BUT what I mean by _Costiveness_, is not that Distemper, where there is a total Suppression, for that rather belongs to the _Iliack Passion_; but that only, where the _Excrements_ lodging longer than their due natural _Time_, perhaps three or four Days more or less, are at last voided hard and dry with some small Straining. Which irregular _Accident_ may proceed from many different _Causes_. Although in the _pregnant Woman_, I take the following to be the most _Common_: That is to say, the _Calidity_ and _Siccity_ of the _LIVER_, or _SPLEEN_; occasion’d by the _Lusty Child’s_ attracting too much of the _Radical_ and Succid _Moisture_ of the _MOTHER_, and compressing the _Intestines_. THIS _Symptom_ proves often of dangerous _Consequence_: For by the pressing _Force_, commonly us’d in such a _Case_ to ease the BELLY, some _Vessels_ or _Ligaments_ may be easily and readily _broken_. And not only so, but the retain’d _Fæces_ always affect the HEAD, and contaminate the BLOOD with noxious _Vapours_; and thereby impede or hinder the _Concoction_ of the _Ventricle_, and the Separation of the better and purer, from the grosser and impurer part of the _Chyle_: Whence proceed many other various _Disorders_ to the whole _Body_, from the long Retention of the _Excrements_. THE _Cure_ consists in temperating the _Calidity_ of the _VISCERA_, and relaxing the _BELLY_ by proper _Diet_, _Dissolvents_, &c. And in _Case_ of any sudden _VOMITING_, which sometimes happens upon _Costiveness_, humectant and emollient _Clysters_ may be most properly and cautiously used, to restrain and prevent all such _Revulsions_. [Illustration] CHAP. XXIII. _Of TENESMS._ A TENESMS is an irregular _Retention_ of NATURE, and nothing else but a continual _Desire_ or _Inclination_ of going to _STOOL_; attended with _Pain_, without voiding any thing but _Slime_, or an indigested MUCOSITY: And this is in the ANUS, what a _Strangury_ is in the BLADDER; being _Both_ a violent _Contraction_ of the FIBRES, or _Disorder_ of the SPHINCTER-MUSCLES. WHICH tenacious _Symptom_ proceeds from a great Variety of _Causes_, occasionally provoking the _expulsive Faculty_ of the _strait Gut_, call’d the RECTUM, without a _Power_ to expel; such as may happen to be an unusual _Exulceration_, or _Constriction_ of, or an _Acid-Salt-Humour_ in the same INTESTINE: So likewise a _Stone_ in the Neck of the BLADDER, a _Tumour_ of the adjacent _Parts_, or seminal _Vessels_, a frigid _Intemperature_, the _Hemorrhoides_, a _Dysenteria_, _Dysuria_, _Ischuria_ or _Stranguria_, &c. may very shrewdly occasion the TENESMUS.