CHAP. XV. Which is the legitimate and naturall, and which the illegitimate or unnatu∣rall time of childe birth.
TO all living creatures, except man, the time of conception and bringing * 1.1 forth their young is certaine and definite; but the issue of man commeth into the world, sometimes in the seventh, sometimes in the eighth, and sometimes, which is most frequent, in the ninth moneth, sometimes in the tenth moneth, yea sometimes in the beginning of the eleventh moneth. Massuri∣us reports that Lucius Papyrius the Pretor, the second heire commencing a suit, gave the possession of the goods away from him, seeing the mother of the childe affirmed that she went thirteen moneths therewith, being there is no certaine definite time of child-birth. The child that is borne in the sixt moneth cannot be long lived, because that at that time all his body or members are not perfectly finished or absolutely formed. In the seventh moneth it is proved by reason and experience that the infant * 1.2 may be long lived. But in the eight moneth it is seldome or never long lived: the rea∣son thereof is, as the Astronomers suppose, because that at that time Saturne ruleth, those coldnesse and drynesse is contrary to the originall of life: but yet the phisi∣call reason is more true; for the physitians say that the childe in the wombe doth often times in the seaventh moneth strive to bee set at liberty from the inclosure of the wombe, and therefore it contendeth and laboureth greatlie, and so with labou∣ring