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.

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.