Enchiridion medicum: containing the causes, signs, and cures of all those diseases, that do chiefly affect the body of man: divided into three books. With alphabetical tables of such matters as are therein contained. Whereunto is added a treatise, De facultatibus medicamentorum compositorum, & dosibus. / By Robert Bayfield.

CHAP. XXII.

PROCIDENTIA ƲTERI, * 1.1 or a falling down of the womb, so that it sticketh out outwardly.

The cause is of falling from an high place, * 1.2 sore

travel of child-birth, or through the unskilful∣nesse of the mid-wife, who draweth away the womb with the childe, or with the secundine cleaving fast thereunto.

Also a tenasmus may be the cause, or what∣soever weightily presseth down the Diaphrag∣ma; or the muscles of the Epigastrium; or set∣ting on a cold stone: Therefore what thing so∣ever resolve, relax, or burst the ligaments or bands, whereby the wombe is tyed, are suppo∣sed to be causes of the accident.

There is felt pain in the entrails, loynes, or os sacrum: * 1.3 And a tractable tumour at the neck of the womb: It is sometimes seen hanging out, of the bignesse and form of goose egge, like a peece of red flesh.

If that hangeth out be putrified, * 1.4 it must be cut away; being first tied, and the rest seared with a cautery. Paulus, and others testifie that some women have lost the greater part, others all their womb, and yet have lived very well, after it: If it hangeth down between the thighs; it is hard to cure, yet place her on her back; her buttocks and thighes being lifted up, and her legges drawne back, then anoint with oyle of sillies: * 1.5 If it be swelled, use a fomentation of mallowes, Althaea, and fennegreek, then thrust it up gently with your finger into its place, whilest the woman draw her breath as as if she supt something: then wipe away the oyle, and foment with an astringent decocti∣on made with pomegranate pills, * 1.6 roche-allam, cypress nuts, * 1.7 barberries, &c. boyled in smiths∣water: Also a clyster is good. Or prepare wooll

in figure and thicknesse, according to the pro∣portion of the member: wind it about with a fine cloath, dip it in the juyce of Acatia, and Hypocischis, put it into the wombe, and you shall by little and little, * 1.8 wrest upward all that is fallen down: vomiting is much commended, let them smell to odoriferous things, and stink∣ing things used below: of which you have plenty in the former Chapter: Lastly, if it cometh through cold,

℞. Fol. alth. salviae, lavend. rorismar. artemis. * 1.9 flor. chammaem, melilot. ana M. ss. sem. anisi, fenugr. ana ℥.j.

With wine and water make a decoction to fo∣ment with. Forestus in lib. 28. * 1.10 de mulierum mor∣bis obser. 35. doth command this powder to be used outwardly after unction.

℞. Acaciae ʒ.ij. baccar. myrt. ros. rub. an. ℈.ij. * 1.11 cornu cervini usti ʒ.ij.ss. misce.

Notes

• * 1.1

  〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• * 1.2

  Causae.
• * 1.3

  Signa.
• * 1.4

  Curatio.
• * 1.5

  Fomentatio
• * 1.6

  Decoctio.
• * 1.7

  Clyster.
• * 1.8

  Vomitus.
• * 1.9

  Fomenta∣tio.
• * 1.10

  Forestus.
• * 1.11

  Fulvis.