To stimulate nature, apply cupping-glasses to the hips and navel:  apply ligatures to the thighs, rub the extremities with salt, mustard and vinegar, and shout and make a great noise in her ears.  Hold asafoetida to the nose, or sacopenium steeped in vinegar; make her sneeze by blowing castor-powder, white pepper and hellebore up her nose; hold burnt feathers, hair, leather, or anything else with a strong, stinking smell under her nose, for bad odours are unpleasant to nature, and the animal spirits so strive against them, that the natural heat is restored by their means.  The brain is sometimes so oppressed, that it becomes necessary to burn the outer skin of the head with hot oil, or with a hot iron, and strong injections and suppositories are useful.  Take a handful each of sage, calamint, horehound, feverfew, marjoram, betony and hyssop; half an ounce of aniseed; two drachma each of coloquintida, white hellebore and salgem; boil these in two quarts of water till reduced to half; add two ounces of castor oil and two drachms of hiera piera and make an injection of it.  Or take two ounces of boiled honey, half a scruple of spurge, four grains of coloquint, two grains of hellebore and drachm of salt; make a suppository.  Hippocrates mentions a hysterical woman who could only be relieved of the paroxysms by pouring cold water on her:  yet this is a strange cure, and should only be administered in the heat of summer, when the sun is in the tropic of Cancer.

If it be caused by the retention and corruption of the seed, let the mid-wife take oil of lilies, marjoram and bay leaves, and dissolve two grains of civet in them, and the same quantity of musk, and at the moment of the paroxysm let her dip her finger into the mixture and put it into the neck of the womb, and tickle and rub it with it.

When the fit is over, proceed to remove the cause.  If it arises from suppression of the menses, look in Chapter XI, p. 102, for the cure.  If it arises from the retention of the seed, a good husband will administer the cure, but those who cannot honourably obtain that remedy, must use such means as will dry up and diminish the seed, as diaciminum, diacalaminthes, etc.  The seed of the agnus castus is highly valued as a draught, whether taken inwardly, applied outwardly or used as a suffumigation.  It was held in high esteem by the Athenian women, for by its means they remained as pure vessels and preserved their chastity, by only strewing it on the bed on which they lay, and hence the name of agnus castus, which was given to it, as denoting its effects.  Make an issue on the inside of each leg, four inches below the knee, and then make lozenges of two scruples of agric, half a scruple each of wild carrot seed and ligne aloes; three drachms of washed turpentine, and make a bolus with a conserve of flowers.  Eight drachms of castor taken in white wine are very useful in this case, or you may make pills of it with dog’s tooth, and take them on going to bed.  Take an ounce of white briony root dried and cut up like carrots, put it into a little wine and place it on the fire, and drink when warm.  Take one scruple each of myrrh, castor and asafoetida; four grains each of saffron and rue-seed, and make eight pills and take two every night on going to bed.