(7) Or, if this fail, the smoke of marigolds, received up a woman's
privities by a funnel, have been known to bring away the after-birth,
even when the midwife let go her hold.
(8) Boil mugwort in water till it be very soft, then take it out, and
apply it in the manner of a poultice to the navel of the labouring
woman, and it instantly brings away the birth. But special care must be
taken to remove it as soon as they come away, lest by its long tarrying
it should draw away the womb also.
SECT. IV.--_Of Laborious and Difficult Labours and how the Midwife is
to proceed therein._
There are three sorts of bad labours, all painful and difficult, but not
all properly unnatural. It will be necessary, therefore, to distinguish
these.
The _first_ of these labours is that when the mother and child suffer
very much extreme pain and difficulty, even though the child come right;
and this is distinguishably called the laborious labour.
The _second_ is that which is difficult and differs not much from the
former, except that, besides those extraordinary pains, it is generally
attended with some unhappy accident, which, by retarding the birth,
causes the difficulty; but these difficulties being removed, it
accelerates the birth, and hastens the delivery.
Some have asked, what is the reason that women bring forth their
children with so much pain? I answer, the sense of feeling is
distributed to the whole body by the nerves, and the mouth of the womb
being so narrow, that it must of necessity be dilated at the time of the
woman's delivery, the dilating thereof stretches the nerves, and from
thence comes the pain.
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