118 OF TRUE PREGNANCY. 



above or below the natural proportions. The temperature of the 

 body rises, and enables pregnant women to bear cold belter than 

 others; the insensible transpiration is also more abundant, and at 

 the commencement yields an odor of prolific matter, but which 

 afterwards becomes acrid or of a peculiar nature. The urine flows 

 more abundantly, is cloudy, and contains a larger sediment; all the 

 secretions are more energetically effected; the saliva, in particular, 

 is often furnished in great quantity, so that some women are attacked 

 with a vetil ptyalis7n. The liver, being deranged in its secretions, is 

 said to occasion the stains or ephelides of the face and skin. 



305. The sense of taste and the digestion are still more specially 

 perverted; anorexia, nausea, and even vomiting supervene, and are 

 frequently followed with a complete loss of appetite; the woman now 

 desires for food none but the most singular and sometimes disgusting 

 objects. At one while her greatest happiness is to eat clay, ashes, 

 lime, or to craunch charcoal; at another she places her delight in half 

 putrid meat, spiders, or other unclean animals: in general she is dis- 

 pleased with fat, and an animal regimen; fruits and vegetables suit 

 her better; some ardently desire sour drinks, and love none but food 

 prepared with vinegar, as salad, Sic. 



306. This state of inappetency and disgust is succeeded, after the 

 few first months, by a very decided appetite, in some cases almost 

 voracious, by easy digestion, fondness for wine and other spirituous 

 drinks; but in the last third part of pregnancy, the digestive functions 

 again become disturbed, doubtless because the stomach, being at that 

 period too small, can only take in very small quantities of food and 

 drink. 



307. The moral condition of the female is also subject to pretty 

 numerous changes : some women, naturally gay, good tempered, 

 and amiable, become sad, melancholy, cross, unsociable, and vice 

 versa. In a good many women, the passions, although previously 

 moderate, acquire an extraordinary violence, cannot be subdued, 

 and cause the commission of the most atrocious crimes; in others, 

 there are merely some singular desires, such as to eat a particular 

 kind of fruit or meat or game, or some particular dish, no matter 

 at what price; an irresistible tendency to steal objects of small value, 

 or for which they have no use, and corruption of their manners or 

 character. There are some whose wit is never more lively, more 

 penetrating, more agreeable; while others fall into a sort of stupidity 

 and apathy quite unnatural in them. In general the activity of the 

 intellectual faculties is augmented, whether in the whole, or only in 

 part; in one case the memory, or a taste for the arts or sciences, are 

 modified; in others the judgment becomes exquisite, or the imagina- 



