is fed by its Navel, only they differ about the food it lives on, the Peripateticks say it is fed by menstrual blood which is the excrement of the last nutriment of the fleshy parts, which at certain times is purged forth by the womb in a moderate quantity, but primarily ordained for the generation and nutriment of the child.
But Fernelius, Pliny, Columella, and Colum∣bus deny this, because such blood is impure, and will, where it falls, destroy Plants, and Trees, Dogs will run mad that eat it, and ofttimes hurts the women themselves, causing swimmings of the head, pains, swel∣lings, and suffocations, this then were ill food for a tender infant.
But to answer all: If the woman be in good health, her monthly courses are no bad blood for quality though they hurt in quanti∣ty being more than she can concoct▪ and therefore she sends forth what is too much▪ but if her body be ill affected, the blood that stays in the womb is naught as well as that she voids by her terms, but when the courses are not duly voided but stay, in being stopt beyond their time of evacuation, then they cause those ill effects formerly mentioned, else not: but women have not these courses the greatest part of the time they are with child,