THIS _Symptom_ is nothing else, more than an immoderate _Exercitation_ of the SENSES, from too great a _Motion_ of the _Animal Spirits_: Proceeding from some acrimonious and siccid _Vapours_ of the _Humours_, ascending to the BRAIN, and there disturbing the _Spirits_, by exciting their vehement Motion; which so exagitates the SENSES, that the vigilant restless _Woman_ gets either none at all, or but very _short Sleep_.
THIS watchful _Affection_ is distinguished by a _siccid_, or _calid_ and _siccid Intemperature_; attended sometimes with a _Melancholick_, _Bilous_, or _Pituitous_, _Saltish_ Matter; which is either essentially lodg’d in the HEAD, or communicated to it from the _Mouth of the Stomach_, or the Veins of the whole Body.
SOME have been so overtaken with this _SYMPTOM_, that they have not only continued _Awake_ for some Days and Nights, but also Weeks and Months: Insomuch that _Hercules Saxon_[72] relates of his own _Father_, that He, being melancholick, suffer’d such like WATCHINGS, without the least SLEEP, _seven Months long_.
HOWEVER in the _Child-bearing Woman_, the least Degree of such immoderate _WATCHING_[73] is dangerous; insomuch that it often occasions _Deliriums_, and _Convulsions_, by the continual Stretch and _Tension_ of the FIBRES.
HOWEVER the CURE of this _SYMPTOM_ may (I hope) be well perform’d both by _external_ and _internal Means_; externally, by proper _Lotions_, _Inunctions_, and _Frictions_; internally, by proper Soporiferous _Medicines_ adapted to the Quality of the Intemperature.
CHAP. XVII. _Of PAINS in the Hips, Loins_, &c.
ALTHOUGH these _PAINS_ (in general Terms) are the _Effects_ of the _Compression_ of the extended WOMB, hanging on, and bearing too much upon the neighbouring _Parts_, by its Gravity and Weight: Yet the particular _Cause_ of such _SYMPTOMS_ (in my Opinion) is _Two-fold_; and proceeds either from the Abundance of BLOOD lodging in the _Veins_ of those Parts; or from the growing FOETUS, so extending the _Ligaments_ of the WOMB, as to oblige the neighbouring Parts to sympathize. From hence the _broad Ligaments_ cause the _PAINS_ of the _Back_ and _Loins_, answering to the _Reins_, to which _Parts_ they are strongly fixed; as the _round Ones_ affect the _Groins_, _Hips_, and _Thighs_, where they terminate. Which _Ligaments_ are sometimes so violently extended, especially in the first Time of _Pregnancy_, that (by the Concurrence of any slight _procatarctick Cause_) they have been often known to break.