QVEST. XXI. How Twinnes, or more Infants are generated.
THe Immortall God of his Diuine prouidence hath giuen almost to all brute creatures a power to bring foorth many young at once least their kindes should be extinguished, for that of themselues they are but short liued & * 1.1 beside serue man for food & raiment, yea prey also one vpon another. Man the most temperate and of longest continuance, by the prescript of Nature breedeth but one infant at once, or at the most but two; because there is but one bosom in the wombe of a woman; but two parts thereof the right and the left distinguished only by aline, not disscuered by any partition; and onely two dugges appointed to nourish two in∣fants which we call Twinnes. And if at any time a Woman bring foorth three or more that seemeth to the Philosophers to be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, vnnaturall.
Wee haue many Elegant Histories of such manifolde burthens. In Egypt where Nylus that fruitfull Riuer runnes, women bring sometimes six at a birth. Aristotle in his seuenth Booke De Historia animalium affirmeth that one Woman at foure birthes brought into the * 1.2 world twenty al perfect. Tragus reporteth, that in Egyp it hath been known that a woman hath borne seauen infants at once. Albertus telleth a tale of a woman in Germany who ha∣uing two and twenty infants formed in hir wombe suffered abortment, and of another who had at once 150. all of them being a bigge as a mans little finger.
Margaret Countesle of Holland, is saide to haue brought foorth at one burthen 364 li∣uing infants, who were all christned but dyed presently after, the Males were named Iohn, and the Females Elizabeth there remaineth to this day a stately Marble Sepulchre of him in a Monastery in Holland. Ther are also many other Histories of such like burthens as these which I willingly pretermit, being more willing to spend my time in searching out the cau∣ses of them.
Many of the Ancients referre the cause of Twinnes and manifolde burthens to the va∣riety * 1.3 of the bosomes of the wombe, for they make seauen bosomes in the wombe of a Wo∣man, which they call 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Cels; three in the right side of the VVombe appointed for male children, and three in the left appointed for females, the seuenth in the midst wherin Hermophradytes are engendred, but these are idle conceites, next a Kinne to Olde wiues tales. For in a womans wombe there is but one bosom, as there is but one cauity in the sto∣macke * 1.4 which yet may be diuided into the right side and the left. These sides are diseuered by no partition, whatsoeuer Auicenna Haliabbas & many other Anatomists do auouch, as they are in sheepe, but onely distinguished by a line, which Aristotle calleth 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that is, A middle Line, which word he tooke out of Hippocrates in his Coacae Praenotiones. Moreouer * 1.5 that the variety of Celles cannot be the cause of the multiplicity of the burthen that among other things may bee an argument, because sometime twenty young ones or more may at once bee conceiued, but no man I thinke will say there are so many bosomes in the womb; neither yet in other creatures are there so many bosomes as there are yong, as appeareth in Fishes who haue an infinit number of spawn yet no partition or distinction between them. Erasistratus referreth the cause of Twins to a repetition of conception. Empedocles vnto the plenty of seede, Ptolomy to the diuerse positions of the Starres.
The true cause Hippocrates acknowledgeth in his first Booke de Diaeta, to be the Diuision of the seede. So it was necessarie that the Seede be diuided equally into both sides of the wombe.