the mouth, mixed with some oil of sweet almonds drawn without a fire, anointing the belly also with the same oil or fresh butter. The midwife having thus washed and cleansed the child, according to the before-mentioned directions, let her begin to swaddle it in swathing clothes, and when she dresses the head, let her put small rags behind the ears to dry up the filth which usually engenders there, and so let her do also in the folds of the arm-pits and groin, and so swathe it; then wrap it up warm in a bed with blankets, which there is scarcely any woman so ignorant but knows well enough how to do: only let me give them this caution, that they swathe not the child too strait in its blankets, especially about the breast and stomach, that it may breathe the more freely, and not be forced to vomit up the milk it sucks, because the stomach cannot be sufficiently extended to contain it; therefore let its arms and legs be wrapped in its bed stretched and straight, and swathed to keep them so, viz, the arms along its sides, and its legs equally both together, with a little of the bed between them, that they may not be galled by rubbing each other; then let the head be kept steady and straight, with a stay fastened on each side of the blanket; and then wrap the child up in a mantle and blankets to keep it warm. Let none think this of swathing the infant is needless to set down, for it is necessary it should be thus swaddled, to give its little body a straight figure, which is most decent and proper for a man, and to accustom him to keep upon his feet, who otherwise would go upon all fours, as most other animals do. CHAPTER IX. SECT. I. _Of Gripes and Pains in the Bellies of young Children._ This I mention first, as it is often the first and most common distemper which happens to little infants after their birth; many children being so troubled therewith, that it causes them to cry night and day, and at last die of it. The cause of it for the most part comes from the sudden change of their nourishment, for having always received it from the umbilical vessel whilst in the mother’s womb, they come on a sudden not only to change the manner of receiving it, but the nature and quality of what they receive, as soon as they are born; for instead of purified blood only, which is conveyed to them by means of the umbilical vein only, they are now obliged to be nourished by their mother’s milk, which they suck with their mouths, and from which are engendered many excrements, causing gripes and pains; and not only because it is not so pure as the blood with which it was nourished in the womb, because the stomach and the intestines cannot make a good digestion, being unaccustomed to it. It is also caused sometimes by a rough phlegm, and sometimes by worms; for physicians affirm, that worms have been bred in children even in their mother’s womb.