The workes of that famous chirurgion Ambrose Parey translated out of Latine and compared with the French. by Th: Johnson

CHAP. XII. Of the naturall excrements in generall, and especially of those that the childe or infant being in the wombe excludeth.

BEfore I declare what excrements the infant excludeth in the wombe and by what passages, I thinke it good to speak of the excrements which * 1.1 all men doe naturally voyde. All that is called an excrement which nature is accustomed to separate and cast out from the laudible and nou∣rishing juice. There are many kinds of those excrements.

The first is of the first concoction, which is performed in the stomacke, which * 1.2 being driven downe into the intestines or guts, is voyded by the fundament.

The second commeth from the liver, and it usually is three-fold, or of three kinds; one cholericke, whereof a great portion is sent into the bladder of the gall, that by sweating out there hence, it might stirre up the expulsive faculty of the guts to ex∣pell and exclude the excrements. The other is like unto whay, which goeth with the bloud into the veines, and is as it were a vehicle thereto to bring it unto all the parts of the body, and into every Capillar veine for to nourish the whole body; and after it hath performed that function, it is partly expelled by sweate, and partly sent into the bladder, and so excluded with the urine. The third is the melancholicke excrement, which being drawn by the milt, the purer and thinner part thereof goeth into the nourishment of the milt, and after the remnant is partly purged out downe-wards by the haemorrhoidall veines, and partly sent to the orifice of the stomacke, to instimulate and provoke the appetite. The last commeth of the last concoction, which is absolved in the habit of the body, and breatheth out, partly by insensible * 1.3 transpiration, is partly consumed by sweating, and partly floweth out by the evi∣dent and manifest passages that are proper to every part: as it happeneth in the braine before all other parts; for it doth unloade it selfe of this kinde of excrement by the passages of the nose, mouth, eares, eyes, pallat bone and sutures of the scull.

Therefore if any of those excrements bee stayed altogether, or any longer than it is meete they should, the default is to bee amended by diet and medicine. Further∣more, there are other sorts of excrements not naturall, of whom wee have entrea∣ted at large in our booke of the pestilence.

When the infant is in the mothers wombe, untill hee is fully and absolutely for∣med * 1.4 in all the liniments of his body, hee sends forth his urine by the passage of the navell or urachus. But a little before the time of childe-birth, the urachus is closed, and then the man childe voydeth his urine by the conduit of the yard, and the wo∣man childe by the necke of the wombe. This urine is gathered together and con∣tained in the coate Chorion or Allantoides, together with the other excrements, that is to say, sweat, & such whayish superfluities of the menstruall matter, for the more easie bearing up of the floting or swimming childe. But in the time of child-birth, when * 1.5 the infant by kicking breaketh the membranes, those humous runne out, which when the mydwifes perceive, they take it as a certaine signe that the childe is at hand.

For if the infant come forth together with those waters, the birth is like to be more easie, and with the better successe; for the necke of the wombe and all the genitalls are so by their moisture relaxed and made slippery, that by the endeavour and stir∣ring of the infant the birth will be the more easie, and with the better successe: con∣tratiwise, if the infant bee not excluded before all these humours bee wholly flowed out and gone, but remaineth as it were in a dry place, presently through drinesse the necke of the wombe and all the genitalls will be contracted and drawne together, so that the birth of the childe will bee very difficult and hard, unlesse the necke of the wombe, to amend that default, be anointed with oile, or some other relaxing liquor. Moreover, when the childe is in the wombe, he voideth no excrements by the fun∣dament, unlesse it be when at the time of the birth, the proper membranes and recep∣tacles are burst by the striving of the infant, for hee doth not take his meat at the mouth, wherefore the stomacke is idle then, and doth not execute the office of tur∣ning the meats into Chylus, nor of any other concoction; wherefore nothing can goe downe from it into the guts. Neither have I seldome seene infants borne with∣out * 1.6 any hole in their fundament, so that I have beene constrained with a knife to cut in sunder the membrane or tunicle that grew over and stopped it. And how can such excrements be engendered, when the child being in the wombe, is nourished with the more laudable portion of the menstruall blood? therefore the issue or child is wont to yeeld or avoyd two kindes or sorts of excrements, so long as he is in the womb, that is to say, sweat and urine, in both which he swimmes; but they are separa∣ted by themselves, by a certaine tunicle called Allantoides, as it may be seene in kids, dogges, sheepe, and other brute beasts; for as much as in mankinde the tunicle Cho∣rion and Allantoides or Farciminalis be all one membrane. If the woman be great of a * 1.7 man childe, she is more merry, strong, and better coloured, all the time of her child bearing, but if of a woman childe, she is ill coloured because that women are not so hot as men.

The males begin to stirre within three moneths and an halfe, but females after: if a woman conceive a male child, she hath all her right parts stronger to every work: wherefore they do begin to set forwards their right foot first in going, & when they * 1.8 arise they leane on the right arme, the right dug will sooner swell and waxe hard; the male children stirre more in the right side than in the left, and the female chil∣dren rather in the left than in the right side.

Notes

• * 1.1

  What an excre∣ment is.
• * 1.2

  The excrement of the fist con∣coction. The excrement of the second concoction is triple.
• * 1.3

  The excrement of the third con∣coction is triple.
• * 1.4

  The use of the navellstring.
• * 1.5

  The signes of speedy and easie deliverance.
• * 1.6

  Children born without a pas∣sage in their fundament.
• * 1.7

  Aph. 42. sect. 5.
• * 1.8

  Aph. 47. sect. 3.