Ten or twelve days after
she feels giddy and her eyes dim and with circles round them; the
breasts swell and grow hard, with some pain and pricking in them, whilst
the stomach rises and sinks again by degrees, and there is a hardness
about the navel. The nipples grow red, the heart beats unusually
strongly, the natural appetite abates, and the woman has a craving after
strange food. The neck of the womb is contracted, so that it can
scarcely be felt when the finger is put in. And the following is an
infallible sign; she is alternately in high spirits and melancholy; the
monthly courses cease without any apparent cause, the evacuations from
the bowels are retained unusually long, by the womb pressing on the
large gut, and her desire for sexual intercourse is diminished. The
surest sign is taken from the infant, which begins to move in the womb
in the third or fourth month, and not in the manner of a mole, mentioned
above, from side to side like a stone, but gently, as may be perceived
by applying the hand cold upon the stomach.
SIGNS TAKEN FROM THE URINE.
The best writers affirm that the water of a pregnant woman is white and
has little specks in it, like those in a sunbeam, ascending and
descending in it, of an opal colour, and when the sediment is disturbed
by shaking the urine, it looks like carded wool.
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