CHAP. XLVII. How to know whether the strangulation of the wombe comes of the suppression of the flowers, or the corruption of the seed.
THere are two chiefe causes especially, as most frequently happening of the * 1.1 strangulation of the wombe: but when it proceedeth from the corrupti∣on of the seed, all the accidents are more grievous and violent: difficulty of breathing goes before, and shortly after comes deprivation thereof; the whole habit of the body seemeth more cold than a stone: the woman is a widow: or else hath great store or abundance of seed, and hath been used to the company of a man, by the absence whereof she was before wont to be pained with heavinesse of the head, to loath her meat, and to bee troubled with sadnesse and feare, but chiefly * 1.2 with melancholy. Moreover when she hath satisfied, and every way fulfilled her lust, and then presently on a sudden begins to containe her selfe. It is very likely that shee is suffocated by the supprossion of the flowers, which formerly had them well and sufficiently, which formerly hath bin fed with hot, moist, and many meats, and there∣fore engendring much bloud, which sitteth much, which is grieved with some weight and swelling in the region of the belly, with paine in the stomacke, and a desire to vomit, and with such other accidents as come by the suppression of the flowers. Those who are freed from the fit of the suffocation of the wombe, either by nature * 1.3 or by are, in a short time their colour commeth into their faces by little and little, and the whole body beginneth to wax strong, and the teeth, that were set and closed fast together, begi•• (the jawes being loosed) to open and unclose againe, and lastly, some moisture floweth from the secret parts with a certaine tickling pleasure; but in some women, as in those especially in whom the necke of the wombe is tickled with the mydivives singer, in stead of that moysture comes thick and grosse seed, which moy∣sture or seed when it is fallen, the wombe being before as it were raging, is restored unto its owne proper nature and place, and by little and little all symptomes vanish away. Men by the suppression of their seede have not the like symptomes as women have, because mans seed is not so cold and moyst, but far more perfect and better di∣gested, * 1.4 and therefore more meet to resist putrefaction, and whiles it is brought or drawn together by little and little, it is dissipated by great and violent exercise.