Chapter XVIII: Of Untimely Births

When the fruit of the womb comes forth before the seventh month, before it comes to maturity, it is abortive; and, in effect, the child proves abortive in the eighth month. And why children born in the seventh and ninth month may live, and not in the eighth month may seem strange, yet it is true. Hippocrates gives a reason, viz. the infant being perfect in the seventh month, desires more air and nutriment; and it labours for a passage to get out; and if it has not strength sufficient to break the membranes and come forth, it shall continue in the womb till the ninth month, and in that time may again be strengthened; but if it strive again in the eighth month, and be born, it cannot live, because the day of its birth is either past or to come. For, in the eighth month, saith Aven, he is weak and infirm; and, therefore, being then cast into the cold air, his spirits cannot be supported.

_Cause._—Untimely births may be caused by cold; or by humidity weakening the faculty; and the fruit cannot be retained till the due time; by dryness or emptiness, defrauding the child of nourishment; by fluxes, phlebotomy, and other evacuations; by inflammations of the womb. Sometimes it is caused by laughter, joy, anger and fear. Abortion also may be caused by corrupt air, filthy odours, and especially by the smell of the snuff of a candle; also by falls, blows, violent exercise, leaping, dancing, &c.

_Signs._—Signs of future abortion are, extenuation of the breasts, flux of watery milk, pain in the womb, heaviness in the head, unusual weariness in the hips and thighs, flowing of the menses. Signs foretelling the fruit of the dead in the womb, are hollowness in the eyes, pain in the head, anguish, horror, paleness of the face and lips, gnawing of the stomach, no motion of the infant, coldness and looseness of the mouth of the womb, and thickness of the belly, and watery and bloody excrements come from the matrix.