Anthropologie abstracted: or The idea of humane nature reflected in briefe philosophicall, and anatomicall collections.

CHAP. V. Of Generation.

AND God saw every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good. This is the reason why the Creature so abhors dissolu∣tion, and endeavours to perpetu∣ate its Verity, that is, conformity to the primitive idea in the supreme intellect. For so much bettr is it to be, though in the miserable Con∣dition of something, then in the

horrid obscurity of nothing; that (if some guesse aright) the Devill, though he might evade his tor∣ments, would not consent to his own annihilation.

But since this desire of eternity can, in sublunary Animals, be satis∣fied onely in part (for individualls must perish upon their own princi∣ple, and the same flames which kindled them to life must become their funerall Taper, and light them back to elements) Nature hath con∣trived a way to immortality, by the succession of the species pro∣pagated by Generation. And by this way man (whose ingredients con∣fesse his mortality, not onley since, but before his Fall) relieves him∣self from totall regression into the oblivion of his first Chaos, and be∣comes superior to the tyranny of Corruption, by the immortality his issue.

Now this Generation or act of the Vegetative Faculty is performed by the seminality of Male and Female, inheriting fertility from the fruit∣full

benediction of the Creator, in Crescite & multiplicamini. And this Generative materiall as made of the purest part of the blood and finest spirits both Vitall and Animall, flowing by the veines, Atteries and Nerves, into the Testicles; whereby their Spermatopoietick power it is converted into a white, spumous, spirituous substance, containing the perfect Idea of each individuall part.

This prolific Contribution A∣ristotle will not allow the Faemale sex; but conceives their parts onely recipient for the masculine injecti∣ons: but if wee consult our reason and our sence wee cannot but attest the contrary. For Femalls have in∣struments officiall both to spermifi∣cation and Emission; are invited to,

and act Congression with the same libidinous orgasmus, and pleasant fury, that the Males do: and their Seminary Emissions ahve been dis∣covered to the ocular scrutiny of many. Neither do Male and Female differ in specie, but sexu.

Yet the singleseed of either sex is not sufficient to procreation; but such is the institution of the Crea∣tor, that from the united Seminal∣ties of Male and Female, as from two partiall Causes mutually con∣tributing their Efficiencies, one prin∣ciple and third totall Causes should result: from which one motion or mutation, though distinctly regula∣ted, should advance to the producti∣on of the infant. For the efficiency of the masculine injection carries the greater stroak in Conformation, and is more virtuall then the Femi∣nine.

The prolifick Ejaculations of both sexes received into the womb, are, by the proper innate produ∣ctive faculty thereof conserved, and cherished; and the plastick Confor∣mator, which lay concealed in the

seed is called forth, excited, and impregnated, and begins the deli∣neation or organization of the In∣fant. The parts first formed are the two membranes, in which the more divine and spiritual parts of the seed are inwrapped, that enshroud the Infant; one whereof is called the Amnios, or Lawn shirt, that imme∣diately invests the Infant: the other Chorion, or the girdle, which en∣rolls it, and is the supportment of the Umbelick vessels, and the cause of its adhaesion to the Cotyledones, or cakes of the womb; which two involutions conjoyned, make the secundine or after-birth.

The feminine prolification thus expansed into filmy integuments, and the new kindled Diety en∣spheared; the spermatick parts ob∣tain seniority of conformation, and are spun out into a numberlesse number of fine slender filaments, which are the stamina, or ground∣work of the solid parts, and (by a Texture farre too fine and cunning for the fingers of Arachne) woven into three bullous orbs or conglobations.

Theird delineation thus dispatch∣ed, the parts, by the nutritive ap∣position of the other fertile princi∣ple, the maternal blood, advance to increment and majoration. And for this purpose, the wise contriver of both worlds hath ordained, from the fourteen to the forty-fifth year of life, in eucratical bodies, a natu∣ral Plethora, and providence exube∣rancy of blood, in teeming and ingravidated women, to become the Infants sustentation: or in vacancy of praegnation, lest it overcharge and prove offensive, to be by perio∣dick monthly conflux trans∣mitted to the womb, and thence excluded.

The infant having from the mo∣ther received the rudiments of the sanguineous parts, the conforma∣tor frames a vein, two arteries, and the urachus, convening about the navill, and wreaths them into one contorted umbilicality, or quadri∣partit Navill string: the vein being a surcle of the Port vein, and inser∣ted into the fissure of the Liver, is the Nurse provided to suckle

the Infant. The arteries are two twinn branches of the Iliacall descendent Arteries, and the con∣duits by which the best portion of the arteriall blood and spirits is de∣rived to the Heart of the new pro∣duction: The Uracus is a derivati∣on from the Bladder to the Navill. After parturition, the use of all these ceasing, they are by coalition and exiccation degenerated into Liga∣ments.

The age (or more truly the non-age) of the Infant in the womb is distinguished into the time (1.) of Formation, which extends from the Conception to the Calcitration, or quickening; and (2.) of Exorna∣tion or perfection, which is com∣puted from the motion, to partu∣rition. Others otherwise divide it into the time (1.) of formation, which in the account of Hippocrates lasts to the thirtieth day in Mascu∣line, and to the fortieth in Femi∣nine Conceptions. (2.) Of moti∣on, which the vulgarity of Physi∣cians concede to be in the third month in males, in the fourth in

females. (3.) of parturition, which is so various, that whosoever can definitively calculate nobis erit Mag∣nus Apollo. The wise ignorance of Hippocrates confirms the incertitude thus. Lib. de Alimento ad conforma∣tionem. Soles triginita quin{que}: ad moti∣onem septuaginta, ad perfectionem du∣centi decem. Alti tradunt ad formam 45, ad motionem. 76. ad exitum 20. requiri. Alii adspeciem 50. ad primum saltum 100. ad perfectionem 30. Ad distinctionem 40. ad transitionem 80. ad elapsum 240. &c. But our expe∣rience establisheth, above the possi∣bility of eviction, that no concep∣tion, which hath an immature exit before the expiration of 6 months partaks vitality. That the aborted issue of the seventh month usually lives, and may (if virile and vigo∣rous) be cherished to maturity: that Octomestral births are ever fatal, if the Doctrine of Hippocrates

hold good: but that most legiti∣mate, happy, and frequent time of Parturition, is the ninth month, and that the enixation, or delivery, usuall fals out between the fifteenth day of the ninth month, and the fifteenth of the tenth of the gesta∣tion.

But although in the observations of Physicians, there stand recorded divers undecimestrall, duodeci∣mestral, and elder editions: yet such overshoot mediocrity; and are to be filed in the legend of rarities, and sportive miracles of nature.

Though the months, by which we compute the Gestation, arer so∣lary; yet from these, the lunary con∣junctions of twenty nine daies, and twelve howers, are not in the main much discrepant: neither is this la∣borious artifice confined to any certain minute, punctilios of time: For as the magnality of human re∣semination is withdrawn from our comprehension; so is the indefinity of its time the discouragment of our determination.

Notes

• Generatio.
• Semen principi∣um Generation is quid?
• Sennertus Lib. Inst. 1. c. 10. Qui semen fa∣mininum proli∣ficum esse, vim∣que agendi in se continere ex∣istimant, ij mi∣hi prohabilio∣rem defendere sententiam vi∣dentur. Et non solùm eo nituntur quod semen faemininum à similibus organis generetur, atque in venere cum eadem oblectatione excerna∣tur. &c.

  Nos statuimus utrumque sexum suum ad Generationem conferre 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, & neutrius sexus semen seorsim sumptum, sed utriusque con∣junctum, & in utero Faeminae ritè unitum, esse semen prolificum & fae∣cuncum. &c. Plato.
• Conceptio.
• Ordo Formatio∣nis.
• Membrana Fae∣tus.
• Partes spermati∣cae, delineantur.
• Sanguis mater∣nus.
• Menstruorum causa finalis.
• Ʋasa umbiliea∣lia.
• 1. Vena umbili∣calis.
• 2. Arteriae duae.
• 3. Vrachus.
• Tempus forma∣tionis.
• Tempus calcis trationis.
• Hippocr. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 puer septimo mense natus, certa ra∣tione prodiit & vitalis est, cum is rationem & numerum ex∣actè ad hebdo∣madas respon∣dentem liabet. Octavo autem mense natus numquam vixit. Novem autem mensium & dierum faetus editur & vitalis est; numerumque ad hebdo∣madas exactè respondentem habet. Quatuor nempe decades hebdomada∣rum, dies sunt ducenti & octoginta.
• Tempus partus.