for the milke; hence come obstructions in the mesaraike veines, and in the small veines of the liver, fretting and wormes in the guts, and the stone in the reines. Or else they give the child the milk, despoiled of its butterish and whayish portion, and the terrestriall and cheeselike or curdlike remaining, if the pap be boiled so long as is necessary for the meale: for the milke requireth not so great, neither can it suffer so long boyling as the meale. Those that doe use crude meale, and have no hurt by it, are greatly bound to nature for so great a benefit. But Galen willeth children to bee nourished onely with the nurses milke, so long as the nurse hath enough to nourish and feed it. And truely there are many children that are contented with milke only, and will receive no pappe untill they are three moneths old. If the child at any time bee costive, and cannot voide the excrements, let him have a cataplasme made with one dramme of Aloes, of white and blacke Hellebore, of each fifteene graines, be∣ing all incorporated in as much of an oxe gall as is sufficient, and extended or spread on cotton like unto a pultis, as broad as the palme of ones hand, and so apply it upon the navell warme: moreover, this cataplasme hath also vertue to kill the wormes in the belly. Many times children have fretting of the guts, that maketh them to cry, which commeth of crudity. This must bee cured by applying unto the belly sweaty or moist woole, macerated in oile of chamomile.
If when the childes teeth begin to grow, he chance to bite the nipple of the nurses breast, there will bee an ulcer very contumacious and hard to be cured, because that the sucking of the childe, and the rubbing of the cloaths doe keep it alwaies raw; it must be cured with fomenting it with allome water, and then presently after the fo∣mentation putting thereupon a cover of leade, made like unto a hat, as they are here described, with many holes in the toppe, whereat both the milke, and also the sa∣nious matter that commeth from the ulcers may goe out, for lead it selfe will cure ulcers.
Children may be caused to cease their crying foure manner of waies, that is to say, by giving them the teat, by rocking them in a cradle, by singing unto them, and by changing the cloaths and swathes wherein they are wrapped. They must not bee rocked too violently in the cradle, lest that the milke that is sucked should be corrup∣ted by the too violent motion, by reason whereof they must not be handled violent∣ly any other way, and not altogether prohibited or not suffered to cry. For by cry∣ing the breast and lungs are dilated and made bigger and wider, the naturall parts the stronger, and the braine, nostrills, the eyes and mouth are purged, by the teares and filth that come from the eyes and nostrills. But they must not bee permitted to cry long or fiercely, for feare of breaking the production of the Peritonaum, and thereby causing the falling downe of the guts into the cod, which rupture is called of the Greekes Enterocele, or of the caule, which the Greekes call Epiplocele.