MANAGEMENT OF LYING-IN WOxMEN. 587 



strength before she goes on foot to present herself at the altar; she 

 ought first to have tried her strength at home, and make sure that it 

 will not be injurious to her to go out into the open air. 



1246. Another custom that the physician ought to watch over is 

 the baptismal repast, if it takes place within the first ten days after 

 child birth. In this family feast joy is not forbidden; they laugh 

 and they talk; she desires to hold out with every body; the father, 

 the mother, the godfather and godmother, the brothers, sisters, un- 

 cles, aunts, (fee. all talk to her in turn. She only takes a seat at 

 table out of form, to be sure, or to make more sure of her prudence 

 she keeps her bed; all the guests forbid her to eat or drink any 

 thing; but in the mean time they oblige her to take a mouthful of 

 this wine, a mouthful of that , then taste of this dish, and o? that, so 

 that it too often happens that at the close of the day she finds herself 

 seized with symptoms severe enough to conduct her rapidly to the 

 gates of death. It would be better, therefore, for her not to be pre- 

 sent, unless it be beyond the tenth or fifteenth day; and even then 

 she ought to be extremely cautious. 



The Lochia, the After-pains, and the Milk-fever, three of the prin- 

 cipal natural phenomena of a lying-in, now deserve our particular 

 attention. 



1247. The term Lochia is given to the substances that escape 

 from the vulva, from the moment of the delivery of the secundines 

 until the womb has recovered its normal size and consistence; the 

 accoucheurs distinguish three kinds of them; the sanguine, the 

 serous and the milky or purulent; or the red, the clear, and the 

 white. The first are observed on the same day with, and on the 

 day after the birth; it is blood nearly pure. The second appear at 

 the end of twenty-four, or thirty-six hours, are formed of serum 

 mixed with a variable quantity of blood, and do not last beyond the 

 period of ihe milk-fever. The third succeed these, and last until 

 the fifteenth, twentieth, or even thirtieth day, and are produced by 

 the suppurative process going on upon the internal surface of the 

 womb. Nothing, however, is more variable than their abundance 

 and duration; the red lochia may cease from the first day and re- 

 turn on the fourth; I have even seen them reappear on the ninth. 

 Sometimes the purulent lochia do not appear at all, and in other 

 cases they last so long that it is difficult to distinguish them from a 

 leucorrhoea; this anomaly is, however, very easily to be understood 

 by reflecting for a moment upon the cause of this evacuation. 



Although freed from the child and the after-birth, the womb does 

 not immediately recover its size and the other qualities natural to it; 

 they do not return until the end of five, six or eight weeks, a period 



