gers to which they are exposed, and being fully
informed how to avoid them. This task we now assume.

There is, we concede, a tendency in the changes which take place during
pregnancy and parturition to expose the system to such accidents. But
this tendency can be counteracted by care, and by the avoidance of
certain notorious and familiar infractions of the laws of health. It is
usually not until she gets up and commences to go about the house, that
the woman feels any pain referable to a displaced womb. Very frequently
the origin of it is leaving the bed too soon, or attempting to do some
work, too much for her strength, shortly after a premature birth or a
confinement. Not only should a woman keep her bed, as a rule, for
nineteen days after every abortion and every confinement, but for weeks
after she commences to move about she should avoid any severe muscular
exertion, especially lifting, long walks, straining, or working on the
sewing-machine. Straining at stool is one of the commonest causes. Many
women have a tendency to constipation for weeks or months after
childbirth. They are aware that it is unfavorable to health, and they
seek to aid nature by violent muscular effort. They cannot possibly do a
more unwise act. Necessarily the efforts they make press the womb
forcibly down, and its ligaments being relaxed, it assumes either
suddenly on some one well-remembered occasion, or gradually after a
succession of efforts, some unnatural position. The same reasoning
applies to relieving the bladder, which is connected in some persons
with undue effort.

Constipation, if present, must, and almost always can, be relieved by a
judicious diet, and the moderate use of injections. These simple methods
are much to be preferred to purgative medicines, which are rarely
satisfactory if they are continued for much time. When anything more is
needed, we recommend a glass of some laxative mineral water, which
should be taken before breakfast.

For the difficulty with the bladder we mentioned, diet is also
efficacious. It is familiarly known that several popular articles of
food have a decided action in stimulating the kidneys: for instance,
asparagus and water-melon. Such articles should be freely partaken, and
their effect can be increased by some vegetable infusion, taken
warm,--as juniper-tea or broom-tea. The application to the parts of a
cloth wrung out in water as hot as it can conveniently be borne, is also
a most excel