Diseases > Domestic medicine

DOMESTIC MEDICINE. ’2*9
dent to women than men, especially the delicate and
the indolent, who, neglecting exercise, keep continually
within doors, and live upon weak watery diet. Such
females are extremely liable to be seized with this
disease in childbed, and often lose their lives by it.
Causes.—The miliary fever is sometimes occa¬
sioned by violent passions or affections of the mind ;
as excessive grief, anxiety, thoughtfulness, &c. It
may likewise be occasioned by excessive watching,
great evacuations, a weak watery diet, rainy seasons,
eating too freely of cold, crude, unripe fruits, as
plums, cherries, cucumbers, melons, &e. Impure
waters, or provisions which have been spoiled by
rainy seasons, long keeping, &c. may likewise cause
miliary fevers. They may also be occasioned hy the
stoppage of any customary evacuations, as issues,
setons, ulcers, the bleeding piles in men, or the
menstrual flux in women, &c.
This disease in childbed-women is sometimes the
effect of great costiveness during pregnancy; it may
likewise be occasioned by their excessive use of green
trash, and other unwholesome things, in which preg¬
nant women are too apt to indulge. But its most
general cause is indolence. Such women as lead a
sedentary life, especially during pregnancy, and at the
same time live grossly, can hardly escape this disease
in childbed. Hence it proves extremely fatal to
women of fashion, and likewise to those women in
manufacturing towns, who, in order to assist their
husbands, sit close within doors for almost the whole
of their time. But among women who are active and
laborious, who live in the country, and take sufficient
.exercise without doors, this disease is very little
known.
Symptoms.—When this is a primary disease, it
wakes its attack, like most other eruptive fevers
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