248 CALDERON. 



or in some other manner, the midwife must push it hack inside of the mother, 

 who must then lie on her back, with the head low and the nates raised, and 

 after having put back the arm or foot which the child presented, the midwife 

 must make it retrocede by gentl} 7 pressing the abdomen of the pregnant woman 

 upwards and towards the epigastric region, or the breast, and after the child 

 is again within, she must manipulate it so that it will emerge in due form; the 

 midwife endeavoring, using her hands, to make the child turn its face towards 

 the back of its mother, and then by raising its nates and legs to the navel of 

 the mother, to have it emerge in the proper manner. 



"The common people use the following remedies : They make the parturient 

 drink some of the milk of a woman nursing a child, or make her suck the nipples 

 of such a woman; they cautiously appty to her body a snake skin shed by a 

 snake, but remove it as soon as she has been delivered, because otherwise her 

 entrails might come out. On the groins they put bruised salibutbut (Tabernw- 

 montana Pandacaqui Poir. ), warming it in hot ashes. The parturient is made 

 to drink costmary juice in strong wine. She is given mint, bruised and mixed 

 with water and honey, and forced to drink a decoction of raiz oriental (Andro- 

 pagon nardus L.), palasan (Calamus albus Pers.) and panara plantain in water, 

 as well as to drink b.ezoar taken from a deer or wild hog, burned on a potsherd 

 and dissolved in a little wine or water. If the patient has any strength left, 

 she is made to drink dog urine, or horse or cow excrements, three reales weight, 

 dried, crushed and mixed with water or wine; this is also useful for ejecting a 

 dead infant. She must hold a jasper stone in her hand. She is given sweet-basil 

 juice (Ocimum basilicum Linn.) to drink." 



However ridiculous these prescriptions may seem, the fact remains 

 that they were faithfully observed and carried out in the treatment of 

 many parturients, for the reason that they had come from the authori- 

 tative lijjs of a missionary priest, comjielled by the force of circumstances 

 . to serve as physician as well. It was for good reasons that the Eeverend 

 Father Gregorio Sanz, of the Barefooted Order of Saint Agustine, writes 

 as follows in his treatise on "Sacred Embryology" (p. 39), edited in 

 Manila in the year 1856 : 



"In the Philippine Islands, where in a way it may be said that outside of 

 the capitals there is no physician but Providence, nothing was more common 

 than to see the curates practice medicine among the natives of their parishes, 

 whether the latter were men or women." 



On pages 167 and 168 he adds the following words: 



"The number of midwives in a parish having been ascertained, it is advisable 

 to communicate to them individually the instructions which we give hereinafter, 

 if they have not already received them; it is of the greatest importance to have 

 them well instructed in this respect and for this purpose it is very advisable, 

 in view of the facility with which these good people forget what has been 

 taught them, especially if it be something that they have to practice only a few 

 times, that every year after their first instruction, at the time of the examination 

 in the catechism for the perfection of the parish, they be reexamined in every- 

 thing that was taught them upon their admission into the profession of 

 midwifery. If, though this is hardly to be expected, the midwives should object 

 and refuse to receive instruction from their curates on this subject, it will 

 become necessary to notify the civil authorities, in order that they may be 



