The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to the Maiden, Wife and MotherNapheys, George H. (George Henry)
Science
The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother
Napheys, George H. (George Henry)
Women -- Health and hygiene
The best treatment consists in a regulated, but supporting, diet without
stimulants, the avoidance of all marital relations, plenty of rest in
bed or on a sofa, a warm hip bath every morning, and the use of
injections. One of the best injections for this purpose is made by
adding a table-spoonful of lead-water to a pint of water, and injecting
the whole twice a day, by means of a rubber, hard-ball syringe. As this
solution will stain the body-linen, due precautions should be taken.
Instead of this injection, a small tea-spoonful of alum dissolved in a
pint of water and injected once a day may be used.
We will now say a few words upon the _form of white-flowing which
affects women after childbirth_. It is a common result of too frequent
confinements or of successive abortions. In women of a tendency to
consumption it has been observed that white-flowing is more apt to arise
in connection with child-bearing. Prolonged nursing, resulting in great
debility of the mother, often produces very profuse white discharges.
In warm countries this affection is much more frequent than elsewhere.
Moist and damp climates are said also to render women particularly prone
to it.
The _treatment_ must have regard to the general health of the patient.
The mode of life must be regulated. A change of scene, if it can be
procured, is often of the greatest benefit. Baths are also very useful.
They may be taken in the form of a 'sponge bath,' or 'hip bath.' If the
former be preferred, the patient should every morning, in a warm room,
sponge the whole body, at first with tepid water and, after a time, with
cold, the skin being well dried and rubbed with a coarse towel. The
hip-bath may be employed either of simple, or of salt, or of medicated
water. It should be at first warm, and afterwards cold. The skin is to
be well rubbed after the hip as after the sponge-bath. The hip-bath may
be medicated with three or four table-spoonfuls of alum, or with a
quarter of a pound of common household soda.
In connection with this treatment, injections should be employed in the
manner just directed for the white-flowing of pregnancy.
MILK-LEG.
This affection usually appears about ten days or two weeks after
confinement. The first symptoms which show themselves are general
uneasiness, chills, headache, and a quickened pulse. Then pains in the
groin, extending down the thigh and leg of that side are complained of.
Soon the whole limb becomes enlarged, hot, white, and shining.
Feverishness and sleeplessness now naturally show themselves.
The disease rarely lasts more than two or three weeks, although the limb
remains stiff, perhaps, for a number of weeks longer. It is painful, but
not dangerous--rarely proving fatal.
When one leg is recovering, the disease sometimes attacks the other, and
runs through the same course.
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