The compleat midwife's practice enlarged in the most weighty and high concernments of the birth of man containing a perfect directory or rules for midwives and nurses : as also a guide for women in their conception, bearing and nursing of children from the experience of our English authors, viz., Sir Theodore Mayern, Dr. Chamberlain, Mr. Nich. Culpeper ... : with instructions of the Queen of France's midwife to her daughter ... / by John Pechey ... ; the whole illustrated with copper plates.

CHAP. I. Of the Vessels of Preparation.

AMong the Spermatic Vessels are to be consider∣ed first, two veins, and two arteries: these are carried downward from the small guts to the Testi∣cles, and are much bigger in Men than they are in Women.

The original of these Veins is not always the same; for commonly the right Vein riseth out of the Hollow vein, a little below the source or original of the E∣mulgent; but the least takes his original from the lower part of the Emulgent it self. Yet sometimes it hath a branch carried to it from the trunk of the hollow Vein.

The middle part of these veins runs directly through the Loyns, resting upon the Lumbal Muscle, a thin Membrane only intervening; and thus having gone above half its journey, it branches out and distributes it self to the near adjoyning filmy parts of the Body. The uttermost part of these vessels is carried beyond the Midriff to the Stones, yet do they not pass through the Peritonaeum, but descend with a small nerve and the Muscle called Cremaster, through the Duplicity of the Midriff; when it approaches near the Stones, it is joyned with an Artery: and now these Vessels which were before a little severed one from the other, are by a film rising from the Peritonaeum closed up, and

bound both together; and so twisting up, like the young tendrils of a Vine, they are carried to the end of the Stones.

The arteries which are associated to these veins, take their original a little beneath the Emulgent vein, whence they descend downward, and a little from their beginning or original, they are joyn'd to these veins, till they are closed together by an Anastomôsis or Inosculation, ending like a Piramid.

It has been generally taught, that there are seve∣ral Inosculations of the Arteries, with the Veins in their passage, whereby the blood of the Veins and Arteries are mixed; but since the knowledge of the Circulation of the Blood, this Opinion has been re∣jected; for the blood in the Arteries goes down to∣wards the Stones, and that in the veins ascends from them; and therefore if these two Vessels should open one into the other, the Blood in one of them must ne∣cessarily be thrust back, or else stopping, stretch and break the Vessels; but the truth is, the blood, both for the nourishment of the Stones, and the making of Seed, flows down by the Arteries only in an even course, without any windings and twinings, like the tendrils of Vines, so much talked of, as the excel∣lent Anatomist de Graef says he has found by frequent inspection. The Veins carry back from the Stones, what of the blood remains from their nourishment, and making of Seed, and these indeed come out of the Stones, with a vast number of Roots, whereby they suck up the said Blood, and are most admirably inter∣woven, and inosculated one with another, 'till about four or five fingers breadth above the Stone, which space is called the Pyramidal Body.

Two things are to be noted. First, That these sper∣matic Veins have from their rise to their end several

Valves, which open upwards, and so suffer the Blood to ascend towards the hollow Vein, but not to return back again. Secondly, That tho' the Spermatick Arteries go a direct course in Men, yet in Brutes they are more complicated, and twisted with the Veins, but without any opening of one into another. There are Nerves and Lympheducts, that pass into the Testicles together with the Vessels of preparation.