CHAP. XXIX. _Of the DEBILITY and WEAKNESS of the_ Fœtus.
BESIDES all the enumerated SYMPTOMS, _Acute_ and _Chronical Distempers_, to which the _Child-bearing Woman_ is subject; it also happens over and above (too frequently) that the INFANT becomes _Weak_ and _Sick_ in the WOMB.
THE _Cause_ of which unhappy _Accident_ I take to be _fourfold_: As it proceeds, either from a _Debility_ and _Insufficiency_ of the _Parental_ SEED, or from a _Scarcity_ or _Want_ of requisite _Sustenance_, or from a certain _Depravation_ of that _Sustenance_, or from some immediate _Procatarctick Cause_ of the MOTHER; which may all be thus rationally distinguished, and severally accounted for; _viz._
THE _Cause_ certainly lies in the SEED, if the _Woman_ has continued always _healthy_, eating, drinking, and living regularly.
IT may be imputed to the _Scarcity_ of ALIMENT, if she has often laboured under _Diseases_, or been exposed to _Hunger_, _Want_, _Penury_, or any such like manifest retrenching CAUSE.
IT may be adjudged to a _Depravity_ of ALIMENT, when the _Woman_ (by a vitiated Constitution of Body) is subject to some certain _Distempers_; and, besides, in short, any _Procatarctick Cause_ is discoverable from the _Relation_ of the PATIENT.
BUT whatever the _Cause_ may be, the _Diagnostick Signs_ of this unhappy _Affection_, are commonly _One_ or _more_ of the following SIX; _viz._
1. THE turgid swell’d BREASTS of the _Pregnant Woman_, all on a sudden[91], fall and extenuate into a _Flabbiness_.
2.[92]THEY diffuse copiously a thin _Waterish Milk_, not half digested to its due Perfection.
3. THE _Menstrua_ return at an uncommon _Rate_, and in an irregular _Manner_.
4. THE _Woman_ personally is either very frequently _Sick_, or long expos’d to a lasting _Sickness_. Or,
5. SHE is either subject to a very frequent, or long continu’d _Looseness_, and constant _Diarrhæa_.
6. THE _Infant_ which used (as it ought) to _move briskly_, is now but very _seldom_, and more _faintly_ perceiv’d in _Motion_.
ON the other hand, the _Prognosticks_ of this CASE, are briefly _Two_: For either _Abortion_ follows, or (which is worse) the _Infant_ dies; if not timely prevented, by removing the _Efficient Cause_ of it, upon _comforting_ and _strengthening_ both the WOMAN and the CHILD.