THE _Cure_ consists in temperating the _Calidity_ of the _VISCERA_, and relaxing the _BELLY_ by proper _Diet_, _Dissolvents_, &c. And in _Case_ of any sudden _VOMITING_, which sometimes happens upon _Costiveness_, humectant and emollient _Clysters_ may be most properly and cautiously used, to restrain and prevent all such _Revulsions_.
A TENESMS is an irregular _Retention_ of NATURE, and nothing else but a continual _Desire_ or _Inclination_ of going to _STOOL_; attended with _Pain_, without voiding any thing but _Slime_, or an indigested MUCOSITY: And this is in the ANUS, what a _Strangury_ is in the BLADDER; being _Both_ a violent _Contraction_ of the FIBRES, or _Disorder_ of the SPHINCTER-MUSCLES.
WHICH tenacious _Symptom_ proceeds from a great Variety of _Causes_, occasionally provoking the _expulsive Faculty_ of the _strait Gut_, call’d the RECTUM, without a _Power_ to expel; such as may happen to be an unusual _Exulceration_, or _Constriction_ of, or an _Acid-Salt-Humour_ in the same INTESTINE: So likewise a _Stone_ in the Neck of the BLADDER, a _Tumour_ of the adjacent _Parts_, or seminal _Vessels_, a frigid _Intemperature_, the _Hemorrhoides_, a _Dysenteria_, _Dysuria_, _Ischuria_ or _Stranguria_, &c. may very shrewdly occasion the TENESMUS.
WHICH binding _SYMPTOM_ is of the same dangerous _Nature_ and[80]_Consequence_ with the preceding _Case_; both having an equal _Effect_ of Power, if not prevented, to expel and dislodge the INFANT. Which _Notion_ cannot be otherways better maintain’d; for the WOMB being situated upon the _Intestinum Rectum_, must suffer great _Commotions_ by continual _Needings_ and _Strainings_ in both Cases.
BUT the safest CURE, in short, in my humble Opinion, is to be perform’d by proper _Decoctions_, _Fomentations_, and absterging _Clysters_.
CHAP. XXIV. _Of the VARICES, or Vein-Tumours._
THIS _Symptom_ is nothing else, than a _Distention_ or _Dilatation_ of the HIP, THIGH, and LEG-VEINS: Which however chiefly appears about the HAM; and it happens most commonly to _Plethorick Women_, who walk much, or exercise themselves more freely upon any Occasion.
THE _Cause_ proceeds only from a _Plenty_, or _Superfluity_ of the suppressed BLOOD, more than the _Infant_ can consume: which being carry’d by the _Arteries_ to the _lower Parts_, is thence received by the _Crural_ and _Saphene_ or _Ankle-Veins_. Insomuch that the WOMB, being (by this time) both _Ponderous_ and _Bulky_, so presseth the ILIAC-VEINS, that it hinders the BLOOD in its _Course_, and obstructs its free _Motion_ and _Circulation_; whereby (of consequence) these _inferiour Veins_ must swell and distend themselves proportionably.