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. 



