The Female Physician / Containing all the diseases incident to that sex, in virgins, wives, and widows; together with their causes and symptoms, their degrees of danger, and respective methods of prevention and cure: to which is added, the whole art of new improv'd midwifery; comprehending the necessary qualifications of a midwife, and particular directions for laying women, in all cases of difficult and preternatural births; together with the diet and regimen of both the mother and child.

CHAP. XXIX.
Of the DEBILITY and WEAKNESS of the Fœtus.

BESIDES all the enumerated Symptoms, Acute and Chronical Distempers, to which the Child-bearing Woman is subject; it also happens over and above (too frequently) that the Infant becomes Weak and Sick in the Womb.

THE Cause of which unhappy Accident I take to be fourfold: As it proceeds, either from a Debility and Insufficiency of the Parental Seed, or from a Scarcity or Want of requisite Sustenance, or from a certain Depravation of that Sustenance, or from some immediate Procatarctick Cause of the Mother; which may all be thus rationally distinguished, and severally accounted for; viz.

THE Cause certainly lies in the Seed, if the Woman has continued always healthy, eating, drinking, and living regularly.

IT may be imputed to the Scarcity of Aliment, if she has often laboured under Diseases, or been exposed to Hunger, Want, Penury, or any such like manifest retrenching Cause.

IT may be adjudged to a Depravity of Aliment, when the Woman (by a vitiated Constitution of Body) is subject to some certain Distempers; and, besides, in short, any Procatarctick Cause is discoverable from the Relation of the Patient.

BUT whatever the Cause may be, the Diagnostick Signs of this unhappy Affection, are commonly One or more of the following Six; viz.

1. THE turgid swell’d Breasts of the Pregnant Woman, all on a sudden^[91], fall and extenuate into a Flabbiness.

2.^[92]THEY diffuse copiously a thin Waterish Milk, not half digested to its due Perfection.

3. THE Menstrua return at an uncommon Rate, and in an irregular Manner.

4. THE Woman personally is either very frequently Sick, or long expos’d to a lasting Sickness. Or,

5. SHE is either subject to a very frequent, or long continu’d Looseness, and constant Diarrhæa.

6. THE Infant which used (as it ought) to move briskly, is now but very seldom, and more faintly perceiv’d in Motion.

ON the other hand, the Prognosticks of this Case, are briefly Two: For either Abortion follows, or (which is worse) the Infant dies; if not timely prevented, by removing the Efficient Cause of it, upon comforting and strengthening both the Woman and the Child.

IN a Word, the Latter of these tragical Events I shall refer to Sect. V. Chap. last. But the Former leads me more immediately to consider it in the proper Method of my Discourse.