HYGIENIC TREATMENT. 343 



dition, may without inconvenience, and sometimes even with ad- 

 vantage, take a breakfast of coffee or chocolate at the commence- 

 ment of her labor, especially if she has been long in the habit of 

 using them, just as we see stout, vigorous country women, as well 

 as robust women of tlie laboring classes, eat one or several cutlets 

 without being at all incommoded by them. It ought to be known 

 that these exceptions are numerous, for by proscribing food in all 

 cases indiscriminately, we just favor the evil we wish to avoid; no 

 matter how absolute the threats of the accoucheur, it is not uncom- 

 mon for them, to be disregarded, and if no bad consequences follow, 

 the woman, emboldened by impunity, no longer submits to advice, 

 relates her story to her acquaintances, and as all beings are not less 

 alike in their liability to illness than in shape, the punishment 

 of her indocility fails not to fall upon some of those who have had 

 the imprudence to listen to her. I was called to a woman in her first 

 confinement, in the month of March 1824: this lady's mother had 

 had thirteen children; she had never omitted to drink a bottle of wine 

 and eat one or two cutlets during or immediately after her travail; in 

 spite of my remonstrances the daughter must follow her example, 

 but the unfortunate lady expiated her mother's imprudences with her 

 own life! We must therefore allow to some what we would rigorous- 

 ly refuse to allow to the far greater number, and content us with 

 laying before the most obstinate the dangerous risks they run, and 

 then leave them at liberty to do as they like. 



817. Drinks. Where the duration of a labor does not extend 

 beyond the most ordinary limits, the woman herself is pretty often 

 the first to perceive that she ought not to eat, that food would do 

 her harm. This is not the case as to drinks; the excess of heat 

 observed during the strong pains has the effect of drying the 

 organism, and loudly demands the introduction of fluids into the in- 

 terior. Those that may be allowed are innumerable; the infusions of 

 mallows flawers, ofmarshmallow roots, of linden, of violet, ofbugloss, 

 and borrage; decoctions of barley, of dandelion, liquorice, &c. 

 either pure or edulcorated with sirup of sugar, gum of honey, capil- 

 laire, cherries, or marshmallows, may be given almost without distinc- 

 tion, as well as all imaginable ptisans, provided they do not exert 

 any evident action upon the organism, and are not acid; for it is the 

 water and not the medicaments that is here demanded by the organs. 

 Lemonade and acidulateddrinks would suit as well or even better 

 than any other; but the stomach does not bear them well because 

 they increase its tendency to acidity. Wine and water produces the 

 same effect; the other ptisans often diminish the thirst very litde, par- 

 ticularly if the woEian does not like the decoctions of barley, dande- 

 lion and liquorice, which are more refreshing, though they happen 



