Arcana microcosmi, or, The hid secrets of man's body discovered in an anatomical duel between Aristotle and Galen concerning the parts thereof : as also, by a discovery of the strange and marveilous diseases, symptomes & accidents of man's body : with a refutation of Doctor Brown's Vulgar errors, the Lord Bacon's natural history, and Doctor Harvy's book, De generatione, Comenius, and others : whereto is annexed a letter from Doctor Pr. to the author, and his answer thereto, touching Doctor Harvy's book De Generatione / by A.R.

CHAP. XIII.

1. The Heart liveth first, not the Liver. 2. The outward mem∣brans first formed by the heat of the matrix. 3. Vrachos, what. 4. The similitude of the parents on the children. 5. Twins, how begot, and why like each other. 6. Infants, how fed in the matrix. 7. Superfetation. 8. No respiration in the matrix. 9. The childs heart moveth in the matrix.

I. ARISTOTLE will have the heart to be the first member that lives in us, Galen the liver; but indeed Aristotle is in the right; for how can any thing live, till the heart which is the fountain of heat and spirits live; and how can the

soul frame to her self a fit habitation for exercising of her fun∣ctions, ••ill first she hath framed the heart, by whose heat and spirits she may work: If it be objected, that the heart cannot live without nutrition; but nutrition is by blood, and this by the liver, therefore the liver must first live: I answer, that there needs no nutrition, till the body be compleat and perfe∣cted; for wee see imperfect creatures can live long without food: I have kept a Spider nine moneths alive in a glass with∣out food: Again, there needs no nutriment, but when there is deperdition and wasture of the substance, which cannot bee of the heart, before the body be perfected. And although the body live at first the life of a plant, it will not therefore follow, that the heart is not first framed; for even in plants there is a principle of life, which is the root, and nature worketh me∣thodically, by quickning that first, which must quicken the rest.

II. As the heart is the first member that is framed by the formative faculty, so the outward membranes are first formed by the heat or natural temperament of the matrix, as we see the outward skin of fruits by the heat of the Sun. For na∣ture providently fences the seed with these walls, that the in∣ward spirits may work the more powerfully, and be the lesse subject to dissipation.

III. Besides the umbilical vein and the two umbilical arte∣ries, nature hath made a vessel called Vrachos, by which the child in the matrix conveys the urine into the membran, for it reacheth from the bottom of the bladder to the navel; and in those in whom the navel is not well bound at first, and this Vrachos dried, upon any stoppage of the bladder, the urine will flow out by the navel.

IV. The similitude of the parents is impressed on the chil∣dren, partly by reason of the formative power in the seed, and partly by the imagination of the parent moving the spirits, which being mixed with the blood on which the child is fed; makes the impression upon the tender flesh of the infant. 2. The childe resembleth the grand-fathers or grand-mothers sometimes, as the Load-stone communicates its power to the third or fourth needle, so doth the formative faculty of the grand-father, which is potentially in the seed of the grand∣childe, oftentimes show it self.

V. Twins are oftentimes begot, partly because of the a∣bundance of seed, partly by reason of the scattering thereof into divers parts of the matrix, which ••oments each part of it; for though the matrix hath no cells, yet it hath a right

and a left side; in the right, males; in the left▪ females are be∣got; or if the seed be strong, vigorous, or masculine, males, if weak and feminine, females; if one part masculine, the other feminine, then male and female are ingendred; but the female is seldome strong or lively, because the time of conformation is not alike in both, ••0 days being required for the forming of the male, and 40 for the female. 2. Twins are like each other, be∣cause they are wrapped within the same membran, are concei∣ved at the same time, they feed on the same blood, and enjoy the same maternal spirits.

VI. The infant in the womb is not fed by the mouth, but by the navel▪ for there are no vessels that reach to the mouth, nei∣ther is there need of chylification, or sanguification; neither is there any other excrement found in the intestins of new born infants, except the excrement of blood; therefore as they breath by the umbilical arteries; so they are fed by the umbili∣cal vein.

VII. Sometimes there is superfetation; for we read of se∣cond births, some days, weeks, and moneths, after the first; which shews, that the matrix after conception, is not so fast bound, but that it openeth again in copulation, but seldome is the second birth either strong or lively; because the first con∣ception groweth strong and big, drawing the blood or nutri∣ment to it, by which means the second conception is starved.

VIII. The infant doth not, cannot, should not breath whilst it is in the womb, but is content with transpiration by the umbilical arteries. For if there were inspiration, there must be air within the membrane where the child lieth, but there is nothing except the child, and that watrish substance in which it swim••; this must needs be ••uck'd in with the air, and so the childe be choaked. Besides, the rednesse and grossenesse of the lungs, whilst the childe is in the womb, shews, that it breaths not; for the lungs of those creatures that breath, are of a whitish colour, and of a ratified substance, for the better reception of the air.

IX. Whilst the child is in the womb, the heart is not idle, as some Galenists imagine, but according to Aristotle, it then moveth and giveth life to the body: otherwise the childe should live all the while the life of a plant, not of an animal, if it had no other life then what it hath from the mother by the umbilical arteries. 2. How could the heart, having no air to refresh it within that narrow membran, in which the child lieth, receive refrigeration, if it did not move; some answer, that

the heart is refrigerate by the water in which the child lieth. I should like this answer well, if that water were cold; or if the child were a fish, which with its gils might receive water for refrig••ration of the heart. 3. The arteries of the child mov••, but how can they move without the heart move also. If they say, that they are moved by the Arteries of the mother, I would know how they can move after the mother is dead; for some children have been cut out alive from the dead mothers womb. 4. Although the umbilical arteries▪ convey the material spirits ••o the child, yet they give not life, no more then the aire which we breathe, till they be refined by the heat and moti∣on of the heart. 5. The animal spirits of the childe are begot in its brain, whilst it is in the womb; but the animal spirits have their original from the vital.