Another defect that new-born infants are liable to is, to have their fundaments closed up; by which they can never evacuate the new excrements engendered by the milk they suck, nor that which was amassed in their intestines before birth, which is certainly mortal without a speedy remedy. There have been some female children who have had their fundaments quite closed, and yet have voided the excrements of the guts by an orifice, which nature, to supply that defect, had made within the neck of the womb. _Cure._—Here we must take notice, that the fundament is closed two ways: either by a single skin, through which one may discover some black and blue marks, proceeding from the excrements retained, which, if one touch with the finger, there is a softness felt within, and thereabout it ought to be pierced; or else it is quite stopped by a thick fleshy substance, in such sort that there appears nothing without by which its true situation may be known. 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 muscles 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 excrements, 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 have mentioned before, it is better not to meddle, than, by endeavouring to remedy an inconvenience, run an extreme hazard of the infant’s death. But when there is no vent for the excrements, without which death is unavoidable, then the operation is justifiable.