876 The Philippine Journal of Science 1915 
woman is wrapped from the neck down with a buri mat, and 
then she is asked to stand with feet wide apart over a kettle 
of hot water covered with banana leaves. While the woman is 
in this position, a hole is made little by little in the banana 
leaf cover in order to allow the steam from the kettle to heat 
the external organs and the whole body. 
The bath after labor is taken in various ways. In some places 
it is. taken only when there is no more lochial discharge. In 
others, as in the Ilocano provinces, immediately after labor the 
woman takes a bath and she does so every day for six days. 
After each bath she goes near a kalan, or a stove, and she re- 
mains there all day to warm up her hips. In San Fernando, 
Union, the woman just delivered takes as many baths as the 
number of days that have passed since the time of labor. For 
example, one bath on the first day, two baths on the second day, 
etc., until the ninth day when she takes nine baths. 
Every afternoon the abdomen is massaged with a heart-shaped 
stone or a piece of iron about 10 centimeters long, prepared for 
this purpose, which is heated and then wrapped with leaves 
of pandakaki. 
Any puerperal disturbance, such as puerperal insanity, for 
example, is attributed to the mangkukulam, or witch. 
DURING LACTATION 
The woman must not nurse her baby if she has been cooking 
or ironing, because her milk has been altered by the heat 
(panis). If she has not nursed her child for several hours, her 
milk becomes bad, also, and so she must remove the supposed 
bad milk first before giving her breast to the child. 
Anything that is sour is bad for a nursing woman, because 
it coagulates the milk and the baby will have colic. 
She must, also, see that no lizard drinks her milk, otherwise 
the secretion of milk will be stopped. — 
Hyperlactation is prevented by the use of a key as an amulet 
or a few papaya flowers suspended from the neck. 
OBSTETRICAL PROBLEMS 
As I have already said, we had, at the beginning of the ob- 
stetrical department, only a few cases, not more than 10 a month, 
consisting of the worst cases in the city—those suffering from the 
misguided attentions of ignorant midwives and friends. The 
large majority of the patients refused to be confined in the hos- 
pital; consequently the work had to be done in the homes of the 
poor, which were usually in a most unsanitary condition and 

