The midwives book, or, The whole art of midwifry discovered.: Directing childbearing women how to behave themselves in their conception, breeding, bearing, and nursing of children in six books, viz. ... / By Mrs. Jane Sharp practitioner in the art of midwifry above thirty years.

BOOK II.

CHAP. I.

What things are required for the pro∣creation of Children.

I Have in the former part made a short ex∣planation of the parts of both sexes, that are needful for this use, but yet some think that there is no need of de∣scribing the parts of them both, because some have written that the Generative parts in men, differ not from those in women, but in respect of place and situation in the body; and that a woman may become a man, and that one Tyesias was a man for many years, and after that was strangely metamorphos'd into a woman, and again from a woman to a man, and that in regard he had been of both sexes, he was chosen as the most fit

Judge to determine that great question, which of the two Male or Female find most pleasure in time of Copulation. Some again hold that man may be changed into a woman, but a woman can never become a man; but let e∣very man abound in his own opinion, certain it is, that neither of these opinions is true: for the parts in men and women are different in number, and likeness, substance, and pro∣portion; the Cod of a man turned inside out∣ward is like the womb, yet the difference is so great that they can never be the same; for the Cod is a thin wrinkled skin, but the womb at the bottom is a thick membrane all fleshy within, and woven with many small fibres, and the Seed-Vessels are implanted so that they can never change their place; and more∣over their Stones are for shape, magnitude, and composition too different to suffer a change of the sex; so that of necessity there must be a conjunction of Male and Female for the begetting of children. Insects and im∣perfect creatures are bred sundry wayes, without conjunction; but it is not so with mankind, but both sexes must concur, by mutual embracements, and there must be a perfect mixture of Seed issueing from them both, which vertually contain the Infant that must be formed from them. God made all

things of nothing but man must have some matter to work upon or he can produce no∣thing.

The two principles then that are ne∣cessary in this case are the seed of both sexes, and the mothers blood; the seed of the Male is more active than that of the Female in for∣ming the creature, though both be fruitful, but the female adds blood as well as seed out of which the fleshy parts are made, & both the fleshy and spermatick parts are maintain'd and preserv'd. What Hippocrates speaks of two sorts of Seed in both kinds, strong and weak seed, hot and cold, is to be understood only of strong and weak people, and as the seed is mingled, so are Boys and Girls begot∣ten.

The Mothers blood is another principle of Children to be made; but the blood hath no active quality in this great work, but the seed works upon it, and of this blood are the chief parts of the bowels and the flesh of the muscles formed, and with this both the spermatical and fleshy parts are fed; this blood and the menstrual blood, or monthly Terms are the same, which is a blood ordained by Nature for the procreation and feeding of the Infant in the Womb, and is at set times pur∣ged forth what is superfluous; and it is an ex∣crement

of the last nutriment of the fleshy parts, for what is too much for natures use she casts it forth; for women have soft loose flesh and small heat, and cannot concoct all the blood she provides, nor discuss it but by this way of purgation. The efficient cause of this purging, are the Veins that are bur∣dened with this superfluity of the remain∣ing blood, and desire to be discharged of it. Yet nature keeps an exact method and or∣der in all her works; and therefore she doth not send this blood out but at certain periods of time, viz. once every month, and that on∣ly in some persons: generally maids have their terms at fourteen years old, and they cease at about fifty years, for they want heat and cannot breed much good blood nor ex∣pel what is too much▪ yet those that are weak sometimes have no courses till eighteen or twenty, some that are strong have them till almost sixty years old, fulness of blood and plenty of nutriment in diet brings them down sometimes at twelve years old: but commonly in Climacterical or twice seven years they break forth, heat and strength ma∣king way for them, and then maids will not be easily ruled, for their passages grow larger, the humours flow, and they find a way by their own thinness of parts, being helped by

the expulsive faculty. Men about the same age begin to change their faces and to grow downy with hair, and to change their notes and voices; Maids breasts swell; lustful thoughts draw away their minds, and some fall into Consumptions, others rage and grow almost mad with love.

The time of the courses is not so exact that it can be certainly determined by us who are not of Natures Cabinet counsel. Sometimes sharp corroding humours force the passage be∣fore it is time, and sometimes the blood is so thick that it cannot break forth. Lusty and Menlike women send them forth in three days, but idle persons and such as are al∣ways feeding will be seven or eight days about it; but there is a mean between them both that proportions the time accordingly, four dayes will be sufficient; but the quantity of blood that is cast out is more or less, consider∣ing the circumstance of age, temperament, diet, and nature of the blood, and that diffe∣rent according to the seasons of the year: the places by which it comes forth are the Veins, and the bottom of the womb, for the veins come from under the belly, and seed branches to the bottom and to the neck of the womb, and when women are with Child, the super∣fluous blood runs out by the veins of the neck;

but maids and such as are not with Child, send this blood forth by the womb it self; by this blood the seed conceived increaseth, and when the Child is delivered, then it returns to the breasts for to make Milk as we hinted at before. Though the blood be a necessary cause, and nothing will be done without it that comes to perfection, yet the seed is the Principal cause in this building; for the seed is the workmaster that makes the Infant, and therefore the stones that make this seed must needs be Principal parts, though some ex∣clude them, making only the Heart, the Brain, and the Liver; to be of the first rank; but the stones may in some sort be put in the first rank, not onely to make the body fruitful, but to work a change in the whole; Take away a Mans stones and he is no more the same man, but growes cold of constitution though he were never so hot before, and is subject to Convulsion fits, also their voice grows shrill and Feminine, and their manners and dispo∣sitions are commonly naught. Eunuchs may live without them, and it hath been an ap∣proved cure for the Leprosy in former times; but Hippocrates tells us, that the stones are the strength and vigour of Manhood, and that a convulsion of the stones threatneth Death, and the firmness or looseness of them is a great

sign of good or evil, and that applications to the stones are very effectual to the strength∣ning of the body. It is then very needful for all to keep the Organs of procreation pure, and clean, that they may send forth good seed to make the work perfect, and that Children may be long lived, which they cannot well be, nor of sound constitutions, if they are be∣gotten from corrupt Seed or unnatural blood. Alchymists lay the cause of all Childrens di∣seases on the Seed of the Parents; as plants have not the causes of their destruction from the Elements, but from their own Seed; as al∣so we see, that when the Plague or any Epi∣demical disease rageth, all are not infected, because they have not that matter in them that will so soon take as it doth with others. That therefore the matter may be fit for the work of nature, there are two things very useful, good diet moderately taken, and con∣veniet labour and exercise of body. Ill diet causeth ill blood, and excess in meat or drink choakes the natural heat, causeth raw, crude humours, which will never make good blood, and ill blood will never make good seed, for every part hath its natural propriety to change the nutriment into its own likeness, as the Breasts change blood into Milk, the stones change it into seed alwayes supposing such-

previous preparations that are needful, or it cannot be done as it should be.

Temperance in eating and drinking will make both Parents and Children to be long lived, and there is as much difference be∣tween good and bad nourishment, as there is between pure Fountain water, and ditch wa∣ter; but temperance is not to be understood as if there were a set proportion for all alike, for it is according to every ones constitution, what is too much for one Man or woman may be too little for another; it is then such a quantity of meat or drink that the stomach can well master and digest for the feeding of the body. Those that work hard must eat more than Schollars that follow their studies, for the work of the stomach is called off by the in∣tention of the mind, their meat must be less, and of easier digestion.

They that live in hot climates or near the Sun have not so strong stomachs, as in colder regions, nor is it with us all one in Summer and winter, but every man or woman of years, by good observation may know his own temper, and what quantity will best agree with him, and so if he be not a fool he may be his own Physician.

Youth and age cannot feed alike, Children are often feeding because they want both for

growth and nourishment, but old age not near so much; sick and healthful differ in the same kind.

I never could endure that preposterous way that most persons observe to the destruc∣tion of their Friends, that when they are sick they will never let them alone but provoke them to eat, whereas fasting is the better Doctor, so it be not out of measure.

The causes of great eating and drinking be∣yond the bounds of nature, are a liquorish appetite, and a fancy beyond reason: But hav∣ing found out the causes, I shall prescribe some remedies withal. It is easy to know when you have eat or drank too much, or what a∣grees not with you; when you find nature charged with it, and is not able to digest it, vapours rising from the stomach that is glut∣ted will choak the brain, and cause defluxi∣ons and multitudes of diseases: if you be sleepy after meat and drink, you have taken too much, for moderation makes a Man cheer∣ful and not sleepy. Also refrain from all meats and drinks that agree not with your constitution, for they will never breed good blood, but if you have done amiss in surfeiting your self, or over eating, or using any thing that agrees not with you; remember that na∣ture abhors all sudden changes; and there∣fore

you must not withdraw all at once but by degrees till you can bring your selves safely to a moderation. This intemperance of Pa∣rents is the cause that many Children die be∣fore their time; for what is too much can ne∣ver be well concocted, but turns to ill and raw humours, and if the stomach turn the food into crude juyce, or chyle, the Liver that makes the second concoction can never mend it, to make good blood; nor can the third concoction of the stones to turn that blood into seed, make good seed of ill blood; for what is bad in the first concoction, the se∣cond concoction, nor third can ever rectify, but if the chyle be good, blood and seed will be good.

But you must know that nothing furthers good concoction more than moderate labour, for it stirs up natural heat; whereas idle per∣sons breed crude humours. And therefore Lycurgus the Lacedemonian Law-giver com∣manded Maids to work, for saith he, this keeps their bodies in good temper, and free from crudities, and when they come to mar∣ry, their Children will be strong. There's as much difference between labour and sloth, as between the earth in Summer and Winter; in Summer the Sun by its heat makes it fruit∣ful, in Winter it is chill for want of the Suns,

heat; Convenient labour sends the spirits to all parts of the body; when the Elements are unequally divided, death follows, so the bet∣ter the spirits are distrubuted to the seed, the better will the seed be, and your Children the stronger, which is no small effect of moderate exercise, when sloth is the cause of their hasty dissolution: moderate labour open the pores of the body, and by sweat or insensible tran∣spriation sends forth all fuliginous, and smoky vapours that choke the spirits and cause divers maladies; we find all this to be true in reason, and experience confirms it; for Countrey peo∣ple that work hard digest what they eat, and their Children are usually strong and long liv'd. But Citizens and such as refuse to la∣bour and live idle lives, I do not say all, I hope there will be the fewer, for what I have taken the pains to write now for their better instruc∣tion and reformation: then will Men won∣der no longer what becomes of so many Chil∣dren as are born in the City? one can hardly find as many living as are born in half a years time; I am perswaded not so many can be found to have lived to seven years of age. They that love their Children will take my ad∣vice, and they and their Children will have good cause to thank me for it; and besides the avoiding the mischiefs of intemperance to

themselves and posterity, they shall find the blessing of God upon them, as a great reward of this vertue of moderation, and the poor will have just cause to pray for me and them, for what is wastfully spent by the riotous, may be charitably bestowed upon their poor neigh∣bours that stand in need of it.

CHAP. II.

Of true conception.

TRue Conception is then, when the seed of both sexes is good, and duly prepared and cast into the womb as into fruitful ground, and is there so fitly and equally mingled, the Man's seed with the womans, that a perfect Child is by degrees framed; for first small threads as it were of the solid and substantial parts are formed out, and the womans blood flowes to them, to make the bowels and to supply all parts of the infant with food and nourishment.

Conception is the proper action of the womb after fruitful seed cast in by both sexes, and this Conception is performed in less than seven hours after the seed is mingled, for na∣ture

is not a minute idle in her work, but acts to the utmost of her power; it is not co∣pulation, but the mixture of both seeds is called conception, when the heat of the womb fastens them; if the woman conceives not, the seed will fall out of the womb in se∣ven daies, and abortion and conception are reckoned upon the same time.

The Seeds of both must be first perfectly mixed, and when that is done, the Matrix contracts it self and so closely embraceth it, being greedy to perfect this work, that by succession of time she stirs up the formative faculty which lieth hid in the seed and brings it into act, which was before but in possibilty, this is the natural property of the womb to make prolifick Seed fruitful, it is not all the art of man that setting the womb aside can form a living child.

To conceive with child is the earnest de∣sire if not of all yet of most women, Nature having put into all a will to effect and pro∣duce their like. Some there are who hold con∣ception to be a curse, because God laid it up∣on Eve for tasting of the forbidden fruit, I will greatly multiply thy conception: but foras∣much as encrease and multiply, was the bles∣sing of God, it is not the conception, but the sorrow to bring forth that was laid as a curse.

We see that there is in women so great a longing to conceive with child, that ofttimes for want of it the womb falls into convul∣sions and distracts the whole body.

The womb as I said is fast tied at the neck and about the middle, but the bottom hangs lose, so that it doth ofttimes fall into strange motions. The natural motion of it comes from the moving faculty, but the unnatural motions from some unhealthful and convul∣sive cause; which is most commonly bred in it for want of conception, and not bearing of children; we see no women ordinarily that are better in health than those that often con∣ceive with child, and some are so fruitful that they conceive with many children about the same time; so that considering his magnitude, surely no creature multiplies more than man, for he hath a priority in this blessing above the beasts. Twins are frequent, and some∣times two or three children at one birth, are not the same thing with superfetation, when children are got again before the first be delivered; you must not think divers Cells in the womb to be the cause of this multipli∣city of children; for there is no such thing in the womb to be the cause of this multiplicity of children; for there is no such thing in the womb, but only one line that parts one side

from the other, but such women have larger wombs than others, and so the seed divided finds place to form more children than one, if their be sufficient strength in the several parts of the seed to do it. Yet when Twins are be∣gotten, they have no more than one cake cal∣led Placenta, that both their Navel vessels are received by; though they have different Se∣cundines or Coats that cover them. It may be discerned but with some difficulty, that a woman will have more than one child, by their heavy burden and slow motion, also by the unevenness of their bellies; and that there is a kind of separation made by certain wrinkles and seams to shew the children are parted in the womb; and if she be not very strong to go through with it in her Travel, she is in danger both she and her children. If the twins be both boys or both girls they will fare the better. Yet one is found by frequent examples to be more lusty & longer liv'd than the other, be they both of one sex, or one a boy the other a girl, that which is strongest en∣creaseth, but the weaker decayes or fails by reason of the prevailing force of the other.

Sometimes the woman conceives again a long time after her conception, the womb o∣pening it self by reason of great delight in the action; though it were shut so close as

no air could enter: for the Matrix attracts and makes room for it. And this may fall out not only for once but at a third Copula∣tion, that a woman may have one mischance and two children yet no twins. It may be di∣scerned by the several motions of the Infants, but the mother is in great danger of her life by losing of so great a quantity of blood as she must needs lose at two births in so short a compass of time. It is most dangerous to spurr nature to delivery before her period, wherefore in such cases leave it to the work of nature, using only Corroboratives and some such remedies as may facilitate her progress therein. But women may avoid this mis∣chief that often happens, if they will rest themselves content when they have once con∣ceived.

But that Story which I touched before, seems to me to be but a meer Romance, of Margaret Countess of Hennenberge, and sister to William King of the Romans, as some writers record; that when she was forty years old, she was delivered at one birth successively of as many children as there are daies in the year, namely three hundred sixty five, the one half boys and the other half girls, and the odd child was divided to both sexes, an Hermaphrodite, partly male, partly female:

and that the cause of this miracle was from a curse of her sister, some say a poor beggar woman at her door, laid upon her for her causeless jealousie; and farther it is constant∣ly reported, that these children were all bap∣tized living at the Church of Lardune in Hol∣land near the Hague, and the boys were all called Johns, the girls Elizabeths; there were two Silver Basons that they were Christned in, and Guido the Suffragan of Ʋtrecht keeps them for to shew to strangers, and one of these Basons, as it is reported, was brought for a present to King Charles the second, before he came from thence; and they say farther, that presently after they were baptized, the mother and all her children died. Some write of another Countess in Frederick the eleventh's daies, who had five hundred boys at one birth.

But to leave this and to proceed to the cau∣ses of Conception: Notwithstanding that God gave the blessing generally to our first Parent, and so by consequent to all her suc∣ceeding generations, yet we find that some women are exceeding fruitful to conceive; and others barren that they conceive not at all; God reserving to himself a prerogative of furthering and hindering Conception where he pleaseth, that men and women may more

earnestly pray unto God for his blessing of Procreation, and be thankful unto him for it: so Psal. 127.3. the Psalmist tells us, Loe Chil∣dren, and the fruit of the Womb are an heritage and gift that cometh from the Lord. So Hannah pray'd in the first of Samuel, and gave thanks when God had heard her prayer. Some wo∣men are by nature barren, though both they themselves and their husbands are no way de∣ficient to perform the acts of Generation, and are in all parts, as perfect as the most fruitful persons can be: Some think the cause is too much likeness and similitude in their com∣plexions, for God having framed an Harmo∣nious world, by a due disposing of contraries, they that are too like of constitution can ne∣ver beget any thing; this I confess is hard to find, that they should agree in all respects, no difference of complexion at all; yet some∣times Physicians judge barrenness proceeds from too great similitude of persons; but I should rather think from some disproportion of the Organs, or some impediment not ea∣sily perceived; else how comes it to pass that some that have continued barren many years, at last have proved fruitful. I remember a story that I heard of a Watch-maker, who had an excellent Watch that was out of tune, and he could never make it go true, what the

fault was he could not find, at length he grew so angry that he threw the watch against the wall, and took it up again, and then he found it goe exceeding true, and by that means he came also to know the cause of the former de∣fect, for indeed it proved to be nothing else but some inequality in the Case of the watch, which by throwing it against the wall, acci∣dentally was amended; wherefore a small mat∣ter sometimes will remove the impediment if we can but find what it is.

Some say again the cause of barrenness is want of love in man and wife, whose Seed never mixeth as it should to Procreation of children, their hatred is so great; as it is recor∣ded of Eleocles and Polynices two Theban Prin∣ces who killed each other, and when their bodies were afterwards burn'd, (as the man∣ner of burial was in their daies, to preserve only their ashes in a pot,) as if the hatred still continued in their dead bodies, the flames parted in the midst and ascended with two points; and this extream hatred is the reason why women seldom or never conceive when they are ravished, and it proves as ineffectual as Onan's Seed when he spilt it upon the ground. The cause of this hatred in mar∣ried people, is commonly when they are con∣tracted and married by unkind Parents for

some sinister ends against their wills, which makes some children complain of their Pa∣rents cruelty herein all the daies of their lives; but as Parents do ill to compel their children in such cases, so children should not be drawn away by their own foolish fan∣sies, but take their Parents counsel along with them when they go about such a great work as marriage is, wherein consists their great∣est woe or welfare so long as they live upon the earth.

Another cause that women prove barren is, when they are let blood in the arm before their courses come down, whereas to pro∣voke the Terms when they flow not as they should, Women or Maids ought rather to be let blood in the foot, for that draws them down to the place nature hath provided, but to let blood in the arm keeps them from fal∣ling down, and is as great a mischief as can be to hinder them; wherefore let the Terms first come naturally before you venture to draw blood in the arm, unless the cause be so great that there is no help for it otherwise. The time of the courses to appear for maids is fourteen or thirteen, or the soonest at twelve years old; yet I remember that in France I saw a child but of nine years old that was very sickly until such time as she was let

blood in the arm, and then she recovered im∣mediately; but this is no president for others, especially in our climate, blood-letting be∣ing the ordinary remedy in those parts when the Patient is charged with fulness of blood, of what age almost soever they be.

There is besides this natural barrenness of women, another barrenness by accident, by the ill disposition of the body and generative parts, when the courses are either more or fewer than stands with the state of the wo∣mans body, when humours fall down to the womb, and have found a passage that way and will hardly be brought to keep their natural rode; or when the womb is disaffected, either by any preternatural quali∣ty that exceeds the bounds of nature, as heat or cold, or dryness, or moisture, or windy va∣pours.

Lastly, There is barrenness by inchant∣ment, when a man cannot lye with his wife by reason of some charm that hath disabled him; the French in such a case advise a man to thred the needle Nouer C'eguilliette, as much as to say, to piss through his wives wed∣ding ring and not to spill a drop and then he shall be perfectly cured. Let him try it that pleaseth.

CHAP. III.

Signs that a woman is conceived with Child, and whether it be a Son or a Daughter.

YOung women especially of their first Child, are so ignorant commonly, that they cannot tell whether they have conceived or not, and not one of twenty almost keeps a just account, else they would be better pro∣vided against the time of their lying in, and not so suddenly be surprised as many of them are.

Wherefore divers Physicians have laid down rules whereby to know when a woman hath conceived with Child, and these rules are drawn from almost all parts of the body. The rules are too general to be certainly pro∣ved in all women, yet some of them seldom fail in any.

First, if when the seed is cast into the womb, she feel the womb shut close, and a shiver∣ing or trembling to run through every part of her body, and that is by reason of the heat that draws inward to keep the conception, and so leaves the outward parts cold & chill.

Secondly, The pleasure she takes at that time is extraordinary, and the mans seed comes not forth again, for the womb closely embraceth it, and will shut as fast as possibly may be.

Thirdly, The womb sinks down to cherish the seed, and so the belly grows flatter than it was before.

Fourthly, She finds pain that goes about her belly, chiefly about her Navel and lower belly, which some call the Water-course.

Fifthly, Her stomach becomes very weak, she hath no desire to eat her meat, but is trou∣bled with sowr belchings.

Sixthly, Her monthly terms stop at some unseasonable time that she lookt not for.

Seventhly, She hath a preternatural desire to something not fit to eat nor drink, as some women with child have longed to bite off a piece of their Husbands Buttocks.

Eightly, Her Brests swell and grow round, and hard, and painful.

Ninthly, She hath no great desire to copu∣lation, for some time she will be merry, or sad suddenly upon no manifest cause.

Tenthly, She so much loatheth her victuals, that let her but exercise her body a little in

motion, and she will cast off what lieth upon her stomack.

Eleventhly, Her Nipples will look more red at the ends than they usually do.

Twelfthly, the veins of her breasts will swell and shew themselves very plain to be seen.

Thirteenthly, Likewise the veins about the eyes will be more apparent.

Fourteenthly, The womb pressing the right gut, it is painful for her to go to stool, she is weaker than she was & her visage discoloured.

These are the common rules that are laid down.

But if a womans courses be stopt, and the Veins under her lowest Eylid swell, and the colour be changed, and she hath not broken her rest by watching the night before; these signs seldom or never fail of Conception for the first two months.

If you keep her water three dayes close stopt in a glass, and then strain it through a fine linnen cloth, you will find live worms in the cloth.

Also a needle laid twenty four hours in her Urine, will be full of red spots if she have con∣ceived, or otherwise it will be black or dark coloured.

To know whether the Infant conceived be male or female I refer you to Hippocrates, A∣phor.

48. for it is a very hard thing to disco∣ver.

1. If it be a boy she is better coloured, her right Breast will swell more, for males lye most on the right side, and her belly especial∣ly on that side lieth rounder and more tumi∣fied, and the Child will be first felt to move on that side, the woman is more cheerful and in better health, her pains are not so often nor so great, the right breast is harder and more plump, the nipple a more clear red, and the whole visage clear not swarthy.

2. If the marks before mentioned be more apparent on the left side it is a Girle that she goes with all.

3. If when she riseth from the place she sits on, she move her right foot first, and is more ready to lean on her right hand when she re∣poseth, all signifies a boy.

Lastly, Drop some drops of breast Milk into a Bason of water, if it swim on the top it is a Boy, if it sink in round drops judge the con∣trary.

CHAP. IV.

Of false Conception, and of the Mole or Moon Calf.

MAny women themselves have thought that they had conceived with Child because their bellies were swoln so great, and their courses were staid and came not down according to natures custome; whereas this swelling of the belly more and more, and stopping of the Termes proceeded from no∣thing else but an ill shaped lump of flesh which grows greater every day in the womb, and is fed by the Terms that flow to it; and this is that Midwives call a Mole or Moon-Calf; and these are of two sorts, one the true, the o∣ther the false Mole.

The true Mole is a mishapen piece of flesh without figure or order, it is full of Veins and Vessels with discoloured veins or membranes of almost all colours, without any entrails or bones, or motion; it is bred in the wombs hollowness, and cleaves fast to the sides of it but takes no substance from it, sometimes it hath a skin to cover it and is empty within, sometimes it is long or round, and some wo∣men

have cast forth three at a time like the Yard of a man: sometimes these Moles are without sense, sometimes they have an ob∣scure feeling; sometimes they are bred with the Child, and then is the Child in great dan∣ger to be opprest by them; sometimes they are voided when the Child is delivered, or be∣fore or after. Widows have been known to have had these Moles formed in their wombs by their own seed and blood that flows thi∣ther. But ordinarily I think this comes not to pass, but it proceeds from a fault in the forming faculty, when the mans seed in Co∣pulation is weak or defective and too little, so that it is overcome by the much quantity of the womans blood, the faculty begins to work but cannot perfect, and so onely Veins and Membranes are made but the Child is not made, yet this Mole is of so different kinds that it is not possible to set them down ac∣cording to their several varieties; but doubt∣less a Mole is sooner formed if Men and Wo∣men ly together when they have their courses, and the blood is not fit for formation by rea∣son of impurity, so that neither heat nor cold are the chief cause of this error, but the un∣cleanness of the matter that is not endued with a forming faculty; from corrupt seed or menstruous blood bad humours are in∣gendred

and nature works in vain.

Some are called false Moles, and of those are four sorts, as their causes are; for either they proceed from wind and are called windy swellings, or from water flowing to the womb, and called watry swellings, or else diverse humours cause this swelling, and sometimes it is nothing but a bag full of blood. If the Child be conceived with a Mole, it draws the nourishment from the Child. Both sexes doubtless contribute to the making of most Moles, the seed of the Man being choakt with the blood of the wo∣man, and wrapt both in a caule, Nature will make something of it though nothing to the purpose. If it be true that some wid∣dows have had them, they were neither of the same shape nor substance, but voided will consume into water, and this can be sup∣posed only of dead Moles, for living Moles that have some sense or feeling or true moti∣on in them can never be produced but mans seed must be a part of their beginning; as for Maids they cannot breed any true Mole, be∣cause a true Mole must be made of the great∣est part of the womans blood coming into the womb, but the vessels & passages in maids are too narrow, so that there is no flux of blood thither to make this Mole of, as it is in wo∣men

that have had the use of man: but with∣out dispute, the principal cause is womens carnally knowing their Husbands when their Terms are purging forth, from whence Moles, and Monsters, distorted, imperfect, ill qualified Childred are begotten. Let such as fear God, or love themselves, or their posterity beware of it.

The windy Mole proceeds from an over-cold womb, Spleen and Liver, which breeds wind that fastneth in the hollow of the part. Sometimes the womb is weak and cannot transmute the blood for nourishment, but it turns to water which cannot be all sent forth, but part of it remains in the womb; also the womb ofttimes receives a great confluence of water from the spleen or from some parts nigh unto it.

The Mole made of many humors flowing to the womb, proceeds from the Whites, or ill purgations coming from the menstruous Veins. The fourth Mole is a skin full of blood with many white diaphanous vessels, if you cast it into the water, the skin coagulates like a clod of seed; and the blood runs a∣way.

It is very hard to know a false conception from a true until four moneths be past, and then the motion of the body of the thing con∣ceived

will shew it; for if it be a living Child, that moves quick and lively; but the false con∣ception falls from one side to another like a stone as the woman turns her self in her bed, if it stir at all it is but like a sponge, trembling and beating, and contracts and dilates it self like the beating of the pulse almost.

This false conception hath many signes whereby it personates and shews like a true Conception; for the Terms stop, their sto∣machs fail, they loath their meat, they vo∣mit and belch sowrly, their breasts and belly swell, cunning Midwives and women them∣selves that have them are deceived taking one for the other.

There are many other things bred in the womb sometimes besides these Moles; Two famous Physician of Senon, tell us of a woman that had a Child in her womb, that did not corrupt, nor stink, though it lay long dead there untill it was turned into a stone; cold, and heat, and driness might keep the child from corrupting, but there was also a petri∣fying humour mixt with the seed and blood, or it could never have been turned into a stone; there, is but this single History that I ever read of this kind, and Authors say the mother lived twenty eight years after she was delive∣red of it; but it is no great wonder why it did

not stink nor corrupt in the womb, for many aged women live many years with a Mole in the body, yet it never stinks nor corrupts though they keep it in them till they dye.

As for Monsters of all sorts to be formed in the womb all nations can bring some examples; Worms, Toades, Mice, Serpents, Gordonius saith, are common in Lumbardy, and so are those they call Soole kints in the Low Countries, which are certainly caused by the heat of their stones and menstrual blood to work upon in women that have had company with men; and these are sometimes alive with the infant, and when the Child is brought forth these stay behind, and the woman is sometimes thought to be with Child again; as I knew one there my self, which was after her child∣birth delivered of two like Serpents, and both run away into the Burg wall as the women supposed, but it was at least three moneths af∣ter she was delivered of a Child, and they came forth without any loss of blood, for there was no after burden. Again in time of Copulation, Imagination ofttimes also pro∣duceth Monstrous births, when women look too much on strange objects.

To distinguish then false conceptions from true, but if there be both true and false at once that is very hard to know.

False Conceptions cause the greatest pains in their Backs, and Groins, and Loyns, and Head; their Bellies swell sooner, they faint more, their Faces, and Feet, and Legs swell, their Bellies grow hard like a Dropsie, they have such pain in their Bellies that they can∣not sleep because they carry such a dead weight within them; and though their Faces and breasts swell, they grow daily soft and lank, and no milk in their Breasts but what is like water, or very little; whereas women with Child about the fourth moneth have their Breasts swoln with milk. Some women look well with these false Conceptions, but most of them look pale, and wan, and ill favoured: If it be a boy that is conceived he will stir at the beginning of the third Moneth, and a Girle at the beginning of the third or fourth moneth, and so soon as the infant moves there is Milk bred in the Breasts as any one may prove that will. The Child that is alive moves to all sides, and upward and down∣ward without any help, but oftenest to the right flanck. A false conception may have a motion from the expulsive faculty, but not from it self, and being not tied by ligaments as a living Child is, it tumbles to one side or other, and if she lye on her back and one press it down with his hand gently, there it

will stay and not remove up again of it self. If she go with a Mole nine months compleat her belly will swell more and more, but she will wax lean and wan, and never offer to be delivered. Yet a woman may go ten or e∣leven months with child before her time be perfect to bring forth, but this depends upon the time when the child was begotten, and some women ordinarily go longer or shorter before they come to bring forth.

Those that have Moles are usually barren, or their Privities are ulcerated, for it hurts the womb and the whole fabrick of their bo∣dies.

The windy Mole will swell the belly like a Bladder, and it will sound like a Drum, but it is softer than the fleshy Mole or the watry, it grows sooner, and sooner disappears, and she will feel her self lighter when it abates, but sometimes it will heat the belly with such violence as if she were upon the rack.

The watry Mole is a fluctuation of water from one side to another, as the woman turns her self when she lieth, and then that lide will be higher where the water falls, and the other side will sink down the more and grow flatter.

The Mole caused from many humours doth

not make the belly swell so much as the wa∣try Mole doth, because the water comes more in quantity, and is clear, whereas the humours are reddish and stink when they come forth, like water wherein flesh hath been washed.

There is one observation more concerning false conceptions, that when they happen the Flowers stop presently and never come down, whereas they do sometimes the first two months in true conceptions, because they are superfluous in strong full fed persons before the child comes to want more nu∣triment, also the Navel of the woman doth not rise higher in false conceptions, but in true it doth.

Some women have their Terms well, and their wombs well disposed, yet their bellies have swoln and the cause not discerned till they were dead, for being opened, one or both corners of the womb have had little bags of water, or else clusters of kernels and strange flesh growing in them. Some women have also a piece of flesh hanging within the in∣ward neck of the womb, fastned about a fin∣ger broad at the root, and growing dayly downward in form like a bell, and sometimes fills all the privy members orifice, and may be seen hanging forth, all these make the belly

swell round, but are not properly Moles as they are before spoken of.

Amongst false conceptions all monstrous births may be reckoned, for a monster saith A∣ristotle is an error of nature failing of the end she works for, by some corrupted princi∣ple; sometimes this happens when the sex is imperfect, that you cannot know a boy from a girl; they call these Hermaphrodites: there is but one kind of Women Hermaphrodites, when a thing like a Yard stands in the place of the Clitoris above the top of the genital, and bears out in the bottom of the share∣bone; sometimes in boys there is seen a small privy part of the woman above the root of the Yard, and in girls a Yard is seen at the Lesk or in the Peritoneum. But three ways a boy may be of doubtful sex. 1. When there is seen a womans member between the Cods and the Fundament. 2. When it is seen in the Cod, but no excrement coming forth by it. 3. When they piss through it. But Monsters most ordinarily falling out, are when the child born is of some strange feature, or like a dog, or any other creature, as the Tartar lately captivated by the Germans in their last war a∣gainst the Turks; if the relation be true, he had a head and neck like a horse, some think he was begotten of a beast, a custom too fre∣quent

amongst those miscreants. Some are monsters in magnitude, when one part, as the head, is too great for the body; or a Gyant or a Pigmy is brought forth. Sometimes in place, when the parts are displaced, as when the eyes stand in the forehead, or the ears behind in the poll; many such strange births have been in the world, and sometime children have been born with six fingers on a hand, and six toes, like those Gy∣ants the Scripture speaks of, and others there are born with but one eye, or one hand, one ear, and the like.

CHAP. V.

Of the causes of Monstrous Concepti∣ons.

WHat should be the causes of Monstrous Conceptions hath troubled many great Learned men. Alcabitius saith, if the Moon be in some Degrees when the child is concei∣ved, it will be a Monster. Astrologers they seek the cause in the stars, but Ministers refer it to the just judgements of God, they do not condemn the Parent or the Child in such ca∣ses,

but take our blessed Saviours answer to his Disciples, who askt him, who sinned the Parent or the Child, that he was born blind? our Saviour replyed, neither he nor his Parents, but that the Judgments of God might be made manifest in him. In all such cases we must not exclude the Divine vengeance, nor his Instru∣ments, the stars influence; yet all these errors of Nature as to the Instrumental causes, are either from the material or efficient cause of procreation.

The matter is the seed, which may fail three several wayes, either when it is too much, and then the members are larger, or more than they should be, or too little, and then there will be some part or the whole too little, or else the seed of both sexes is ill mixed, as of men or women with beasts; & certainly it is likely that no such creatures are born but by unnatural mixtures, yet God can punish the world with such grievous punishments, and that justly for our sins. Aristotle tells us that in Africa so many monsters are bred amongst beasts, because going far together to water, they that are of different kinds ingender there, and so dayly new Monsters are begotten. But the efficient cause of Monsters, is either from the forming faculty in the Seed, or else the strength of imagination joyned with it; add

to these the menstruous blood and the dispo∣sition of the Matrix; sometimes the mother is frighted or conceives wonders, or longs strangely for things not to be had, and the child is markt accordingly by it. The unfit∣ness of the matter hinders formation, for an agent cannot produce the effect where the pa∣tient is not fit to receive it. Imagination can do much, as a woman that lookt on a Black-more brought forth a child like to a Black-more; and one I knew, that seeing a boy with two thumbs on one hand, brought forth such another; but ordinarily the spirits and hu∣mours are disturbed by the passions of the mind, and so the forming faculty is hindered and overcome with too great plenty of hu∣mours that flow to the matrix, or the spirits are called off and gone another way. But the imagination is so strong in some persons with child, that they produce such real effects that can proceed from nothing else; as that woman who brought forth a child all hairy like a Camel, because she usually said prayers kneeling before the image of St. John Baptist who was clothed with camels hair: How the imagination can work such wonders is hard to say, but there must be some strength of mind that can convey the species from the external senses to the formative faculty, for by

this means there is a consent between the fa∣culties superior and inferior. The Soul is all in all, and all in every part of the body, yet it works in several parts as occasions serves. The child in the Mothers womb hath a soul of its own, yet it is a part of the mother un∣till she be delivered, as a branch is part of a Tree while it grows there, and so the mo∣thers imagination makes an impression upon the child, but it must be a strong imagination at that very time when the forming faculty is at work or else it will not do, but since the child takes part of the mothers life whilst he is in the womb, as the fruit doth of the tree, whatsoever moves the faculties of the mothers soul may do the like in the child. So the parts of the infant will be hairy where no hair should grow, or Strawberries or Mul∣berries, or the like be fashioned upon them, or have lips or parts divided or joined toge∣ther according as the imagination transported by violent passions may sometimes be the cause of it.

The Arabians say, a strange imagination can do as much as the Heavens can to make plants and mettals in the earth.

The second cause is the heat or place of conception, which molds the matter quickly into sundry forms. But imagination holds

the first place, and thence it is that children are so like their Parents.

CHAP. VI.

Of the resemblance or likeness of Chil∣dren and Parents.

THere are according to Philosophers and Physicians, three forms or likenesses in every living creature.

First, Likeness of kind, as when a creature of the same kind is produced, a man from a man, a horse from a horse; and herein the likeness proceeds commonly from the matter; and because the female usually brings more matter than the male, more children are like the Mo∣ther than the Father. So a she-Goat with a Ram breed a Kid, but a he-Goat and a Sheep beget a Lamb.

Secondly, there is a likeness of sex, and the cause why the child is a boy or a girl is the heat of the seed, if the mans seed prevail in mix∣ing above the womans it will be a boy, else a girl.

Thirdly, there is a likeness of forms and figures and other accidents, that the child by

them more resembles, the father or the mo∣ther, as these accidents, are found in it more like to either of the two; this, saith Galen, comes from the difference of parts and con∣formation of the members.

Hence one is black, another white, one with a high forehead or a Roman nose, the o∣ther not. Sometimes the child is very like the father, sometimes the mother, and oft∣times like them both in many respects, some∣times like neither, but the grandfather or grandmother: and there are many examples where children have been like to those who have had no part in the work; but a strong fansie of the mother hath been the reason of it. Authors and Travellers say, that the Chineses children are like their Sires in many limbs and parts of their faces, as the forehead, nose, beard, and eyes. In some Countries where they have Wives in common, as a people called Cammate have, Men make choice of their children by the likeness to themselves. There are also childrens marks, proper to some Families, that are visible upon their bodies, Thyestes had the likeness of a Crab, some of a star. The Thebans and Spartans a Lance: Delemus and his offspring had their thighs crooked and like to an an∣chor, and that lascivious strumpet Julia, Au∣gustus's

daughter, had no children but resem∣bled her self, for she was so cunning, that she would admit of none besides her husband till she had conceived.

Some are of that opinion, that all this pro∣ceeds from the strength of imagination, so Empedocles, so Paracelsus determine it, and the last thought the Plague to be infectious on∣ly to those that phansie made it so. But the Arabians ascribe so much power to imagina∣tion, that it can change the very works of nature, heal diseases, work wonders, com∣mand all kind of matter, and they impute as much or more to that, than Divines do to having Faith, to which nothing is impossible; but I cannot be altogether of their opi∣nion.

Imagination is powerful in all living crea∣tures, for by it Jacob's Ewes conceived spot∣ted, and grisled, the peeled rods being set be∣fore them when they were in conjunction.

Galen taught an Aethiopian to get a white child, setting a picture before him for his wife to look on.

Their opinions also are not wide, who say the cause of this likeness lieth much in the mo∣tion of the Seed and the forming faculty, this was Aristotles's judgment. We deny not but both may be true, for imagination can do no∣thing

without it, and by the forming faculty Imagination works this similitude, yet so that they both concur to the business. The Soul lyeth in the Seed which makes its own house, for all confess a forming faculty, and this fa∣culty must come from some substance that ly∣eth close in the seed, though it appear not in the first act for want of fit organs to work with. Three things are requisite to form a child.

1. Fruitful seed from both sexes wherein the Soul rests with its forming facul∣ty.

2. The mothers blood to nourish it.

3. A good constitution of the matrix to work it to perfection; if any of these be want∣ing you must not expect a perfect child: But as for the marks, or likeness to the Parents, sometimes this vertue lyeth hid some ages in the seed, and appears not, and then the child comes to be like those from whom it was de∣scended by many succeeding generations, for H••lin had a white daughter by a Black, but that daughter had a black son born of her, the forming faculty still continuing in the seed when it hath been stirred up by new imagi∣nation.

Plants being grafted, experience shews will bear fruit of the nature of the graft, but the

kernels of that fruit sowed will bring fruit like the stock it was grafted on. Graft an Apricock on a Pear stock you shall have Apri∣cocks, but a stone of those Apricocks set grows a Pear stock. If the forming fa∣culty be free, children will be like their Parents, but if it be overpowred or wrested by imagination, the form will follow the stronger faculty; if the mother long for figs, or roses, or such things, the child is sometimes markt with them. Avicen gives this reason for it, that the aery spirits that are nimble of themselves, are soon moved by the phansie, and these mingle with the nutrimental blood of the child and imprint this likeness from ima∣gination. This is a deep speculation, but it may be compared and represented to our under∣standing by those equivocal generations made in the air of frogs, and flies and the like by the forming faculties of the Heavens, so are the forms imagination sends forth engraven on the light spirits, for the quick spirits receive all forms from the imagination, and the seed that passeth through all parts and is deri∣ved from the whole body retains the images of them all.

CHAP. VII.

Of the sympathy between the womb and other parts, and how it is wrought upon by them.

IT is strange to consider that the womb should discern between sweet and stinking scents, and to be so diversly affected with these smels that some have miscarryed by smelling the snuff of a Candle, insomuch that some have thought the womb to be a creature of a discerning quality, and it receives this judge∣ment from every part of the body, it is delight∣ed with sweet scents, and displeased with the contrary. Wise Men have been at a stand to give a reason for it. Some refer it to a hid∣den quality, but that is still the last refuge for ignorance. There are indeed many things in nature secret to us, of which we can give no certain reason, as for the Loadstone to draw Iron; we see it is so but we cannot say how it comes to pass. In fits of the Mother sweet smels are good, for they disperse the ill qua∣lities and venenosities of the Air, and so by a peculiar quality strengthen the womb, by

drawing down the spirits, and humours, but the different way of applying them will do good or harm. For the sweetest things that are, as Musk, or Civet, will cause fits of the Mother, if you apply them to the womans nose, for the womb consents or dissents by sympathy and antipathy, and sweet things applied to the privities profit in such cases, and stinking things to the nose, as burnt lea∣ther, feathers, or the like. There is a great agreement between the womb and the brain, as Hippocrates proves by a smoke to try bar∣renness by, and there is the like between the womb and the Heart by Nerves and Arteries. Sweet scents are pleasing to all womens wombs, and ill savours offend, but not in all women alike, for where the Matrix is well disposed and not disaffected by reason of ill humours that it is charged with▪ those Wo∣men are much delighted with sweet smels, but it is not so with others who are unclean, for they cannot away with sweet smels, for no sooner do they begin to scent them, but they fall into those fits, for while the womb resents those sweet swels, the ill humours that lye hid in the womb, especially where the seed is corrupted, fly up with the spirits and carry the bad humours with them to the Heart, and to the brain, and so cause these stiflings of the womb.

This is general for all sweet things, that the Matrix is pleased with them rightly applied; for apply any sweet thing to the Privities, the womb is quiet and well refresht by them, and so the humours are still, or else they move downward, but contrarily stinking things by Antipathy with the womb are thrust out by the spirits when we apply such stinks to the nose, for the spirits fly downwards, and of∣ten there is an abortion thereby.

The womb cannot smell scents no more than it can hear sounds or see objects, for scents be∣long to the nose which is the Organ of smel∣ling, as colours to the eyes that are the instru∣ments of seeing, & the ears of hearing, but the womb partakes with these scents by reason of a thin vapour or spirit that comes from any strong smell, for the womb is affected as our senses are, very suddenly as it feels exactly, w^ch is in some kind a general sense, and is com∣mon to every part of the body, our spirits are refresht with sweet vapours, not dis∣cerning them but as they are placed and strengthened by them. But how doth the womb chuse sweet smels and refuse the con∣trary if she cannot discern? I know not why it is so, unless the reason be, because of the impurity of those vapours that arise from stinking things, for all such things are noy∣noysome,

and not well concocted, and defile the spirts contained in the parts of Generation, and so cause faintings, and swoundings, whereas sweet smels are pleasant, and re∣fresh the spirits. But why then doth Amber∣greece and Musk cause suffocations being so ex∣treamely sweet scented; and Assafetida and Castoreum, two stinking cure it? The An∣swer is, that all women are not so affected, but onely they whose wombs, as I said, are charged with ill humours, and then quick spi∣rits arising from sweet smels presently move the brain and the membranes of it; and so the membranous womb is soon drawn into consent, the bad vapours that lay still before being stirred and raised by the Arteries, flee to the heart and the brain, and by secret passages cause such fits, but noysome smels being raw and ill tempered, stop the pores of the brain, and come not to the inward membranes to prevent them. Also Nature being offended with destructive ill qualified scents, raiseth up all her forces as against an open enemy to op∣pose them, and so casts out of the womb with the ill vapours the ill humours also from which these vapours rise, so comes a crisis in acute diseases, if Nature be strong she casts them forth; and when a man takes a purge, Nature helps her self against the ill qualities of the

Medicament, which she can no way conquer but by casting it forth, and so what humours were peccant are cast forth with it.

It was the judgment of Hippocrates, that womens wombs are the cause of all their dis∣eases; for let the womb be offended▪ all the faculties Animal, Vital, and natural; all the parts, the Brain, Heart, Liver, Kidneys, Bladder, Entrails, and bones, especially the share-bone partake with it: but no part is so much of consent with the womb as the Breasts are. The agreement between the womb and the Brain comes from the Nerves and mem∣branes of the marrow of the back, some fee great pains in the hinder part of the head, some are frantick, others so silent they can∣not speak. Some have dimness of sight, dul∣ness of hearing, noyse in their ears, strange passions and Convulsions.

It agrees with the Heart by the Arteries of the Seed and lower belly, and if these be stopt or choked by a venemous air, the hearts natu∣ral heat is dissolved, & faintings, and swoond∣ings, and intermission of pulse follow with stopping of their breath, so that you cannot perceive them to breath unless you apply a clear looking-glass to their mouth, and if they breath at all there will be left a dewy vapor upon the Glass, if not they are dead; for some

of these women draw in no more air than what comes in by the pores of the skin into the Arteries and so goes to the Heart; and such persons sometimes lye in such fits twenty four hours at least, and many of them have lain so long that their Friends have thought them to be dead and have caused them to be unhap∣pily buried when they were alive, and would no doubt have revived when the fit had been over. I speak this for a warning to others, to beware what they do upon such occasions, and to give at least two or three dayes time before they put them into the ground; some have been taken alive out of their Coffins long after they were thought to be dead.

The womb and Liver agree by Veins run∣ning from the Liver to the womb, which is the cause of Jaundies, Dropsies, and Green-sickness, if the blood be naught that comes to it. And that the Kidnies by the Seed-veins consents with the womb, is manifest by the pains of the loins women suffer when they have their Courses; for the left Seed-Vein comes from the left emulgent or kidney-vein on the same side. So the womb, the bladder, and the right gut agree, for if the womb be inflamed, presently follows a desire to go to stool, and to make water, by reason of the nearness and communion these parts have one

with the other, by the membranes of the Pe∣ritoneum, that tye the womb and these parts to∣gether, and by common Vessels running be∣twixt, for from the same branch of the vein of the under belly run small Fibres to these three parts▪ but the consent of the womb with the breasts is most observable, the humours passing ordinarily from one to the other, whereby we may know the affections of the womb, and how to cure them, and of the state of the Child contained in it. Lufitanus tells us that he saw two women that voided monethly blood by their Nipples when their Courses were stopt. Hippocrates confirms this, affirm∣ing that women are in danger to run mad when blood comes forth at their Nipples. Brassavolus tells us of womens milk that came like blood, but it was raw unconcocted blood, and that might be, for Nurses Courses are alwayes stopt because the blood runs to their breasts to make Milk. By the colour of the nipples the state of the womb is perceived; if the Paps look pale or yellow that should look red, the womb is not well. Also if you will stop the Terms that run too much, set a great cupping glass under the Breasts, for that will turn the course of the blood back∣ward.

Farther you may know the Child if it be a

Boy to be three moneths old, and if a Girle to be about four moneths old, if you find Milk in the Mothers breasts, for at those times the Child first moves, and then is there Milk found in the breasts of the Mother.

If the right breast swell and strut out the Boy is well, if it flag it is a sign of miscarriage, judge the same of the Girle by the left breast, when it is sunk, or round and hard, the first signifies abortion to be near, the other health and safety both of the Mother and the Child.

CHAP. VIII.

How the Child grows in the Womb, and one part after the other successively made.

MEn are of several minds concerning the time when each part is made; I think they are in the right, who maintain that the membranes are first made which wrap the Child, with the Navel-vessels by which the Child is fastned to the Mothers womb, and draws nutriment from her, and all parts are made sooner or later, as dignity and necessity

of the parts require, but this is thought to be the hardest piece of Anatomy, because it is sel∣dome to be observed, because if women dye in child-bed they first miscarry and dye after∣ward. Some follow Galen herein, who ne∣ver saw a woman Anatomized▪ others Colum∣bus, some Vesalius, but few or none know the truth. The stones of a woman for generati∣on of seed, are white, thick and well con∣cocted, for I have seen one, and but one and that is more by one than many Men have seen. In the act of Copulation both eject their seed, which is united in the womb▪ and Boys or Girls are begotten as the seed is that prevails stronger or weaker, so the greater light puts out the lesser, the Sun the light of a Candle. Nature desires to beget its like in all things, a Man a Man-child, a woman one of her own sex; but we follow desire not nature when we with the contrary. If the Horse or Mare trot, it were strange that the Filly should amble.

The seed of both persons being joyn'd, the Matrix presently shuts as close as may be, to keep in, and to fasten the seed by its native heat, and so womens bellies seem lank at their first conception. The first thing that works is the spirit of which the seed is full, this is stir'd up to action by heat of the womb,

and though the seed seems to be homogeneous and all one substance, yet it consists of very different parts, some pure and some impure; the spirit then in the seed divides between these parts, and makes a separation of the earthy, cold, clammy, grosser parts, from the more aerial, pure, and noble parts. The impure are cast to the outside, to circle in and keep close the seed which is pure, and of the outside are the Membranes made, by which the seed inclosed is kept from danger of cold and other ill accidents▪ just as it is in Trees so it is here, the cold winter congeals the vital spirits of the Tree, but the Suns heat revives it in the Spring, and opens the pores of the Tree, and separates the clean from the which is unclean, making of the pure juyce flowers, of the impure and gross juyce leaves and bark.

The first thing Nature makes for the child, is the Amnios or inward skin that surrounds the Child in the womb, as the Pia mater doth the brain: next is the Chorion or outward skin made, which compasseth the Child, as the dura mater the brain▪ this is soon done by nature, for God and nature hate idleness, and no sooner are these two coats made, but presently the Navel-Vein is bred, piercing both these skins whilest they are exceeding tender; and conveighs a drop of blood from

the mothers womb-veins to the seed; of this one drop is formed the Childs Liver, from the Liver is bred the hollow Vein, and this Vein is the fountain of all other Veins of the body, so this being done, the seed hath blood suffi∣cient to feed it and to form the rest of the parts by. It is a vain fancy that some hold, how that all the parts are formed together, others that the heart is first framed; it must receive a right construction what Aristotle saith, that the Heart lives first and dyeth last, for the Liver is made much before the Heart. Nor is that if it be well understood to be found fault with, that a Man lives successively, first the life of a Plant, then of a Beast, and lastly of a Man. For first the Child grows, then it begins to move, last of all it becomes a reasonable Soul. Next to the hollow Vein of the Liver being made, are the arteries of the navel made, then the great Artery which is the Tree, and all the small Arteries are but branches coming from it; & last of all the Heart is framed, as Columbus proves upō very sufficient reason, for all the ar∣teries are made before it, for the Body receives its life by Arteries, and the Navel arteries are bred from the Mothers arteries, and there∣fore are made next to the Veins, to give vital blood to the Seed, as the Liver feeds it with natural blood to build a frail house for poor

mortals. Next in order, so far as reason and Anatomy can guide us, the Liver sends blood to the Arteries to make the Heart, for the ar∣teries are made of seed, but the heart and all fleshy parts are made of blood; last of all the brain, and then the Nerves to give feeling and motion are produced. If the most noble parts were first framed, as the Peripateticks suppose, then the brain and heart should be first made, which is not agreeing to reason and observation. As for the forming of the bones in order, I think Aristotle said true, that the whirl bones and the skull are first made. I confess all these things have been questioned by some, but I love not impertinent disputes, as it was the quality of the Grecians, who have made a large dispute, whether the Elephants Tusks be Horns or Teeth. Hippocrates divides the forming of the infant into four divisions:

First the seed of both sexes mixed have not lost their own form, but resemble curdled milk covered with a film or cream: the next form is a rude draught of the parts, or a chaos like a lump of flesh. And next in order there is a more curious draught, wherein the three chief parts, the Brain, the Heart, and the Liver, may be seen together with the first three, and as it were the warp of all the seed parts, and this is called Embrion: But

fourthly, To perfect the whole work, all the parts are set in order and perfected, so that Nature hath nothing to do but to hasten to delivery, that this work of hers may be brought forth into the world. When the spirit in the seed begins to work, it parts the more noble from the base, and the pure from the impure, so that the thick, cold, clammy parts are kept out to cover the more thin and pure parts, and to defend and preserve them. Nature begins her conformation with the cold clammy parts of the seed, and makes skins and membranes of them to cover the rest, and stretcheth them out as need requires. Men have only two membranes, the outward or Chorion which is strong and nervous, and wraps the infant round, and this membrane is like a soft pillow for the Veins and Navel-arteries of the Child to lean upon, for it had been dangerous for the Childs Vessels coming from its Navel to pass far unguarded: but the inward Coat which is wonderful soft and thin, called the Amnios or Lamb-skin is loose on each side ex∣cept it be at the cake, where it growes so fast to the skin that it cannot easily be parted; this skin receives the sweat and Urine, and from thence the Child is much helped, for it swims in these waters like as in a bath, and time is for delivery, it moistneth the orifice of

the Matrix, makes it glib and slippery where∣by the woman is more easily and more speedi∣ly delivered.

These two Coats grow so close together that they seem to be but one garment, and it is called the Secundine or after-burthen, be∣cause it comes forth after the Child is born, for the Child first breaks through it, & sometimes brings along with it a piece of the said Lamb-skin upon the face and head, which is called by Midwives the Caule, and strange reports they give of it.

Some think it ridiculous and fabulous, but as all extraordinary things signifie something more than is usual, so I am subject to believe that this Caule doth foreshew something nota∣ble which is like to befall them in the course of their lives.

But notwithstanding all that hath been said, some Anatomists do a little vary from it, for they maintain, that within the first seven days wherein the generative seed is mingled and curdled in the Mothers womb by the heats motion, many small fibres are bred, in which shortly the Liver and his principal Organs are formed first, and through these Organs the vital spirits coming to the seed in ten days makes all the distinction of parts, and through some small Veins in the Secundine the

blood runs, and of that is the Navel made, and there appears at the same time three clods of seed or white lumps like curdled Milk, & these are the foundation of three principal parts, viz. the Brain, the Liver, and the Heart. But the Liver is confest to be first made of a blood ga∣thered by one branch of this Vein, for the Li∣ver it self is nothing else but a lump of clotted blood full of Veins which serve to attract and to expell; but immediately before the Liver is made, there is a two-forked Vein formed through the navel, to suck away the grosser part of the blood that rests in the seed. In the other branch of this vein more veins are made for the spleen and lower belly, and all of them coming to one root meet in the upper part of the Liver in the hollow Vein, & from hence o∣ther Veins are sent out of the Midriff to the thighs below, & to the upper part of the back∣bone; next this the heart is made with its veins, for these veins draw the hottest part of the blood & that which is most subtil, & so make the heart: within the membrane called the Peri∣cardium or skin that covers the heart, the hollow Vein runs through the inward part of the right side of the heart carrying blood to it to feed it: from the same branch of this vein and the same part of the heart is there another vein that beats but faintly, there∣fore

called the still Vein, amongst the pulsative Veins, and this is provided to send the more pure blood by from the heart to the Lungs, they are covered with a double Coat as the Arteries are.

The Artery called Aorta, that conveighs the vital spirits through the whole body from the heart by the beating Veins or arteries, is bred in the hollow of the left Vein of the heart, and under this artery in the same hollow place of the heart is another Vein bred which is called the vein-artery, that brings the cold air from the Lungs to cool the heart, for the Lungs are made by many Veins that run from the hollow of the heart, and come thither to frame the Lungs; and they have their sub∣stance from a very thin subtil blood that is brought thither from the right hollow of the heart.

The breast is first framed by the great Veins of the Liver, and after that the outmost parts, the legs and arms.

But last of all the Brain is made in the third little skin I speak of, for the seed being full of vital spirits, the vital spirits draw much of the natural moisture, into one hollow place where the brain is made, and covered with a Coat which heat drieth and bakes into a skull.

The Veins come all from the Liver, Arte∣ries

from the Heart, Nerves from the brain, of a soft gentle nature, yet not hollow as Veins are, but solid; the Brain retains and changes the vital spirits, from hence are the beginnings of sense and reason.

After the Nerves the pith of the back-bone is bred which cannot be called Marrow, for Marrow is a superfluous substance made of blood to moisten and strengthen the bones, but the pith of the back and brain are made of seed, not to serve other parts, but to be also parts of themselves, for sense and motion, that all the Nerves might grow originally from thence; also Bones Gristles, Coats, and Membranes are bred from the seed, Veins for the Liver, Arteries for the Heart, Nerves for the Brain, besides all other pannicles and co∣verings the child is wrapped in. But all fleshy substance as the Heart it self, Liver, and Lungs, are made of the proper blood of the birth; this is all ended in eighteen days of the first month, and all that time it carrieth the name of seed, and afterwards is called the birth; and this birth so long as it is in the womb is fed with blood received through the Navel, and therefore when women are with child the courses cease; for after conception this blood is severed into three parts, the best and finest serves for the childs nourishment, the next

in pureness though not so pure as the first, ri∣seth to the breasts to make milk, and the grossest part of the three stays in the womb and comes away with the birth and after-birth.

But this is a long dispute how the child comes to be fed in the womb. Alcmeon thought the childs body being soft like a sponge did draw nourishment by all parts of its body, as a sponge sucks water, not only drinking from the mothers veins but from the womb also. Hippocrates as well as Democri∣tus or Epicurus seems to say, that the child sucks both nourishment and breath at the mouth, from the mother when she breaths, for these two causes.

1. Because it could not suck so soon as it is born were it not used to it before.

2. There are excrements found in the Guts of a new born child; but all creatures that suck will do it presently by instinct of nature; as Chickins that never fed before, will present∣ly pick up their food; and as for the excre∣ments found in the Guts they are not excre∣ments of the first concoction, for they stink not, but are gross blood that came from the Vessels of the spleen to the Guts and are dried there; but now it is agreed by all since the truth is found out, that the child in the womb

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,

nor yet when they give suck, for the most part; if the child be not fed with this blood what becomes of this blood when women are with child? certain it is it turns into milk, when time serves, to suckle the infant with. Yet Hippocrates was mistaken, who says, that the last part of the time the child lieth in the womb after it is quick, its fed partly by the mother milk; but this is certain that the infant in the womb is fed with pure blood convey∣ed in the Liver by the Navel-vein which is a branch of the great vein, and spreads to the small veins of the Liver. And here this blood is more refined, the thick, gross, crude part goes to the Spleen and Kidneys, and the gross excrement of it to the Guts, and that is it is found in the Guts as soon as they are born. The most pure part goes into the hollow vein, and from thence through the whole body by small branches; this blood hath a watry sub∣stance with it, as all blood hath, to make it run and keep it from clodding, and this water in men and women breaths forth by sweat, & so it doth in a child, and is contain'd in the Lamb-skin, as I told you. This watry sub∣stance that is joined with the blood, when the blood comes to the kidneys, parts from the blood, and is sent by the kid∣neys, that make their separation, by the Ure∣ters

to the bladder; nor doth the infant piss as he lieth in the womb by the Yard, but the Urine is carryed by the Ʋrachos, a vessel to carry it, which is long and without blood, to the Allantois, ••or skin that is made to hold the childs water in, so long as it remains in the womb; this Ʋrachos or passage goeth from the bottom of the bladder to the Allantois, and hath no muscle belongs unto it, that the child may void the Urine when nature requires, but when the child is born it hath muscles at the root of the bladder, to shut and open that we may make it not a meer natural, but partly a mixed action, to follow our business, and make water, not alwayes but when we please; but this is not the course with the child continually, for the first month the childs Urine comes out through the passage of the Navel, but in the last month by the Yard▪ but it never goes to stool in the womb because it takes no nutriment by the mouth. After for∣ty five days, the child lives, but moves not, commonly he moves in double the time he was formed, and is born in thrice the time af∣ter he began to move. If the child be fully formed in forty days, her will move in ninety days, and be born in the ninth month, but he receives daily more food after the third and fourth month to the day of his birth. A child

born in six months is not perfect and must die, but one born in seven months is perfect, but one born in the eight month cannot live, be∣cause in the seventh month the child useth all its force to come out, and if it cannot, it must stay two months longer to recover the strength lost upon the former attempt that had made it too feeble to get forth in the eighth month, for if it come not forth at the seventh month it removes its station and changeth it self to some other place in the womb; these two motions have so weak∣ened it, that it must stay behind a month longer, for if it come forth before, it is almost impossible for it to live. But Astrologers de∣termine this business another way, for they af∣firm, that children born in the seventh month do live by reason of the compleating of the motion of the seven planets, allowing one month to each of them, beginning with Sa∣turn thus; Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Venus, Mercury, Luna. Now if the child come not forth at the seventh month, but stay till the eighth month, the Planets having ruled every one his month, Saturn begins to rule again, who is an enemy to conception in all his qua∣lities, and so the child born in the eighth month will be born dead, or live a very short time; yet other Philosophers maintain, that

Saturn is no enemy to conception, but ruling in the first month▪ by his influence and reten∣tive faculty, the child is fixed in the womb; but as the celestial bodies have their influence upon the terrestial and upon all the elements, they cause all the changes here below, and are not changed themselves: for that the Heaven••, and the fixed Stars, and the Planets are still the same they were in the first creation, and that the twelve Signs and Planets do rule o∣ver the bodies of men and women; and how that Scorpio which is the house of Mars, rules over the womb and makes it fruitful; and that Leo is a barren Sign, because Lions sel∣dom bring forth young, and so is Virgo for they are no maids that conceive with child. But then why should not Taurus be a barren but a fruitful Sign, when Bulls never bring forth any. But not to trouble the reader with Astrological dreams. I think it is not the se∣ven Planets that by this complement of seven make the child to live, but I should rather impute it to the perfection of the number se∣ven, which is easily proved by Scripture to be the most perfect number, and will appear so to be by the Sabbath the seventh day of the week commanded for rest; also the Sabbati∣cal or every seventh year, and the year of Ju∣bilee seven times seven. So that Hippocrates

was out in three books, where he endeavours to prove that a child born in the eighth month cannot live; Aristotle, Plutarch, Galen, and o∣thers were of the same judgement. But to oppose them, the writers of Spain, Egypt, and of Nanas prove the contrary by divers exam∣ples: Hippocrates might be also misunderstood, whether he meant Solar months that consist of thirty one days a piece, or very near, be∣ing the time the Sun is passing through the Zodiack, or Lunar months, the time the moon is in any Sign of the twelve, and her stay there which is but twenty seven days, with some few hours and minutes; besides all this, the woman, Hippocrates mentions, might not make her reckoning right; for if you trust to womens account you can be at no certain∣ty, scarce one of a hundred can tell you true. And as for Saturn, who is so much blamed for playing the ill Midwife in the eighth month, he is as much commended for his good of∣fice in the first month; but there is no man, or Planet that can alwayes have every mans good word; yet I am of opinion they do him wrong: but Astrologers may say what they please without reason, for they never prove any thing but one dream by ano∣ther. Aries forsooth is not fruitful because it is the House of Mars, and is not Scorpio which

they praise for fructifying the house of Mars too? Every Planet is maintained by them to rule the severai parts of mans body, and that by degrees according to their signs and several Houses they are in. I have found no Table concerning this business to have any truth in it, wherefore I have drawn forth one exactly which you may safely rely upon, if upon any Table at all, and by this Table you shall find that every Planet when he is in Scorpio, which signifies fruitfulness of the womb, rules those parts of the body which are under the same Sign: the two great Luminaries, I mean the Sun and Moon, excepted, which do it by re∣ception; a clear proof that they have a great influence in framing the child in the womb, and that the two Luminaries in that work; mingle their influence one with the other.

The Table.

The first month Authors give to Saturn to retain the conception, for he, say they, fixes the seed. The Second month to Jupiter, and upon him they lay the foundation of encrea∣sing, of sense and reason, but the true foun∣dation is then laid, when the Seed of both man and woman are well mingled. Mars

rules the third month to give heat and mo∣tion to the infant. Any Tooth good Barber. The Sun governs the fourth month to give the child vital spirits, yet Mars gave it motion a month before without any spirits at all: I cannot understand there can be voluntary motion and no vital spirits. Venus in the fifth month adds beauty; the body we all know is fashioned in thirty or forty days, but beauty must not come till three months after. As for the sixth month that is Mercuries part, to distinguish the parts of the child, which Ve∣nus it seems could never do with all her beau∣ty, as if the child were but a Chaos, and a rude mass till the sixth month, yet it was very beautiful a month before. As for the seventh and last month in the Planetary revolution, that is the Moons part, to make the child com∣plete. Here is much ado to small purpose. It is no error I confess to impute much to the operation of the Planets; But they are much mistaken about the times that such and such Planets do work, for doubtless the Planets do not operate by succession as some would have it, so that when one rules, all the rest are idle and lie still, but they cooperate and work altogether and that continually. Their motion causes mutation, for the motion of the Sun, saith Potolomy, of the Earth, saith Co∣pernicus,

distinguisheth night from day. The Sun gives heat to all things here below, the Moon moisture, and our life consists in heat and moisture. The Sun is the Sire of all li∣ving creatures, and is first active in the seed of both sexes, in the very middle of the seed, and so he enlivens and moves every part to its proper action. That which Aristotle speaks of the Heart, the Microcosmical Sun in man's production, is partly true both in and after conception, to frame vital spirits and cause motion & action. For as the earth is preserved by the element of water from being scorched and burnt up by the beams of the Sun, so the Microcosmical Sun, the Heart; but which is the Moon, the brain or the Liver is hard to say, adds moisture to this conception from first to last, I mean as long as the child lives, and thus the radical moisture is preserved. Aristotle thought the brain by its coldness tempered the heat of the heart, and for my part I think he said very true, I see no man give a suffici∣ent reason to the contrary. There must yet be something to ballance the heat and moi∣sture of the Sun and Moon, and that they say is Saturn by his coldness, for he fixeth them both in the work of conception, and the dry bones are his work which are the Pillars and supports of this frail building. But be∣cause

there is no Generation but first there must be corruption, for the corruption of one is the generation of another, whereby it comes to pass that there is not a total decay in the world: the beams of the Sun & Moon working upon the seed of both sexes fixed by Saturn are purified and concocted by the equal tempera∣ment of heat and moisture that the Planet Jupiter lets fall amongst them; but then comes Mars with his heat and dryness, and what is overplus in the conception, as there must needs be some superfluities, that Mars draws forth and turns to excrements, and hardens into Coverings and Coats for the child by his calcining heat, what is bred by moisture and heat, is fixed by cold and dryness. Mars heats with a fiery calcination, but Venus she tem∣pers the heat of Mars by her moisture, for she is a cold moist Planet, and fitly added to abate the courage and violent heat of warlike Mars: there is a great sympathy between Mars and Venus, and therefore surely the Poets speak so much of their conjunction, for they are emi∣nent in this of mans generation.

You may by this find out the causes of sym∣pathy and antipathy in natural things; and seeing all things are made up of such contrary qualities, what is generated must in time be corrupted, nothing is eternal in this world;

but a perpetual motion breeds mutation, and not man nor any thing else can continue in the same stay. Mars and Venus do here play their parts in mans production, for they are the nearest of the five Planets to the earth, but next to them is Mercury, of a changeable dis∣position, and applieth himself to the rest of the Planets with several aspects, and he cau∣seth the desire of knowledge in man; sense and reason also some maintain to be the work of Mercury by his influence upon the child in the womb. It is not denied but a piercing a∣cute humour proceeds from him, which is most likely to effect not alone the sensible but the rational part in man.

CHAP. IX.

Of the Posture the child holdeth in the Womb, and after what fashion it lieth there.

HEre Physicians are at a stand and are ne∣ver like to agree about it, not two in twenty that can set their horses together; the speculation is very curious, insomuch that the Prophet David ascribes this knowledge as more peculiar to God, Psalm 139. My reins are

thine, thou hast covered me in my mothers womb: I will give thanks unto thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well; my bones are not hid from thee, though I be made secretly and fashioned beneath in the earth; thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect, and in thy Book were all my members written, which day by day were fashioned, whenas yet there was none of them.

Yet Anatomists have narrowly enquired in∣to this secret Cabinet of nature, and Hip∣pocrates that great Physician tells us in his Book De natura Pueri, that the infant lieth in the womb with his head, his hands, and his knees bending downward, towards his feet: so that he is bended round together, his hands lying upon both his knees, the thumbs of his hands, & his eyes meeting each with other, & so saith Bartholinus the younger of the two. Likewise Columbus's opinion is, that the child lieth round in the womb with the right arm bended, and the fingers of the right hand ly∣ing under the ear of it, above the neck, the head bowed so low that the chin meets and toucheth the breast, and the left arm bowed lying above the breast and the face, and the right elbow bended serves to underprop the left arm lying upon it; the legs are lying up∣wards,

and the right leg is lifted so high that the infants thigh toucheth its belly, the knees touch the Navel, and the heel toucheth the left buttock, and the foot is turned backward and hides the privy members; as for the left thigh, that toucheth the belly, and the left leg is lifted up to the breast; the stomach lyeth inward. But the expert Spigelius hath the fa∣shion of a child near the birth, whose figure I have here laid down, and I believe it is very proper, for, as well as I am able to judge by the figure, it is the very same with that of a child that I had once the chance to see when I was performing my office of Midwifry.

Here insert the Figure of the Child near its Birth.

[illustration] anatomical depiction of the child near its birth

The Figure Explained:

Being a Dissection of the WOMB, with the usual manner how the CHILD lies therein near the time of its Birth.

BB. The inner parts of the Chorion extended and branched out.

C. The Amnios extended.

DD. The Membrane of the Womb extended and branched.

E. The Fleshy substance call'd the Cake or Placenta, which nourishes the Infant, it is full of Vessels.

F. The Vessels appoint••d for th•• 〈…〉〈…〉

[illustration]

This is a general observation, that the Male Child most commonly lyeth on the right side in the womb, and the Female on the left side; but Hippocrates layeth it down as the most universal way, to have his hands, knees, and head bending down toward the feet, his nose betwixt his knees, his hands upon both knees, and his face between them, each eye touching each thumb; but he is wrapt as he lieth in two mantles or garments, as I said,

for a boy hath no more; that which imme∣diately covers him and lieth next to his skin, is called Amnios the skirt or Lamb-skin, it is wonderful soft and thin, and is loose on all sides, only it grows so fast to the Cake, that it can hardly be parted from it; the use of it farther is to receive the Childs sweat and U∣rine, which moisteneth the mouth of the Ma∣trix also and makes the birth more easie, but the outward coat called Chorion, is very strong and sinewy, and encloseth the child round a∣bout, and like a soft pillow or bed bears up all the veins and Arteries of the Navel, which would have been in danger, to have been carried so far, without some soft bolster to sus∣tain them.

These coats growing fast together seem to be but one coat, or one to be the beginning of the other, and this altogether taken is called the after-burden or Secundine, for when the Child is grown strong enough to come out of the womb, and the time of his birth is at hand, he breaks through these coverings, and the coverings come forth after the child is born: yet sometimes a piece of the Amnios covers the childs face and head when he is born and women call it the caule, and hold it to be a Sign of some great happiness that will befall the child in the following part of his

life, but some think it is neither here nor there, one born without this caule may be as happy as he that is born with it. There be∣long to the child whilest it lieth in the womb some things that are proper for it, some to cloath it, and are only for that time that it lieth in that place, and afterwards of no known use, though some have tried to make use of them in Physick and Chirurgery, but commonly they cast it away. Some things a∣gain serve to nourish and feed it in the womb, and those are the Navel-vessels which are four in number, two arteries, one vein, and that vessel which is called Ʋrachos, which carrieth away the childs water in the womb to that skin that is prepared to hold that water so long as the child staies in the womb and it is called Allantois. The vein I speak of comes from the Infants Liver, and when it is passed the navel, it brancheth into two branches; and these again divide and subdivide, the skin called Chorion supporting the branches of it, and these are joined to the Veins of the mo∣thers womb, and serve to suck and to carry the mothers blood from thence to feed the in∣fant with, whilest it stays there.

This Vein is for that end that the infant may be fed from the first time of conception untill it be born, and then its use is over as to

the first intention, when the child comes to feed it self, for then it hath no need to suck blood from the mother as it did before.

The Arteries are two on each side, and these spring from the branches of the great artery of the mother that comes from the small Guts and these serve to carry vital blood to feed the Infant with, when it is first well pre∣pared and concocted by the mother.

The next part for servile use, is a Nervous production called Ʋrachos, and it comes from the bottom of the bladder of the child to its Navel, and it serves, as the name also implies, to carry the childs Urine to the Allantois or skin that must retain it. But Anatomists are not all of one mind about it, for some say there is no such thing to be found in the after-burden of women, but in beasts it is. Let their ignorance or disputes be what they will to no purpose, I shall satisfie all by true ex∣perience, which cannot be contradicted; he that reads the Anatomy Lecture of Montpelion in France, Bartholomew Cabrolius a skilful Chi∣rurgion professeth that he saw a maid whose Urine came forth at her Navel, the ordinary passage of her water being obstructed: and Dr. John Fernelius tells the same story, of a man who was thirty years old, who had a stopping in the neck of his bladder so that for

many months continually his water came forth by his Navel, yet he found no hurt at all by it but was very well in health, and Fer∣nelius saith, the reason was, because his Na∣vel-string was not well tied, and the passage of the Ʋrachos gave way because it was not well dried. And there is another example that Valchier Coiler lays down of a German maid of Noremberge, she was thirty four years of age. These distempers are not frequent, because she must be a very unskilful Midwife that knows not how to tie and cut the Na∣vel string, yet these accidents are sufficient in such a dark matter to prove that there is such a thing as a Ʋrachos or Urine-carrier from the Navel in both sexes, men as well as women.

These four vessels, as I said, namely one Vein, two Arteries, and the Ʋrachos, join to∣gether near the Navel, and they are tyed by a skin they have from the Chorion or outward coat of the Secundine, and so they seem to be a Chord or Gut without any feeling, this is that that all People call the Navel-string, if wo∣man or man doubt of the truth of this relati∣on, let him only take the childs Navel-string when it is cut off, and untwist it, and open it and so they shall be able to satisfie themselves. These Vessels are so joined for to strengthen

them that they will not be broken, nor yet are they entangled together; when the child is born into the world then these Vessels as they hang without from the Navel serve for no o∣ther use but to be knit fast and to make a strong band to cover the Navel-hole. Yet experience hath found a way to make a Phy∣sical use of them, that what is spar'd from ty∣ing and to be cut off, may not be thrown a∣way; as for the Secundine and the parts of it, the parts of it are held to be four. I shall shew you a little more concerning the description and use of them. The first part is that which is commonly called a Sugar cake in Latine Placenta, and indeed it is very like a cake in the form of it, it is tied both to the Navel and to the strong outward, sinewy Coat of the Child in the womb called Chorion; and this is that which makes the greater part of the after burden or Secundine; the flesh hereof is soft and of a red colour, much like the spleen or milt, tending somewhat to black, there are abundance of small Veins and Arteries in it, and it should be probable that the chief use it serves for, is to cloath and keep the infant in the womb. Columbus a very good Anatomist, yet was much deceived when he affirms the Chorion or strongest and outward membrane that wraps the Child in the womb to be no

skin. It is undoubtedly known, that the Cho∣rion and Amnios do compass the child round, above, beneath, and on all sides, but the Al∣lantois that contains the childs Urine doth not so. Columbus he mistook this skin for the Pla∣centa or cake, but Hippocrates gives this name Secundine as general to the whole, in that book he hath written of womens diseases: for the Chorion is a skin very white, and thick, light and slippery, and it is laced, and adorn∣ed, and branched with a great many small Veins and Arteries, and we must not think that it serves only for a covering of the child in the womb, for it serves farther to receive and to bind fast the roots of the Veins, and Arteries or Navel-Vessels which I spake of before.

The Allantois or skin to contain the childs Urine in the womb is denied by many that there is any such Vessel to be found in mans body, I must confess reason must help us to discern it, for we can hardly see it or find it. It is said that in Holland men are wont to be present at their wives labours as well as women, and that few of the women use stools, but they sit in their Husbands laps when they are delivered; and they say there is such a a thing. Galen maintains, that there is as much reason and experience for it in men as in

beasts, good women as well as my self have done, may look for it, and find it too if they please, a very fine, white, soft, exceeding thin skin, and it lieth just under the cake or Placen∣ta, and there it is tied to the Ʋrachos from which it takes in the Urine, and its office is to keep the Urine apart from the sweat, that the saltness of the Urine may not hurt the tender Infant, which it must needs do, were it not kept up in a place by its self. The Amnios is the last and inmost skin, and it is wonderful fine, soft, white, transparent, fed and inter∣woven with many Veins and Arteries; this skin not only infolds the Infant, but also holds the sweat that comes from it whilest it lieth in the womb.