Treatment of Excessive Menstrual Flow

For troublesome excess of menstrual flow, open the basilic vein widely, and cup beneath both breasts using much flame: and tightly bind and warm the hands and often massage: and, for fluids, prescribe a draught of cool plantain water with pomegranate and syrup of myrtle. And give pastilles of powdered amber and spodium and Lemnian earth with Armenian bole: or powdered coral, jasper, dragon’s blood and haematite. And you may add conserve of roses, water-lily and cassidony, compound with myrtle liquor and sugar, taking a portion of chestnut size before meals daily. A longish pessary of wool and silk-cotton, soaked in fluid of willow and plantain, is used to fit the genitals: and the parts around are rubbed with oxyrhodium. Philonium is an antidote, and rest, and inspissate and suppress the flow when other measures fail. The woman with excessive menses should lie quietly and let her diet be meagre: the juice of a roast is laudable, with red currant and pomegranate juice or the fruit of thorny barberry.