Parturient women are very subject to a sensation of languor and exhaustion at stomach, attended with a feeling of faintness, which they call “_fatiga_.” On ordinary occasions, when this feeling or sensation is experienced by females not similarly situated, it is usual to resort to cordials and odoriferous draughts containing lavender, hartshorn, &c. and also to stimulating embrocations applied over the seat of the stomach, which usually consist of a camphorated mixture, or perhaps Cologne water, and other such remedies applied in common cases of weakness and faintness referred to the stomach; but, under the circumstances to which our rule refers, all applications of this sort are inadmissible.
When there is a feeling of sickness and faintness, with a disconsolate sensation (called “un desconsuelo”) at the epigastrium or scrobiculus cordis, they are allowed on all occasions to apply to the stomach, as a popular remedy with the matrons, a bit of warm toast, or the breast of a fowl sprinkled over with powdered cinnamon and moistened with wine, or, as it is vernacularly expressed, “la pechuga de gallina con vino y canela;” and they agree that this application, which possesses a great deal of their confidence, commonly produces the best effects.
X. _Tomar agua fria encima de colera._—To drink cold water immediately after a fit of anger, which is the meaning of the words in our text, is a frequent cause of ailment, and one which the practitioner every day hears of as the origin of the worst cases of visceral obstructions or hepatic disease. Unfortunately, the occasions of such attacks are of ordinary occurrence; for the temper of those who suffer from them is rarely under proper control, and, as a necessary consequence of the existing state of society, provocations to anger are common in every situation.
We were once consulted by a curate of an irritable disposition, and an epicure in his taste, on account of an induration and very prominent enlargement of the liver, which some time after ended in a fatal abscess. This gentleman assigned, as the exciting cause of his malady, his having drunk cold water when angry, or on occasion of a quarrel he had with his cook, a Zamba girl, who we may suppose must have spoiled some favourite sauce.