them in the hour of labor.
“In the collection entitled ‘Sylon, or the Wood’ (p. 130) we read that ‘a few years ago, in this same village, the women in labor used to drinke the urine of their husbands, who were all the while stationed, as I have seen the cows in St. James’s Park, straining themselves to give as much as they can.’”—(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” London, 1849, vol. iii. article, “Lady in the Straw.”)
“Mariti urina hausta partum difficilem facilitare dicitur.”—(Etmuller, vol. ii. p. 265, Schroderi, “Dilucidati Zoölogia.”)
An instance of the drinking of her own urine by a pregnant woman is to be read in Schurig (p. 45), art. “De Pica.”
The warm urine of the husband was drunk for the same purpose: “Scil. Hartmannus commendat ut difficiliter pariens libat haustum urinæ mariti sui et ita si hic fuerit genuinus fœtus parientam illam ex parti solvi putat; ast si urinæ aliquid subest erit illud sali volatili ad morem aliorum omnium volatilium, attribuendum.” (Etmuller, vol. ii. pp. 171, 172.) Here we have the husband’s urine employed not only as a medicine, but as a test of the wife’s fidelity.
John Moncrief directs that, to facilitate conception, a pessary should be inserted in the vagina, of which hare’s dung was to be a component. Horse’s dung, drunk in water, aided a woman in childbirth.—(“The Poor Man’s Physician,” Edinburgh, 1716, p. 149.)
“Ut mulier post partum in secundis non laboret, de lotio hominis subtiliter gustet et secundæ statim sequentur.”—(Sextus Placitus.)
Dioscorides prescribed both human ordure and the dung of the vulture to bring about the expulsion of the fœtus.—(Materia Medica, edition of Kuhn, vol. i. p. 232 et seq.)
Goose-dung, in internal doses, was prescribed by Pliny for the same purpose.—(Lib. 30, c. 4.)
But the dung of the elephant or menstrual blood prevented conception, according to Avicenna: “Impregnationem prohibent ... stercus elephantis,” vol. i. p. 390, b 11; “Impregnationem prohibent ... sanguis menstruus, si supponatus.”—(Vol. i. pp. 330, a 35, 388, b 50.)
For accidents to pregnant women, apply rabbit’s dung externally; for miscarriages, man’s urine, internally; the excreta of lionesses, hawks, and chickens, internally; of horses and geese, externally and also internally; and of pigeons and cows, externally. For after-birth pains, the patient’s own urine, externally; or the excrement of chickens, internally.—(Paullini.)
Schurig recommended the use of lion-dung, internally, in cases of difficult parturition.—(“Chylologia,” p. 819.)
Etmuller says of secundines: “In partu difficili nil est præstantius” (p. 270).
Both Pliny and Hippocrates recommend hawk-dung in the treatment of sterility, and to aid in the expulsion of the fœtus in childbirth; it was to be drunk in wine; their prescription is copied by Etmuller: “Hippocrates et Plinius ad sterilitatem emendandam propinant.”—(vol. ii. p. 285.)
For the expulsion of the dead fœtus, Pliny recommended a fumigation of horse-dung.—(Lib. xxviii. c. 77.)
And Sextus Placitus says: “Similiter, mortuum etiam partum ejicit. Idem facit ut mulier facile pariat si totum corpus suffumigaveris claudit et ventrem.”—(Cap. “De Equo.”)
Etmuller advises the use of these fumigations to aid in the expulsion of the fœtus and after-birth; a potion of the dung should also be administered in all such cases, being, in his opinion fully equal to the dung of dogs or swallows.—(Vol. ii. p. 263.)
A parturient woman in New Hampshire, drank the urine of her husband as a diuretic, forty or fifty years ago.—(Mrs. Fanny D. Bergen, Cambridge, Massachusetts.)
Flemming is another who recommends a draught of the husband’s urine to aid in delivery: “Porro, in partu difficili, urinam mariti calidam calido haustam esse” (p. 23).
“A urine tub was held above the head of a woman in labor to ward off all manner of evil influences.”—(Henry Rink, “Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo,” Edinburgh, 1875, p. 55.)
“Gomez” (which is the “nirang” or urine of the ox) was prescribed to be drunk as a purifying libation by a woman who had miscarried. (See Fargard V. Avendidad, Zendavesta (Darmesteter’s translation), Max Müller’s edition. “Sacred Books of the East,” Oxford, 1880, p. 62.) “She shall drink gomez mixed with ashes, three cups of it, or six or nine, to wash over the grave within her womb.... When three nights have passed, she shall wash her body, she shall wash her clothes, with gomez and with water by the nine holes, and thus shall she be clean.”—(Idem, pp. 63, 90.)
“Avec une tendre sollicitude, les bonnes amies versent sur la tête de la femme en travail le contenu d’un pot de chambre pour fortifier, disent-elles.”—(“Les Primitifs,” Elie Réclus, p. 43; “Les Inoits Orientaux.”)
“The Commentaires of Bernard the Provincial, informs us” says Daremberg, “that certain practices, not only superstitious but disgusting, were common among the doctrines of Salerno; one, for instance, was to eat themselves, and also to oblige their husbands to eat, the excrements of an ass fried in a stove in order to prevent sterility.”—(“The Physicians of the Middle Ages,” Minor, Cincinnati, Ohio, p. 6, translated from Dupouy’s “Le Moyen Age Médical.”)
Mr. Havelock Ellis calls attention to the use of cow’s urine after confinement by the women of the Cheosurs of the Caucasus. See also under “Witchcraft,” “Therapeutics,” “Divination,” “Amulets and Talismans,” “Cures by Transplantation,” “Ceremonial Observances.”
WEANING.
For an example of Urinal Aspersion, in connection with Weaning, see on page 211.