The English midwife enlarged containing directions to midwives; wherein is laid down whatever is most requisite for the safe practising her art. Also instructions for women in their conceiving, bearing and nursing of children. With two new treatises, one of the cure of diseases and symptoms happening to women before and after child-birth. And another of the diseases, &c. of little children, and the conditions necessary to be considered in the choice of their nurses and milk. The whole fitted for the meanest capacities. Illustrated with near 40 copper-cuts.

SECT. III. Of the Nutriment of the Child in the Womb, and by what nourishment it is preserved, and when it groweth up to be an Infant.

WHilest the young one is in the womb, it is nourished by blood attracted by the navil; by which it is, that women af∣ter they have conceived have their terms stop'd; for then the infant begins to crave, and attracts much blood. For the blood, pre∣sently after-conception, is discerned by a three-fold difference. The first and purest part of it the young one attracts for nourish∣ment. The second, less pure and thin, the wombforceth upwards by certain veins to the breasts, where it becomes milk, by which the infant is nourished so soon as it is born. The third, and more impure part of the blood, remains in the womb, and floweth out with the secundine, both in the birth, and after the birth: Hence it is that Hippocates saith; there is much affinity betwixt the flowers and the milk, since the one happeneth to be made out of the other. And Galen also, by reason

of this thing, elegantly adviseth, that the in∣fant hath more from the mother than from the father; for this reason, because the seeds are first increased by the menstruous blood, and then by these the Infant is presently nou∣rished in the Womb; and again, being new∣ly born, it is nourished with milk: And, as roots have more nourishment from the earth than the plant from whence they came: so also Infants receive more from the Mother than from the Father. And hence he saith that it comes to pass, that so much more is attributed to the Mother, by how much more She contributeth more towards generation.

But the Infant being now formed, and per∣fected in the Womb, in the first month the young one sends forth Urine by the passages of the Navil; but that Conduit being shut in

[illustration] representation an infant-like embryo in the womb at about 45 days after conception

the last month, it vents it by the Privities; (of which more when we come to treat of the Secundine (or after burden, with its coats.) Whilest the Infant is in the Womb, it avoids nothing at the Fundament, because hitherto it hath sucked in nothing by the mouth. After the 45th day, as Hippocrates tells us, it receiveth life, and together with that a Soul (according to the opinion of ma∣ny)

divinely infused, for that then it begins to be sensible, and from that time it may no more be called a young one, but an Infant, ac∣cording to the precedent Figure. And, though at this time it may have sense, yet it wants motion, being as yet very tender; but of the time of the motion, Hippocrates gives this account, viz. If you account the days dou∣ble from the time of Conception, you will find them quicken; and the time of quicken∣ing being tripled, makes up the day of the birth. As for example,

If the Infant be formed in 45 days, it will stir in 90 days, which is the middle time that it lies hid in the Womb; for in the ninth month it will come forth, and make haste to the birth; although Females are oftentimes born in the tenth Month. And so much for the formation, increase, and perfection of the Infant, according to the account of days and times.