When there is nothing but the single skin
which makes the closure, the operation is very easy, and the children
may do very well; for then an aperture or opening may be made with a
small incision-knife, cross-ways, that it may the better receive a round
form, and that the place may not afterwards grow together, taking care
not to prejudice the sphincter or muscle of the rectum. The incision
being thus made, the excrements will certainly have issue. But if, by
reason of their long stay in the belly, they become so dry that the
infant cannot void them, then let a clyster be given to moisten and
bring them away; afterwards put a linen tent into the new-made
fundament, which at first had best be anointed with honey of roses, and
towards the end, with a drying, cicatrizing ointment, such as unguentum
album or ponphilex, observing to cleanse the infant of its excrement,
and dry it again as soon and as often as it evacuates them, that so the
aperture may be prevented from turning into a malignant ulcer.
But if the fundament be stopped up in such a manner, that neither mark
nor appearance of it can be seen or felt, then the operation is much
more difficult, and, even when it is done, the danger is much greater
that the infant will not survive it. Then, if it be a female, and it
sends forth its excrements by the way I mentioned before, it is better
not to meddle than, by endeavouring to remedy an inconvenience, run an
extreme hazard of the infant's death.
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