take it that the discharge is inordinate. In bodies which abound in
gross humours, this immoderate flow sometimes unburdens nature of her
load and ought not to be checked without a physician's advice.



CAUSE.

The cause is either internal or external. The internal cause is
threefold; in the substance, the instrument or the power. The matter,
which is the blood, may be vitiated in two ways; first, by the heat of
the constitution, climate or season, heating the blood, whereby the
passages are dilated, and the power weakened so that it cannot retain
the blood. Secondly, by falls, blows, violent motions, rupture of the
veins, etc. The external cause may be the heat of the air, heavy
burdens, unnatural childbirth, etc.



SIGNS.

In this excessive flow the appetite is lessened, conception is checked
and all the functions weakened; the feet swell, the colour of the face
changes, and the whole body is weakened. If the flow comes from the
rupture of a vein, the body is sometimes cold, the blood flows out in
streams, suddenly, and causes great pain. If it arises from heat, and
the orifice of the vein is dilated, there is little or no pain, but yet
the blood flows faster than it does when caused by erosion, but not so
fast as it does in a rupture. If caused by erosion, the woman feels a
scalding of the passage, and it differs from the other two, in so much