Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LECTU11E H. DIET OF PUERPERAL WOMEN. The puerperal period does not require an abstemious diet—Good, nutritious, easily-digestible food should be taken in sufficient quantities—Many puerperal disturbances are due to exhaustion and inanition—Laxatives—Routine practice of giving castor-oil on the third day—Castor-oil not to be given when there is a tendency to hemorrhoids—Hemorrhoids during gestation— The predisposing and exciting causes of—Treatment during gestation—When they are developed by labor—During the puerperal period. Geotlemen : The theory that a puerperal woman is in an inflammatory condition, or in a state predisposed to inflammation, has, in a great measure, governed the profession, and has been inculcated by most of the obstetric authorities, from Celsus down nearly to the present time. They have consequently taught that a puerperal woman should be restricted to what was termed an antiphlogistic diet. I should, however, mention, as one of the prominent exceptions to the above remark, " the judicious " Denman, whose rule was to place his patient at once upon a regimen accordant with her previous habits. At the present time, a change of practice, more in accordance with sound physiological reasoning and good sense, is rapidly taking place. Dr. Graily Hewitt, of London, has written forcibly on this point; and a discussion on this subject, in the Edinburgh ObstetricalSociety, plainly demonstrates that the routine practice, which restricted the puerperal woman to gruel, tea, and toast, for three days after labor, and a bill of fare but slightly extended until after the ninth day, is not the rule at the present time. Some eighteen years ago, I was led to carefully review this whole subject, with the result of an entire change in my theory, teaching, and practice;...