ing's coffee. The healthy operation of the bowels has been thus promoted, although a system of regular walking exercise, apportioned to the strength, and short of fatigue, will generally effect this purpose, while at the same time it gives tone to the general health. Fatigue of body is sedulously to be avoided. Slow and moderate walks, or exercise in an open carriage, should be daily obtained between breakfast and dinner-care being always taken to avoid sitting down to the latter meal tired, and, therefore, probably with a blunted appetite.

Sect. 2.-Heartburn.

This is a very common and distressing symptom. It occurs early after conception; sometimes, however, not till after the fourth month; and occasionally is absent altogether. It is produced by an acid forming in the stomach, which rises into the throat, and, from the sensation it occasions, is called heartburn.

Various are the remedies in common use, as sodawater, magnesia, prepared chalk, equal parts of limewater and milk; and they generally mitigate the complaint if slight, but more generally fail. The best means consists in taking, twice or thrice a day, a teaspoonful of aromatic spirit of ammonia, or a tablespoonful of liquid magnesia, in a wine-glass of camphor julep; or if the case be very intractable, the following draught three times a day, for three or four days :— Magnesia, fifteen grains; solution of carbonate of ammonia, ten drops; distilled pepermint-water and distilled water, of each half a wine-glass. The compress alone will frequently remove an attack of heartburn, and for this purpose may be put on night or day.

The bowels must be carefully regulated, and the diet most strictly attended to.

Sect. 3.-Costiveness.

A costive state of bowels is one of the most common, and at the same time troublesome, of the diseases of pregnancy. It arises partly from the increased activity which is going on in the womb, and which induces a sluggish condition of the bowels, and partly from the pressure of the now enlarged and expanded womb on the bowels themselves.

It is the frequent source of many and serious evils, and therefore ought to be most vigilantly and carefully guarded against. First-Because, as before stated, pregnancy itself predisposes to constipation. Secondly— Because it is much more easily prevented than removed, when, after several days' confinement, an accumulation of hardened fæces has collected in the lower bowel. Thirdly-Because such an accumulation may give rise to inflammation of the bowel itself, and, in the earlier months of pregnancy, to miscarriage. And, lastly— Because if a woman falls into labour with her intestinal canal so loaded, it will of itself be sufficient to render what would otherwise have been a quick, easy, and safe labour, a long, painful, and difficult one, and may be the cause also of very serious and alarming symptoms some forty or eight-and-forty hours after her labour is over. A well-conducted regimen, and a careful attention to the regulation of the bowels during pregnancy, contribute most essentially to a good labour and a good getting up.

The first and leading symptoms of this affection is

a costive or more consistent state than usual of the fæcal excretions, with a less frequent call for evacuation than is customary with the individual when in health. If this is not attended to, and several days, perhaps a week, pass by without the bowels being relieved at all, pain in the head, a foul tongue, and an increased degree of fulness and tension of the abdomen, are experienced. These symptoms are followed, in all probability, by thin watery evacuations, attended with pain, weight, and pressure about the lower bowel; they become frequent; and the individual at last, finding the bowels are not only open again, but even loose, takes chalk mixture. She is not aware that this very looseness is nothing more than increased secretion of the lining membrane of the bowel, caused by the pressure of the accumulated mass of hardened fæces, which it passes and leaves unmoved. The chalk mixture relieves the irritation upon which the looseness depends; but the disease is not removed, and, instead of its being a case simply of costiveness, it has now become one of constipation; an accumulation of hardened stool is distending and irritating, by its pressure, the lower bowel and the womb, and the serious consequences before enumerated may follow.

Very often have I been consulted by a patient far advanced in pregnancy, for what she has supposed mere looseness of bowels, which has readily been found to originate under circumstances like these. It is of the highest importance that the patient should endeavour to guard against such a result; and without doubt she may avoid it, and regulate her bowels with great comfort to herself, throughout the whole period of pregnancy, if she will only use the means.

The Means for Regulating the Bowels.-In point

ing out a plan to accomplish this desirable object, next to a careful observance of the general measures alluded to in a former chapter, the first prescription I have to offer is by far the most valuable-' prevention is more easy than cure.' If the bowels are sluggish to-daythat is to say, if they are not so freely relieved as usual-and you do not assist them by medicine or other means, depend upon it to-morrow they will be confined, and there will be no relief at all. Dr. Tanner says: For the treatment of simple constipation, medicines are seldom necessary. It is generally advisable at all events first to try the effects of daily exercise, and regularity in soliciting intestinal action; together with the eating of brown bread, fresh vegetables, ripe fruits, baked apples, figs, prunes soaked in olive-oil, mulberry-juice, marmalade, honey, or tamarinds.' If the bowels are still disposed to be costive, I would in the first place advise a trial of the compress, sometimes an excellent and sufficient substitute for medicine. It may be put on over night when the bowels have been disposed to be confined during the day, and, aided by gentle exercise the next morning, will frequently accomplish the desired object. If it fail, take the sitz-bath for ten minutes on rising and at noon, at the ordinary temperature in summer, and in winter at sixty to sixty-five degrees. Sluice the abdomen for two or three minutes before coming out of the bath, and drink a tumbler of cold water after it. Take exercise for a quarter of an hour after the morning bath, and before and after that at noon. Apply the compress on rising, and wear it till the dinner hour, refreshing it as often as required.

If these means fail, substitute for the morning bath a lavement of luke-warm water.

These simple measures alone will sometimes suffice. Should they fail, recourse must be had to those of a more medicinal character.

Milk of sulphur, as much as will lie on a fourpenny-piece, put on the tongue and washed down with a glass of water immediately before breakfast, is in some constitutions invaluable as the most perfect imitation of natural relief. In others, if it does not nauseate the stomach, one large tablespoonful of castoroil may be preferable, or a large wine-glass of Friedrichshalle water; to be taken two hours before breakfast, and fasting.

It will now and then happen, however, that the day has been allowed to slip by. When this is the case, in combination with any of the foregoing medicines the use of the lavement is desirable. Medicine alone will not answer the purpose, unless it be taken in doses so strong as will not only move the bowels, but irritate them too. With the employment of the warm water mild aperients never fail. Women, generally, are averse to the use of the lavement, and it is a prejudice which is most deeply to be regretted. I have known purgative medicines so often resorted to, and in time so increased in power and quantity because they began to lose their effect, that by the continual irritation they kept up disease of the lower bowel has been produced, and death has at last been the consequence. If, then, the bowels have been confined for one or two days, the lavement in the morning will render much less medicine necessary, and frequently have an effect when medicine only would not. Many women use this remedy alone, every second or third morning during the latter weeks of pregnancy; and by this means they regulate their bowels-which would other