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. In what manner the Generative, or Begetting Seed hath its beginning; and particularly of the four Degrees of Concoction.

THAT we may the better discern the whole course and order of Generation, I have thought it convenient to demonstrate how great a similitude it bears with the production of Plants: but first it is necessary to take notice what Generative Seed is, and how extracted out of the three Concoctions.

We may observe the natural Procreation of man to be altogether such, as we perceive the generation and beginning of Plants or Herbs of every kind to be: For

as they every one of them from the Seed of his Kind, cast into the Womb of the Earth, do bud or increase, and do naturally grow to the perfect Form of its pro∣per Nature: So Man also being a reasonable Creature according to the quality of the Body, doth naturally draw his Original and Begining from the sperm and seed of Man, projected and cast forth into the Womb of Woman, as into a Field: But that matter of Gene∣ration which we call sperm or seed, by its original and nature, is only a superfluous Humor, the residue and remainder, I say, of the nutriment and food, and the superfluity of the third concoction in the Body, derived and conveyed along through the hidden and secret or∣gans or instruments from the chiefest Members of the body unto the generative parts, and serveth for ge∣neration And it hath its beginning and breeding from the residues and remnants of all the meats belonging to the nourishment of Man, after they be altered and transmuted even to the third Concoction: Of the su∣perfluity of which concocted food collected and gather∣ed together in its proper and due manner, it is evident that the same is ingendred, according to the constitu∣tion of the age and nature; for there is made a three-fold concoction of any meat, altered and converted in∣to the nourishment of the living Creature, even to ge∣neration of seed, that concoction nevertheless following, which is the purest of all Concoctions: For the Food being sent down into the stomach, by chewing streight∣way the pure Nutriment which is ordained to the o∣ther part (the dry Excrement being driven downward thorough the Guts to the Belly) through the sucking Veins (named in Latin mesaraicae) carried as it were to one Gate flowing out of innumerable Channels, is brought to the Liver; where to the disposition of the former concoction, made in the stomach, there is forth∣with

made the second concoction in the Liver of the food derived unto it, the superfluous matter being se∣parated, that is to say, both kinds of choler, and the watrish humour drawn and attracted by the emulgent vessels (in Latin vasa emulgentia) that it being strain∣ed through the kidnies, might descend down into the bladder; then the residue, refined and cleansed in the Liver by this concoction, that is to say blood, is con∣veyed over to the Heart, to receive its vital admini∣stration and office. In the Heart again, is made the third Concoction of the food being received at one time; for there blood having taken unto it vital and lively spirit, being diffused and sent abroad throughout the several members of the body, doth again expel and void out that which is superfluous in it self, by the secret pores and passages. At length here the Spirit chang∣eth and turneth the blood conveyed through the sper∣matical or seed-vessels (being branches of vena cava) there also further concocted into the nature of sperm or seed, by the twined revolutions and back-turnings of the smallest vessels for this purpose, and by the glandu∣lous or kernel'd substance of the Testicles, and the seed passages (which they call Parastatae) available in that behalf: So the blood, exquisitely wrought and labour∣ed, and for the most part converted into vital spirits, is straight-way conveyed by the Artery named Aorta, and branches thereof to all the other Members of the whole body. But in the fourth place (that we may add one thing over and above our purpose) there is made an alteration of the food into the like substance of the thing nourished, this juyce quickning and strength∣ning life, which being the purest of all, remained last∣ly with the vital spirit; that in like sort being expelled, if any impure thing shall be remaining or engendred.