If the flux be melancholic, prepare with syrup of maiden-hair, borage, buglos. Purges for melancholy are stamped prunes, two oz.; senna, one drachm; fumitory, a drachm; sour dates, one ounce; with endive water, make a decoction; take of it four ounces, add unto it confections, hamesech three drachms, manna three drachms. Take conserves of borage, violets, buglos, of each a drachm; citron peel candied one drachm; sugar, seven ounces; with rose-water make lozenges. Lastly, let the womb be cleansed from the corrupt matter. Make injections of the decoction of betony, feverfew, spikenard, bistort, mercury, and sage, adding thereto sugar, oil of sweet almonds, of each two ounces; pessaries also may be made of silk or cotton, mollified in the juice of the aforesaid herbs. A dry diet is commended as the best, because in this effect the body most commonly abounds with phlegmatical and crude humours. For this cause Hippocrates counsels the patient to go to bed supperless. Let her meat be partridge, pheasant, and mountain birds, rather roasted than boiled. Immoderate sleep is forbidden, moderate exercise is commended. CHAPTER XI. OF THE SUFFOCATION OF THE MOTHER. This is called in English, “the suffocation of the mother;” because it causeth the womb to be choked. It is a retraction of the womb towards the midriff and the stomach, which so presseth and crusheth up the same, that the instrumental cause of respiration, the midriff, is suffocated, and causes the animating faculty, the efficient cause of respiration, also to be intercepted, while the body being refrigerated, and the action depraved, she falls to the ground as one dead. Many instances are recorded of those who have been considered dead, even by the medical men, in this disorder. To distinguish the living from the dead the ancients prescribe three experiments: the first is, to lay a light feather to the mouth, and by its motion you may judge whether the patient be living or dead: the second is to place, a glass of water on the breast, and if you perceive it to move, it betokeneth life: third, to hold a looking-glass to the mouth and nose; and if the glass appears thick, with a little dew upon it, it betokens life. You ought not to depend upon these; for the motion of the lungs, by which the respiration is made, may be taken away so that she cannot breathe, yet the internal transpiration of the heat may remain; which is not manifest by the motion of the breast or lungs, but lies occult in the heart and inward arteries: examples whereof we have in the fly and swallow, who, in cold winters, seem dead, and breathe not at all; yet they live by the transpiration of that heat which is reserved in the heart and inward arteries: therefore, when the summer approacheth, the internal heat being revocated to the outer parts, they revive out of their sleepy ecstacy.