_Treatment._—Avoid over-heated rooms or exciting scenes; keep the bowels free without severe physic. Use coarse plain food, drink very little of fluids, avoid spices, stimulants, and secure cheerful exercise for the mind, with an abundance of outdoor scenery; cultivate a love for the gifts of our Heavenly Father, seek to do good for those who are worse off than yourself, and all will come out right.
After the turns have ceased altogether, a woman may live to a good old age, and fill many hours of usefulness to her sex.
Should the beats of the heart interrupt sleep very much, it is a good plan to drink about a half-pint of hop tea, sweetened with brown or maple sugar, at bed-time.
If the heart beats full and heavy, three grains of Bromide of Potassium should be dissolved in cinnamon water, and drunk at noon and night, for a week at the time, then left off to watch the result; and continued, if needful. When there is great heat of the skin without perspiration, a little mustard should be added to the daily baths for a while. Much depends upon keeping the blood in a normal state at such times, and if the luxuries of life are indulged in, the tendency is to fire the blood, so to speak.
Meats, and sweets, or pastries, induce thirst, simply by their chemical combination with the juices of the stomach; and the more water is drunk to quench the thirst, the longer will the distress continue.
It is not at all improbable that the frequent sudden deaths of women about the age of 36, is owing to taking cold through some imprudence, at this time. Great care should be taken not to have the beatings of the heart stopped too suddenly.
All women are not affected alike; many never experience any heart trouble, whilst a great number are subject to it from early maiden life. If there is much wind in the bowels, it is a good plan to take about five grains of pulverized magnesia and three of pulverized cinnamon, in a little sugar and water, every morning; it gives a gentle operation, and may be repeated at will.
Irregularities of the menses, like the event of pregnancy, very frequently occasions cramp in the stomach, for which many women boast of drinking gin, or some equally volatile stimulant; this should never be done. Putting on cloths wrung out of hot water, and sipping hot water with a little mustard in it, will soon relieve. In case of pregnancy, the cramps mostly cease with delivery.