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. VI. What course is to be taken that Male Children be brought into the World, not Female.

THose who see the comfort of having wise Chil∣dren, must indeavour that they be born Male; for the Female, through the cold and moistness of their Sex, cannot be endowed with so profound a judgment. We find indeed, that they talk with appearance of knowledge in slight and easie matters, but seldom reach any further than to a slight superficial smattering in any deep Science. It is a thing very well worth ob∣servation, that, whereas the right side of the reins, and the right testicle, are naturally more hot and dry, and the left side of the reins with the left testicle, more hot and moist, Nature seems to have intended that which at the beginning of the World is recorded in History to have been very frequent; as namely, that a woman brought forth two Children at a birth, the one Male, the other Female, the right side which is hot and dry, being assigned to the generation of Males▪ the left side which is cold and moist, to the generation of Females, and it seems to have been so ordained, to that end, that for every man there might be a wife: But after the Earth came to be well increased with people, it hapned as it appears, that this method and design of Nature was broken off, and now not only the double Child-bearing is very rare, but a far greater number of women are daily brought forth into the World than men: Whence it is to be gathered, that either Nature is grown weary, or else interrupted in her course of working: However, since this defect of Nature is to be remedied with care and diligence, if men would imploy their serious considerations in a mat∣ter of such importance; there are six things to be ob∣served

by those that would obtain the accomplishment of their desire, in the design whereof this Chapter treats. The first is, the eating those sorts of meats which are hot and dry, provided they have not those qualities in too high an excess, lest thereof be engenderd a man extreamly wily and malicious, and such a one whose actions may prove pernicious to the Common-wealth; but rather let those viands be hot and dry in a mode∣rate degree, such as are Hens, Partridges, Turtles, Thrushes, Goats, &c. and those roasted. The se∣cond thing is the feeding so moderately, that the sto∣mach may overcome and digest that meat which is ea∣ten; for those very sorts of meat which are in their proper nature hot and dry, yet being eaten in so great a quantity, that the nature cannot digest them, they become cold and moist also, the immoderate drinking Wine is absolutely to be forbidden, there being no rawness which so much endamageth generation, as that of Wine, being so vaporous and subtle a Liquor. Whereupon a Law was anciently enacted in the Car∣thaginian Commonwealth, which prohibited the mar∣ried couple to taste of Wine that day they were to per∣form the rights of the Marriage Bed. The third is, to use much exercise, which by fretting and consu∣ming the excessive moisture of the Seed, heateth and dryeth the same; whereas ease, and overmuch delicacy breedeth coldness and moisture in the Seed. And hence it comes to pass, that rich and great persons that live at ease and feed high, have for the most part Daughters: And Hypocrates reporteth that the principal persons of the ancient Scythians, who were very effeminate and womanish, most commonly either begot Females, or else they proved either Eunuches, or Hermaphrodites: and being ignorant of the natural cause of this defect, he saith (and derides them for it)

that they used to sacrifice to their gods, imploring from them a remedy of that which was an effect of their mis-governance. The fourth diligence is, not to use the act of Generation untill the Seed be well concocted and ripened, it being convenient for seven or eight days before, to use those meats which we have already pre∣scribed, and observing the same course as Gardiners do with the Seeds which they would preserve; for they attend till they ripen, and cleanse, and wax dry, since if they should pluck them from the stalk before they are deeply seasoned, and arrived to that point which is to be required, though they should lye in the ground never so long, they would not grow at all. The fifth point, for a man to accompany with his Wife four or five days before her natural Courses, in regard the Child immediately standeth in need of much food to nourish it. The sixth and last point is to procure, that both the Seed of the Husband and Wife fall into the right side of the Womb, by which means it hapneth that Males are ingendred; the reason of which is, as Ga∣len affirmeth, that the right side of the Womb holdeth affinity in temperature with the Liver, the right side of the Reins, and the right Testicle, which we have already delivered to be more hot, as the left side is more cold, by which Females are ingendered: To these things there is another consideration to be added, which Galen hath also observed, namely, that the Seed of each Testicle, are of a different nature, for whereas that of the right Testicle cometh out more hot, more speedily, and in a lesser quantity, that of the left co∣meth out more cold, more slowly, and in greater a∣bundance.