Women in the first decades of the nineteenth century consulted texts such as William Buchan’s&

Women in the first decades of the nineteenth century consulted texts such as William Buchan’s Domestic Medicine and Samuel K. Jennings The Married Lady’s Companion, which suggested releasing “obstructed menses” by bloodletting, bathing, iron and quinine concoctions, and black hellebore. Later in pregnancy, a woman could engage in “violent exercise, raising great weights, reaching too high, jumping, hitting the belly, and falls.”