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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12699 ***
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE WORKS OF
+
+ARISTOTLE
+
+THE FAMOUS PHILOSOPHER
+
+Containing his Complete Masterpiece and
+Family Physician; his Experienced
+Midwife, his Book of Problems
+and his Remarks on
+Physiognomy
+
+COMPLETE EDITION, WITH ENGRAVINGS
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE MIDWIFE'S VADE-MECUM
+
+Containing
+
+PARTICULAR DIRECTIONS FOR MIDWIVES, NURSES, ETC.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SOME GENUINE RECIPES FOR CAUSING SPEEDY DELIVERY.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+APPROVED DIRECTIONS FOR NURSES.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: Medical Knowledge]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PART I.--BOOK I
+
+THE MASTERPIECE
+
+     _On marriage and at what age young men and virgins are capable of
+     it: and why so much desire it. Also, how long men and women are
+     capable of it._
+
+
+There are very few, except some professional debauchees, who will not
+readily agree that "Marriage is honourable to all," being ordained by
+Heaven in Paradise; and without which no man or woman can be in a
+capacity, honestly, to yield obedience to the first law of the creation,
+"Increase and Multiply." And since it is natural in young people to
+desire the embraces, proper to the marriage bed, it behoves parents to
+look after their children, and when they find them inclinable to
+marriage, not violently to restrain their inclinations (which, instead
+of allaying them, makes them but the more impetuous) but rather provide
+such suitable matches for them, as may make their lives comfortable;
+lest the crossing of those inclinations should precipitate them to
+commit those follies that may bring an indelible stain upon their
+families. The inclination of maids to marriage may be known by many
+symptoms; for when they arrive at puberty, which is about the fourteenth
+or fifteenth year of their age, then their natural purgations begin to
+flow; and the blood, which is no longer to augment their bodies,
+abounding, stirs up their minds to venery. External causes may also
+incline them to it; for their spirits being brisk and inflamed, when
+they arrive at that age, if they eat hard salt things and spices, the
+body becomes more and more heated, whereby the desire to veneral
+embraces is very great, and sometimes almost insuperable. And the use of
+this so much desired enjoyment being denied to virgins, many times is
+followed by dismal consequences; such as the green weesel colonet,
+short-breathing, trembling of the heart, etc. But when they are married
+and their veneral desires satisfied by the enjoyment of their husbands,
+these distempers vanish, and they become more gay and lively than
+before. Also, their eager staring at men, and affecting their company,
+shows that nature pushes them upon coition; and their parents
+neglecting to provide them with husbands, they break through modesty and
+satisfy themselves in unlawful embraces. It is the same with brisk
+widows, who cannot be satisfied without that benevolence to which they
+were accustomed when they had their husbands.
+
+At the age of 14, the menses, in virgins, begin to flow; then they are
+capable of conceiving, and continue generally until 44, when they cease
+bearing, unless their bodies are strong and healthful, which sometimes
+enables them to bear at 65. But many times the menses proceed from some
+violence done to nature, or some morbific matter, which often proves
+fatal. And, hence, men who are desirous of issue ought to marry a woman
+within the age aforesaid, or blame themselves if they meet with
+disappointment; though, if an old man, if not worn out with diseases and
+incontinency, marry a brisk, lively maiden, there is hope of him having
+children to 70 or 80 years.
+
+Hippocrates says, that a youth of 15, or between that and 17, having
+much vital strength, is capable of begetting children; and also that the
+force of the procreating matter increases till 45, 50, and 55, and then
+begins to flag; the seed, by degrees, becoming unfruitful, the natural
+spirits being extinguished, and the humours dried up. Thus, in general,
+but as to individuals, it often falls out otherwise. Nay, it is
+reported by a credible author, that in Swedland, a man was married at
+100 years of age to a girl of 30 years, and had many children by her;
+but his countenance was so fresh, that those who knew him not, imagined
+him not to exceed 50. And in Campania, where the air is clear and
+temperate, men of 80 marry young virgins, and have children by them;
+which shows that age in them does not hinder procreation, unless they be
+exhausted in their youths and their yards be shrivelled up.
+
+If any would know why a woman is sooner barren than a man, they may be
+assured that the natural heat, which is the cause of generation, is more
+predominant in the man than in the woman; for since a woman is more
+moist than a man, as her monthly purgations demonstrate, as also the
+softness of her body; it is also apparent that he does not much exceed
+her in natural heat, which is the chief thing that concocts the humours
+in proper aliment, which the woman wanting grows fat; whereas a man,
+through his native heat, melts his fat by degrees and his humours are
+dissolved; and by the benefit thereof are converted into seed. And this
+may also be added, that women, generally, are not so strong as men, nor
+so wise or prudent; nor have so much reason and ingenuity in ordering
+affairs; which shows that thereby the faculties are hindered in
+operations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+     _How to beget a male or female child; and of the Embryo and perfect
+     Birth; and the fittest time for the copula._
+
+
+When a young couple are married, they naturally desire children; and
+therefore adopt the means that nature has appointed to that end. But
+notwithstanding their endeavours they must know that the success of all
+depends on the blessing of the Gods: not only so, but the sex, whether
+male or female, is from their disposal also, though it cannot be denied,
+that secondary causes have influence therein, especially two. First, the
+general humour, which is brought by the arteria praeparantes to the
+testes, in form of blood, and there elaborated into seed, by the
+seminifical faculty residing in them. Secondly, the desire of coition,
+which fires the imagination with unusual fancies, and by the sight of
+brisk, charming beauty, may soon inflame the appetite. But if nature be
+enfeebled, some meats must be eaten as will conduce to afford such
+aliment as makes the seed abound, and restores the exhaustion of nature
+that the faculties may freely operate, and remove impediments
+obstructing the procreating of children. Then, since diet alters the
+evil state of the body to a better, those subject to barrenness must eat
+such meats as are juicy and nourish well, making the body lively and
+full of sap; of which faculty are all hot moist meats. For, according to
+Galen, seed is made of pure concocted and windy superfluity of blood,
+whence we may conclude, that there is a power in many things, to
+accumulate seed, and also to augment it; and other things of force to
+cause desire, as hen eggs, pheasants, woodcocks, gnat-snappers,
+blackbirds, thrushes, young pigeons, sparrows, partridges, capons,
+almonds, pine nuts, raisins, currants, strong wines taken sparingly,
+especially those made of the grapes of Italy. But erection is chiefly
+caused by scuraum, eringoes, cresses, crysmon, parsnips, artichokes,
+turnips, asparagus, candied ginger, acorns bruised to powder and drank
+in muscadel, scallion, sea shell fish, etc. But these must have time to
+perform their operation, and must be used for a considerable time, or
+you will reap but little benefit from them. The act of coition being
+over, let the woman repose herself on her right side, with her head
+lying low, and her body declining, that by sleeping in that posture,
+the cani, on the right side of the matrix, may prove the place of
+conception; for therein is the greatest generative heat, which is the
+chief procuring cause of male children, and rarely fails the
+expectations of those that experience it, especially if they do but keep
+warm, without much motion, leaning to the right, and drinking a little
+spirit of saffron and juice of hissop in a glass of Malaga or Alicant,
+when they lie down and arise, for a week.
+
+For a female child, let the woman lie on her left side, strongly
+fancying a female in the time of procreation, drinking the decoction of
+female mercury four days from the first day of purgation; the male
+mercury having the like operation in case of a male; for this concoction
+purges the right and left side of the womb, opens the receptacles, and
+makes way for the seminary of generation. The best time to beget a
+female is, when the moon is in the wane, in Libra or Aquaries. Advicenne
+says, that when the menses are spent and the womb cleansed, which is
+commonly in five or seven days at most, if a man lie with his wife from
+the first day she is purged to the fifth, she will conceive a male; but
+from the fifth to the eighth a female; and from the eighth to the
+twelfth a male again: but after that perhaps neither distinctly, but
+both in an hermaphrodite. In a word, they that would be happy in the
+fruits of their labour, must observe to use copulation in due distance
+of time, not too often nor too seldom, for both are alike hurtful; and
+to use it immoderately weakens and wastes the spirits and spoils the
+seed. And this much for the first particular.
+
+The second is to let the reader know how the child is formed in the
+womb, what accidents it is liable to there, and how nourished and
+brought forth. There are various opinions concerning this matter;
+therefore, I shall show what the learned say about it.
+
+Man consists of an egg, which is impregnated in the testicles of the
+woman, by the more subtle parts of the man's seed; but the forming
+faculty and virtue in the seed is a divine gift, it being abundantly
+imbued with vital spirit, which gives sap and form to the embryo, so
+that all parts and bulk of the body, which is made up in a few months
+and gradually formed into the likely figure of a man, do consist in, and
+are adumbrated thereby (most sublimely expressed, Psalm cxxxix.: "I will
+praise Thee, O Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.")
+
+Physicians have remarked four different times at which a man is framed
+and perfected in the womb; the first after coition, being perfectly
+formed in the week if no flux happens, which sometimes falls out
+through the slipperiness of the head of the matrix, that slips over like
+a rosebud that opens suddenly. The second time of forming is assigned
+when nature makes manifest mutation in the conception, so that all the
+substance seems congealed, flesh and blood, and happens twelve or
+fourteen days after copulation. And though this fleshy mass abounds with
+inflamed blood, yet it remains undistinguishable, without form, and may
+be called an embryo, and compared to seed sown in the ground, which,
+through heat and moisture, grows by degrees to a perfect form in plant
+or grain. The third time assigned to make up this fabric is when the
+principal parts show themselves plain; as the heart, whence proceed the
+arteries, the brain, from which the nerves, like small threads, run
+through the whole body; and the liver, which divides the chyle from the
+blood, brought to it by the vena porta. The two first are fountains of
+life, that nourish every part of the body, in framing which the faculty
+of the womb is bruised, from the conception of the eighth day of the
+first month. The fourth, and last, about the thirtieth day, the outward
+parts are seen nicely wrought, distinguished by joints, from which time
+it is no longer an embryo, but a perfect child.
+
+Most males are perfect by the thirtieth day, but females seldom before
+the forty-second or forty-fifth day, because the heat of the womb is
+greater in producing the male than the female. And, for the same reason,
+a woman going with a male child quickens in three months, but going with
+a female, rarely under four, at which time its hair and nails come
+forth, and the child begins to stir, kick and move in the womb, and then
+the woman is troubled with a loathing for meat and a greedy longing for
+things contrary to nutriment, as coals, rubbish, chalk, etc., which
+desire often occasions abortion and miscarriage. Some women have been so
+extravagant as to long for hob nails, leather, horse-flesh, man's flesh,
+and other unnatural as well as unwholesome food, for want of which thing
+they have either miscarried or the child has continued dead in the womb
+for many days, to the imminent hazard of their lives. But I shall now
+proceed to show by what means the child is maintained in the womb, and
+what posture it there remains in.
+
+The learned Hippocrates affirms that the child, as he is placed in the
+womb, has his hands on his knees, and his head bent to his feet, so that
+he lies round together, his hands upon his knees and his face between
+them, so that each eye touches each thumb, and his nose betwixt his
+knees. And of the same opinion in this matter was Bartholinus. Columbus
+is of opinion that the figure of the child in the womb is round, the
+right arm bowed, the fingers under the ear, and about the neck, the head
+bowed so that the chin touches the breast, the left arm bowed above both
+breast and face and propped up by the bending of the right elbow; the
+legs are lifted upwards, the right so much that the thigh touches the
+belly, the knee the navel, the heel touches the left buttock, and the
+foot is turned back and covers the secrets; the left thigh touches the
+belly, and the leg lifted up to the breast.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+     _The reason why children are like their parents; and that the
+     Mother's imagination contributes thereto; and whether the man or
+     the woman is the cause of the male or female child._
+
+
+In the case of similitude, nothing is more powerful than the imagination
+of the mother; for if she fix her eyes upon any object it will so
+impress her mind, that it oftentimes so happens that the child has a
+representation thereof on some part of the body. And, if in act of
+copulation, the woman earnestly look on the man, and fix her mind on
+him, the child will resemble its father. Nay, if a woman, even in
+unlawful copulation, fix her mind upon her husband, the child will
+resemble him though he did not beget it. The same effect has imagination
+in occasioning warts, stains, mole-spots, and dartes; though indeed they
+sometimes happen through frights, or extravagant longing. Many women, in
+being with child, on seeing a hare cross the road in front of them,
+will, through the force of imagination, bring forth a child with a hairy
+lip. Some children are born with flat noses and wry mouths, great
+blubber lips and ill-shaped bodies; which must be ascribed to the
+imagination of the mother, who has cast her eyes and mind upon some
+ill-shaped creature. Therefore it behoves all women with child, if
+possible, to avoid such sights, or at least, not to regard them. But
+though the mother's imagination may contribute much to the features of
+the child, yet, in manners, wit, and propension of the mind, experience
+tells us, that children are commonly of the condition with their
+parents, and possessed of similar tempers. But the vigour or disability
+of persons in the act of copulation many times cause it to be otherwise;
+for children begotten through the heat and strength of desire, must
+needs partake more of the nature and inclination of their parents, than
+those begotten at a time when desires are weaker; and, therefore, the
+children begotten by men in their old age are generally weaker than,
+those begotten by them in their youth. As to the share which each of the
+parents has in begetting the child, we will give the opinions of the
+ancients about it.
+
+Though it is apparent that the man's seed is the chief efficient being
+of the action, motion, and generation: yet that the woman affords seed
+and effectually contributes in that point to the procreation of the
+child, is evinced by strong reasons. In the first place, seminary
+vessels had been given her in vain, and genital testicles inverted, if
+the woman wanted seminal excrescence, for nature does nothing in vain;
+and therefore we must grant, they were made for the use of seed and
+procreation, and placed in their proper parts; both the testicles and
+the receptacles of seed, whose nature is to operate and afford virtue to
+the seed. And to prove this, there needs no stronger argument, say they,
+than that if a woman do not use copulation to eject her seed, she often
+falls into strange diseases, as appears by young men and virgins. A
+second reason they urge is, that although the society of a lawful bed
+consists not altogether in these things, yet it is apparent the female
+sex are never better pleased, nor appear more blythe and jocund, than
+when they are satisfied this way; which is an inducement to believe they
+have more pleasure and titulation therein than men. For since nature
+causes much delight to accompany ejection, by the breaking forth of the
+swelling spirits and the swiftness of the nerves; in which case the
+operation on the woman's part is double, she having an enjoyment both by
+reception and ejection, by which she is more delighted in.
+
+Hence it is, they say, that the child more frequently resembles the
+mother than the father, because the mother contributes more towards it.
+And they think it may be further instanced, from the endeared affection
+they bear them; for that, besides their contributing seminal matters,
+they feed and nourish the child with the purest fountain of blood, until
+its birth. Which opinion Galen affirms, by allowing children to
+participate most of the mother; and ascribes the difference of sex to
+the different operations of the menstrual blood; but this reason of the
+likeness he refers to the power of the seed; for, as the plants receive
+more nourishment from fruitful ground, than from the industry of the
+husbandman, so the infant receives more abundance from the mother than
+the father. For the seed of both is cherished in the womb, and then
+grows to perfection, being nourished with blood. And for this reason it
+is, they say, that children, for the most part, love their mothers best,
+because they receive the most of their substance from their mother; for
+about nine months she nourishes her child in the womb with the purest
+blood; then her love towards it newly born, and its likeness, do clearly
+show that the woman affords seed, and contributes more towards making
+the child than the man.
+
+But in this all the ancients were very erroneous; for the testicles, so
+called in women, afford not only seed, but are two eggs, like those of
+fowls and other creatures; neither have they any office like those of
+men, but are indeed the ovaria, wherein the eggs are nourished by the
+sanguinary vessels disposed throughout them; and from thence one or more
+as they are fecundated by the man's seed is separated and conveyed into
+the womb by the ovaducts. The truth of this is plain, for if you boil
+them the liquor will be of the same colour, taste and consistency, with
+the taste of birds' eggs. If any object that they have no shells, that
+signifies nothing: for the eggs of fowls while they are on the ovary,
+nay, after they are fastened into the uterus, have no shell. And though
+when they are laid, they have one, yet that is no more than a defence
+with which nature has provided them against any outward injury, while
+they are hatched without the body; whereas those of women being hatched
+within the body, need no other fence than the womb, by which they are
+sufficiently secured. And this is enough, I hope, for the clearing of
+this point.
+
+As for the third thing proposed, as whence grow the kind, and whether
+the man or the woman is the cause of the male or female infant--the
+primary cause we must ascribe to God as is most justly His due, who is
+the Ruler and Disposer of all things; yet He suffers many things to
+proceed according to the rules of nature by their inbred motion,
+according to usual and natural courses, without variation; though indeed
+by favour from on high, Sarah conceived Isaac; Hannah, Samuel; and
+Elizabeth, John the Baptist; but these were all extraordinary things,
+brought to pass by a Divine power, above the course of nature. Nor have
+such instances been wanting in later days; therefore, I shall wave them,
+and proceed to speak of things natural.
+
+The ancient physicians and philosophers say that since these two
+principles out of which the body of man is made, and which renders the
+child like the parents, and by one or other of the sex, viz., seed
+common to both sexes and menstrual blood, proper to the woman only; the
+similitude, say they, must needs consist in the force of virtue of the
+male or female, so that it proves like the one or the other, according
+to the quantity afforded by either, but that the difference of sex is
+not referred to the seed, but to the menstrual blood, which is proper to
+the woman, is apparent; for, were that force altogether retained in the
+seed, the male seed being of the hottest quality, male children would
+abound and few of the female be propagated; wherefore, the sex is
+attributed to the temperament or to the active qualities, which consists
+in heat and cold and the nature of the matter under them--that is, the
+flowing of the menstruous blood. But now, the seed, say they, affords
+both force to procreate and to form the child, as well as matter for its
+generation; and in the menstruous blood there is both matter and force,
+for as the seed most helps the maternal principle, so also does the
+menstrual blood the potential seed, which is, says Galen, blood well
+concocted by the vessels which contain it. So that the blood is not only
+the matter of generating the child, but also seed, it being impossible
+that menstrual blood has both principles.
+
+The ancients also say that the seed is the stronger efficient, the
+matter of it being very little in quantity, but the potential quality of
+it is very strong; wherefore, if these principles of generation,
+according to which the sex is made were only, say they, in the menstrual
+blood, then would the children be all mostly females; as were the
+efficient force in the seed they would be all males; but since both have
+operation in menstrual blood, matter predominates in quantity and in the
+seed force and virtue. And, therefore, Galen thinks that the child
+receives its sex rather from the mother than the father, for though his
+seed contributes a little to the natural principle, yet it is more
+weakly. But for likeliness it is referred rather to the father than to
+the mother. Yet the woman's seed receiving strength from the menstrual
+blood for the space of nine months, overpowers the man's in that
+particular, for the menstrual blood rather cherishes the one than the
+other; from which it is plain the woman affords both matter to make and
+force and virtue to perfect the conception; though the female's be fit
+nutriment for the male's by reason of the thinness of it, being more
+adapted to make up conception thereby. For as of soft wax or moist clay,
+the artificer can frame what he intends, so, say they, the man's seed
+mixing with the woman's and also with the menstrual blood, helps to
+make the form and perfect part of man.
+
+But, with all imaginary deference to the wisdom of our fathers, give me
+leave to say that their ignorance of the anatomy of man's body have led
+them into the paths of error and ran them into great mistakes. For their
+hypothesis of the formation of the embryo from commixture of blood being
+wholly false, their opinion in this case must of necessity be likewise.
+I shall therefore conclude this chapter by observing that although a
+strong imagination of the mother may often determine the sex, yet the
+main agent in this case is the plastic or formative principle, according
+to those rules and laws given us by the great Creator, who makes and
+fashions it, and therein determines the sex, according to the council of
+his will.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+     _That Man's Soul is not propagated by their parents, but is infused
+     by its Creator, and can neither die nor corrupt. At what time it is
+     infused. Of its immortality and certainty of its resurrection._
+
+
+Man's soul is of so divine a nature and excellency that man himself
+cannot comprehend it, being the infused breath of the Almighty, of an
+immortal nature, and not to be comprehended but by Him that gave it. For
+Moses, relating the history of man, tells us that "God breathed into his
+nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul." Now, as for
+all other creatures, at His word they were made and had life, but the
+creature that God had set over His works was His peculiar workmanship,
+formed by Him out of the dust of the earth, and He condescended to
+breathe into his nostrils the breath of life, which seems to denote both
+care and, if we may so term it, labour, used about man more than about
+all other living creatures, he only partaking and participating of the
+blessed divine nature, bearing God's image in innocence and purity,
+whilst he stood firm; and when, by his fall, that lively image was
+defaced, yet such was the love of the Creator towards him that he found
+out a way to restore him, the only begotten son of the Eternal Father
+coming into the world to destroy the works of the devil, and to raise up
+man from that low condition to which sin and his fall had reduced him,
+to a state above that of the angels.
+
+If, therefore, man would understand the excellency of his soul, let him
+turn his eyes inwardly and look unto himself and search diligently his
+own mind, and there he shall see many admirable gifts and excellent
+ornaments, that must needs fill him with wonder and amazement; as
+reason, understanding, freedom of will, memory, etc., that clearly show
+the soul to be descended from a heavenly original, and that therefore it
+is of infinite duration and not subject to annihilation.
+
+Yet for its many operations and offices while in the body it goes under
+several denominations: for when it enlivens the body it is called the
+soul; when it gives knowledge, the judgment of the mind; and when it
+recalls things past, the memory; when it discourses and discerns,
+reason; when it contemplates, the spirit; when it is the sensitive part,
+the senses. And these are the principal offices whereby the soul
+declares its powers and performs its actions. For being seated in the
+highest parts of the body it diffuses its force into every member. It is
+not propagated from the parents, nor mixed with gross matter, but the
+infused breath of God, immediately proceeding from Him; not passing from
+one to another as was the opinion of Pythagoras, who held a belief in
+transmigration of the soul; but that the soul is given to every infant
+by infusion, is the most received and orthodox opinion. And the learned
+do likewise agree that this is done when the infant is perfected in the
+womb, which happens about the twenty-fourth day after conception;
+especially for males, who are generally born at the end of nine months;
+but in females, who are not so soon formed and perfected, through defect
+of heat, until the fiftieth day. And though this day in either case
+cannot be truly set down, yet Hippocrates has given his opinion, that it
+is so when the child is formed and begins to move, when born in due
+season. In his book of the nature of infants, he says, if it be a male
+and be perfect on the thirtieth day, and move on the seventieth, he will
+be born in the seventh month; but if he be perfectly formed on the
+thirty-fifth day, he will move on the seventieth and will be born in the
+eighth month. Again, if he be perfectly formed on the forty-fifth day,
+he will move on the ninetieth and be born in the ninth month. Now from
+these paring of days and months, it plainly appears that the day of
+forming being doubled, makes up the day of moving, and the day, three
+times reckoned, makes up the day of birth. As thus, when thirty-five
+perfects the form, if you double it, makes seventy the day of motion;
+and three times seventy amounts to two hundred and ten days; while
+allowing thirty days to a month makes seven months, and so you must
+consider the rest. But as to a female the case is different; for it is
+longer perfecting in the womb, the mother ever going longer with a girl
+than with a boy, which makes the account differ; for a female formed in
+thirty days does not move until the seventieth day, and is born in the
+seventh month; when she is formed on the fortieth day, she does not move
+till the eightieth and is born in the eighth month; but, if she be
+perfectly formed on the forty-fifth day she moves on the ninetieth, and
+the child is born in the ninth month; but if she that is formed on the
+sixtieth day, moves on the one hundred and tenth day, she will be born
+in the tenth month. I treat the more largely of love that the reader may
+know that the reasonable soul is not propagated by the parents, but is
+infused by the Almighty, when the child has its perfect form, and is
+exactly distinguished in its lineaments.
+
+Now, as the life of every other creature, as Moses shows, is in the
+blood, so the life of man consists in the soul, which although subject
+to passion, by reason of the gross composures of the body, in which it
+has a temporary confinement, yet it is immortal and cannot in itself
+corrupt or suffer change, it being a spark of the Divine Mind. And that
+every man has a peculiar soul plainly appears by the vast difference
+between the will, judgment, opinions, manners, and affections in men.
+This David observes when he says: "God hath fashioned the hearts and
+minds of men, and has given to every one his own being and a soul of its
+own nature." Hence Solomon rejoiced that God had given him a soul, and a
+body agreeable to it. It has been disputed among the learned in what
+part of the body the soul resides; some are of opinion its residence is
+in the middle of the heart, and from thence communicates itself to every
+part, which Solomon (Prov. iv. 23) seems to confirm when he says: "Keep
+thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." But
+many curious physicians, searching the works of nature in man's anatomy,
+do affirm that its chief seat is in the brain, from whence proceed the
+senses, the faculties, and actions, diffusing the operations of the soul
+through all parts of the body, whereby it is enlivened with heat and
+force to the heart, by the arteries, corodities, or sleepy arteries,
+which part upon the throat; which, if they happen to be broken or cut,
+they cause barrenness, and if stopped an apoplexy; for there must
+necessarily be ways through which the spirits, animal and vital, may
+have intercourse and convey native heat from the soul. For though the
+soul has its chief seat in one place, it operates in every part,
+exercising every member which are the soul's instruments, by which she
+discovers her power. But if it happen that any of the original parts are
+out of tune, its whole work is confused, as appears in idiots and mad
+men; though, in some of them, the soul, by a vigorous exertion of its
+power, recovers its innate strength and they become right after a long
+despondency in mind, but in others it is not recovered again in this
+life. For, as fire under ashes, or the sun obscured from our sight by
+thick clouds, afford not their native lustre, so the soul, overwhelmed
+in moist or morbid matter, is darkened and reason thereby overclouded;
+and though reason shines less in children than it does in such as are
+arrived at maturity, yet no man must imagine that the soul of an infant
+grows up with the child, for then would it again decay; but it suits
+itself to nature's weakness, and the imbecility of the body wherein it
+is placed, that it may operate the better. And as the body is more
+capable of recovering its influence, so the soul does more and more
+exert its faculties, having force and endowment at the time it enters
+the form of a child in the womb; for its substance can receive nothing
+less. And thus much to prove that the soul does not come from the
+parents, but is infused by God. I shall next prove its immortality and
+demonstrate the certainty of our resurrection.
+
+
+
+OF THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
+
+That the soul of man is a Divine ray, infused by the Sovereign Creator,
+I have already proved, and now come to show that whatever immediately
+proceeds from Him, and participates of His nature, must be as immortal
+as its original; for, though all other creatures are endowed with life
+and motion, they yet lack a reasonable soul, and from thence it is
+concluded that their life is in their blood, and that being corruptible
+they perish and are no more; but man being endowed with a reasonable
+soul and stamped with a Divine image, is of a different nature, and
+though his body is corruptible, yet his soul being of an immortal nature
+cannot perish; but at the dissolution of the body returns to God who
+gave it, either to receive reward or punishment. Now, that the body can
+sin of itself is impossible, because wanting the soul, which is the
+principle of life, it cannot act nor proceed to anything either good or
+evil; for could it do so, it might even sin in the grave. But it is
+plain that after death there is a cessation; for as death leaves us so
+judgment will find us.
+
+Now, reason having evidently demonstrated the soul's immortality, the
+Holy Scriptures do abundantly give testimony of the truth of the
+resurrection, as the reader may see by perusing the 14th and 19th
+chapters of Job and 5th of John. I shall, therefore, leave the further
+discussion of this matter to divines, whose province it is, and return
+to treat of the works of nature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+     _Of Monsters and Monstrous Births; and the several reasons thereof,
+     according to the opinions of the Ancients. Also, whether the
+     Monsters are endowed with reasonable Souls; and whether the Devils
+     can engender; is here briefly discussed._
+
+
+By the ancients, monsters are ascribed to depraved conceptions, and are
+designated as being excursions of nature, which are vicious in one of
+these four ways: either in figure, magnitude, situation, or number.
+
+In figure, when a man bears the character of a beast, as did the beast
+in Saxony. In magnitude, when one part does not equalise with another;
+as when one part is too big or too little for the other parts of the
+body. But this is so common among us that I need not produce a
+testimony.
+
+[Illustration: There was a Monster at Ravenna in Italy of this kind, in
+the year 1512.]
+
+I now proceed to explain the cause of their generation, which is either
+divine or natural. The divine cause proceeds from God's permissive will,
+suffering parents to bring forth abominations for their filthy and
+corrupt affections, which are let loose unto wickedness like brute
+beasts which have no understanding. Wherefore it was enacted among the
+ancient Romans that those who were in any way deformed, should not be
+admitted into religious houses. And St. Jerome was grieved in his time
+to see the lame and the deformed offering up spiritual sacrifices to God
+in religious houses. And Keckerman, by way of inference, excludes all
+that are ill-shapen from this presbyterian function in the church. And
+that which is of more force than all, God himself commanded Moses not to
+receive such to offer sacrifice among his people; and he also renders
+the reason Leviticus, xxii. 28, "Lest he pollute my sanctuaries."
+Because of the outward deformity, the body is often a sign of the
+pollution of the heart, as a curse laid on the child for the
+incontinency of its parents. Yet it is not always so. Let us therefore
+duly examine and search out the natural cause of their generation, which
+(according to the ancients who have dived into the secrets of nature) is
+either in the mother or in the agent, in the seed, or in the womb.
+
+The matter may be in default two ways--by defect or by excess: by
+defect, when the child has only one arm; by excess, when it has four
+hands or two heads. Some monsters are begotten by a woman's unnatural
+lying with beasts; as in the year 1603, there was a monster begotten by
+a woman's generating with a dog; which from the navel upwards had the
+perfect resemblance of its mother: but from its navel downwards it
+resembled a dog.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The agent or womb may be in fault three ways; firstly, the formative
+faculty, which may be too strong or too weak, by which is procured a
+depraved figure; secondly, to the instrument or place of conception, the
+evil confirmation or the disposition whereof will cause a monstrous
+birth; thirdly, in the imaginative power at the time of conception;
+which is of such a force that it stamps the character of the thing
+imagined on the child. Thus the children of an adulteress may be like
+her husband, though begotten by another man, which is caused through the
+force of imagination that the woman has of her own husband at the act
+of coition. And I have heard of a woman, who, at the time of conception,
+beholding the picture of a blackamoor, conceived and brought forth an
+Ethiopian. I will not trouble you with more human testimonies, but
+conclude with a stronger warrant. We read (Gen. xxx. 31) how Jacob
+having agreed with Laban to have all the spotted sheep for keeping his
+flock to augment his wages, took hazel rods and peeled white streaks on
+them, and laid them before the sheep when they came to drink, which
+coupling together there, whilst they beheld the rods, conceived and
+brought forth young.
+
+[Illustration:
+    "Where children thus are born with hairy coats
+    Heaven's wrath unto the kingdom it denotes"]
+
+Another monster representing a hairy child. It was all covered with hair
+like a beast. That which made it more frightful was, that its navel was
+in the place where its nose should stand, and its eyes placed where the
+mouth should have been, and its mouth placed in the chin. It was of the
+male kind, and was born in France, in the year 1597, at a town called
+Arles in Provence, and lived a few days, frightening all that beheld it.
+It was looked upon as a forerunner of desolations which soon after
+happened to that kingdom, in which men to each other were more like
+brutes than human creatures.
+
+There was a monster born at Nazara in the year 1530. It had four arms
+and four legs.
+
+The imagination also works on the child, after conception, of which we
+have a pregnant instance.
+
+A worthy gentlewoman in Suffolk, who being with child and passing by a
+butcher who was killing his meat, a drop of blood sprung on her face,
+whereupon she said her child would have a blemish on its face, and at
+the birth it was found marked with a red spot.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Likewise in the reign of Henry III, there was a woman delivered of a
+child having two heads and four arms, and the bodies were joined at the
+back; the heads were so placed that they looked contrary ways; each had
+two distinct arms and hands. They would both laugh, both speak, and
+both cry, and be hungry together; sometimes the one would speak and the
+other keep silence, and sometimes both speak together. They lived
+several years, but one outlived the other three years, carrying the dead
+one (for there was no parting them) till the survivor fainted with the
+burden, and more with the stench of the dead carcase.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It is certain that monstrous births often happen by means of undue
+copulation; for some there are, who, having been long absent from one
+another, and having an eager desire for enjoyment, consider not as they
+ought, to do as their circumstances demand. And if it happen that they
+come together when the woman's menses are flowing, and notwithstanding,
+proceed to the act of copulation, which is both unclean and unnatural,
+the issue of such copulation does often prove monstrous, as a just
+punishment for doing what nature forbids. And, therefore, though men
+should be ever so eager for it, yet women, knowing their own condition,
+should at such times positively refuse their company. And though such
+copulations do not always produce monstrous birth, yet the children,
+thus begotten, are generally heavy, dull, and sluggish, besides
+defective in their understandings, lacking the vivacity and loveliness
+with which children begotten in proper season are endowed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In Flanders, between Antwerp and Mechlin, in a village called Uthaton, a
+child was born which had two heads, four arms, seeming like two girls
+joined together, having two of their arms lifted up between and above
+their heads, the thighs being placed as it were across one another,
+according to the figure on p. 39. How long they lived I had no account
+of.
+
+By the figure on p. 40 you may see that though some of the members are
+wanting, yet they are supplied by other members.
+
+It remains now that I make some inquiry whether those that are born
+monsters have reasonable souls, and are capable of resurrection. And
+here both divines and physicians are of opinion that those who,
+according to the order of generations deduced from our first parents,
+proceed by mutual means from either sex, though their outward shape be
+deformed and monstrous, have notwithstanding a reasonable soul, and
+consequently their bodies are capable of resurrection, as other men's
+and women's are; but those monsters that are not begotten by men, but
+are the product of women's unnatural lusts in copulating with other
+creatures shall perish as the brute beasts by whom they were begotten,
+not having a reasonable soul nor any breath of the Almighty infused into
+them; and such can never be capable of resurrection. And the same is
+also true of imperfect and abortive births.
+
+Some are of opinion that monsters may be engendered by some infernal
+spirit. Of this mind was Adigus Fariur, speaking of a deformed monster
+born at Craconia; and Hieronimus Cardamnus wrote of a maid that was got
+with child by the devil, she thinking it had been a fair young man. The
+like also is recorded by Vicentius, of the prophet Merlin, that he was
+begotten by an evil spirit. But what a repugnance it would be both to
+religion and nature, if the devils could beget men; when we are taught
+to believe that not any was ever begotten without human seed, except the
+Son of God. The devil then being a spirit and having no corporeal
+substance, has therefore no seed of generation; to say that he can use
+the act of generation effectually is to affirm that he can make
+something out of nothing, and consequently to affirm the devil to be
+God, for creation belongs to God only. Again, if the devil could assume
+to himself a human body and enliven the faculties of it, and cause it to
+generate, as some affirm he can, yet this body must bear the image of
+the devil. And it borders on blasphemy to think that God should so far
+give leave to the devil as out of God's image to raise his own
+diabolical offspring. In the school of Nature we are taught the
+contrary, viz., that like begets like; therefore, of a devil cannot man
+be born. Yet, it is not denied, but the devils, transforming themselves
+into human shapes, may abuse both men and women, and, with wicked
+people, use carnal copulation; but that any unnatural conjunction can
+bring forth a human creature is contrary to nature and all religion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+     _Of the happy state of matrimony, as it is appointed by God, the
+     true felicity that rebounds thereby to either sex; and to what end
+     it is ordained._
+
+
+Without doubt the uniting of hearts in holy wedlock is of all conditions
+the happiest; for then a man has a second self to whom he can reveal his
+thoughts, as well as a sweet companion in his labours, toils, trials,
+and difficulties. He has one in whose breast, as in a safe cabinet, he
+can confide his inmost secrets, especially where reciprocal love and
+inviolable faith is centred; for there no care, fear, jealousy, mistrust
+or hatred can ever interpose. For base is the man that hateth his own
+flesh! And truly a wife, if rightly considered, as Adam well observed,
+is or ought to be esteemed of every honest man as "Bone of his bone and
+flesh of his flesh," etc. Nor was it the least care of the Almighty to
+ordain so near a union, and that for two causes; the first, for the
+increase of posterity; the second, to restrain man's wandering desires
+and affections; nay, that they might be yet happier, when God has joined
+them together, he "blessed them," as in Gen. ii. An ancient writer,
+contemplating this happy state, says, in the economy of Xenophon, "that
+the marriage bed is not only the most pleasant, but also profitable
+course of life, that may be entered on for the preservation and increase
+of posterity. Wherefore, since marriage is the most safe, and delightful
+situation of man he does in no ways provide amiss for his own
+tranquillity who enters into it, especially when he comes to maturity of
+years."
+
+There are many abuses in marriage contrary to what is ordained, the
+which in the ensuing chapter I shall expose to view. But to proceed:
+Seeing our blessed Saviour and His holy apostles detested unlawful
+lusts, and pronounced those to be excluded the kingdom of heaven that
+polluted themselves with adultery and whoring, I cannot conceive what
+face people have to colour their impieties, who hating matrimony, make
+it their study how they may live licentiously: for, in so doing, they
+take in themselves torment, enmity, disquietude, rather than certain
+pleasure, not to mention the hazard of their immortal soul; and certain
+it is that mercenary love (or as the wise man called it harlot-smiles)
+cannot be true and sincere and therefore not pleasant, but rather a net
+laid to betray such as trust in them with all mischief, as Solomon
+observes of the young man void of understanding, who turned aside to the
+harlot's house, "as a bird to the snare of the fowler, or as an ox to
+the slaughter, till a dart was struck through his liver." Nor in this
+case can they have children, those endearing pledges of conjugal
+affection; or if they have, they will rather redound to their shame than
+comfort, bearing the odious brand of bastards. Harlots, likewise are
+like swallows, flying in the summer season of prosperity; but the black
+stormy weather of adversity coming, they take wing and fly into other
+regions--that is, seek other lovers; but a virtuous, chaste wife, fixing
+her entire love upon her husband, and submitting to him as her head and
+king, by whose directions she ought to steer in all lawful courses,
+will, like a faithful companion, share patiently with him in all
+adversities, run with cheerfulness through all difficulties and dangers,
+though ever so hazardous, to preserve and assist him, in poverty,
+sickness, or whatsoever misfortunes befall him, acting according to her
+duty in all things; but a proud, imperious harlot will do no more than
+she lists, in the sunshine of prosperity; and like a horse-leech, ever
+craving, and never satisfied; still seeming displeased, if all her
+extravagant cravings be not answered; not regarding the ruin and misery
+she brings on him by those means, though she seems to doat upon him,
+used to confirming her hypocrisy with crocodile tears, vows and
+swoonings, when her cully has to depart awhile, or seems but to deny
+immediate desires; yet this lasts no longer than she can gratify her
+appetite, and prey upon his fortune.
+
+Now, on the contrary, a loving, chaste and even-tempered wife, seeks
+what she may to prevent such dangers, and in every condition does all
+she can to make him easy. And, in a word, as there is no content in the
+embraces of a harlot, so there is no greater joy in the reciprocal
+affection and endearing embraces of a loving, obedient, and chaste wife.
+Nor is that the principal end for which matrimony was ordained, but that
+the man might follow the law of his creation by increasing his kind and
+replenishing the earth; for this was the injunction laid upon him in
+Paradise, before his fall. To conclude, a virtuous wife is a crown and
+ornament to her husband, and her price is above all rubies: but the
+ways of a harlot are deceitful.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+     _Of Errors in Marriages; Why they are, and the Injuries caused by
+     them._
+
+
+By errors in marriage, I mean the unfitness of the persons marrying to
+enter into this state, and that both with respect to age and the
+constitution of their bodies; and, therefore, those who design to enter
+into that condition ought to observe their ability and not run
+themselves into inconveniences; for those that marry too young may be
+said to marry unseasonably, not considering their inability, nor
+examining the forces of nature; for some, before they are ripe for the
+consummation of so weighty a matter, who either rashly, of their own
+accord, or by the instigation of procurers or marriage-brokers, or else
+forced thereto by their parents who covet a large dower take upon them
+this yoke to their prejudice; by which some, before the expiration of a
+year, have been so enfeebled, that all their vital moisture has been
+exhausted; which had not been restored again without great trouble and
+the use of medicines. Therefore, my advice is: that it is not convenient
+to suffer children, or such as are not of age, to marry, or get
+children.
+
+He that proposes to marry, and wishes to enjoy happiness in that state,
+should choose a wife descended from honest and temperate parents, she
+being chaste, well bred, and of good manners. For if a woman has good
+qualities, she has portion enough. That of Alcmena, in Plautus, is much
+to the purpose, where he brings in a young woman speaking thus:--
+
+    "I take not that to be my dowry, which
+    The vulgar sort do wealth and honour call;
+    That all my wishes terminate in this:----
+    I'll obey my husband and be chaste withall;
+    To have God's fear, and beauty in my mind,
+    To do those good who are virtuously inclined."
+
+And I think she was in the right, for such a wife is more precious than
+rubies.
+
+It is certainly the duty of parents to bring up their children in the
+ways of virtue, and to have regard to their honour and reputation; and
+especially to virgins, when grown to be marriageable. For, as has been
+noted, if through the too great severity of parents, they may be crossed
+in their love, many of them throw themselves into the unchaste arms of
+the first alluring tempter that comes in the way, being, through the
+softness and flexibility of their nature, and the strong desire they
+have after what nature strongly incites them to, easily induced to
+believe men's false vows of promised marriage, to cover their shame: and
+then too late, their parents repent of their severity which has brought
+an indelible stain upon their families.
+
+[Illustration:
+    Conception
+    First Month
+    Second Month
+    Third Month
+    Fourth Month]
+
+[Illustration:
+    Fifth Month
+    Sixth Month
+    Seventh Month
+    Eighth Month
+   Ninth Month]
+
+Another error in marriage is, the inequality of years in the parties
+married; such as for a young man, who, to advance his fortune, marries a
+woman old enough to be his grandmother: between whom, for the most part,
+strife, jealousies, and dissatisfaction are all the blessings which
+crown the genial bed, is being impossible for such to have any children.
+The like may be said, though with a little excuse, when an old doting
+widower marries a virgin in the prime of her youth and her vigour, who,
+while he vainly tries to please her, is thereby wedded to his grave.
+For, as in green youth, it is unfit and unseasonable to think of
+marriage, so to marry in old age is just the same; for they that enter
+upon it too soon are soon exhausted, and fall into consumptions and
+divers other diseases; and those who procrastinate and marry
+unseemingly, fall into the like troubles; on the other side having only
+this honour, if old men, they become young cuckolds, especially if their
+wives have not been trained up in the paths of virtue, and lie too much
+open to the importunity and temptation of lewd and debauched men. And
+thus much for the errors of rash and inconsiderate marriages.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+     _The Opinion of the Learned concerning Children conceived and born
+     within Seven Months; with Arguments upon the Subject to prevent
+     Suspicion of Incontinency, and bitter Contest on that Account. To
+     which are added Rules to Know the Disposition of Man's Body by the
+     Genital Parts._
+
+
+Many bitter quarrels happen between men and their wives upon the man's
+supposition that the child comes too soon, and by consequence, that he
+could not be the father; whereas, it is the want of understanding the
+secrets of nature which brings the man into that error; and which, had
+he known, might have cured him of his suspicion and jealousy.
+
+To remove which, I shall endeavour to prove, that it is possible, and
+has been frequently known, that children have been born at seven months.
+Paul, the Counsel, has this passage in the 19th Book of Pleadings, viz.:
+"It is now a received truth, that a perfect child may be born in the
+seventh month, by the authority of the learned Hippocrates; and
+therefore, we must believe that a child born at the end of the seventh
+month in lawful matrimony may be lawfully begotten."
+
+Galen is of opinion that there is no certain time set for the bearing of
+children; and that from Pliny's authority, who makes mention of a woman
+that went thirteen months with child; but as to what concerns the
+seventh month, a learned author says, "I know several married people in
+Holland that had twins born in the seventh month, who lived to old age,
+having lusty bodies and lively minds. Wherefore their opinion is absurd,
+who assert that a child at seven months cannot be perfect and long
+lived; and that it cannot in all parts be perfect until the ninth
+month." Thereupon the author proceeds to tell a passage from his own
+knowledge, viz.: "Of late there happened a great disturbance among us,
+which ended not without bloodshed; and was occasioned by a virgin, whose
+chastity had been violated, descending from a noble family of unspotted
+fame. Several charged the fact upon the Judge, who was president of a
+city in Flanders, who firmly denied it, saying he was ready to take his
+oath that he never had any carnal copulation with her, and that he would
+not father that, which was none of his; and farther argued, that he
+verily believed it was a child born in seven months, himself being many
+miles distant from the mother of it when it was conceived. Upon which
+the judges decreed that the child should be viewed by able physicians
+and experienced women, and that they should make their report. They
+having made diligent inquiry, all of them with one mind, concluded the
+child, without discussing who was the father, was born within the space
+of seven months, and that it was carried in the mother's womb but
+twenty-seven weeks and some odd days; but if she should have gone full
+nine months, the child's parts and limbs would have been more firm and
+strong, and the structure of the body more compact; for the skin was
+very loose, and the breast bone that defends the heart, and the gristles
+that lay over the stomach, lay higher than naturally they should be,
+not plain, but crooked and sharp, rigid or pointed, like those of a
+young chicken hatched in the beginning of spring. And being a female, it
+wanted nails upon the joints of the fingers; upon which, from the
+masculous cartilaginous matter of the skin, nails that are very smooth
+do come, and by degrees harden; she had, instead of nails, a thin skin
+or film. As for her toes, there were no signs of nails upon them,
+wanting the heat which was expanded to the fingers from the nearness of
+the heart. All this was considered, and above all, one gentlewoman of
+quality that assisted, affirming that she had been the mother of
+nineteen children, and that divers of them had been born and lived at
+seven months, though within the seventh month. For in such cases, the
+revolution of the month ought to be observed, which perfects itself in
+four bare weeks, or somewhat less than twenty-eight days; in which space
+of the revolution, the blood being agitated by the force of the moon,
+the courses of women flow from them; which being spent, and the matrix
+cleansed from the menstruous blood which happens on the fourth day,
+then, if a man on the seventh day lie with his wife, the copulation is
+most natural, and then the conception is best: and the child thus
+begotten may be born in the seventh month and prove very healthful. So
+that on this report, the supposed father was pronounced innocent; the
+proof that he was 100 miles distant all that month in which the child
+was begotten; as for the mother she strongly denied that she knew the
+father, being forced in the dark; and so, through fear and surprise, was
+left in ignorance."
+
+As for coition, it ought not to be used unless the parties be in health,
+lest it turn to the disadvantage of the children so begotten, creating
+in them, through the abundance of ill humours, divers languishing
+diseases. Wherefore, health is no better discerned than by the genitals
+of the man; for which reasons midwives, and other skilful women, were
+formerly wont to see the testicles of children, thereby to conjecture
+their temperature and state of body; and young men may know thereby the
+signs and symptoms of death; for if the cases of the testicles be loose
+and feeble, which are the proofs of life, are fallen, but if the secret
+parts are wrinkled and raised up, it is a sign that all is well, but
+that the event may exactly answer the prediction, it is necessary to
+consider what part of the body the disease possesseth; for if it chance
+to be the upper part that is afflicted, as the head or stomach, then it
+will not so then appear by the members, which are unconnected with such
+grievances; but the lower part of the body exactly sympathising with
+them, their liveliness, on the contrary, makes it apparent; for nature's
+force, and the spirits that have their intercourse, first manifest
+themselves therein; which occasions midwives to feel the genitals of
+children, to know in what part the gulf is residing, and whether life or
+death be portended thereby, the symptoms being strongly communicated to
+the vessels, that have their intercourse with the principal seat of
+life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+     _Of the Green-Sickness in Virgins, with its causes, signs and
+     cures; together with the chief occasions of Barrenness in Women,
+     and the Means to remove the Cause, and render them fruitful._
+
+
+The green-sickness is so common a complaint amongst virgins, especially
+those of a phlegmatic complexion, that it is easily discerned, showing
+itself by discolouring the face, making it look green, pale, and of a
+dusty colour, proceeding from raw and indigested humours; nor doth it
+only appear to the eye, but sensibly affects the person with difficulty
+of breathing, pains in the head, palpitation of the heart, with unusual
+beatings and small throbbings of the arteries in the temples, back and
+neck, which often cast them into fevers when the humour is over vicious;
+also loathing of meat and the distention of the hypochondriac part, by
+reason of the inordinate effluxion of the menstruous blood of the
+greater vessels; and from the abundance of humours, the whole body is
+often troubled with swellings, or at least the thighs, legs and ankles,
+all above the heels; there is also a weariness of the body without any
+reason for it.
+
+The Galenical physicians affirm, that this distemper proceeds from the
+womb; occasioned by the gross, vicious and rude humours arising from
+several inward causes; but there are also outward causes which have a
+share in the production of it; as taking cold in the feet, drinking of
+water, intemperance of diet, eating things contrary to nature, viz., raw
+or burnt flesh, ashes, coals, old shoes, chalk, wax, nutshells, mortar,
+lime, oatmeal, tobacco pipes, etc., which occasion both a suppression of
+the menses and obstructions through the whole body; therefore, the first
+thing necessary to vindicate the cause, is matrimonial conjunction, and
+such copulation as may prove satisfactory to her that is afflicted, for
+then the menses will begin to flow according to their natural and due
+course, and the humours being dispersed, will soon waste themselves; and
+then no more matter being admitted to increase them, they will vanish
+and a good temperament of body will return; but in case this best remedy
+cannot be had soon enough, then let blood in the ankles, and if she be
+about sixteen, you may likewise do it in the arm, but let her be bled
+sparingly, especially if the blood be good. If the disease be of any
+continuance, then it is to be eradicated by purging, preparation of the
+humour being first considered, which may be done by the virgin's
+drinking the decoction of guaiacum, with dittany of erete; but the best
+purge in this case ought to be made of aloes, agaric, senna, rhubarb;
+and for strengthening the bowels and removing obstructions, chaly-beate
+medicines are chiefly to be used. The diet must be moderate, and sharp
+things by all means avoided.
+
+And now, since barrenness daily creates discontent, and that discontent
+breeds indifference between man and wife, or, by immediate grief,
+frequently casts the woman into one or another distemper, I shall in the
+next place treat thereof.
+
+
+
+OF BARRENNESS.
+
+Formerly, before women came to the marriage-bed, they were first
+searched by the mid-wife, and those only which she allowed of as
+fruitful were admitted. I hope, therefore, it will not be amiss to show
+you how they may prove themselves and turn barren ground into fruitful
+soil. Barrenness is a deprivation of the life and power which ought to
+be in the seed to procreate and propagate; for which end men and women
+were made. Causes of barrenness may be over much cold or heat, drying up
+the seed and corrupting it, which extinguishes the life of the seed,
+making it waterish and unfit for generation. It may be caused also, by
+the not flowing or over-flowing of the courses by swellings, ulcers, and
+inflammation of the womb, by an excrescence of flesh growing about the
+mouth of the matrix, by the mouth of the matrix being turned up to the
+back or side by the fatness of the body, whereby the mouth of the matrix
+is closed up, being pressed with the omentum or caul, and the matter of
+the seed is turned to fat; if she be a lean and dry body, and though she
+do conceive, yet the fruit of her body will wither before it come to
+perfection, for want of nourishment. One main cause of barrenness is
+attributed to want of a convenient moderating quality, which the woman
+ought to have with the man; as, if he be hot, she must be cold; if he be
+dry, she must be moist; as, if they be both dry or both moist of
+constitution, they cannot propagate; and yet, simply considering of
+themselves, they are not barren, for she who was before as the barren
+fig-tree being joined to an apt constitution becomes as the fruitful
+vine. And that a man and woman, being every way of like constitution,
+cannot create, I will bring nature itself for a testimony, who hath made
+man of a better constitution than woman, that the quality of the one,
+may moderate the quality of the other.
+
+
+
+SIGNS OF BARRENNESS.
+
+If barrenness proceeds from overmuch heat, if she is a dry body, subject
+to anger, has black hair, quick pulse, and her purgations flow but
+little, and that with pain, she loves to play in the courts of Venus.
+But if it comes by cold, then the signs are contrary to the above
+mentioned. If through the evil quality of the womb, make a suffumigation
+of red styrax, myrrh, cassia-wood, nutmeg, and cinnamon; and let her
+receive the fumes into her womb, covering her very close; and if the
+odour so received passes through the body to the mouth and nostrils,
+she is fruitful. But if she feels not the fumes in her mouth and
+nostrils, it argues barrenness one of these ways--that the spirit of the
+seed is either extinguished through cold, or dissipated through heat. If
+any woman be suspected to be unfruitful, cast natural brimstone, such as
+is digged out of mines, into her urine, and if worms breed therein, she
+is not barren.
+
+
+
+PROGNOSTICS.
+
+Barrenness makes women look young, because they are free from those
+pains and sorrows which other women are accustomed to. Yet they have not
+the full perfection of health which other women enjoy, because they are
+not rightly purged of the menstruous blood and superfluous seed, which
+are the principal cause of most uterine diseases.
+
+First, the cause must be removed, the womb strengthened, and the spirits
+of the seed enlivened. If the womb be over hot, take syrup of succory,
+with rhubarb, syrup of violets, roses, cassia, purslain. Take of endive,
+water-lilies, borage flowers, of each a handful; rhubarb, mirobalans, of
+each three drachms; make a decoction with water, and to the straining of
+the syrup add electuary violets one ounce, syrup of cassia half an
+ounce, manna three drachms; make a potion. Take of syrup of mugwort one
+ounce, syrup of maiden-hair two ounces, pulv-elect triasand one drachm;
+make a julep. Take prus. salt, elect. ros. mesua, of each three drachms,
+rhubarb one scruple, and make a bolus; apply to the loins and privy
+parts fomentations of the juice of lettuce, violets, roses, malloes,
+vine leaves and nightshade; anoint the secret parts with the cooling
+unguent of Galen.
+
+If the power of the seed be extinguished by cold, take every morning two
+spoonfuls of cinnamon water, with one scruple of mithridate. Take syrup
+of calamint, mugwort and betony, of each one ounce; waters of
+pennyroyal, feverfew, hyssop and sage, of each two ounces; make a julep.
+Take oil of aniseed two scruples and a half; diacimini,
+diacliathidiamosei and diagla-ongoe, of each one drachm, sugar four
+ounces, with water of cinnamon, and make lozenges; take of them a drachm
+and a half twice a day, two hours before meals; fasten cupping glasses
+to the hips and belly. Take of styrax and calamint one ounce, mastick,
+cinnamon, nutmeg, lign, aloes, and frankincense, of each half ounce;
+musk, ten grains, ambergris, half a scruple; make a confection with
+rosewater, divide it into four equal parts; one part make a pomatum
+oderation to smell at if she be not hysterical; of the second, make a
+mass of pills, and let her take three every other night: of the third
+make a pessary, dip it in oil of spikenard, and put it up; of the
+fourth, make a suffumigation for the womb.
+
+If the faculties of the womb be weakened, and the life of the seed
+suffocated by over much humidity flowing to those parts: take of betony,
+marjoram, mugwort, pennyroyal and balm, of each a handful; roots of alum
+and fennel, of each two drachms; aniseed and cummin, of each one drachm,
+with sugar and water a sufficient quantity; make a syrup, and take three
+ounces every morning.
+
+Purge with the following things; take of the diagnidium, two grains,
+spicierum of castor, a scruple, pill foedit two scruples, with syrup of
+mugwort, make six pills. Take apeo, diagem. diamoser, diamb. of each one
+drachm; cinnamon, one drachm and a half; cloves, mace and nutmeg, of
+each half a drachm; sugar six ounces, with water of feverfew; make
+lozenges, to be taken every morning. Take of decoction of sarsaparilla
+and virga aurea, not forgetting sage, which Agrippa, wondering at its
+operation, has honoured with the name of _sacra herba_, a holy herb. It
+is recorded by Dodonoeus in the _History of Plants_, lib. ii. cap. 77,
+that after a great mortality among the Egyptians, the surviving women,
+that they might multiply quickly, were commanded to drink the juice of
+sage, and to anoint the genitals with oil of aniseed and spikenard. Take
+mace, nutmeg, cinnamon, styrax and amber, of each one drachm; cloves,
+laudanum, of each half a drachm; turpentine, a sufficient quantity;
+trochisks, to smooth the womb. Take roots of valerian and elecampane, of
+each one pound; galanga, two ounces; origan lavender, marjoram, betony,
+mugwort, bay leaves, calamint, of each a handful; make an infusion with
+water, in which let her sit, after she hath her courses.
+
+If barrenness proceed from dryness, consuming the matter of the seed;
+take every day almond milk, and goat's milk extracted with honey, but
+often of the root satyrion, candied, and electuary of diasyren. Take
+three wethers' heads, boil them until all the flesh comes from the
+bones, then take melilot, violets, camomiles, mercury, orchia with their
+roots, of each a handful; fenugreek, linseed, valerian roots, of each
+one pound; let all these be decocted in the aforesaid broth, and let the
+woman sit in the decoction up to the navel.
+
+If barrenness be caused by any proper effect of the womb, the cure is
+set down in the second book. Sometimes the womb proves barren where
+there is no impediment on either side, except only in the manner of the
+act; as when in the emission of the seed, the man is quick and the woman
+is slow, whereby there is not an emission of both seeds at the same
+instant as the rules of conception require. Before the acts of coition,
+foment the privy parts with the decoction of betony, sage, hyssop and
+calamint and anoint the mouth and neck of the womb with musk and civet.
+
+The cause of barrenness being removed, let the womb be strengthened as
+follows; Take of bay berries, mastic, nutmeg, frankincense, nuts,
+laudanum, giapanum, of each one drachm, styracis liquid, two scruples,
+cloves half a scruple, ambergris two grains, then make a pessary with
+oil of spikenard.
+
+Take of red roses, lapididis hoematis, white frankincense, of each half
+an ounce. Dragon's blood, fine bole, mastic, of each two drachms;
+nutmeg, cloves, of each one drachm; spikenard, half a scruple, with oil
+of wormwood; make a plaster for the lower part of the belly, then let
+her eat candied eringo root, and make an injection only of the roots of
+satyrion.
+
+The aptest time for conception is instantly after the menses have
+ceased, because then the womb is thirsty and dry, apt both to draw the
+seed and return it, by the roughness of the inward surface, and besides,
+in some, the mouth of the womb is turned into the back or side, and is
+not placed right until the last day of the courses.
+
+Excess in all things is to be avoided. Lay aside all passions of the
+mind, shun study and care, as things that are enemies to conception, for
+if a woman conceive under such circumstances, however wise the parents
+may be, the children, at best, will be but foolish; because the mental
+faculties of the parents, viz., the understanding and the rest (from
+whence the child derives its reason) are, as it were, confused through
+the multiplicity of cares and thought; of which we have examples in
+learned men, who, after great study and care, having connection with
+their wives, often beget very foolish children. A hot and moist air is
+most suitable, as appears by the women in Egypt, who often bring forth
+three or four children at one time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+     _Virginity, what it is, in what it consists, and how vitiated;
+     together with the Opinions of the Learned about the Change of Sex
+     in the Womb, during the Operation of Nature in forming the Body._
+
+
+There are many ignorant people that boast of their skill in the
+knowledge of virginity, and some virgins have undergone harsh censures
+through their ignorant conclusions; I therefore thought it highly
+necessary to clear up this point, that the towering imaginations of
+conceited ignorance might be brought down, and the fair sex (whose
+virtues are so illustriously bright that they excite our wonder and
+command our imitation), may be freed from the calumnies and detractions
+of ignorance and envy; and so their honour may continue as unspotted, as
+they have kept their persons uncontaminated and free from defilement.
+
+Virginity, in a strict sense, signifies the prime, the chief, the best
+of anything; and this makes men so desirous of marrying virgins,
+imagining some secret pleasure is to be enjoyed in their embraces, more
+than in those of widows, or of such as have been lain with before,
+though not many years ago, a very great personage thought differently,
+and to use his own expression:--"The getting a maidenhead was such a
+piece of drudgery, that it was fitter for a coal heaver than a
+prince."[1] But this was only his opinion, for I am sure that other men
+think differently.
+
+The curious inquirers into the secrets of Nature, have observed, that in
+young maidens in the _sinus pudoris_, or in what is called the neck of
+the womb, is that wonderful production usually called the _hymen_, but
+in French _bouton de rose_, or rosebud, because it resembles the
+expanded bud of a rose or a gilly flower. From this the word _defloro_,
+or, deflower, is derived, and hence taking away virginity is called
+deflowering a virgin, most being of the opinion that the virginity is
+altogether lost when this membrane is fractured and destroyed by
+violence; when it is found perfect and entire, however, no penetration
+has been effected; and in the opinion of some learned physicians there
+is neither hymen nor expanded skin which contains blood in it, which
+some people think, flows from the ruptured membrane at the first time of
+sexual intercourse.
+
+Now this _claustrum virginale_, or flower, is composed of four little
+buds like myrtle berries, which are full and plump in virgins, but hang
+loose and flag in women; and these are placed in the four angles of the
+_sinus pudoris_, joined together by little membranes and ligatures, like
+fibres, each of them situated in the testicles, or spaces between each
+bud, with which, in a manner, they are proportionately distended, and
+when once this membrane is lacerated, it denotes _Devirgination_. Thus
+many ignorant people, finding their wives defective in this respect on
+the first night, have immediately suspected their chastity, concluding
+that another man had been there before them, when indeed, such a rupture
+may happen in several ways accidentally, as well as by sexual
+intercourse, viz. by violent straining, coughing, or sneezing, the
+stoppage of the urine, etc., so that the entireness or the fracture of
+that which is commonly taken for a woman's virginity or maidenhead, is
+no absolute sign of immorality, though it is more frequently broken by
+copulation than by any other means.[2]
+
+And now to say something of the change of the sexes in the womb. The
+genital parts of the sexes are so unlike each other in substance,
+composition, situation, figure, action and use that nothing is more
+unlike to each other than they are, and the more, all parts of the body
+(the breasts excepted, which in women swell, because Nature ordained
+them for suckling the infant) have an exact resemblance to each other,
+so much the more do the genital parts of one sex differ, when compared
+with the other, and if they be thus different in form, how much more are
+they so in their use.
+
+The venereal feeling also proceeds from different causes; in men from
+the desire of emission, and in women from the desire of reception. All
+these things, then, considered I cannot but wonder, he adds, how any one
+can imagine that the female genital organs can be changed into the male
+organ, since the sexes can be distinguished only by those parts, nor
+can I well impute the reason for this vulgar error to anything but the
+mistake of inexpert midwives, who have been deceived by the faulty
+conformation of those parts, which in some males may have happened to
+have such small protrusions that they could not be seen, as appears by
+the example of a child who was christened in Paris under the name of
+_Ivan_, as a girl, and who afterwards turned out to be a boy, and on the
+other hand, the excessive tension of the clytoris in newly-born female
+infants may have occasioned similar mistakes. Thus far Pliny in the
+negative, and notwithstanding what he has said, there are others, such
+as Galen, who assert the affirmative. "A man," he says, "is different
+from a woman, only by having his genitals outside his body, whereas a
+woman has them inside her." And this is certain, that if Nature having
+formed a male should convert him into a female, she has nothing else to
+do but to turn his genitals inward, and again to turn a woman into a man
+by a contrary operation. This, however, is to be understood of the child
+whilst it is in the womb and not yet perfectly formed, for Nature has
+often made a female child, and it has remained so for a month or two, in
+its mother's womb; but afterwards the heat greatly increasing in the
+genital organs, they have protruded and the child has become a male, but
+nevertheless retained some things which do not befit the masculine sex,
+such as female gestures and movements, a high voice, and a more
+effeminate temper than is usual with men; whilst, on the other hand, the
+genitals have become inverted through cold humours, but yet the person
+retained a masculine air, both in voice and gesture. Now, though both
+these opinions are supported by several reasons, yet I think the latter
+are nearer the truth, for there is not that vast difference between the
+genitals of the two sexes as Pliny asserts; for a woman has, in a way,
+the same _pudenda_ as a man, though they do not appear outwardly, but
+are inverted for the convenience of generation; one being solid and the
+other porous, and that the principal reason for changing sexes is, and
+must be attributed to heat or cold, which operates according to its
+greater or lesser force.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Attributed to George IV (Translator).
+
+[2] A young man was once tried at Rutland Assizes for violating a
+virgin, and after close questioning, the girl swearing positively in the
+matter, and naming the time, place and manner of the action, it was
+resolved that she should be examined by a skilful surgeon and two
+midwives, who were to report on oath, which they did, and declared that
+the membranes were intact and unlacerated, and that, in their opinion,
+her body had not been penetrated. This had its due effect upon the jury,
+and they acquitted the prisoner, and the girl afterwards confessed that
+she swore it against him out of revenge, as he had promised to marry
+her, and had afterwards declined.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+     _Directions and Cautions for Midwives; and, first, what ought to be
+     the qualifications of a midwife._
+
+
+A midwife who wishes to acquit herself well in her employment, ought
+certainly not to enter upon it rashly or unadvisedly, but with all
+imaginable caution, remembering that she is responsible for any mischief
+which may happen through her ignorance or neglect. None, therefore,
+should undertake that duty merely because of their age or because they
+themselves have had many children, for, in such, generally, many things
+will be found wanting, which she should possess. She ought to be neither
+too old nor too young, neither very fat, nor so thin, as to be weak, but
+in a good habit of body; not subject to illness, fears, nor sudden
+frights; well-made and neat in her attire, her hands small and smooth,
+her nails kept well-trimmed and without any rings on her fingers whilst
+she is engaged in her work, nor anything upon her wrists that may
+obstruct her. And to these ought to be added activity, and a due amount
+of strength, with much caution and diligence, nor should she be given to
+drowsiness or impatience.
+
+She should be polite and affable in her manners, sober and chaste, not
+given to passion, liberal and compassionate towards the poor, and not
+greedy of gain when she attends the rich. She should have a cheerful and
+pleasant temper, so that she may be the more easily able to comfort her
+patients during labour. She must never be in a hurry, though her
+business may call her to some other case, lest she should thereby
+endanger the mother or the child.
+
+She ought to be wary, prudent, and intelligent, but above all, she ought
+to be possessed by the fear of God, which will give her both "knowledge
+and discretion," as the wise man says.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+     _Further Directions to Midwives, teaching them what they ought to
+     do, and what to avoid._
+
+
+Since the duties of a midwife have such a great influence on the
+well-doing or the contrary of both women and children, in the first
+place, she must be diligent in gaining all such knowledge as may be
+useful to her in her practice, and never to think herself so perfect,
+but that it may be possible for her to add to her knowledge by study and
+experience. She should, however, never try any experiments unless she
+has tried them, or knows that they can do no harm; practising them
+neither upon rich nor poor, but freely saying what she knows, and never
+prescribing any medicines which will procure abortion, even though
+requested; for this is wicked in the highest degree, and may be termed
+murder. If she be sent for to people whom she does not know, let her be
+very cautious before she goes, lest by attending an infectious woman,
+she runs the danger of injuring others, as sometimes happens. Neither
+must she make her dwelling a receiving-house for big-bellied women to
+discharge their load, lest it get her a bad name and she by such means
+loses her practice.
+
+In attending on women, if the birth happens to be difficult, she must
+not seem to be anxious, but must cheer the woman up and do all she can
+to make her labour easy. She will find full directions for this, in the
+second part of this book.
+
+She must never think of anything but doing well, seeing that everything
+that is required is in readiness, both for the woman and for receiving
+the child, and above all, let her keep the woman from becoming unruly
+when her pains come on, lest she endanger her own life, and the child's
+as well.
+
+She must also take care not to be hurried over her business but wait
+God's time for the birth, and she must by no means allow herself to be
+upset by fear, even if things should not go well, lest that should make
+her incapable of rendering that assistance which the woman in labour
+stands in need of, for where there is the most apparent danger, there
+the most care and prudence are required to set things right.
+
+And now, because she can never be a skilful midwife who knows nothing
+but what is to be seen outwardly, I do not think it will be amiss but
+rather very necessary, modestly to describe the generative parts of
+women as they have been anatomised by learned men, and to show the use
+of such vessels as contribute to generation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+     _The External, and Internal Organs of Generation in Women._
+
+
+If it were not for the public benefit, especially for that of the
+professors and practitioners of the art of midwifery, I would refrain
+from treating the secrets of Nature, because they may be turned to
+ridicule by lascivious and lewd people. But as it is absolutely
+necessary that they should be known for the public good, I will not omit
+them because some may make a wrong use of them. Those parts which can be
+seen at the lowest part of the stomach are the _fissure magna_, or the
+_great cleft_, with its _labia_ or lips, the _Mons Veneris_, or Mountain
+of Venus, and the hair. These together are called the _pudenda_, or
+things to be ashamed of because when they are exposed they cause a woman
+_pudor_, or shame. The _fissure magna_ reaches from the lower part of
+the _os pubis_, to within an inch of the _anus_, but it is less and
+closer in virgins than in those who have borne children, and has two
+lips, which grow thicker and fuller towards the pubis, and meeting on
+the middle of the _os pubis_, form that rising hill which is called the
+_Mons Veneris_, or the Hill of Venus.
+
+Next come the _Nymphae_ and the _Clitoris_, the former of which is a
+membrany and moist substance, spongy, soft and partly fleshy, of a red
+colour and in the shape of two wings, which are joined at an acute angle
+at their base, producing a fleshy substance there which covers the
+clitoris, and sometimes they extend so far, that an incision is required
+to make room for a man's instrument of generation.
+
+The _Clitoris_ is a substance in the upper part of the division where
+the two wings meet, and the seat of venereal pleasure, being like a
+man's _penis_ in situation, substance, composition and power of
+erection, growing sometimes to the length of two inches out of the body,
+but that never happens except through extreme lustfulness or some
+extraordinary accident. This _clitoris_ consists of two spongy and
+skinny bodies, containing a distinct original from the _os pubis_, its
+tip being covered with a tender skin, having a hole or passage like a
+man's yard or _penis_, although not quite through, in which alone, and
+in its size it differs from it.
+
+The next things are the fleshy knobs of the great neck of the womb, and
+these knobs are behind the wings and are four in number, resembling
+myrtle berries, and being placed quadrangularly one against the other,
+and here the orifice of the bladder is inserted, which opens into the
+fissures, to evacuate the urine, and one of these knobs is placed before
+it, and closes up the passage in order to secure it from cold, or any
+suchlike inconvenience.
+
+The lips of the womb, which appear next, disclose its neck, if they are
+separated, and two things may be observed in them, which are the neck
+itself and the _hymen_, or more properly, the _claustrum virginale_, of
+which I have spoken before. By the neck of the womb we must understand
+the channel that lies between the above-mentioned knobs and the inner
+bone of the womb, which receives the penis like a sheath, and so that it
+may be more easily dilated by the pleasure of procreation, the substance
+is sinewy and a little spongy. There are several folds or pleats in this
+cavity, made by tunicles, which are wrinkled like a full blown rose. In
+virgins they appear plainly, but in women who are used to copulation
+they disappear, so that the inner side of the neck of the womb appears
+smooth, but in old women it is more hard and gristly. But though this
+channel is sometimes crooked and sinks down yet at the times of
+copulation, labour, or of the monthly flow, it is erected or distended,
+which overtension occasions the pain in childbirth.
+
+The hymen, or _claustrum virginale_, is that which closes the neck of
+the womb, and is broken by the first act of copulation; its use being
+rather to check the undue menstrual flow in virgins, rather than to
+serve any other purpose, and usually when it is broken, either by
+copulation, or by any other means, a small quantity of blood flows from
+it, attended with some little pain. From this some observe that between
+the folds of the two tunicles, which constitute the neck of the womb
+there are many veins and arteries running along, and arising from, the
+vessels on both sides of the thighs, and so passing into the neck of the
+womb, being very large; and the reason for this is, that the neck of the
+bladder requires to be filled with great vigour, so as to be dilated, in
+order that it may lay hold of the penis better; for great heat is
+required in such motions, and that becomes more intense by the act of
+friction, and consumes a considerable amount of moisture, for supplying
+which large vessels are absolutely necessary.
+
+Another cause of the largeness of the vessels is, that menses make their
+way through them, which often occasions pregnant women to continue
+menstruating: for though the womb be shut up, yet the passages in the
+neck of the womb through which these vessels pass, are open. In this
+case, we may further observe, that as soon as the _pudenda_ are
+penetrated, there appear two little pits or holes which contain a
+secretion, which is expelled during copulation, and gives the woman
+great pleasure.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+     _A description of the Fabric of the Womb, the preparing Vessels and
+     Testicles in Women. Also of the Different and Ejaculatory Vessels._
+
+
+The womb is joined to its neck in the lower part of the _Hypogastrium_
+where the hips are the widest and broadest, as they are greater and
+broader there than those of men, and it is placed between the bladder
+and the straight gut, which keeps it from swaying, and yet gives it
+freedom to stretch and dilate, and again to contract, as nature
+requires. Its shape is somewhat round and not unlike a gourd, growing
+smaller and more acute towards one end, being knit together by its
+own ligaments; its neck likewise is joined by its own substance and by
+certain membranes that fasten into the _os sacrum_ and the share-bone.
+Its size varies much in different women, and the difference is
+especially great between those who have borne children and those who
+have had none. Its substance exceeds a thumb's breadth in thickness, and
+so far from decreasing conception, it rather increases; and in order to
+strengthen it it is interwoven with fibres which cross it from side to
+side, some of which are straight and some winding, and its proper
+vessels are veins, arteries and nerves. Amongst these there are two
+small veins which pass into the womb from the spermatic vessels, and two
+larger ones from the neck: the mouth of these veins pierces as far as
+the inward cavity.
+
+[Illustration: Position of a Child in the Womb just before delivery.]
+
+[Illustration: The action of quickening]
+
+The womb has two arteries on both sides of the spermatic vessels and the
+hypogastric, which accompany the veins; and besides these, there are
+several little nerves in the form of a net, which extend throughout it,
+from the bottom of the _pudenda_; their chief function is sensibility
+and pleasure, as they move in sympathy between the head and the womb.
+
+It may be further noted that the womb is occasionally moveable by means
+of the two ligaments that hang on either side of it, and often rises and
+falls. The neck of the womb is extremely sensitive, so that if it be at
+any time out of order through over fatness, moisture or relaxation, it
+thereby becomes subject to barrenness. With pregnant women, a glutinous
+matter is often found at the entrance to the womb so as to facilitate
+the birth; for at the time of delivery, the mouth of the womb is opened
+as wide as the size of the child requires, and dilates equally from top
+to bottom.
+
+The spermatic vessels in women, consist of two veins and two arteries,
+which differ from those of men only in size and the manner of their
+insertion; for the number of veins and arteries is the same as in men,
+the right vein issuing from the trunk of the hollow vein descending and
+besides them there are two arteries, which flow from the aorta.
+
+These vessels are narrower and shorter in women than in men; but it must
+be noticed that they are more intertwined and contorted than in men, and
+shrink together by reason of their shortness that they may, by their
+looseness, be better stretched out when necessary: and these vessels in
+women are carried in an oblique direction through the lesser bowels and
+testicles but are divided into two branches half way. The larger goes to
+the stones and forms a winding body, and wonderfully inoculates the
+lesser branches where it disperses itself, and especially at the higher
+part of the bottom of the womb, for its nourishment, and that part of
+the courses may pass through the vessels; and seeing that women's
+testicles are situated near the womb, for that cause those vessels do
+not fall from the peritoneum, nor do they make so much passage as in
+men, as they do not extend to the share-bone.
+
+The stones of woman, commonly called _testicles_, do not perform the
+same function as in men, for they are altogether different in position,
+size, temperature, substance, form and covering. They are situated in
+the hollow of the muscles of the loins, so that, by contracting greater
+heat, they may be more fruitful, their office being to contain the ova
+or eggs, one of which, being impregnated by the man's seed engenders the
+child. They are, however, different from those of the male in shape,
+because they are smaller and flatter at each end, and not so round or
+oval; the external superficies is also more unequal, and has the
+appearance of a number of knobs or kernels mixed together.
+
+There is a difference, also, in the substance, as they are much softer
+and more pliable, and not nearly so compact. Their size and temperature
+are also different for they are much colder and smaller than in men, and
+their covering or enclosure is likewise quite different; for as men's
+are wrapped in several covers, because they are very pendulous and would
+be easily injured unless they were so protected by nature, so women's
+stones, being internal and thus less subject to being hurt, are covered
+by only one membrane, and are likewise half covered by the peritoneum.
+
+The ejaculatory vessels are two small passages, one on either side,
+which do not differ in any respect from the spermatic veins in
+substance. They rise in one place from the bottom of the womb, and do
+not reach from their other extremity either to the stones or to any
+other part, but are shut up and impassable, and adhere to the womb as
+the colon does to the blind gut, and winding half way about; and though
+the testicles are not close to them and do not touch them, yet they are
+fastened to them by certain membranes which resemble the wing of a bat,
+through which certain veins and arteries passing from the end of the
+testicles may be said to have their passages going from the corners of
+the womb to the testicles, and these ligaments in women are the
+_cremasters_[3] in men, of which I shall speak more fully when I come to
+describe the male parts of generation.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] Muscles by which the testicles are drawn up.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+     _A Description of the Use and Action of the several Generative
+     Parts in Women._
+
+
+The external parts, commonly called the _pudenda_, are designed to cover
+the great orifice and to receive the man's penis or yard in the act of
+sexual intercourse, and to give passage to the child and to the urine.
+The use of the wings and knobs, like myrtle berries, is for the security
+of the internal parts, closing the orifice and neck of the bladder and
+by their swelling up, to cause titillation and pleasure in those parts,
+and also to obstruct the involuntary passage of the urine.
+
+The action of the clitoris in women is similar to that of the penis in
+men, viz., _erection_; and its lower end is the glans of the penis, and
+has the same name. And as the _glans_ of man are the seat of the
+greatest pleasure in copulation, so is this in the woman.
+
+The action and use of the neck on the womb is the same as that of the
+penis, viz., erection, brought about in different ways: first, in
+copulation it becomes erect and made straight for the passage of the
+penis into the womb; secondly, whilst the passage is filled with the
+vital blood, it becomes narrower for embracing the penis; and the uses
+of this erection are twofold:--first, because if the neck of the womb
+were not erected, the man's yard could find no proper passage to the
+womb, and, secondly, it hinders any damage or injury that might ensue
+through the violent striking of the _penis_ during the act of
+copulation.
+
+The use of the veins that pass through the neck of the womb, is to
+replenish it with blood and vigour, that so, as the moisture is consumed
+by the heat engendered by sexual intercourse, it may be renewed by those
+vessels; but their chief business is to convey nutriment to the womb.
+
+The womb has many properties belonging to it: first, the retention of
+the impregnated egg, and this is conception, properly so called;
+secondly, to cherish and nourish it, until Nature has fully formed the
+child, and brought it to perfection, and then it operates strongly in
+expelling the child, when the time of its remaining has expired,
+becoming dilated in an extraordinary manner and so perfectly removed
+from the senses that they cannot injuriously affect it, retaining within
+itself a power and strength to eject the foetus, unless it be rendered
+deficient by any accident; and in such a case remedies must be applied
+by skilful hands to strengthen it, and enable it to perform its
+functions; directions for which will be given in the second book.
+
+The use of the preparing vessels is this; the arteries convey the blood
+to the testicles; some part of it is absorbed in nourishing them, and in
+the production of these little bladders (which resemble eggs in every
+particular), through which the _vasa preparantia_ run, and which are
+absorbed in them; and the function of the veins is to bring back
+whatever blood remains from the above mentioned use. The vessels of this
+kind are much shorter in women than in men, because they are nearer to
+the testicles; this defect is, however, made good by the many intricate
+windings to which those vessels are subject; for they divide themselves
+into two branches of different size in the middle and the larger one
+passes to the testicles.
+
+The stones in women are very useful, for where they are defective, the
+work of generation is at an end. For though those bladders which are on
+the outer surface contain no seed, as the followers of Galen and
+Hippocrates wrongly believed, yet they contain several eggs, generally
+twenty in each testicle; one of which being impregnated by the animated
+part of the man's seed in the act of copulation, descends through the
+oviducts into the womb, and thus in due course of time becomes a living
+child.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+     _Of the Organs of Generation in Man._
+
+
+Having given a description of the organs of generation in women, with
+the anatomy of the fabric of the womb, I shall now, in order to finish
+the first part of this treatise, describe the organs of generation in
+men, and how they are fitted for the use for which Nature intended them.
+
+The instrument of generation in men (commonly called the yard, in Latin,
+_penis_, from _pendo_, to hang, because it hangs outside the belly), is
+an organic part which consists of skin, tendons, veins, arteries, sinews
+and great ligaments; and is long and round, and on the upper side
+flattish, seated under the _os pubis_, and ordained by Nature partly for
+the evacuation of urine, and partly for conveying the seed into the
+womb; for which purpose it is full of small pores, through which the
+seed passes into it, through the _vesicula seminalis_,[4] and discharges
+the urine when they make water; besides the common parts, viz., the two
+nervous bodies, the septum, the urethra, the glans, four muscles and the
+vessels. The nervous bodies (so called) are surrounded with a thick
+white, penetrable membrane, but their inner substance is spongy, and
+consists chiefly of veins, arteries, and nervous fibres, interwoven like
+a net. And when the nerves are filled with animal vigour and the
+arteries with hot, eager blood, the penis becomes distended and erect;
+also the neck of the _vesicula urinalis_,[5] but when the influx of
+blood ceases, and when it is absorbed by the veins, the penis becomes
+limp and flabby. Below those nervous bodies is the urethra, and whenever
+they swell, it swells also. The penis has four muscles; two shorter ones
+springing from the _Cox endix_ and which serve for erection, and on that
+account they are called _erectores_; two larger, coming from _sphincters
+ani_, which serve to dilate the urethra so as to discharge the semen,
+and these are called dilatantes, or wideners. At the end of the penis is
+the _glans_, covered with a very thin membrane, by means of which, and
+of its nervous substance, it becomes most extremely sensitive, and is
+the principal seat of pleasure in copulation. The outer covering of the
+_glans_ is called the _preputium_ (foreskin), which the Jews cut off in
+circumcision, and it is fastened by the lower part of it to the _glans_.
+The penis is also provided with veins, arteries and nerves.
+
+The _testiculi_, stones or testicles (so called because they testify one
+to be a man), turn the blood, which is brought to them by the spermatic
+arteries into seed. They have two sorts of covering, common and proper;
+there are two of the common, which enfold both the testes. The outer
+common coat, consists of the _cuticula_, or true skin, and is called the
+scrotum, and hangs from the abdomen like a purse; the inner is the
+_membrana carnosa_. There are also two proper coats--the outer called
+_cliotrodes_, or virginales; the inner _albugidia_; in the outer the
+cremaster is inserted. The _epididemes_, or _prostatae_ are fixed to the
+upper part of the testes, and from them spring the _vasa deferentia_, or
+_ejaculatoria_, which deposit the seed into the _vesicule seminales_
+when they come near the neck of the bladder. There are two of these
+_vesiculae_, each like a bunch of grapes, which emit the seed into the
+urethra in the act of copulation. Near them are the _prostatae_, about
+the size of a walnut, and joined to the neck of the bladder. Medical
+writers do not agree about the use of them, but most are of the opinion
+that they produce an oily and sloppy discharge to besmear the urethra so
+as to defend it against the pungency of the seed and urine. But the
+vessels which convey the blood to the testes, from which the seed is
+made, are the _arteriae spermaticae_ and there are two of them also.
+There are likewise two veins, which carry off the remaining blood, and
+which are called _venae spermaticae_.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] Seminal vesicle.
+
+[5] Urinary vesicle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+     _A word of Advice to both Sexes, consisting of several Directions
+     with regard to Copulation._
+
+
+As Nature has a mutual desire for copulation in every creature, for the
+increase and propagation of its kind, and more especially in man, the
+lord of creation and the masterpiece of Nature, in order that such a
+noble piece of divine workmanship should not perish, something ought to
+be said concerning it, it being the foundation of everything that we
+have hitherto been treating of, since without copulation there can be no
+generation. Seeing, therefore, so much depends upon it, I have thought
+it necessary, before concluding the first book, to give such directions
+to both sexes, for the performance of that act, as may appear
+efficacious to the end for which nature designed it, but it will be done
+with such caution as not to offend the chastest ear, nor to put the fair
+sex to the blush when they read it.
+
+In the first place, then, when a married couple from the desire of
+having children are about to make use of those means that Nature has
+provided for that purpose, it is well to stimulate the body with
+generous restoratives, that it may be active and vigorous. And the
+imagination should be charmed with sweet music, and if all care and
+thoughts of business be drowned in a glass of rosy wine, so that their
+spirit may be raised to the highest pitch of ardour, it would be as
+well, for troubles, cares or sadness are enemies to the pleasures of
+Venus. And if the woman should conceive when sexual intercourse takes
+place at such times of disturbance, it would have a bad effect upon the
+child. But though generous restoratives may be employed for invigorating
+nature, yet all excess should be carefully avoided, for it will check
+the briskness of the spirits and make them dull and languid, and as it
+also interferes with digestion, it must necessarily be an enemy _to_
+copulation; for it is food taken moderately and that is well digested,
+which enables a man to perform the dictates of Nature with vigour and
+activity, and it is also necessary, that in their mutual embraces they
+meet each other with equal ardour, for, if not, the woman either will
+not conceive, or else the child may be weak bodily, or mentally
+defective. I, therefore, advise them to excite their desires mutually
+before they begin their conjugal intercourse, and when they have done
+what nature requires, a man must be careful not to withdraw himself from
+his wife's arms too soon, lest some sudden cold should strike into the
+womb and occasion miscarriage, and so deprive them of the fruits of
+their labour.
+
+And when the man has withdrawn himself after a suitable time, the woman
+should quietly go to rest, with all calmness and composure of mind, free
+from all anxious and disturbing thoughts, or any other mental worry. And
+she must, as far as possible, avoid turning over from the side on which
+she was first lying, and also keep from coughing and sneezing, because
+as it violently shakes the body, it is a great enemy to conception.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+A
+
+PRIVATE LOOKING-GLASS
+
+FOR THE
+
+FEMALE SEX
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PART II
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+     _Treating of the several Maladies incident to the womb, with proper
+     remedies for the cure of each._
+
+
+The womb is placed in the _hypogastrium_, or lower part of the body, in
+the cavity called the _pelvis_, having the straight gut on one side to
+protect it against the hardness of the backbone, and the bladder on the
+other side to protect it against blows. Its form or shape is like a
+virile member, with this exception, that the man's is outside, and the
+woman's inside.
+
+It is divided into the neck and body. The neck consists of a hard fleshy
+substance, much like cartilage, and at the end of it there is a membrane
+placed transversely, which is called the hymen. Near the neck there is a
+prominent pinnacle, which is called the door of the womb, because it
+preserves the _matrix_ from cold and dust. The Greeks called it
+_clitoris_, and the Latins _praeputium muliebre_, because the Roman
+women abused these parts to satisfy their mutual unlawful lusts, as St.
+Paul says, Romans 1. 26.
+
+The body of the womb is where the child is conceived, and this is not
+altogether round, but dilates itself into two angles; the outward part
+is full of sinews, which are the cause of its movements, but inside it
+is fleshy. It is wrongly said, that in the cavity of the womb there are
+seven divided cells or receptacles for the male seed, but anatomists
+know that there are only two, and also that those two are not divided by
+a partition, but only by a line or suture running through the middle of
+it.
+
+At the bottom of the cavity there are little holes called
+_cotyledones_, which are the ends of certain veins or arteries, and
+serve breeding women to convey nourishment to the child, which is
+received by the umbilical and other veins, to carry the courses to the
+_matrix_.
+
+As to menstruation, it is defined as a monthly flow of bad and useless
+blood, and of the super-abundance of it, for it is an excrement in
+quality, though it is pure and incorrupt, like the blood in the veins.
+And that the menstruous blood is pure in itself, and of the same quality
+as that in the veins, is proved in two ways.--First, from the final
+object of the blood, which is the propagation and preservation of
+mankind, that man might be conceived; and that, being begotten, he might
+be comforted and preserved both in and out of the womb, and all allow
+that it is true that a child in the matrix is nourished by the blood.
+And it is true that when it is out of it, it is nourished by the same;
+for the milk is nothing but the menstruous blood made white in the
+breast. Secondly, it is proved to be true by the way it is produced, as
+it is the superfluity of the last aliment of the fleshy parts.
+
+The natural end of man and woman's being is to propagate. Now, in the
+act of conception one must be an active agent and the other passive, for
+if both were similarly constituted, they could not propagate. Man,
+therefore, is hot and dry, whilst woman is cold and moist: he is the
+agent, and she the passive or weaker vessel, that she may be subject to
+the office of the man. It is necessary that woman should be of a cold
+constitution, because a redundancy of Nature for the infant that depends
+on her is required of her; for otherwise there would be no surplus of
+nourishment for the child, but no more than the mother requires, and the
+infant would weaken the mother, and like as in the viper, the birth of
+the infant would be the death of the parent.
+
+The monthly purgations continue from the fifteenth to the forty-sixth or
+fiftieth year; but a suppression often occurs, which is either natural
+or morbid: the courses are suppressed naturally during pregnancy, and
+whilst the woman is suckling. The morbid suppression remains to be
+spoken of.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+     _Of the Retention of the Courses._
+
+
+The suppression of the menstrual periods, is an interruption of that
+accustomed evacuation of blood, which comes from the matrix every month,
+and the part affected is the womb.
+
+
+
+CAUSE.
+
+The cause of this suppression is either external or internal. The
+external cause may be heat or dryness of air, want of sleep, too much
+work, violent exercise, etc., whereby the substance is so consumed, and
+the body so exhausted that nothing is left over to be got rid of, as is
+recorded of the Amazons who, being active and constantly in motion, had
+their courses very little, if at all. Or it may be brought about by cold
+which is very frequent, as it vitiates and thickens the blood, and binds
+up the passages, so that it cannot flow out.
+
+The internal cause is either instrumental or material; in the womb or in
+the blood. In the womb, it may be in various ways; by humours, and
+abscesses and ulcers, by the narrowness of the veins and passages, or by
+the adipose membrane in fat bodies, pressing on the neck of the matrix,
+but then they must have hernia, zirthilis, for in men the membrane does
+not reach so low; by too much cold or heat, the one vitiating the
+action, and the other consuming the matter through the wrong formation
+of the uterine parts; by the neck of the womb being turned aside, and
+sometimes, though rarely, by a membrane or excrescence of the flesh
+growing at the mouth or neck of the womb. The blood may be in fault in
+two ways, in quantity and in quality; in quantity, when it is so
+consumed that no surplus is left over, as in viragoes or virile women,
+who, through their heat and natural strength, consume it all in their
+last nourishment; as Hippocrates writes of Prethusa, for when her
+husband praised her overmuch, her courses were suppressed, her voice
+changed and she got a beard with a manly face. But I think, rather that
+these must be _Gynophagi_, or woman-eaters, rather than women-breeders,
+because they consume one of the principles of generation, which gives a
+being to the world, viz., the menstruous blood. The blood may likewise
+be lost, and the courses checked by nosebleeding, by bleeding piles, by
+dysentery, commonly called the bloody flux, by many other discharges,
+and by chronic diseases. Secondly, the matter may be vitiated in
+quality, and if it be sanguineous, sluggish, bilious or melancholy, and
+any of these will cause an obstruction in the veins.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+Signs which manifest the disease are pains in the head, neck, back and
+loins; weariness of the whole body (but especially of the hips and legs,
+because the womb is near those parts); palpitation of the heart. The
+following are particular signs:--If the suppression arises from a cold,
+the woman becomes heavy, sluggish, pale and has a slow pulse; Venus'
+combats are neglected, the urine is thick, the blood becomes watery and
+great in quantity, and the bowels become constipated. If it arises from
+heat, the signs are just the opposite. If the retention be natural and
+arises from conception, this may be known by drinking hydromel, i.e.,
+water and honey, after supper, before going to bed, by the effect which
+it has; for if after taking it, she feels a heating pain about the navel
+and the lower parts of the abdomen, it is a sign that she has conceived,
+and that the suppression is natural.
+
+
+
+PROGNOSTICS.
+
+The whole body is affected by any disorder of the womb, and especially
+the heart, the liver and the brain, and there is a singular sympathy
+between the womb and those three organs. Firstly, the womb communicates
+with the heart by the mediation of those arteries which come from the
+aorta. Hence, when menstruation is suppressed, fainting, swooning, a
+very low pulse, and shortness of breath will ensue. Secondly, it
+communicates with the liver by the veins derived from the hollow vein.
+Obstructions, jaundice, dropsy, induration of the spleen will follow.
+Thirdly, it communicates with the brain by the nerves and membranes of
+the back; hence arise epilepsy, madness, fits of melancholy, pains in
+the back of the head, unaccountable fears and inability to speak. I may,
+therefore, well agree with Hippocrates that if menstruation be
+suppressed, many dangerous diseases will follow.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+In the cure of this, and of all the other following cases, I shall
+observe the following order:--The cures will be taken from surgical,
+pharmaceutical and diuretical means. The suppression has a plethoric
+effect, and must be removed by the evacuation; therefore we begin with
+bleeding. In the middle of the menstrual period, open the liver vein,
+and two days before, open the saphena in both feet; if the repletion is
+not very great apply cupping glasses to the legs and thighs, although
+there may be no hope of removing the suppression. As in some women, the
+cotyledones are so closed up that nothing but copulation will open them,
+yet it will be well to relieve the woman as much as possible by opening
+the hemoroid veins by applying a leech. After bleeding let the place be
+prepared and made flexible with syrup of stychas, calamint, betony,
+hyssop, mugwort, horehound, fumitary, maidenhair. Bathe the parts with
+camomiles, pennyroyal, savias, bay-leaves, juniper-berries, rue,
+marjoram, feverfew. Take a handful each of nep, maidenhair, succory and
+betony leaves and make a decoction, and take three ounces of it, syrup
+of maidenhair, mugwort and succory, half an ounce of each. After she
+comes out of her bath, let her drink it off. Purge with _Pill agaric,
+fleybany, corb, feriae_. In this case, Galen recommends _pilulae of
+caberica coloquintida_; for, as they are good for purging the bad
+humours, so also they open the passages of the womb, and strengthen it
+by their aromatic qualities.
+
+If the stomach be over-loaded, let her take an emetic, yet such a one as
+may work both ways, lest if it only works upwards, it should check the
+humours too much. Take two drachms of trochisks of agaric, infuse this
+in two ounces of oxymel in which dissolve one scruple and a half of
+_electuary dissarum_, and half an ounce of _benedic laxit_. Take this as
+a purge.
+
+After the humour has been got rid of, proceed to more suitable and
+stronger remedies. Take a drachm and a half of trochisk of myrrh; ten
+grains of musk with the juice of smallage; make twelve pills and take
+six every morning, or after supper, on going to bed. Take half an ounce
+of cinnamon, two drachms each of smirutium, or rogos, valerin
+aristolochia; two scruples each of astrumone root and saffron; two
+drachms of spec. diambia; four scruples of trochisk of myrrh; two
+scruples tartari vitriolari; make half into a powder; make lozenges with
+mugwort water and sugar, and take one drachm of them every morning; or
+mix a drachm of the powder with one drachm of sugar, and take it in
+white wine. Take two drachms each of prepared steel and spec. hair; one
+scruple each of borax and spec. of myrrh, with savine juice; make it up
+into eighty-eight lozenges and take three every other day before dinner.
+Take one scruple of castor, half a drachm of wild carrot seed with syrup
+of mugwort, and make four pills, take them in the morning fasting, for
+three days following, before the usual time of purging. Take five
+drachms each of agaric, aristolochia, and juice of horehound; six
+drachma each of rhubarb, spikenard, aniseed, guidanum, asafoetida,
+mallow-root, gentian, of the three peppers and of liquorice: make an
+electuary with honey, and take three drachms for a dose. For phlegmatic
+constitutions nothing can be better than the decoction of guaiacum wood
+with a little disclaim, taken fasting in the morning, for twelve days
+consecutively, without producing sweating.
+
+Treat the lower parts of the body to suffumigating, pessaries, ointments
+and injections; for fumigating use cinnamon, nutmeg, the berries of the
+bay tree, mugwort, galbanum, molanthium, amber, etc. Make pessaries of
+figs and the bruised leaves of dog's mercury, rolled up in lint, and if
+a stronger one is required, make one of myrrh, opopanax, ammoniac,
+galbanum, sagepanum, mithridate, agaric, coloquintida, tec. Make
+injections of a decoction of origane mugwort, dog's mercury, betony, and
+eggs; inject into the womb with a female syringe. Take half an ounce
+each of oil of almonds, lilies, capers, camomiles; two drachms each of
+laudanum and oil of myrrh; make a salve with wax, with which anoint the
+place; make injections of fenugreek, camomiles, melilot, dill, marjoram,
+pennyroyal, feverfew, juniper berries and calamint; but if the
+suppression arises from a lack of matter, then the courses ought not to
+be brought on until the spirits be raised and the amount of blood
+increased; or if it arises from affections of the womb itself, as dropsy
+or inflammation, then particular care must be used; but I will not lay
+stress on this here, but will mention the remedies in their order.
+
+If the retention comes from repletion or fullness, if the air be hot and
+dry, take moderate exercise before meals, and very light diet and
+drinks, and with your food take garden savory--thyme and origane, if it
+arises from emptiness and defect of matter: if the weather be moist and
+moderately hot, avoid exercise and late hours; let your food be
+nourishing and easy of digestion, such as raw eggs, lamb, chickens,
+almonds, milk and the like.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+     _Of Excessive Menstruation._
+
+
+The learned say, that truth is manifested by comparing contraries, and
+so, as I have above spoken of the suppression of menstruation, it is now
+necessary that I should treat of excessive menstruation, which is no
+less dangerous than the former. This immoderate monthly flow is defined
+as a sanguineous discharge, as it consists merely of blood, wherein it
+differs from the false courses or whites, of which I shall speak further
+on. Secondly, it is said to proceed from the womb; for there are two
+ways in which the blood issues forth; one by the internal veins of the
+body of the womb (and this is properly called the monthly flow), the
+other is by those veins which terminate in the neck of the matrix, which
+Aetius calls haemorrhoids of the womb. In quantity, Hippocrates said, it
+should be about eighteen ounces, and they should last about three days:
+and when the faculties of the body are weakened by their flow, we may
+take it that the discharge is inordinate. In bodies which abound in
+gross humours, this immoderate flow sometimes unburdens nature of her
+load and ought not to be checked without a physician's advice.
+
+
+
+CAUSE.
+
+The cause is either internal or external. The internal cause is
+threefold; in the substance, the instrument or the power. The matter,
+which is the blood, may be vitiated in two ways; first, by the heat of
+the constitution, climate or season, heating the blood, whereby the
+passages are dilated, and the power weakened so that it cannot retain
+the blood. Secondly, by falls, blows, violent motions, rupture of the
+veins, etc. The external cause may be the heat of the air, heavy
+burdens, unnatural childbirth, etc.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+In this excessive flow the appetite is lessened, conception is checked
+and all the functions weakened; the feet swell, the colour of the face
+changes, and the whole body is weakened. If the flow comes from the
+rupture of a vein, the body is sometimes cold, the blood flows out in
+streams, suddenly, and causes great pain. If it arises from heat, and
+the orifice of the vein is dilated, there is little or no pain, but yet
+the blood flows faster than it does when caused by erosion, but not so
+fast as it does in a rupture. If caused by erosion, the woman feels a
+scalding of the passage, and it differs from the other two, in so much
+as it does not flow so quickly or so freely as they do. If it is caused
+by weakness of the womb, the woman feels a dislike for sexual
+intercourse. Lastly, if it proceeds from the defective quality of the
+blood let some of it drop into a cloth, and when it is dry, you may
+judge, of the quality by the colour. If it be passionate it will be
+yellow; if melancholy, it will be black, and if phlegmatic, it will be
+waterish and whitish.
+
+
+
+PROGNOSTICS.
+
+If convulsions are joined to the flow, it is dangerous, because that
+intimates that the noble parts are affected, convulsions caused by
+emptiness are deadly. If they continue long, they will be very difficult
+to cure, and it was one of the miracles which our Saviour Christ
+wrought, to cure a woman of this disease of twelve years standing.
+
+To conclude, if the flow be excessive, many diseases will follow, which
+will be almost impossible to cure; the blood, being consumed together
+with the innate heat, either morbid, dropsical, or paralytical diseases
+will follow.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+The cure consists in three particulars. First, in expelling and
+carrying away the blood. Secondly, in connecting and removing the
+fluxibility of the matter. Thirdly, in incorporating the veins and
+faculties. For the first, to get rid of the superfluous blood, open a
+vein in the arm, and draw off as much blood as the strength of the
+patient will allow; not all at one time, but at intervals, for by those
+means the spirits are less weakened, and the reaction so much the
+greater.
+
+Apply cupping glasses to the breasts and also over the liver, and to
+correct the flexibility of the matter, purgative means, moderated by
+astringents, may be employed.
+
+If it is caused by erosion, and salt phlegm, prepare with syrup of
+violets, wormwood, roses, citron peel, succory, etc. Then make the
+following purge:--mirabolans, half an ounce; trochisks of agaric, one
+drachm; make a decoction with the plantain-water, and add syrup of roses
+lax. three ounces, and make a draught.
+
+If caused by any mental excitement, prepare the body by syrup of roses,
+myrtles, sorrel and parsley, mixed with plantain-water, knot-grass and
+endive. Then purge with the following draught:--Take one drachm each of
+the void of mirabolans, and rhubarb, cinnamon fifteen grains; infuse for
+a night in endive water; add to the strained water half an ounce of pulp
+of tamarinds and of cassia, and make a draught. If the blood be
+waterish as it is in dropsical subjects and flows out easily on account
+of its thinness, it will be a good plan to draw off the water by purging
+with agaric, elaterium and coloquintida. Sweating is also useful in this
+case, as by it the noxious matter is carried off, and the motion of the
+blood to other parts. To produce sweating, employ cardus water, and
+mithridate, or a decoction of guaiacum and sarsaparilla. Gum guaiacum is
+also a great producer of perspiration, and sarsaparilla pills, taken
+every night before going to bed are also highly to be recommended. If
+the blood pours out, without any evil quality in itself, then
+strengthening means only should be employed, which is a thing to be done
+in cases of inordinate discharge.
+
+Take one scruple of ol. ammoniac, one drachm of treacle, half an ounce
+of conserve of roses and make an electuary with syrup of myrtle, or if
+the discharge be of long standing take two drachms of matrix, one drachm
+of olilanum troch. de carbara, a scruple of balustium; make into a
+powder and form into pills with syrup of quinces, and take one before
+every meal. Take two scruples each of troch. dechambede, scoriaferri,
+coral and frankincense; pound these to a fine powder, and make into
+lozenges with sugar and plantain water. Asses' dung is also approved
+of, whether taken inwardly with syrup of quinces or applied outwardly
+with steeled water. Galen by sending the juice of it into the womb by
+means of a syringe for four days consecutively, cured this immediate
+flow, which could not be checked in any other way. Let the patient take
+one scruple and a half of pilon in water before going to bed; make a
+fumigation for the womb of mastic, frankincense and burnt frogs, adding
+the hoof of a mule. Take an ounce each of the juice of knot-grass,
+comfoly and quinces; a drachm of camphor; dip a piece of silk or cotton
+into it and apply it to the place. Take half an ounce each of oil of
+mastic, myrtle, and quinces; a drachm each of fine bole and troch.
+decardas, and a sufficient quantity of dragon's blood, make an ointment
+and apply it before and behind. Take an ounce and a half each of
+plantain, shepherd's purse and red rose leaves; an ounce of dried mint,
+and three ounces of bean flour; boil all these in plantain water and
+make two plasters:--apply one before and one behind. If the blood flows
+from those veins which are terminated at the neck of the matrix, then it
+is not called an undue discharge of the _menses_, but haemorrhoids of
+the womb. The same remedy, however, will serve for both, only the
+instrumental cure will be a little different; for in uterine
+haemorrhoids, the ends of the veins hang over like teats, which must
+be removed by cutting, and then the veins closed with aloes, fine bole,
+burnt alum, myrrh, mastic, with comfoly-juice and knot grass, laid upon
+it like a plaster.
+
+[Illustration: _Position of the Embryos in a plural conception_]
+
+[Illustration: Process of Delivery.]
+
+The air should be cold and dry, and all motion of the body should be
+prohibited. Her diet should consist of pheasants, partridges, grouse,
+rabbits, calves' feet, etc., and her drink should be mixed with the
+juice of pomegranates and quinces.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+     _Of the Weeping of the Womb._
+
+
+The weeping of the womb is an unnatural flow of blood, coming from it in
+drops, like tears, and causing violent pains in it, and occurring at no
+fixed period or time. By some it is supposed to be produced by the
+excessive flow of the courses, as they flow copiously and freely; this
+is continued, though only little at a time, and accompanied by great
+pain and difficulty of passing it, and on this account it is compared
+to the strangury.
+
+The cause is in the power, instrument or matter; in the power, on
+account of its being enfeebled so that it cannot expel the blood, and
+which, remaining there, makes that part of the womb grow hard, and
+distends the vessels, and from that, pains in the womb arise. In the
+instrument, from the narrowness of the passage. Lastly, it may be the
+matter of the blood which is at fault, and which may be in too great
+quantities; or the quality may be bad, so that it is thick and gross and
+cannot flow out as it ought to do, but only in drops. The signs will
+best be ascertained by the patient's own account, but there will be
+pains in the head, stomach and back, with inflammation, difficulty of
+breathing and excoriation of the matrix. If the patient's strength will
+permit it, first open a vein in the arm, rub the upper parts and let a
+cord be fastened tightly round the arm, so that the force of the blood
+may be carried backward; then apply such things as may relax the womb,
+and assuage the heat of the blood, as poultices made of bran, linseed,
+mallows, dog's mercury and artiplex. If the blood be viscous and thick,
+add mugwort, calamint, dictain and betony to it, and let the patient
+take about the size of a nutmeg of Venic treacle, and syrup of mugwort
+every morning; make an injection of aloes, dog's mercury, linseed,
+groundsel, mugwort, fenugreek, with sweet almond oil.
+
+Sometimes it is caused by wind, and then bleeding must not be had
+recourse to, but instead take one ounce of syrup of feverfew; half an
+ounce each of honey, syrup of roses, syrup of stachus; an ounce each of
+calamint water, mugwort, betony and hyssop, and make a julep. If the
+pain continues, use this purge:--Take a drachm of spec. Hitrae, half an
+ounce of diacatholicon, one ounce of syrup of roses and laxative, and
+make a draught with a decoction of mugwort and the four cordial flowers.
+If it proceeds from weakness, she must be strengthened, but if from
+grossness of blood, let the quality of it be altered, as I have shown in
+the preceding chapter. Lastly, if her bowels are confined, move them by
+an injection of a decoction of camomiles, betony, feverfew, mallows,
+linseed, juniper-berries, cumminseed, aniseed, melilot, and add to it
+half an ounce of diacatholicon; two drachms of hiera piera, an ounce
+each of honey and oil and a drachm and a half of sol. nitre. The patient
+must abstain from salt, acid and windy food.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+     _The false Courses, or Whites._
+
+
+From the womb, not only the menstruous blood proceeds, but many
+evacuations, which were summed up by the ancients under the title of
+_rhoos gunaikeios_,[6] which is the distillation of a variety of corrupt
+humours through the womb, which flow from the whole body or a part of
+it, varying both in courses and colour.
+
+
+
+CAUSE.
+
+The cause is either promiscuously in the whole body, by a cacochymia; or
+weakness of it, or in some of its parts, as in the liver, which by a
+weakness of the blood producing powers, cause a production of corrupt
+blood, which then is reddish. Sometimes, when the fall is sluggish in
+its action, and does not get rid of those superfluities engendered in
+the liver, the matter is yellowish. Sometimes it is in the spleen when
+it does not cleanse the blood of the dregs and rejected particles, and
+then the matter which flows forth is blackish. It may also come from a
+cold in the head, or from any other decayed or corrupted member, but if
+the discharge be white, the cause lies either in the stomach or loins.
+In the stomach, by some crude substance there, and vitiated by grief,
+melancholy or some other mental disturbance; for otherwise, if the
+matter were only crude phlegm and noways corrupt, being taken into the
+liver it might be converted into the blood; for phlegm in the ventricle
+is called nourishment half digested; but being corrupt, though sent into
+the liver it cannot be turned into nutriment, for the second decoction
+in the stomach cannot correct that which the first corrupted; and
+therefore the liver sends it to the womb, which can neither digest nor
+reject it, and so it is voided out with the same colour which it had in
+the ventricle. The cause may also be in the veins being overheated
+whereby the spermatical matter flows out because of its thinness. The
+external causes may be moistness of the air, eating bad food, anger,
+grief, sloth, too much sleep, costiveness.
+
+The signs are bodily disturbances, shortness of breathing, and foul
+breath, a distaste for food, swollen eyes and feet, and low spirits;
+discharges of different colours, as red, black, green, yellow and white
+from the womb. It differs from the flowing of the courses and from too
+abundant menstruation, in so far as it keeps no certain period, and is
+of many colours, all of which spring from blood.
+
+If the flux be phlegmatic, it will last long and be hard to cure, but if
+sickness or diarrhoea supervene, it carries off the humour and cures the
+disease. If it is abundant it does not last so long, but it is more
+dangerous, for it will cause a cleft in the neck of the womb, and
+sometimes also an excoriation of the matrix; if melancholy, it must be
+dangerous and obstinate. The flux of the haemorrhoids, however, assists
+the cure.
+
+If the matter which flows out be reddish, open a vein in the arm; if
+not, apply ligatures to the arms and shoulders. Galen boasts that he
+cured the wife of Brutus, who was suffering from this disease, by
+rubbing the upper part with honey.
+
+If it is caused by the brain, take syrup of betony and marjoram. Give as
+a purgative _Pill. coch._ or _Agaric_; make nasalia of sage, or hyssop
+juice, betony, flagella, with one drop of oil of _Elect. Dianth. Rosat.
+Diambrae, diamosci dulus_, one drachm of each, and make lozenges to be
+taken every morning and evening. _Auri Alexandrina_, half a drachm at
+night on going to bed. If these things have no effect, try suffumigation
+and plasters, as they are prescribed above.
+
+If it arises from crudities of the stomach or from a cold, disordered
+liver, take a decoction of _lignum sanctum_ every morning, purge with
+_pill de agaric, de hermadact, de hiera, diacolinthis, foetid-agrigatio_;
+take two drachms of elect. aromet-roses, one scruple each of dried
+citron peel, nutmeg, long pepper; one drachm of draglanga; half a
+scruple each of _fantalum album_, ling, aloes; six ounces of sugar, with
+mint water: make lozenges of it, and take them before meals. If there be
+repletion besides the rigidity of the liver, purging by means of an
+emetic is to be recommended, for which take three drachms of the
+electuary diasatu. Galen allows diuretical remedies, such as _aqua
+petrofolma_.
+
+If the discharge be angry, treat it with syrup of roses, violets, endive
+and succory; give a purge of mirabolans, manna, rhubarb, and cassia.
+Take two drachms of rhubarb, one of aniseed, and one scruple and a half
+of cinnamon; infuse them into six ounces of syrup of prunes, and add one
+ounce of strained manna, and take it in the morning as required. Take
+one drachm each of the following drugs: _diatonlanton, diacorant,
+diarthod, abbaris, dyacydomei_, four ounces of sugar, and make into
+lozenges with plantain water. If the gall be sluggish, and does not stir
+the bowels, give warm injections of a decoction of the four mollifying
+herbs, with honey of roses and aloes.
+
+If the flow be bilious, treat the patient with syrup of maiden-hair;
+epithynium, polypody, borage, buglos, fumitary, hart's tongue and
+syrups, bisantius, which must be made without vinegar, else it will
+assist the disease instead of nature, for melancholy is increased by the
+use of vinegar, and both Hippocrates, Silvius and Avenzoar reject it as
+injurious for the womb, and therefore not to be used internally in
+uterine diseases. _Pilulae sumariae, pilulae lud. delupina, lazuli
+diosena_ and _confetio hamec_ are purges of bile. Take two ounces of
+pounded prunes, one drachm of senna, a drachm and a half each of
+epithimium, polypody and fumitary, and an ounce of sour dates, and make
+a decoction with endive water; take four ounces of it and add three
+drachms of hamesech and three of manna. Or take a scruple each of _pil.
+indic. foetid, agarici, trochis ati_; one scruple of rhubarb pills, six
+grains of lapis lazuli, make into pills with epithimium, and take them
+once a week. Take three drachms of elect. loetificans. Galen three
+drachms, a drachm each of _diamargaritum, calimi, diamosci dulus_; a
+drachm of conserve of borage, violets and burglos; one drachm of candied
+citron peel, seven ounces of sugar, and make into lozenges with rose
+water.
+
+Lastly let the womb be cleansed of all corrupt matter, and then be
+strengthened. In order to purify it, make injections of the decoction of
+betony, feverfew, spikenard, bismust, mercury and sage, and add two
+ounces each of sugar and sweet almond oil; pessaries may also be made of
+silk or cotton, softened in the juice of the above mentioned herbs.
+
+You must prepare trochisks, thus, to strengthen the womb. Take one ounce
+each of mugwort, feverfew, myrrh, amber, mace, storax, ling aloes and
+red roses, and make lozenges or troches with mucilage of tragacanth;
+throw one of them on to hot coals and fumigate the womb with red wine,
+in which mastic, fine bole, malustia and red roots have been decocted;
+anoint the matrix with oil of quinces and myrtles, and apply a plaster
+to it, for the womb; and let the woman take _diamosdum dulco_, _aract_,
+and _slemoticum_ every morning.
+
+A drying diet is recommended as best, because in these cases the body
+abounds with phlegmatic and crude humours. On this account, Hippocrates
+advises the patient to go to bed supperless. Her food should consist of
+partridges, pheasant and grouse, roasted rather than boiled, too much
+sleep must be prohibited whilst moderate exercise is very advisable.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] The female flowing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+     _The Suffocation of the Mother._
+
+
+This, which if simply considered, will be found to be merely the cause
+of an effect, is called in English, "the suffocation of the mother," not
+because the womb is strangled, but because by its retraction towards the
+midriff and stomach, which presses it up, so that the instrumental cause
+of respiration, the midriff, is suffocated, and acting with the brain,
+cause the animating faculty, the efficient cause of respiration, also to
+be interrupted, when the body growing cold, and the action weakened, the
+woman falls to the ground as if she were dead.
+
+Some women remain longer in those hysterical attacks than others, and
+Rabbi Moses mentions some who lay in the fit for two days. Rufus writes
+of one who continued in it for three days and three nights, and revived
+at the end of the three days. And I will give you an example so that we
+may take warning by the example of other men. Paroetus mentions a
+Spanish woman who was suddenly seized with suffocation of the womb, and
+was thought to be dead. Her friends, for their own satisfaction, sent
+for a surgeon in order to have her opened, and as soon as he began to
+make an incision, she began to move, and come to herself again with
+great cries, to the horror and surprise of all those present.
+
+In order that the living may be distinguished from the dead, old writers
+prescribe three experiments. The first is, to lay a feather on the
+mouth, and by its movements you may judge whether the patient be alive
+or dead; the second is, to place a glass of water on the breast, and if
+it moves, it betokens life; the third is, to hold a bright, clean,
+looking-glass to the mouth and nose, and if the glass be dimmed with a
+little moisture on it, it betokens life. These three experiments are
+good, but you must not depend upon them too much, for though the feather
+and the glass do not move, and the looking-glass continues bright and
+clear, yet it is not a necessary consequence that she is dead. For the
+movement of the lungs, by which breathing is produced, may be checked,
+so that she cannot breathe, and yet internal heat may remain, which is
+not evident by the motion of the breast or lungs, but lies hidden in the
+heart and arteries.
+
+Examples of this we find in flies and swallows, who seem dead to all
+outward appearances, breathless and inanimate, and yet they live by that
+heat which is stored up in the heart and inward arteries. At the
+approach of summer, however, the internal heat, being restored to the
+outer parts, they are then brought to life again, out of their sleeping
+trance.
+
+Those women, therefore, who apparently die suddenly, and from no visible
+cause, should not be buried until the end of three days, lest the living
+be buried instead of the dead.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+The part affected is the womb, of which there are two motions--natural
+and symptomatic. The natural motion is, when the womb attracts the male
+seed, or expels the infant, and the symptomatical motion, of which we
+are speaking, is a convulsive drawing up of the womb.
+
+The cause is usually in the retention of the seed, or in the suppression
+of the menses, which causes a repletion of the corrupt humours of the
+womb, from which a windy refrigeration arises, which produces a
+convulsion of the ligaments of the womb. And just as it may arise from
+humidity or repletion, so also, as it is a convulsion, it may be caused
+by dryness or emptiness. Lastly also, it may arise from abortion or from
+difficult childbirth.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+On the approach of suffocation of the womb the face becomes pale, there
+is a weakness of the legs, shortness of breathing, frigidity of the
+whole body, with a spasm in the throat, and then the woman falls down,
+bereft of sense and motion; the mouth of the womb is closed up, and
+feels hard when touched with the finger. When the paroxysm or the fit is
+over, she opens her eyes, and as she feels an oppression of the stomach,
+she tries to vomit. And lest any one should be deceived into taking one
+disease for another, I will show how it may be distinguished from those
+diseases which most resemble it.
+
+It differs from apoplexy, as it comes without the patient crying out; in
+hysterical fits also the sense of feeling is not altogether destroyed
+and lost, as it is in apoplexy; and it differs from epilepsy, as the
+eyes are not distorted, and there is spongy froth from the mouth. That
+convulsive motion also, which is frequently accompanied by symptoms of
+suffocation, is not universal, as it is in epilepsy, but there is some
+convulsion, but that without any violent agitation. In syncope both
+breathing and the pulse fail, the face grows pale, and the woman faints
+suddenly; but in hysterical attacks there are usually both breathing
+and pulse, though these are indistinct; the face is red and she has a
+forewarning of the approaching fit. It cannot, however, be denied that
+syncope may accompany this feeling of suffocation. Lastly, it can be
+distinguished from lethargy by the pulse, which is rapid in the former,
+but weak in the latter.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+In the cure of this affection, two things must be taken care of:--_In
+the first place_, nature must be stimulated to expel these hurtful
+humours which obscure the senses, so that the woman may be brought back
+from that sleepy fit. _Secondly_, during the intervals of the attack,
+proper remedies must be employed, in order to remove the cause.
+
+To stimulate nature, apply cupping-glasses to the hips and navel: apply
+ligatures to the thighs, rub the extremities with salt, mustard and
+vinegar, and shout and make a great noise in her ears. Hold asafoetida
+to the nose, or sacopenium steeped in vinegar; make her sneeze by
+blowing castor-powder, white pepper and hellebore up her nose; hold
+burnt feathers, hair, leather, or anything else with a strong, stinking
+smell under her nose, for bad odours are unpleasant to nature, and the
+animal spirits so strive against them, that the natural heat is restored
+by their means. The brain is sometimes so oppressed, that it becomes
+necessary to burn the outer skin of the head with hot oil, or with a hot
+iron, and strong injections and suppositories are useful. Take a handful
+each of sage, calamint, horehound, feverfew, marjoram, betony and
+hyssop; half an ounce of aniseed; two drachma each of coloquintida,
+white hellebore and salgem; boil these in two quarts of water till
+reduced to half; add two ounces of castor oil and two drachms of hiera
+piera and make an injection of it. Or take two ounces of boiled honey,
+half a scruple of spurge, four grains of coloquint, two grains of
+hellebore and drachm of salt; make a suppository. Hippocrates mentions a
+hysterical woman who could only be relieved of the paroxysms by pouring
+cold water on her: yet this is a strange cure, and should only be
+administered in the heat of summer, when the sun is in the tropic of
+Cancer.
+
+If it be caused by the retention and corruption of the seed, let the
+mid-wife take oil of lilies, marjoram and bay leaves, and dissolve two
+grains of civet in them, and the same quantity of musk, and at the
+moment of the paroxysm let her dip her finger into the mixture and put
+it into the neck of the womb, and tickle and rub it with it.
+
+When the fit is over, proceed to remove the cause. If it arises from
+suppression of the menses, look in Chapter XI, p. 102, for the cure. If
+it arises from the retention of the seed, a good husband will administer
+the cure, but those who cannot honourably obtain that remedy, must use
+such means as will dry up and diminish the seed, as diaciminum,
+diacalaminthes, etc. The seed of the agnus castus is highly valued as a
+draught, whether taken inwardly, applied outwardly or used as a
+suffumigation. It was held in high esteem by the Athenian women, for by
+its means they remained as pure vessels and preserved their chastity, by
+only strewing it on the bed on which they lay, and hence the name of
+_agnus castus_, which was given to it, as denoting its effects. Make an
+issue on the inside of each leg, four inches below the knee, and then
+make lozenges of two scruples of agric, half a scruple each of wild
+carrot seed and ligne aloes; three drachms of washed turpentine, and
+make a bolus with a conserve of flowers. Eight drachms of castor taken
+in white wine are very useful in this case, or you may make pills of it
+with dog's tooth, and take them on going to bed. Take an ounce of white
+briony root dried and cut up like carrots, put it into a little wine and
+place it on the fire, and drink when warm. Take one scruple each of
+myrrh, castor and asafoetida; four grains each of saffron and rue-seed,
+and make eight pills and take two every night on going to bed.
+
+Galen, from his own experience, recommends powdered agaric, of which he
+frequently gave one scruple in white wine. Put a head of bruised garlic
+on the navel at bed time, and fasten it with a swathing band. Make a
+girdle for the waist of galbanum, and also a plaster for the stomach,
+and put civet and musk on one part of it, which must be applied to the
+navel. Take two drachms each of pulvis benedict, and of troches of
+agaric, a sufficient quantity of mithridate, and make two pessaries, and
+that will purge the matrix of wind and phlegm; foment the private parts
+with salad oil in which some feverfew and camomiles have been boiled.
+Take a handful of roseleaves and two scruples of cloves, sew them in a
+little cloth and boil them for ten minutes in malmsey; then apply them,
+as hot as they can be borne, to the mouth of the womb, but do not let
+the smell go up her nose. A dry diet must still be adhered to and the
+moderate use of Venus is advisable. Let her eat aniseed biscuits
+instead of bread, and roast meat instead of boiled.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+     _Of the Descending or Falling of the Womb._
+
+
+The descent of the womb is caused by a relaxation of the ligatures,
+whereby the matrix is carried backward, and in some women it protrudes
+to the size of an egg, and there are two kinds of this, distinguished by
+a descending and a precipitation. The descending of the womb is, when it
+sinks down to the entrance of the private parts, and appears either very
+little or not at all, to the eye. Its precipitation is when it is turned
+inside out like a purse, and hangs out between the thighs, like a
+cupping glass.
+
+
+
+CAUSE.
+
+This is either external or internal. The external cause is difficult
+childbirth, violent pulling away, or inexperience in drawing away the
+child, violent coughing, sneezing, falls, blows, and carrying heavy
+burdens. The internal cause, is generally the flow of too much moisture
+into these parts, which hinders the operation of the womb, whereby the
+ligaments by which the womb is supported are relaxed. The particular
+cause, however, lies in the retention of the _semen_, or in the
+suppression of the monthly courses.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+The principal gut and the bladder are often so crushed, that the passage
+of both evacuations is hindered. If the urine flows out white and thick,
+and the midriff is interfered with, the loins suffer, the private parts
+are in pain, and the womb descends to them, or else comes clean out.
+
+
+
+PROGNOSTICS.
+
+If an old woman is thus affected, the cure is very difficult, because it
+weakens the womb, and therefore, though it may be put back into its
+proper place, yet it is apt to get displaced again, by a very slight
+amount of illness. And also with younger women, if this disease is
+inveterate, and if it is caused by putrefaction of the nerves, it is
+incurable.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+The womb, being placed by nature between the straight gut and the
+bladder, ought not to be put back again until the powers of both are
+excited. Now that nature is relieved of her burden, let the woman be
+laid on her back so that her legs may be higher than her head; let her
+feet be drawn up towards her private parts, and her knees spread open.
+Then apply oil of sweet almonds and lilies, or a decoction of mallows,
+beet, fenugreek and linseed, to the swelling; when the inflammation is
+reduced, let the midwife rub her hand with oil of mastic, and restore
+the womb to its proper place. When the matrix is up, the patient's
+position must be changed. Her legs must be put out quite straight and
+laid together, and apply six cupping glasses to her breast and navel.
+Boil feverfew, mugwort, red rose leaves and comfrey in red wine; make a
+suffumigation for the matrix, and apply sweet scents to her nose. When
+she comes out of her bath, give her an ounce of syrup of feverfew with a
+drachm of dog's tooth (_mithridate_). Take three drachms each of
+laudanum and mastic, and make a plaster for the navel of it, and then
+make pessaries of asafoetida, saffron, comfrey, and mastic, adding a
+little castor oil.--Parius in such cases makes his pessaries only of
+cork, shaped like a small egg; he covered them with wax and mastic
+dissolved together, and fastening them to a thread, he put them into the
+womb.
+
+The immediate danger being now removed and the matrix returned to its
+natural place the remote cause must be got rid of. If she be of full
+habit of body open a vein, after preparing her with syrup of betony,
+calamint, hyssop and feverfew. Give a purge, and if the stomach be
+oppressed with any crude matter relieve it by emetics and by sudorifics
+of lignum sanctum and sassafras taken twenty days consecutively, which
+dry up the superfluous moisture, and consequently suppress the cause of
+the disease.
+
+The air should be hot and dry, and her diet hot and attenuating. Let her
+abstain from dancing, jumping, sneezing, as well as from all mental and
+bodily emotions, eat sparingly, not drink much, and be moderate in her
+sleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+     _Of the Inflammation of the Womb._
+
+
+The phlegmon, or inflammation of the matrix, is a humour which affects
+the whole womb, and is accompanied by unnatural heat, by obstruction and
+by an accumulation of corrupt blood.
+
+
+
+CAUSE.
+
+The cause of this affection is suppression of the courses, fullness of
+body, the immoderate use of sexual intercourse, frequent handling the
+genitals, difficult child-birth, violent motions of the body, falls,
+blows, to which may be added, the use of strong pessaries, whereby the
+womb is frequently inflamed, cupping glasses, also, fastened to the
+_pubis_ and _hypogastrium_, draw the humours of the womb.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+The signs are pains in the lower parts of the body and head, humours,
+sickness, coldness in the knees, throbbing in the neck, palpitation of
+the heart. Often, also, there is shortness of breath because of the
+heart which is close to the midriff, and the breasts sympathising with
+the swollen and painful womb. Besides this, if the front of the matrix
+be inflamed, the privates suffer, and the urine is suppressed, or only
+flows with difficulty. If the hinder part be inflamed, the loins and
+back suffer, and the bowels are very costive; if the right side be
+inflamed, the right hip suffers, and the right leg is heavy and moves
+slowly, so that at times she seems almost lame. If, however, the left
+side of the womb be inflamed, then the left hip suffers and the left leg
+is weaker than the right. If the neck of the womb is affected, by
+putting her finger in, the midwife feels that its mouth is contracted
+and closed up, and that it is hard round it.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+In the cure, first of all, let the humours which flow to the womb be
+expelled. To effect this, after the bowels have been loosened by cooling
+clysters bleeding will be necessary. Therefore, open a vein in the arm,
+if she is not with child; the day after strike the saphena in both feet,
+fasten ligatures and cupping glasses to the arm, and rub the upper part.
+Purge gently with cassia, rhubarb, senna and myrobalan. Take one drachm
+of senna, a scruple of aniseed, myrobalan, half an ounce, with a
+sufficient quantity of barley water. Make a decoction and dissolve syrup
+of succory in it, and two ounces of rhubarb; pound half an ounce of
+cassia with a few drops of oil of aniseed and make a draught. At the
+commencement of the disease, anoint the private parts and loins with oil
+of roses and quinces: make plasters of plantain, linseed, barley meal,
+melilot, fenugreek, white of eggs, and if the pain be intense, a little
+laudanum; foment the genitals with a decoction of poppy-heads, purslace,
+knot-grass and water-lilies. Make injections of goat's milk, rose water,
+clarified whey and honey of roses. When the disease is on a decline, use
+injections of sage, linseed, mugwort, pennyroyal, horehound, fenugreek,
+and anoint the lower parts of the stomach with oil of camomiles and
+violets.
+
+Take four ounces each of lily and mallow roots, a handful of dog's
+mercury, a handful and a half each of mugwort, feverfew, camomile
+flowers and melilot, bruise the herbs and roots, and boil them in a
+sufficient quantity of milk; then add two ounces each of fresh butter,
+oil of camomiles and lilies, with a sufficient quantity of bran, make
+two plasters, and apply one before and the other behind.
+
+If the tumour cannot be removed, but seems inclined to suppurate, take
+three drachms each of fenugreek, mallow roots, boiled figs, linseed,
+barley meal, dove's dung and turpentine; half a drachm of deer's suet,
+half a scruple of opium and make a plaster of wax.
+
+Take bay leaves, sage, hyssop, camomiles, and mugwort, and make an
+infusion in water.
+
+Take half a handful of wormwood and betony and half a pint each of white
+wine and milk, boil them until reduced to half; then take four ounces of
+this decoction and make an injection, but you must be careful that the
+humours are not brought down into the womb. Take three drachms each of
+roast figs, and bruised dog's mercury; three drachms each of turpentine
+and duck's grease, and two grains of opium; make a pessary with wax.
+
+The room must be kept cool, and all motions of the body, especially of
+the lower parts, must be prohibited. Wakefulness is to be recommended,
+for humours are carried inward by sleep, and thus inflammation is
+increased. Eat sparingly, and drink only barley water or clarified whey,
+and eat chickens and chicken broth, boiled with endive, succory, sorrel,
+bugloss and mallows.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+     _Of Scirrhous Tumours, or Hardness of the Womb._
+
+
+A _scirrhus_, or a hard unnatural swelling of the matrix is generally
+produced by neglected, or imperfectly cured phlegm, which, insensibly,
+hinders the functions of the womb, and predisposes the whole body to
+listlessness.
+
+
+
+CAUSE.
+
+One cause of this disease may be ascribed to want of judgment on the
+part of the physician, as many empirics when attending to inflammation
+of the womb, chill the humour so much that it can neither pass backward
+nor forward, and hence, the matter being condensed, turns into a hard,
+stony substance. Other causes may be suppression of the menses,
+retention of the _Lochein_, commonly called the after purging; eating
+decayed meat, as in the disordered longing after the _pleia_ to which
+pregnant women are often subject. It may, however, also proceed from
+obstructions and ulcers in the matrix or from some evil affections of
+the stomach or spleen.
+
+If the bottom of the womb be affected, she feels, as it were, a heavy
+burden representing a mole,[7] yet differing from it, in that the
+breasts are attenuated, and the whole body grows less. If the neck of
+the womb be affected, no outward humours will appear; its mouth is
+retracted and feels hard to the touch, nor can the woman have sexual
+intercourse without great pain.
+
+
+
+PROGNOSTICS.
+
+Confirmed scirrhus is incurable, and will turn to cancer or incurable
+dropsy, and when it ends in cancer it proves fatal, because as the
+innate heat of these parts is almost smothered, it can hardly be
+restored again.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+Where there is repletion, bleeding is advisable, therefore open a vein
+in one arm and in both feet, more especially if the menses are
+suppressed.
+
+Treat the humours with syrup of borage, succory made with a poultice,
+and then take the following pills, according to the patient's strength.
+
+Hiera piera six drachms, two and a half drachms each of black hellebore
+and polypody; a drachm and a half each of agaric, lapis lazuli, sal
+Indiae, coloquintida, mix them and make two pills. After purging,
+mollify the hardness as follows:--the privy parts and the neck of the
+womb with an ointment of decalthea and agrippa; or take two drachms each
+of opopanax, bdellium, ammoniac and myrrh, and half a drachm of saffron;
+dissolve the gum in oil of lilies and sweet almond and make an ointment
+with wax and turpentine. Apply diacatholicon ferellia below the navel,
+and make infusions of figs, mugwort, mallows, pennyroyal, althea, fennel
+roots, melilot, fenugreek and the four mollifying herbs, with oil of
+dill, camomiles and lilies dissolved in it. Take three drachms of gum
+bdellium, put the stone pyrites on the coals, and let her take the fumes
+into her womb. Foment the privy parts with a decoction of the roots and
+leaves of dane wort. Take a drachm each of gum galbanum and opopanax,
+half an ounce each of juice of dane wort and mucilage of fenugreek, an
+ounce of calve's marrow, and a sufficient quantity of wax, and make a
+pessary. Or make a pessary of lead only, dip it in the above mentioned
+things, and put it up.
+
+The atmosphere must be kept temperate, and gross and salt meats such as
+pork, bull beef, fish and old cheese, must be prohibited.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[7] _Mole_: "A somewhat shapeless, compact fleshy mass occurring in the
+uterus, due to the retention and continued life of the whole or a part
+of the foetal envelopes, after the death of the foetus (a _maternal or
+true mole_); or being some other body liable to be mistaken for this, or
+perhaps a polypus or false mole." (_Whitney's Century Dictionary_.)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+     _Of Dropsy of the Womb._
+
+
+Uterine dropsy is an unnatural swelling, caused by the collection of
+wind or phlegm in the cavity, membranes or substance of the womb, on
+account of the want of innate heat and of sufficient alimentation, and
+so it turns into an excrescence. The causes are, too much cold and
+moisture of the milt and liver, immoderate drinking, eating
+insufficiently cooked meat, all of which by causing repletion, overpower
+the natural heat. It may likewise be caused by undue menstruation, or by
+any other immoderate evacuation. To these may be added abortions,
+subcutaneous inflammations and a hardened swelling of the womb.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+The signs of this affection are as follows:--The lower parts of the
+stomach, with the genitals, are swollen and painful; the feet swell, the
+natural colour of the face is lost, the appetite becomes depraved, and
+there is a consequent heaviness of the whole body. If the woman turns
+over in bed a noise like flowing water is heard, and sometimes water is
+discharged from the womb. If the swelling is caused by wind and the
+stomach feels hot, it sounds like a drum; the bowels rumble, and the
+wind escapes through the neck of the womb with a murmuring noise. This
+affection may be distinguished from true conception in many ways, as
+will be shown in the chapter on _conception_. It is distinguished from
+common dropsy, by the lower parts of the stomach being most swollen.
+Again, it does not appear so injurious in this blood-producing
+capability, nor is the urine so pale, nor the face so altered. The upper
+parts are also not so reduced, as in usual dropsy.
+
+
+
+PROGNOSTICS.
+
+This affection foretells the ruin of the natural functions, by that
+peculiar sympathy it has with the liver, and that, therefore,
+_kathydria_, or general dropsy will follow.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+In the cure of this disease, imitate the practice of Hippocrates, and
+first mitigate the pain with fomentations of melilot, dog's mercury,
+mallows, linseed, camomiles and althoea. Then let the womb be prepared
+with syrup of stoebis, hyssop, calamint, mugwort, with distilled water,
+a decoction of elder, marjoram, sage, origan, spearage, pennyroyal, and
+betony. Purge with senna, agaric, rhubarb, and claterium. Take spicierum
+hier, a scruple each of rhubarb, agaric lozenges, and make into pills
+with iris juice.
+
+When diseases arise from moistness, purge with pills, and in those
+affections which are caused by emptiness or dryness, purge by means of a
+draught. Apply cupping glasses to the stomach and also to the navel,
+especially if the swelling be flatulent. Put a seton on to the inside of
+each leg, the width of a hand below the knee. Take two drachms each of
+sparganium, diambrae, diamolet, diacaliminti, diacinamoni, myrrh
+lozenges, and a pound of sugar; make these into lozenges with betony
+water, and take them two hours before meals. Apply a little bag of
+camomiles, cummin and melilot boiled in oil of rue, to the bottom of the
+stomach as hot as it can be borne; anoint the stomach and the privates
+with unguent agripp, and unguent aragon. Mix iris oil with it, and cover
+the lower part of the stomach with a plaster of bay berries, or a
+cataplasm made of cummin, camomiles, briony root, adding cows' and
+goats' dung.
+
+Our modern medical writers ascribe great virtues to tobacco-water,
+injected into the womb by means of a clyster. Take a handful each of
+balm of southernwood, origanum, wormwood, calamint, bay berries and
+marjoram, and four drachms of juniper berries; make a decoction of these
+in water, and use this for fomentations and infusions. Make pessaries of
+storax, aloes, with the roots of dictam, aristolochia and gentian, but
+instead of this you may use the pessary prescribed at the end of Chapter
+XVII. Let her take aromatic electuary, disatyrion and candied eringo
+roots, every morning.
+
+The air must be hot and dry, moderate exercise is to be taken and too
+much sleep prohibited. She may eat the flesh of partridges, larks,
+grouse, hares, rabbits, etc., and let her drink diluted urine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+     _Of Moles[8] and False Conceptions._
+
+
+This disease may be defined as an inarticulate shapeless piece of flesh,
+begotten in the womb as if it were true conception. In this definition
+we must note two things: (1) because a mole is said to be inarticulate
+or jointless, and without shape, it differs from monstrosities which are
+both _formata_ and _articulata_; (2) it is said to be, as it were a true
+conception, which makes a difference between a true conception, and a
+mole, and this difference holds good in three ways. First, in its genus,
+because a mole cannot be said to be an animal: secondly, in the species,
+because it has not a human figure and has not the character of a man;
+thirdly, in the individual, for it has no affinity to the parent, either
+in the whole body, or in any particular part of it.
+
+
+
+CAUSE.
+
+There is a great difference of opinion amongst learned writers as to the
+cause of this affection. Some think, that if the woman's seed goes into
+the womb, and not the man's, that the mole is produced thereby. Others
+declare that it springs from the menstruous blood, but if these two
+things were granted, then virgins, by having their courses or through
+nocturnal pollutions, might be liable to the same things, which none
+have ever been yet. The true cause of this fleshy mole is due both to
+the man and from the menstruous blood in the woman both mixing together
+in the cavity of the womb. Nature finding herself weak there (and yet
+wishing to propagate her species), labours to bring forth a defective
+conception rather than nothing and instead of a living creature produces
+a lump of flesh.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+The signs of a mole are these. The _menses_ are suppressed, the appetite
+becomes depraved, the breasts swell and the stomach becomes inflated and
+hard. So far the symptoms in a pregnant woman and in one that has a mole
+are the same, but now this is how they differ. The first sign of
+difference is in the movements of a mole. It may be felt moving in the
+womb before the third month, whereas an infant cannot be so felt; yet
+this motion cannot proceed from any intelligent power in the mole, but
+from the capabilities of the womb, and of the seminal vigour,
+distributed through the substance of the mole, for it does not live an
+animal, but a vegetable life, like a plant. _Secondly_, in a mole the
+stomach swells suddenly, but in true conception it is first contracted,
+and then rises by degrees. _Thirdly_, if the stomach is pressed with the
+hand, the mole gives way, and returns to its former position as soon as
+the hand is removed. But a child in the womb does not move immediately
+though pressed with the hand, and when the hand is removed it returns
+slowly or not at all. _Lastly_, no child continues in the womb more than
+eleven months, but a mole continues for four or five years, more or
+less, sometimes according as it is fastened to the matrix; and I have
+known a mole pass away in four or five months. If, however, it remains
+until the eleventh month, the woman's legs grow weak and the whole body
+wastes away, but the stomach still increases, which makes some women
+think that they are dropsical, though there is no reason for it, for in
+dropsy the legs swell and grow big, but in a mole they wither and fall
+away.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+In the school of Hippocrates we are taught that bleeding causes
+abortion, by taking all the nourishment which should preserve the life
+of the embryo. In order, therefore, that this faulty conception may be
+deprived of that nourishing sap by which it lives, open the liver vein
+and saphena in both feet, apply cupping glasses to the loins and sides
+of the stomach, and when that has been done, let the uterine parts be
+first softened, and then the expulsive powers be stimulated to get rid
+of the burden.
+
+In order to relax the ligatures of the mole, take three handfuls of
+mallows with their roots, two handfuls each of camomiles, melilot,
+pellitory of the wall, violet leaves, dog's mercury, fennel roots,
+parsley, and one pound each of linseed and fenugreek; boil them in oil
+and let the patient sit in it up to her navel. When she comes out of her
+bath, she should anoint her private parts and loins with the following
+ointment:--"Take one ounce each of oil of camomiles, lilies and sweet
+almonds: half an ounce each of fresh butter, laudanum and ammoniac, and
+make an ointment with oil of lilies. Or, instead of this, you may use
+unguentum agrippae or dialthea. Take a handful of dog's mercury and
+althea roots; half a handful of flos brochae ursini; six ounces of
+linseed and barley meal. Boil all these together in honey and water and
+make a plaster, and make pessaries of gum galbanum, bdellium, ammoniac,
+figs, pig's fat and honey.
+
+After the ligaments of the mole are loosened, let the expulsive powers
+be stimulated to expel the mole, and for doing this, all those drugs may
+be used which are adapted to bring on the courses. Take one ounce of
+myrrh lozenges, half an ounce each of castor, astrolachia, gentian and
+dittany and make them into a powder, and take one drachm in four ounces
+of mugwort water. Take calamint, pennyroyal, betony, hyssop, sage,
+horehound, valerian, madder and savine; make a decoction in water and
+take three ounces of it, with one and a half ounces of feverfew. Take
+three scruples each of mugwort, myrrh, gentian and pill. coch.; a drachm
+each of rue, pennyroyal and opopanax, and the same of asafoetida,
+cinnamon, juniper-berries and borage, and make into pills with savine
+juice, to be taken every morning. Make an infusion of hyssop, bay
+leaves, bay berries, calamint, camomiles, mugwort and savine. Take two
+scruples each of sacopenium, mugwort, savine, cloves, nutmeg, bay
+berries; one drachm of galbanum; one scruple each of hiera piera and
+black hellebore, and make a pessary with turpentine.
+
+But if these medicaments are not procurable, then the mole must be
+pulled out by means of an instrument called the _pes gryphis_,[9] which
+may be done without much danger if it be performed by a skilful surgeon.
+After she has been delivered of the mole (because the woman will have
+lost much blood already), let the flow of blood be stopped as soon as
+possible.
+
+Apply cupping glasses to the shoulders and ligatures to the arms, and if
+this be not effective, open the liver vein in the arm.
+
+The atmosphere of the room must be kept tolerably dry and warm, and she
+must be put on a dry diet, to soothe the system; she must, however,
+drink white wine.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] _Mole_: "A somewhat shapeless, compact fleshy mass occurring in the
+uterus, due to the retention and continued life of the whole or a part
+of the foetal envelopes, after the death of the foetus (_a maternal or
+true mole_); or being some other body liable to be mistaken for this, or
+perhaps a polypus or false mole." (_Whitney's Century Dictionary_.)
+
+[9] _Griffin's claw_, a peculiar hooked instrument.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+     _Of Conception and its Signs, and How a Woman may know whether it
+     be Male or Female._
+
+
+Ignorance often makes women the murderesses of the fruit of their own
+body, for many, having conceived and finding themselves out of order,
+and not rightly knowing the cause, go to the shop of their own conceit
+and take whatever they think fit, or else (as the custom is) they send
+to the doctor for a remedy, and he, not perceiving the cause of their
+trouble, for nothing can be diagnosed accurately by the urine,
+prescribes what he thinks best; perhaps some diuretic or cathartic,
+which destroy the embryo. Therefore Hippocrates says, it is necessary
+that women should be instructed in the signs of conception, so that the
+parent as well as the child may be saved from danger. I shall,
+therefore, lay down some rules, by which every woman may know whether
+she is pregnant or not, and the signs will be taken from the woman, from
+her urine, from the child and from experiments.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+The first day after conception, she feels a slight quivering and
+chilliness throughout her body; there is a tickling of the womb and a
+little pain in the lower parts of her stomach. Ten or twelve days after
+she feels giddy and her eyes dim and with circles round them; the
+breasts swell and grow hard, with some pain and pricking in them, whilst
+the stomach rises and sinks again by degrees, and there is a hardness
+about the navel. The nipples grow red, the heart beats unusually
+strongly, the natural appetite abates, and the woman has a craving after
+strange food. The neck of the womb is contracted, so that it can
+scarcely be felt when the finger is put in. And the following is an
+infallible sign; she is alternately in high spirits and melancholy; the
+monthly courses cease without any apparent cause, the evacuations from
+the bowels are retained unusually long, by the womb pressing on the
+large gut, and her desire for sexual intercourse is diminished. The
+surest sign is taken from the infant, which begins to move in the womb
+in the third or fourth month, and not in the manner of a mole, mentioned
+above, from side to side like a stone, but gently, as may be perceived
+by applying the hand cold upon the stomach.
+
+
+
+SIGNS TAKEN FROM THE URINE.
+
+The best writers affirm that the water of a pregnant woman is white and
+has little specks in it, like those in a sunbeam, ascending and
+descending in it, of an opal colour, and when the sediment is disturbed
+by shaking the urine, it looks like carded wool. In the middle of
+gestation it turns yellow, then red and lastly black, with a red film.
+At night on going to bed, let her drink water and honey, and if
+afterwards she feels a beating pain in her stomach and about the navel,
+she has conceived. Or let her take the juice of cardius, and if she
+brings it up again, that is a sign of conception. Throw a clean needle
+into the woman's urine, put it into a basin and let it stand all night.
+If it is covered with red spots in the morning, she has conceived, but
+if it has turned black and rusty, she has not.
+
+
+
+SIGNS TAKEN FROM THE SEX, TO SHOW WHETHER IT BE A MALE OR FEMALE.
+
+If it is a male, the right breast swells first, the right eye is
+brighter than the left, the face is high-coloured, because the colour is
+such as the blood is, and as the male is conceived of purer blood and of
+more perfect seed than the female, red specks in the urine, and making a
+sediment, show that a male has been conceived, but if they are white, a
+female. Put the urine of the woman into a glass bottle, let it stand
+tightly stoppered for two days, then strain it through a fine cloth,
+and you will find little animals in it. If they are red, it is a male,
+but if white, it is a female.
+
+The belly is rounder and lies higher with a boy than with a girl, and
+the right breast is harder and plumper than the left, and the right
+nipple redder, and the woman's colour is clearer than when she has
+conceived a girl.
+
+To conclude, the most certain sign to give credit to, is the motion of
+the child, for the male moves in the third month, and the female not
+until the fourth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+     _Of Untimely Births._
+
+
+When the fruit of the womb comes forth before the seventh month (that
+is, before it comes to maturity), it is said to be abortive; and, in
+effect, the children prove abortive, that is, do not live, that are born
+in the eighth month. Why children born in the seventh or ninth month
+should live, and not those born in the eighth, may seem strange, and yet
+it is true. The cause of it is ascribed by some to the planet under
+which the child is born; for every month, from conception to birth, is
+governed by its own planet, and in the eighth month Saturn predominates,
+which is dry and cold; and coldness, being an utter enemy to life,
+destroys the natural constitution of the child. Hippocrates gives a
+better reason, viz.:--The infant, being every way perfect and complete
+in the seventh month, wants more air and nourishment than it had before,
+and because it cannot obtain this, it tries for a passage out. But if it
+have not sufficient strength to break the membranes and to come out as
+ordained by nature, it will continue in the womb until the ninth month,
+so that by that time it may be again strengthened. But if it returns to
+the attempt in the eighth month and be born, it cannot live, because the
+day of its birth is either past or is to come. For in the eighth month
+Avicunus says, it is weak and infirm, and therefore on being brought
+into the cold air, its vitality must be destroyed.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+Untimely births may be caused by cold, for as it causes the fruit of the
+tree to wither and fall before it is ripe, so it nips the fruit of the
+womb before it comes to perfection, or makes it abortive;--sometimes by
+humidity, which weakens its power, so that the fruit cannot be retained
+until the proper time. It may be caused by dryness or emptiness, which
+rob the child of its nourishment, or by an alvine discharge, by bleeding
+or some other evacuation, by inflammation of the womb, and other severe
+disease. Sometimes it is caused by joy, anger, laughter and especially
+by fear, for then the heat forsakes the womb, and goes to the heart, and
+so the cold sinks into the womb, whereby the ligaments are relaxed, and
+so abortion follows. On this account, Plato recommended that the woman
+should avoid all temptations to excessive joy and pleasure, as well as
+all occasions for fear and grief. Abortion may also be caused by the
+pollution of the air by filthy odours, and especially by the smell of
+the smouldering wick of a candle, and also by falls, blows, violent
+exercise, jumping, dancing, etc.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+Signs of coming abortion are a falling away of the breast, with a flow
+of watery milk, pains in the womb, heaviness in the head, unusual
+weariness in the hips and thighs, and a flowing of the courses. Signs
+denoting that the fruit is dead in the womb are sunken eyes, pains in
+the head, frights, paleness of the face and lips, gnawing at the
+stomach, no movements of the infant; coldness and looseness of the
+mouth of the womb. The stomach falls down, whilst watery and bloody
+discharges come from the womb.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+     _Directions for Pregnant Women._
+
+
+The prevention of untimely births consists in removing the
+aforementioned causes, which must be effected both before and after
+conception.
+
+Before conception, if the body be too hot, dry or moist, employ such
+treatment as to counteract the symptoms; if the blood be vitiated purify
+it, if plethoric, open the liver vein; if gross, reduce it; if too thin
+strengthen and nourish it. All the diseases of the womb must be removed
+as I have shown.
+
+After conception, let the atmosphere be kept temperate, do not sleep too
+much, avoid late hours, too much bodily exercise, mental excitement,
+loud noises and bad smells, and sweet smells must also be avoided by
+those who are hysterical. Refrain from all things that may provoke
+either urine or menstruation, also salt, sour, and windy food, and keep
+to a moderate diet.
+
+If the bowels are confined, relieve the stomach with injections made of
+a decoction of mallows and violets, with sugar and salad oil; or make a
+broth with borage, buglos, beetroot, and mallows, and add a little manna
+to it. If, on the other hand, she be troubled with looseness of the
+bowels, do not check it with medical advice, for all the uterine fluxes
+have some bad qualities in them, which must be evacuated before the
+discharge is stopped.
+
+A cough is another thing to which pregnant women are frequently liable,
+and which causes them to run great danger of miscarrying, by the shock
+and continual drain upon the vein. To prevent this shave off the hair
+from the coronal commissures, and apply the following plaster to the
+place.
+
+Take half an ounce of resin, a drachm of laudanum, a drachm each of
+citron peel, lignaloes and galbanum, with a sufficient quantity of
+liquid and dry styrax. Dissolve the gum in vinegar and make a plaster,
+and at night let her inhale the fumes of these lozenges, thrown upon
+bright coals. Take also a drachm and a half each of frankincense, styrax
+powder and red roses: eight drachms of sandrich, a drachm each of
+mastic, benjamin and amber; make into lozenges with turpentine, and
+apply a cautery to the nape of the neck. And every night let her take
+the following pills:--Half an ounce each of hypocistides, terrae
+sigilatae and fine bole; two drachms each of bistort, alcatia, styrax
+and calamint, and one drachm of cloves, and make into pills with syrup
+of myrtles.
+
+In pregnant women, a corrupt matter is generated which, flowing to the
+ventricle, spoils the appetite and causes sickness. As the stomach is
+weak, and cannot digest this matter, it sometimes sends it to the bowels
+which causes a flux of the stomach, which greatly adds to the weakness
+of the womb. To prevent all these dangers the stomach must be
+strengthened by the following means:--Take one drachm each of lignaloes
+and nutmeg; a scruple each of mace, cloves, mastic, laudanum; an ounce
+of oil of spikenard; two grains of musk, half an ounce each of oil of
+mastic, quinces and wormwood, and make into an ointment for the stomach,
+to be applied before meals. Instead of this, however, you may use
+cerocum stomachile Galeni. Take half an ounce each of conserve of
+borage, buglos and atthos; two drachms each of confection of hyacinths,
+candied lemon peel, specierum, diamarg, pulo. de genunis: two scruples
+each of nutmeg and diambra; two drachma each of peony roots and
+diacoratum, and make into an electuary with syrup of roses, which she
+must take twice a day before meals. Another affection which troubles a
+pregnant woman is swelling of the legs, which happens during the first
+three months, by the superfluous humours descending from the stomach and
+liver. To cure this, take two drachms of oil of roses, and one drachm
+each of salt and vinegar; shake them together until the salt is
+dissolved, and anoint the legs with it hot, rubbing it well in with the
+hand. It may be done without danger during the fourth, fifth and sixth
+months of pregnancy; for a child in the womb is compared to an apple on
+the tree. For the first three months it is a weak and tender subject,
+like the apple, to fall away; but afterwards, when the membranes become
+strengthened, the fruit remains firmly fastened to the womb, and not
+subject to mischances, and so it remains, until the seventh month, until
+when it is near the time, the ligaments are again relaxed (like the
+apple that is almost ripe).
+
+They grow looser every day, until the appointed time for delivery; if,
+therefore, the body is in real need of purging, the woman may do it
+without danger in the fourth, fifth or sixth month, but neither before
+nor after that unless in the case of some violent illness, in which it
+is possible that both mother and child may perish. Apply plasters and
+ointments to the loins in order to strengthen the fruit in the womb.
+Take one drachm each of gum Arabic, galangale, bistort, hypocistid and
+storax, a drachm and a half each of fine bole, nutmeg, mastic, balaust,
+dragon's blood and myrtle berries, and a sufficient quantity of wax and
+turpentine and make into a plaster. Apply it to the loins in the winter,
+and remove it every twenty-four hours, lest the loins should become
+overheated by it. In the interim, anoint the private parts and loins
+with _countess' balsam_ but if it be summer time and the loins hot, the
+following plaster will be more suitable. Take a pound of red roses, two
+drachms each of mastic and red Sanders, one drachm each of bole ammoniac
+and red coral, two drachms and a half each of pomegranate seed and
+prepared coriander seed, two scruples of barberries, one ounce each of
+oil of mastic and of quinces, and plantain-juice.
+
+Anoint the loins also with sandalwood ointment, and once a week wash
+them with two parts of rose-water and one of white wine mixed together
+and warmed at the fire. This will assuage the heat of the loins, get rid
+of the oil of the plaster from the pores of the skin, and cause the
+fresh ointment or plaster to penetrate more easily, and to strengthen
+the womb. Some think that a load-stone laid upon the navel, keeps a
+woman from abortion. The same thing is also stated of the stone called
+_aetites_ or eagle-stone, if it is hung round the neck. Samian stone has
+the same virtue.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+     _Directions for Women when they are taken in Labour, to ensure
+     their safe Delivery, and Directions for Midwives._
+
+
+Having thus given the necessary directions to pregnant women, how to
+manage their health during their pregnancy, I will now add what is
+necessary for them to do, in order that they may be safely delivered.
+
+When the time of birth draws near, the woman must be sure to send for a
+skilful midwife, and that rather too soon than too late. She must have a
+pallet bed ready to place it near the fire, so that the midwife and
+those who are to help her, may be able to pass round it, and give
+assistance on either side, as may be required. A change of linen must be
+in readiness, and a small stool to rest her feet against, as she will
+have more power when her legs are bent, than when they are straight.
+
+When everything is thus ready, and when the woman feels the pains coming
+on, if the weather be not cold, she should walk about the room, rest on
+the bed occasionally, waiting for the breaking of the waters, which is a
+fluid contained in one of the outward membranes, and which flows out
+thence, when the membrane is broken by the struggles of the child. There
+is no special time for this discharge, though it generally takes place
+about two hours before the birth. Movements will also cause the womb to
+open and dilate, and when lying long in bed will be uncomfortable. If
+she be very weak she may take some mild cordial to give her strength, if
+her pain will permit her; and if the labour be tedious, she may be
+revived with chicken or mutton broth, or she may take a poached egg; but
+she must be very careful not to eat to excess.
+
+There are many postures in which women are delivered; some sitting in a
+chair, supported by others, or resting on the bed; some again upon their
+knees and resting on their arms; but the safest and most commodious way,
+is in the bed, and then the midwife ought to observe the following
+rules:--Let her lay the woman upon her back, with her head a little
+raised by means of a pillow, with similar supports for her loins and
+buttocks, which latter should also be raised, for if she lies low, she
+cannot be delivered so easily. Then let her keep her knees and thighs as
+far apart as she can, her legs bent inward towards each other, and her
+buttocks, the soles of her feet and her heels being placed upon a small
+rest, placed for the purpose, so that she may be able to strain the
+stronger. In case her back should be very weak, a swathing band should
+be placed under it, the band being doubled four times and about four
+inches broad. This must be held by two persons who must raise her up a
+little every time her pains come on, with steady hands and in even time,
+but if they be not exact in their movements, they had better leave her
+alone. At the same time two women must hold her shoulders so that she
+may strain out the foetus more easily; and to facilitate this let one
+stroke or press the upper part of her stomach gently and by degrees. The
+woman herself must not be nervous or downhearted, but courageous, and
+forcing herself by straining and holding her breath.
+
+When delivery is near, the midwife must wait patiently until the child's
+head, or some limb, bursts the membranes, for if the midwife through
+ignorance, or through haste to go to some other woman, as some have
+done, tears the membrane with her nails, she endangers both the woman
+and the child; for by lying dry and lacking that slipperiness which
+should make it easy, it comes forth with severe pains.
+
+When the head appears, the midwife must hold it gently between her
+hands, and draw the child, whenever the woman's pains are upon her, but
+at no other times; slipping her forefingers under its armpits by
+degrees, and not using a rough hand in drawing it out, lest the tender
+infant might become deformed by such means. As soon as the child is
+taken out, which is usually with its face downwards,--it should be laid
+upon its back, that it may receive external respiration more freely;
+then cut the navel string about three inches from the body, tying the
+end which adheres to it with a silk string, as closely as you can; then
+cover the child's head and stomach well, allowing nothing to touch its
+face.
+
+When the child has been thus brought forth, if it be healthy lay it
+aside, and let the midwife attend to the patient by drawing out the
+afterbirth; and this she may do by wagging and stirring it up and down,
+and afterwards drawing it out gently. And if the work be difficult, let
+the woman hold salt in her hands, close them tightly and breathe hard
+into them, and by that she will know whether the membranes are broken or
+not. It may also be known by making her strain or vomit; by putting her
+fingers down her throat, or by straining or moving her lower parts, but
+let all be done immediately. If this should fail, let her take a draught
+of elder water, or the yolk of a new laid egg, and smell a piece of
+asafoetida, especially if she is troubled with a windy colic. If she
+happen to take cold, it is a great obstruction to the afterbirth; in
+such cases the midwife ought to chafe the woman's stomach gently, so as
+to break, not only the wind, but also to force the secundine to come
+down. But if these should prove ineffectual, the midwife must insert her
+hand into the orifice of the womb and draw it out gently.
+
+Having thus discussed common births, or such as are generally easy, I
+shall now give directions in cases of extremity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+     _What ought to be done in cases of extremity, especially in women
+     who, in labour, are attacked by a flux of blood, convulsions and
+     fits of wind._
+
+
+If the woman's labour be hard and difficult, greater care must be taken
+than at other times. And, first of all, the situation of the womb and
+her position in lying must be across the bed, and she must be held by
+strong persons to prevent her from slipping down or moving during the
+surgeon's operations. Her thighs must be put as far apart as possible,
+and held so, whilst her head must rest upon a bolster, and her loins be
+supported in the same manner. After her rump and buttocks have been
+raised, be careful to cover her stomach, belly and thighs with warm
+clothes, to keep them from the cold.
+
+When the woman is in this position, let the operator put up his or her
+hand, if the neck of the womb be dilated, and remove the coagulated
+blood that obstructs the passage of the birth; and by degrees make way
+gently, let him remove the infant tenderly, having first anointed his
+hand with butter or some harmless salve. And if the waters have not come
+down, they may then be let out without difficulty. Then, if the infant
+should attempt to come out head foremost, or crosswise, he should turn
+it gently, to find the feet. Having done this, let him draw out one and
+fasten it with ribbon and then put it up again, and by degrees find the
+other, bringing them as close together and as even as possible, and
+between whiles let the woman breathe, and she should be urged to strain
+so as to help nature in the birth, that it may be brought forth. And to
+do this more easily, and that the hold may be surer, wrap a linen cloth
+round the child's thighs, taking care to bring it into the hand face
+downwards.
+
+In case of flux of blood, if the neck of the womb be open, it must be
+considered whether the infant or the _secundine_, generally called the
+afterbirth, comes first, and as the latter happens to do so
+occasionally, it stops the mouth of the womb and hinders the birth, and
+endangers both the woman's and the child's life. In this case the
+afterbirth must be removed by a quick turn. They have deceived many
+people, who, feeling their softness, have supposed that the womb was not
+dilated, and by that means the woman and child, or at least the latter,
+have been lost. When the afterbirth has been removed, the child must be
+sought for and drawn out, as directed above; and if the woman or the
+child die in such a case, the midwife or the surgeon are blameless
+because they have used their best endeavours.
+
+If it appears upon examination that the afterbirth comes first, let the
+woman be delivered as quickly as possible, because a great flow of blood
+will follow, for the veins are opened, and on this account two things
+have to be considered.
+
+_First_:--The manner in which the afterbirth advances, whether it be
+much or little. If the former, and the head of the child appears first,
+it may be guided and directed towards the neck of the womb, as in the
+case of natural birth, but if there appears any difficulty in the
+delivery, the best way is to look for the feet, and draw it out by them;
+but if the latter, the afterbirth may be put back with a gentle hand,
+and the child taken out first. But if the afterbirth has come so far
+forward that it cannot be put back, and the child follows it closely,
+then the afterbirth must be removed very carefully, and as quickly as
+may be, and laid aside without cutting the entrail that is fastened to
+it; for you may be guided to the infant by it, which must be drawn out
+by the feet, whether it be alive or dead, as quickly as possible; though
+this is not to be done except in cases of great necessity, for in other
+cases the afterbirth ought to come last.
+
+In drawing out a dead child, these directions should be carefully
+followed by the surgeon, viz.--If the child be found to be dead, its
+head appearing first, the delivery will be more difficult; for it is an
+evident sign that the woman's strength is beginning to fail her, that,
+as the child is dead and has no natural power, it cannot be assisting in
+its own delivery in any way. Therefore the most certain and the safest
+way for the surgeon is, to put up his left hand, sliding it into the
+neck of the womb, and into the lower part of it towards the feet, as
+hollow in the palm as he can, and then between the head of the infant
+and the neck of the womb. Then, having a forceps in the right hand, slip
+it up above the left hand, between the head of the child and the flat of
+the hand, fixing it in the bars of the temple near the eye. As these
+cannot be got at easily in the occipital bone, be careful still to keep
+the hand in its place, and gently move the head with it, and so with the
+right hand and the forceps draw the child forward, and urge the woman to
+exert all her strength, and continue drawing whenever her pains come on.
+When the head is drawn out, he must immediately slip his hand under the
+child's armpits, and take it quite out, and give the woman a piece of
+toasted white bread, in a quarter of a pint of Hippocras wine.
+
+If the former application fails let the woman take the following potion
+hot when she is in bed, and remain quiet until she begins to feel it
+operating.
+
+Take seven blue figs, cut them into pieces and add five grains each of
+fenugreek, motherwort and rue seed, with six ounces each of water of
+pennyroyal and motherwort; reduce it to half the quantity by boiling and
+after straining add one drachm of troches of myrrh and three grains of
+saffron; sweeten the liquor with loaf sugar, and spice it with
+cinnamon.--After having rested on this, let her strain again as much as
+possible, and if she be not successful, make a fumigation of half a
+drachm each of castor, opopanax, sulphur and asafoetida, pounding them
+into a powder and wetting the juice of rue, so that the smoke or fumes
+may go only into the matrix and no further.
+
+If this have not the desired effect, then the following plaster should
+be applied:--Take an ounce and a half of balganum, two drachms of
+colocynth, half an ounce each of the juice of motherwort and of rue, and
+seven ounces of virgin bees' wax: pound and melt them together,
+spreading them on a cere-cloth so that they may spread from the navel to
+the os pubis and extending to the flanks, at the same time making a
+pessary of wood, enclosing it in a silk bag, and dipping it in a
+decoction of one drachm each of sound birthwort, savin colocinthis,
+stavescare and black hellebore, with a small sprig or two of rue.
+
+But if these things have not the desired effect, and the woman's danger
+increases, let the surgeon use his instruments to dilate and widen the
+womb, for which purpose the woman must be placed on a chair, so that she
+may turn her buttocks as far from its back as possible, at the same time
+drawing up her legs as close as she can and spreading her thighs open as
+wide as possible; or if she is very weak it may be better to lay her on
+the bed with her head downwards, her buttocks raised and both legs drawn
+up. Then the surgeon may dilate the womb with his speculum matrices and
+draw out the child and the afterbirth together, if it be possible, and
+when this is done, the womb must be well washed and anointed, and the
+woman put back to bed and comforted with spices and cordials. This
+course must be adopted in the case of dead children and moles,
+afterbirths and false births, which will not come out of themselves, at
+the proper time. If the aforementioned instrument will not widen the
+womb sufficiently, then other instruments, such as the drake's bill, or
+long pincers, ought to be used.
+
+If any inflammation, swelling or congealed blood happens to be
+contracted in the womb under the film of these tumours, either before or
+after the birth, let the midwife lance it with a penknife or any
+suitable instrument, and squeeze out the matter, healing it with a
+pessary dipped in oil of red roses.
+
+If the child happens at any time to be swollen through cold or violence,
+or has contracted a watery humour, if it is alive, such means must be
+used as are least injurious to the child or mother; but if it be dead,
+the humours must be let out by incisions, to facilitate the birth.
+
+If, as often happens, the child is presented feet foremost, with the
+hands spreading out from the hips, the midwife must in such a case be
+provided with the necessary ointments to rub and anoint the child with,
+to help it coming forth, lest it should turn into the womb again,
+holding both the infant's arms close to the hips at the same time, that
+it may come out in this manner; but if it proves too big, the womb must
+be well anointed. The woman should also take a sneezing powder, to make
+her strain; the attendant may also stroke her stomach gently to make the
+birth descend, and to keep it from returning.
+
+It happens occasionally, that the child presenting itself with the feet
+first, has its arms extended above its head; but the midwife must not
+receive it so, but put it back into the womb, unless the passage be
+extraordinarily wide, and then she must anoint both the child and the
+womb, and it is not safe to draw it out, which must, therefore, be done
+in this manner.--The woman must lie on her back with her head low and
+her buttocks raised; and then the midwife must compress the stomach and
+the womb with a gentle hand, and by that means put the child back,
+taking care to turn the child's face towards the mother's back, raising
+up its thighs and buttocks towards the navel, so that the birth may be
+more natural.
+
+If the child happens to come out with one foot, with the arm extended
+along the side and the other foot turned backwards; then the woman must
+be immediately put to bed and laid in the above-described position; when
+the midwife must immediately put back the foot which appears so, and the
+woman must rock herself from side to side, until she finds that the
+child has turned, but she must not alter her position nor turn upon her
+face. After this she may expect her pains and must have great assistance
+and cordials so as to revive and support her spirits.
+
+At other times it happens that the child lies across in the womb, and
+falls upon its side; in this case the woman must not be urged in her
+labour; therefore, the midwife when she finds it so, must use great
+diligence to reduce it to its right form, or at least to such a form in
+the womb as may make the delivery possible and most easy by moving the
+buttocks and guiding the head to the passage; and if she be successful
+in this, let the woman rock herself to and fro, and wait with patience
+till it alters its way of lying.
+
+Sometimes the child hastens simply by expanding its legs and arms; in
+which, as in the former case, the woman must rock herself, but not with
+violence, until she finds those parts fall to their proper station; or
+it may be done by a gentle compression of the womb; but if neither of
+them avail, the midwife must close the legs of the infant with her hand,
+and if she can get there, do the like by the arms, and so draw it forth;
+but if it can be reduced of itself to the posture of a proper birth it
+is better.
+
+If the infant comes forward, both knees forward, and the hands hanging
+down upon the thighs, then the midwife must put both knees upward, till
+the feet appear; taking hold of which with her left hand let her keep
+her right hand on the side of the child, and in that posture endeavour
+to bring it forth. But if she cannot do this, then also the woman must
+rock herself until the child is in a more convenient posture for
+delivery.
+
+Sometimes it happens that the child presses forward with one arm
+extended on its thighs, and the other raised over its head, and the feet
+stretched out at length in the womb. In such case, the midwife must not
+attempt to receive the child in that posture, but must lay the woman on
+the bed in the manner aforesaid, making a soft and gentle compression on
+her belly, oblige the child to retire; which if it does not, then must
+the midwife thrust it back by the shoulder, and bring the arm that was
+stretched above the head to its right station; for there is most danger
+in these extremities; and, therefore, the midwife must anoint her hands
+and the womb of the woman with sweet butter, or a proper pomatum, and
+thrust her hand as near as she can to the arm of the infant, and bring
+it to the side. But if this cannot be done, let the woman be laid on the
+bed to rest a while; in which time, perhaps, the child may be reduced to
+a better posture; which the midwife finding, she must draw tenderly the
+arms close to the hips and so receive it.
+
+If an infant come with its buttocks foremost, and almost double, then
+the midwife must anoint her hand and thrust it up, and gently heaving up
+the buttocks and back, strive to turn the head to the passage, but not
+too hastily, lest the infant's retiring should shape it worse: and
+therefore, if it cannot be turned with the hand, the woman must rock
+herself on the bed, taking such comfortable things as may support her
+spirits, till she perceives the child to turn.
+
+If the child's neck be bowed, and it comes forward with its shoulders,
+as it sometimes doth, with the hands and feet stretched upwards, the
+midwife must gently move the shoulders, that she may direct the head to
+the passage; and the better to effect it, the woman must rock herself as
+aforesaid.
+
+These and other like methods are to be observed in case a woman hath
+twins, or three children at a birth, which sometimes happens: for as
+the single birth hath but one natural and many unnatural forms, even so
+it may be in a double and treble birth.
+
+Wherefore, in all such cases the midwife must take care to receive the
+first which is nearest the passage; but not letting the other go, lest
+by retiring it should change the form; and when one is born, she must be
+speedy in bringing forth the other. And this birth, if it be in the
+natural way, is more easy, because the children are commonly less than
+those of single birth, and so require a less passage. But if this birth
+come unnaturally, it is far more dangerous than the other.
+
+In the birth of twins, let the midwife be very careful that the
+secundine be naturally brought forth, lest the womb, being delivered of
+its burden, fall, and so the secundine continue longer there than is
+consistent with the woman's safety.
+
+But if one of the twins happens to come with the head, and the other
+with the feet foremost, then let the midwife deliver the natural birth
+first; and if she cannot turn the other, draw it out in the posture in
+which it presses forward; but if that with its feet downward be
+foremost, she may deliver that first, turning the other aside. But in
+this case the midwife must carefully see that it be not a monstrous
+birth, instead of twins, a body with two heads, or two bodies joined
+together, which she may soon know if both the heads come foremost, by
+putting up her hand between them as high as she can; and then, if she
+finds they are twins she may gently put one of them aside to make way
+for the other, taking the first which is most advanced, leaving the
+other so that it do not change its position. And for the safety of the
+other child, as soon as it comes forth out of the womb, the midwife must
+tie the navel-string, as has before been directed, and also bind, with a
+large, long fillet, that part of the navel which is fastened to the
+secundine, the more readily to find it.
+
+The second infant being born, let the midwife carefully examine whether
+there be not two secundines, for sometimes it falls out, that by the
+shortness of the ligaments it retires back to the prejudice of the
+woman. Wherefore, lest the womb should close, it is most expedient to
+hasten them forth with all convenient speed.
+
+If two infants are joined together by the body, as sometimes it
+monstrously falls out, then, though the head should come foremost, yet
+it is proper, if possible, to turn them and draw them forth by the feet,
+observing, when they come to the hips, to draw them out as soon as may
+be. And here great care ought to be used in anointing and widening the
+passage. But these sort of births rarely happening, I need to say the
+less of them, and, therefore, shall show how women should be ordered
+after delivery.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+     _How child-bearing Women ought to be ordered after Delivery._
+
+
+If a woman has had very hard labour, it is necessary that she should be
+wrapped up in a sheep's skin, taken off before it is cold, applying the
+fleshy side to her veins and belly, or, for want of this, the skin of a
+hare or coney, flayed off as soon as killed, may be applied to the same
+parts, and in so doing, a dilation being made in the birth, and the
+melancholy blood being expelled in these parts, continue these for an
+hour or two.
+
+Let the woman afterwards be swathed with fine linen cloth, about a
+quarter of a yard in breadth, chafing the belly before it is swathed,
+with oil of St. John's wort; after that raise up the matrix with a linen
+cloth, many times folded: then with a linen pillar or quilt, cover the
+flanks, and place the swathe somewhat above the haunches, winding it
+pretty stiff, applying at the same time a linen cloth to her nipples; do
+not immediately use the remedies to keep back the milk, by reason the
+body, at such a time, is out of frame; for there is neither vein nor
+artery which does not strongly beat; and remedies to drive back the
+milk, being of a dissolving nature, it is improper to apply them to the
+breasts during such disorder, lest by doing so, evil humours be
+contracted in the breast. Wherefore, twelve hours at least ought to be
+allowed for the circulation and settlement of the blood, and what was
+cast on the lungs by the vehement agitation during labour, to retire to
+its proper receptacles.
+
+Some time after delivery, you may take a restrictive of the yolks of two
+eggs, and a quarter of a pint of white wine, oil of St. John's wort, oil
+of roses, plantain and roses water, of each an ounce, mix them together,
+fold a linen cloth and apply it to the breast, and the pains of those
+parts will be greatly eased.
+
+She must by no means sleep directly after delivery; but about four hours
+after, she may take broth, caudle or such liquid victuals as are
+nourishing; and if she be disposed to sleep it may be very safely
+permitted. And this is as much, in the case of a natural birth, as ought
+immediately to be done.
+
+But in case of an extremity or an unnatural birth, the following rules
+ought to be observed:--
+
+In the first place, let the-woman keep a temperate diet, by no means
+overcharging herself after such an extraordinary evacuation, not being
+ruled by giving credit to unskilful nurses, who admonish them to feed
+heartily, the better to repair the loss of blood. For that blood is not
+for the most part pure, but such as has been retained in the vessels or
+membrane better voided, for the health of the woman, than kept, unless
+there happen an extraordinary flux of the blood. For if her nourishment
+be too much, which curding, very often turns to imposthumes.
+
+Therefore, it is requisite, for the first five days especially, that she
+take moderately panado broth, poached eggs, jelly of chickens or calves'
+feet or fresh barley broth; every day increasing the quantity a little.
+
+And if she intend to be a nurse to the child, she may take something
+more than ordinary, to increase the milk by degrees, which must be of no
+continuance, but drawn off by the child or otherwise. In this case
+likewise, observe to let her have coriander or fennel seeds boiled in
+barley broth; but by all means, for the time specified, let her abstain
+from meat. If no fever trouble her, she may drink now and then a small
+quantity of pure white wine or of claret, as also syrup of maidenhead or
+any other syrup that is of an astringent quality, taken in a little
+water well boiled.
+
+After the fear of fever or contraction of humour in the breast is over,
+she may be nourished more plentifully with the broth of capons, pullets,
+pigeons, mutton, veal, etc., which must not be until after eight days
+from the time of delivery; at which time the womb, unless some accident
+binds, has purged itself. It will then likewise be expedient to give
+cold meats, but let it be sparingly, so that she may the better gather
+strength. And let her, during the time, rest quietly and free from
+disturbance, not sleeping in the day time, if she can avoid it.
+
+Take of both mallows and pellitory of the wall a handful; camomile and
+melilot flowers, of each a handful; aniseed and fennel of each two
+ounces; boil them in a decoction of sheep's head and take of this three
+quarts, dissolving in it common honey, coarse sugar and fresh butter and
+administer it clysterwise; but if it does not penetrate well take an
+ounce of catholicon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+     _Acute Pains after Delivery._
+
+
+These pains frequently afflict the woman no less than the pain of her
+labour, and are, by the more ignorant, many times taken the one for the
+other; and sometimes they happen both at the same instant; which is
+occasioned by a raw, crude and watery matter in the stomach, contracted
+through ill digestion; and while such pains continue, the woman's
+travail is retarded.
+
+Therefore, to expel fits of the cholic, take two ounces of oil of sweet
+almonds, and an ounce of cinnamon water, with three or four drops of
+syrup of ginger; then let the woman drink it off.
+
+If this does not abate the pain, make a clyster of camomile,
+balm-leaves, oil of olives and new milk, boiling the former in the
+latter. Administer it as is usual in such cases. And then, fomentation
+proper for dispelling the wind will not be amiss.
+
+If the pain produces a griping in the guts after delivery, then take of
+the root of great comfrey, one drachm, nutmeg and peach kernels, of each
+two scruples, yellow amber, eight drachms, ambergris, one scruple;
+bruise them together, and give them to the woman as she is laid down, in
+two or three spoonfuls of white wine; but if she be feverish, then let
+it be in as much warm broth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+FAMILY PHYSICIAN
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BEING
+
+CHOICE AND APPROVED
+
+REMEDIES
+
+FOR SEVERAL DISEASES
+
+INCIDENTAL TO HUMAN BODIES
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+_For the Apoplexy._
+
+Take man's skull prepared, and powder of male peony, of each an ounce
+and a half, contrayerva, bastard dittany, angelica, zedvary, of each two
+drachms, mix and make a powder, add thereto two ounces of candied
+orange and lemon peel, beat all together to a powder, whereof you may
+take half a drachm or a drachm.
+
+
+
+_A Powder for the Epilepsy or Falling Sickness._
+
+Take of opopanax, crude antimony, castor, dragon's blood, peony seeds,
+of each an equal quantity; make a subtle powder; the dose, half a drachm
+of black cherry water. Before you take it, the stomach must be prepared
+with some proper vomit, as that of Mynficht's emetic tartar, from four
+grains to six; if for children, salts of vitrol, from a scruple to half
+a drachm.
+
+
+
+_For a Headache of Long Standing._
+
+Take the juice or powder in distilled water of hog lice and continue it.
+
+
+
+_For Spitting of Blood._
+
+Take conserve of comfrey and of hips, of each an ounce and a half;
+conserve of red roses, three ounces; dragon's blood, a drachm; spices of
+hyacinths, two scruples; red coral, a drachm; mix and with syrup of
+poppies make a soft electuary. Take the quantity of a walnut, night and
+morning.
+
+
+
+_For a Looseness._
+
+Take Venice treacle and diascordium, of each half a drachm, in warm ale
+or water gruel, or what you like best, at night, going to bed.
+
+
+
+_For the Bloody Flux._
+
+First take a drachm of powder of rhubarb in a sufficient quantity of
+conserve of red roses, in the morning early; then at night, take of
+tornified or roasted rhubarb, half a drachm; diascordium, a drachm and a
+half; liquid laudanum cyclomated, a scruple: mix and make into a bolus.
+
+
+
+_For an Inflammation of the Lungs._
+
+Take of cherious water, ten ounces; water of red poppies, three ounces;
+syrup of poppies, an ounce; pearl prepared, a drachm; make julep, and
+take six spoonfuls every fourth hour.
+
+
+
+_An Ointment for the Pleurisy._
+
+Take oil of violets or sweet almonds, an ounce of each, with wax and a
+little saffron, make an ointment, warm it and bathe it upon the parts
+affected.
+
+
+
+_An Ointment for the Itch._
+
+Take sulphur vive in powder, half an ounce, oil of tartar per deliquim,
+a sufficient quantity, ointment of roses, four ounces; make a liniment,
+to which add a scruple of rhodium to aromatize, and rub the parts
+affected with it.
+
+
+
+_For Running Scab._
+
+Take two pounds of tar, incorporate it into a thick mass with
+well-sifted ashes; boil the mass in fountain-water, adding leaves of
+ground-ivy, white horehound, fumitory roots, sharp-pointed dock and of
+flocan pan, of each four handfuls; make a bath to be used with care of
+taking cold.
+
+
+
+_For Worms in Children._
+
+Take wormseed, half a drachm, flour of sulphur, a drachm; mix and make a
+powder. Give as much as will lie on a silver threepence, night and
+morning, in grocer's treacle or honey, or to grown up people, you may
+add a sufficient quantity of aloe rosatum and so make them up into
+pills; three or four may be taken every morning.
+
+
+
+_For Fevers in Children._
+
+Take crab-eyes, a drachm, cream of tartar, half a drachm; white
+sugar-candy finely powdered, weight of both; mix all well together and
+give as much as will lie on a silver threepence, in a spoonful of
+barley-water or sack whey.
+
+
+
+_A Quieting Night-Draught, when the Cough is Violent._
+
+Take water of green wheat, six ounces, syrup diascordium, three ounces,
+take two or three spoonfuls going to bed every night or every other
+night.
+
+
+
+_An Electuary for the Dropsy._
+
+Take best rhubarb, one drachm, gum lac, prepared, two drachms,
+zyloaloes, cinnamon, long birthwort, half an ounce each, best English
+saffron, half a scruple; with syrup of chicory and rhubarb make an
+electuary. Take the quantity of a nutmeg or small walnut every morning
+fasting.
+
+
+
+_For a Tympany Dropsy._
+
+Take roots of chervil and candied eringo roots, half an ounce of each,
+roots of butcher-broom, two ounces, grass-roots, three ounces, shavings
+of ivory and hartshorn, two drachms and a half each; boil them in two or
+three pounds of spring water. Whilst the strained liquor is hot, pour it
+upon the leaves of watercresses and goose-grass bruised, of each a
+handful, adding a pint of Rhenish wine. Make a close infusion for two
+hours, then strain out the liquor again, and add to it three ounces of
+magirtral water and earth worms and an ounce and a half of the syrup of
+the five opening roots. Make an apozen, whereof take four ounces twice a
+day.
+
+
+
+_For an Inward Bleeding._
+
+Take leaves of plantain and stinging nettles, of each three handfuls,
+bruise them well and pour on them six ounces of plantain water,
+afterwards make a strong expression and drink the whole off. _Probatum
+est._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
+
+     _Worthy of Notice._
+
+
+WHEN YOU FIND
+
+A red man to be faithful, a tall man to be wise, a fat man to be swift
+of foot, a lean man to be a fool, a handsome man not to be proud, a poor
+man not to be envious, a knave to be no liar, an upright man not too
+bold and hearty to his own loss, one that drawls when he speaks not to
+be crafty and circumventing, one that winks on another with his eyes not
+to be false and deceitful, a sailor and hangman to be pitiful, a poor
+man to build churches, a quack doctor to have a good conscience, a
+bailiff not to be a merciless villain, an hostess not to over-reckon
+you, and an usurer to be charitable----
+
+THEN SAY,
+
+     _Ye have found a prodigy._
+
+Men acting contrary to the common course of nature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE
+
+EXPERIENCED MIDWIFE
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+I have given this Part the title of The Experienced Midwife, because it
+is chiefly designed for those who profess Midwifery, and contains
+whatever is necessary for them to know in the practice thereof; and
+also, because it is the result of many years' experience, and that in
+the most difficult cases, and is, therefore, the more to be depended
+upon.
+
+A midwife is the most necessary and honourable office, being indeed a
+helper of nature; which therefore makes it necessary for her to be well
+acquainted with all the operations of nature in the work of generation,
+and instruments with which she works. For she that knows not the
+operations of nature, nor with what tool she works, must needs be at a
+loss how to assist therein. And seeing the instruments of operation,
+both in men and women, are those things by which mankind is produced, it
+is very necessary that all midwives should be well acquainted with them,
+that they may better understand their business, and assist nature, as
+there shall be occasion.
+
+The first thing then necessary as introductory to this treatise, is an
+anatomical description of the several parts of generation both in men
+and women; but as in the former part of this work I have treated at
+large upon these subjects, being desirous to avoid tautology, I shall
+not here repeat anything of what was then said, but refer the reader
+thereto, as a necessary introduction to what follows. And though I shall
+be necessitated to speak plainly so that I may be understood, yet I
+shall do it with that modesty that none shall have need to blush unless
+it be from something in themselves, rather than from what they shall
+find here; having the motto of the royal garter for my defence, which
+is:--"Honi soit qui mal y pense,"--"Evil be to him that evil thinks."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+A
+
+GUIDE TO CHILDBEARING
+
+WOMEN
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+SECTION I.--_Of the Womb._
+
+In this chapter I am to treat of the womb, which the Latins call
+_matrix_. Its parts are two; the mouth of the womb and the bottom of it.
+The mouth is an orifice at the entrance into it, which may be dilated
+and shut together like a purse; for though in the act of copulation it
+is big enough to receive the glans of the yard, yet after conception, it
+is so close and shut, that it will not admit the point of a bodkin to
+enter; and yet again, at the time of a woman's delivery, it is opened to
+such an extraordinary degree, that the child passeth through it into the
+world; at which time this orifice wholly disappears, and the womb seems
+to have but one great cavity from the bottom to the entrance of the
+neck. When a woman is not with child, it is a little oblong, and of
+substance very thick and close; but when she is with child it is
+shortened, and its thickness diminished proportionably to its
+distension; and therefore it is a mistake of anatomists who affirm, that
+its substance waxeth thicker a little before a woman's labour; for any
+one's reason will inform him, that the more distended it is, the thinner
+it must be; and the nearer a woman is to the time of her delivery the
+shorter her womb must be extended. As to the action by which this inward
+orifice of the womb is opened and shut, it is purely natural; for were
+it otherwise, there could not be so many bastards begotten as there are,
+nor would any married women have so many children. Were it in their own
+power they would hinder conception, though they would be willing enough
+to use copulation; for nature has attended that action with so pleasing
+and delightful sensations, that they are willing to indulge themselves
+in the use thereof notwithstanding the pains they afterwards endure, and
+the hazard of their lives that often follows it. And this comes to pass,
+not so much from an inordinate lust in woman, as that the great Director
+of Nature, for the increase and multiplication of mankind, and even all
+other species in the elementary world, hath placed such a magnetic
+virtue in the womb, that it draws the seed to it, as the loadstone draws
+iron.
+
+The Author of Nature has placed the womb in the belly, that the heat
+might always be maintained by the warmth of the parts surrounding it; it
+is, therefore, seated in the middle of the hypogastrium (or lower parts
+of the belly between the bladder and the belly, or right gut) by which
+also it is defended from any hurt through the hardness of the bones, and
+it is placed in the lower part of the belly for the convenience of
+copulation, and of a birth being thrust out at full time.
+
+It is of a figure almost round, inclining somewhat to an oblong, in part
+resembling a pear; for being broad at the bottom, it gradually
+terminates in the point of the orifice which is narrow.
+
+The length, breadth and thickness of the womb differ according to the
+age and disposition of the body. For in virgins not ripe it is very
+small in all its dimensions, but in women whose terms flow in great
+quantities, and such as frequently use copulation, it is much larger,
+and if they have had children, it is larger in them than in such as have
+had none; but in women of a good stature and well shaped, it is (as I
+have said before), from the entry of the privy parts to the bottom of
+the womb usually about eight inches; but the length of the body of the
+womb alone, does not exceed three; the breadth thereof is near about the
+same, and of the thickness of the little finger, when the womb is not
+pregnant, but when the woman is with child, it becomes of a prodigious
+greatness, and the nearer she is to delivery, the more the womb is
+extended.
+
+It is not without reason then, that nature (or the God of Nature) has
+made the womb of a membranous substance; for thereby it does the easier
+open to conceive, is gradually dilated by the growth of the foetus or
+young one, and is afterwards contracted or closed again, to thrust forth
+both it and the after-burden, and then to retire to its primitive seat.
+Hence also it is enabled to expel any noxious humours, which may
+sometimes happen to be contained within it.
+
+Before I have done with the womb, which is the field of generation, and
+ought, therefore, to be the more particularly taken care of (for as the
+seeds of plants can produce no plants, nor sprig unless grown in ground
+proper to excite and awaken their vegetative virtue so likewise the seed
+of man, though potentially containing all the parts of the child, would
+never produce so admissible an effect, if it were not cast into that
+fruitful field of nature, the womb) I shall proceed to a more particular
+description of its parts, and the uses for which nature has designed
+them.
+
+The womb, then, is composed of various similar parts, that is of
+membranes, veins, arteries and nerves. Its membranes are two and they
+compose the principal parts of the body, the outermost of which ariseth
+from the peritoneum or caul, and is very thin, without it is smooth, but
+within equal, that it may the better cleave to the womb, as it is
+fleshier and thicker than anything else we meet with within the body,
+when the woman is not pregnant, and is interwoven with all sorts of
+fibres or small strings that it may the better suffer the extension of
+the child, and the water caused during pregnancy, and also that it may
+the easier close again after delivery.
+
+The veins and arteries proceed both from the hypogastric and the
+spermatic vessels, of which I shall speak by and by; all these are
+inserted and terminated in the proper membranes of the womb. The
+arteries supply it with food and nourishment, which being brought
+together in too great a quantity, sweats through the substance of it,
+and distils as it were a dew at the bottom of the cavity; from thence
+proceed the terms in ripe virgins, and the blood which nourisheth the
+embryo in breeding women. The branches which issue from the spermatic
+vessels, are inserted on each side of the bottom of the womb, and are
+much less than those which proceed from the hypogastrics, those being
+greater and bedewing the whole substance of it. There are some other
+small vessels, which arising the one from the other are conducted to the
+internal orifice, and by these, those that are pregnant purge away the
+superfluity of the terms when they happen to have more than is used in
+the nourishment of the infant: by which means nature has taken so much
+care of the womb, that during pregnancy it shall not be obliged to open
+itself for passing away those excrementitious humours, which, should it
+be forced to do, might often endanger abortion.
+
+As touching the nerves, they proceed from the brain, which furnishes all
+the inner parts of the lower belly in them, which is the true reason it
+hath so great a sympathy with the stomach, which is likewise very
+considerably furnished from the same part; so that the womb cannot be
+afflicted with any pain, but that the stomach is immediately sensible
+thereof, which is the cause of those loathings or frequent vomitings
+which happen to it.
+
+But beside all these parts which compose the womb, it has yet four
+ligaments, whose office it is, to keep it firm in its place, and prevent
+its constant agitation, by the continual motion of the intestines which
+surround it, two of which are above and two below. Those above are
+called the broad ligaments, because of their broad and membranous
+figure, and are nothing else but the production of the peritoneum which
+growing out of the sides of the loins towards the veins come to be
+inserted in the sides of the bottom of the womb, to hinder the body from
+bearing too much on the neck, and so from suffering a precipitation as
+will sometimes happen when the ligaments are too much relaxed; and do
+also contain the testicles, and as well, safely conduct the different
+vessels, as the ejaculatories, to the womb. The lowermost are called
+round ligaments, taking their origin from the side of the womb near the
+horn, from whence they pass the groin, together with the production of
+the peritoneum, which accompanies them through the rings of the oblique
+and transverse muscles of the belly, by which they divide themselves
+into many little branches resembling the foot of a goose, of which some
+are inserted into the os pubis, the rest are lost and confounded with
+the membranes which women and children feel in their thighs. These two
+ligaments are long, round and nervous, and pretty big in their
+beginning near the matrix, hollow in their rise, and all along the os
+pubis, where they are a little smaller and become flat, the better to be
+inserted in the manner aforesaid. It is by their means the womb is
+hindered from rising too high. Now, although the womb is held in its
+natural situation by means of these four ligaments, it has liberty
+enough to extend itself when pregnant, because they are very loose, and
+so easily yield to its distension. But besides these ligaments, which
+keep the womb, as it were, in a poise, yet it is fastened for greater
+security by its neck, both to the bladder and rectum, between which it
+is situated. Whence it comes to pass, that if at any time the womb be
+inflamed, it communicates the inflammation to the neighbouring part.
+
+Its use or proper action in the work of generation, is to receive and
+retain the seed, and deduce from it power and action by its heat, for
+the generation of the infant; and it is, therefore, absolutely necessary
+for the conservation of the species. It also seems by accident to
+receive and expel the impurities of the whole body, as when women have
+abundance of whites, and to purge away, from time to time, the
+superfluity of the blood, as when a woman is not with child.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_Of the difference between the ancient and modern Physicians,
+    touching the woman's contributing seed for the Formation of the
+    Child._
+
+Our modern anatomists and physicians are of different sentiments from
+the ancients touching the woman's contributing seed for the formation of
+the child, as well as the man; the ancients strongly affirming it, but
+our modern authors being generally of another judgment. I will not make
+myself a party to this controversy, but set down impartially, yet
+briefly, the arguments on each side, and leave the judicious reader to
+judge for himself.
+
+Though it is apparent, say the ancients, that the seed of man is the
+principal efficient and beginning of action, motion and generation, yet
+the woman affords seed, and contributes to the procreation of the child,
+it is evident from hence, that the woman had seminal vessels, which had
+been given her in vain if she wanted seminal excretions; but since
+nature forms nothing in vain, it must be granted that they were formed
+for the use of the seed and procreation, and fixed in their proper
+places, to operate and contribute virtue and efficiency to the seed; and
+this, say they, is further proved from hence, that if women at years of
+maturity use not copulation to eject their seed, they often fall into
+strange diseases, as appears by young women and virgins, and also it
+appears that, women are never better pleased than when they are often
+satisfied this way, which argues, that the pleasure and delight, say
+they, is double in women to what it is in men, for as the delight of men
+in copulation consists chiefly in the emission of the seed, so women are
+delighted, both in the emission of their own and the reception of the
+man's.
+
+But against this, all our modern authors affirm that the ancients are
+very erroneous, inasmuch as the testicles in women do not afford seed,
+but are two eggs, like those of a fowl or other creatures; neither have
+they any such offices as in men, but are indeed an ovarium, or
+receptacle for eggs, wherein these eggs are nourished, by the sanguinary
+vessels dispersed through them; and from hence one or more, as they are
+fecundated by the man's seed, are conveyed into the womb by the
+oviducts. And the truth of this, say they, is so plain, that if you boil
+them, the liquor shall have the same taste, colour and consistency with
+the taste of bird's eggs. And if it be objected that they have no
+shells, the answer is easy; for the eggs of fowls while they are in the
+ovary, nay, after they have fallen into the uterus, have no shell: and
+though they have one when they are laid, yet it is no more than a fence
+which nature has provided for them against outward injuries, they being
+hatched without the body, but those of women being hatched within the
+body have no need of any other fence than the womb to secure them.
+
+They also further say, that there are in the generation of the foetus,
+or young ones, two principles, _active_ and _passive_; the _active_ is
+the man's seed elaborated in the testicles out of the arterial blood and
+animal spirits; the _passive_ principle is the ovum or egg, impregnated
+by the man's seed; for to say that women have true seed, say they, is
+erroneous. But the manner of conception is this; the most spirituous
+part of the man's seed, in the act of copulation, reaching up to the
+ovarium or testicles of the woman (which contains divers eggs, sometimes
+fewer) impregnates one of them; which, being conveyed by the oviducts to
+the bottom of the womb, presently begins to swell bigger and bigger, and
+drinks in the moisture that is so plentifully sent hither, after the
+same manner that the seed in the ground suck the fertile moisture
+thereof, to make them sprout.
+
+But, notwithstanding what is here urged by modern anatomists, there are
+some late writers of the opinion of the ancients, viz., that women both
+have, and emit seed in the act of copulation; and even women themselves
+take it ill to be thought merely passive in the act wherein they make
+such vigorous exertions; and positively affirm, that they are sensible
+of the emission of their seed in that action, and that in it a great
+part of the delight which they take in that act, consists. I shall not,
+therefore, go about to take away any of their happiness from them, but
+leave them in possession of their imaginary felicity.
+
+Having thus laid the foundation of this work, I will now proceed to
+speak of conception, and of those things which are necessary to be
+observed by women from the time of their conception, to the time of
+their delivery.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+     _Of Conception; what it is; how women are to order themselves after
+     Conception._
+
+
+SECTION I.--_What Conception is, and the qualifications requisite
+    thereto._
+
+Conception is nothing but an action of the womb, by which the prolific
+seed is received and retained, that an infant may be engendered and
+formed out of it. There are two sorts of conception: the one according
+to nature, which is followed by the generation of the infant in the
+womb; the other false and wholly against nature, in which the seed
+changes into water, and produces only false conceptions, moles, or other
+strange matter. Now, there are three things principally necessary in
+order to a true conception, so that generation may follow, viz., without
+diversity of sex there can be no conception; for, though some will have
+a woman to be an animal that can engender of herself, it is a great
+mistake; there can be no conception without a man discharge his seed
+into the womb. What they allege of pullets laying eggs without a cock's
+treading them is nothing to the purpose, for those eggs should they be
+set under a hen, will never become chickens because they never received
+any prolific virtue from the male, which is absolutely necessary to this
+purpose, and is sufficient to convince us, that diversity of the sex is
+necessary even to those animals, as well as to the generation of man.
+But diversity of sex, though it be necessary to conception, yet it will
+not do alone; there must also be a congression of the different sexes;
+for diversity of sex would profit little if copulation did not follow. I
+confess I have heard of subtle women, who, to cover their sin and
+shame, have endeavoured to persuade some peasants that they were never
+touched by man to get them with child; and that one in particular
+pretended to conceive by going into a bath where a man had washed
+himself a little before and spent his seed in it, which was drawn and
+sucked into her womb, as she pretended. But such stories as these are
+only for such who know no better. Now that these different sexes should
+be obliged to come to the touch, which we call copulation or coition,
+besides the natural desire of begetting their like, which stirs up men
+and women to it, the parts appointed for generation are endowed by
+nature with a delightful and mutual itch, which begets in them a desire
+to the action; without which, it would not be very easy for a man, born
+for the contemplation of divine mysteries, to join himself, by the way
+of coition, to a woman, in regard to the uncleanness of the part and the
+action. And, on the other side, if the woman did but think of those
+pains and inconveniences to which they are subject by their great
+bellies, and those hazards of life itself, besides the unavoidable pains
+that attend their delivery, it is reasonable to believe they would be
+affrighted from it. But neither sex makes these reflections till after
+the action is over, considering nothing beforehand but the pleasure of
+the enjoyment, so that it is from this voluptuous itch that nature
+obliges both sexes to this congression. Upon which the third thing
+followeth of course, viz., the emission of seed into the womb in the act
+of copulation. For the woman having received this prolific seed into her
+womb, and retained it there, the womb thereupon becomes depressed, and
+embraces the seed so closely, that being closed the point of a needle
+cannot enter into it without violence. And now the woman may be said to
+have conceived, having reduced by her heat from power into action, the
+several faculties which are contained in the seed, making use of the
+spirits with which the seed abounds, and which are the instruments which
+begin to trace out the first lineaments of the parts, and which
+afterwards, by making use of the menstruous blood flowing to it, give
+it, in time, growth and final perfection. And thus much shall suffice to
+explain what conception is. I shall next proceed to show
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_How a Woman ought to order herself after Conception._
+
+My design in this treatise being brevity, I shall bring forward a little
+of what the learned have said of the causes of twins, and whether there
+be any such things as superfoetations, or a second conception in a woman
+(which is yet common enough), and as to twins, I shall have occasion to
+speak of them when I come to show you how the midwife ought to proceed
+in the delivery of the women that are pregnant with them. But having
+already spoken of conception, I think it now necessary to show how such
+as have conceived ought to order themselves during their pregnancy, that
+they may avoid those inconveniences, which often endanger the life of
+the child and many times their own.
+
+A woman, after conception, during the time of her being with child,
+ought to be looked upon as indisposed or sick, though in good health;
+for child bearing is a kind of nine months' sickness, being all that
+time in expectation of many inconveniences which such a condition
+usually causes to those that are not well governed during that time; and
+therefore, ought to resemble a good pilot, who, when sailing on a rough
+sea and full of rocks, avoids and shuns the danger, if he steers with
+prudence, but if not, it is a thousand to one but he suffers shipwreck.
+In like manner, a woman with child is often in danger of miscarrying and
+losing her life, if she is not very careful to prevent those accidents
+to which she is subject all the time of her pregnancy. All which time
+her care must be double, first of herself, and secondly of the child
+she goes with for otherwise, a single error may produce a double
+mischief; for if she receives a prejudice, the child also suffers with
+her. Let a woman, therefore, after conception, observe a good diet,
+suitable to her temperament, custom, condition and quality; and if she
+can, let the air where she ordinarily dwells be clear and well tempered,
+and free from extremes, either of heat or cold; for being too hot, it
+dissipateth the spirits too much and causes many weaknesses; and by
+being too cold and foggy, it may bring down rheums and distillations on
+the lungs, and so cause her to cough, which, by its impetuous motion,
+forcing downwards, may make her miscarry. She ought alway to avoid all
+nauseous and ill smells; for sometimes the stench of a candle, not well
+put out, may cause her to come before time; and I have known the smell
+of charcoal to have the same effect. Let her also avoid smelling of rue,
+mint, pennyroyal, castor, brimstone, etc.
+
+But, with respect to their diet, women with child have generally so
+great loathings and so many different longings, that it is very
+difficult to prescribe an exact diet for them. Only this I think
+advisable, that they may use those meats and drinks which are to them
+most desirable, though, perhaps, not in themselves so wholesome as some
+others, and, it may be not so pleasant; but this liberty must be made
+use of with this caution, that what they desire be not in itself
+unwholesome; and also that in everything they take care of excess. But,
+if a child-bearing woman finds herself not troubled with such longings
+as we have spoken of, let her take simple food, and in such quantity as
+may be sufficient for herself and the child, which her appetite may in a
+great measure regulate; for it is alike hurtful to her to fast too long
+as to eat too much; and therefore, rather let her eat a little and
+often; especially let her avoid eating too much at night, because the
+stomach being too much filled, compresseth the diaphragm, and thereby
+causeth difficulty of breathing. Let her meat be easy of digestion, such
+as the tenderest parts of beef, mutton, veal, fowls, pullets, capons,
+pigeons and partridges, either boiled or roasted, as she likes best, new
+laid eggs are also very good for her; and let her put into her broth
+those herbs that purify it, as sorrel, lettuce, succory and borage; for
+they will purge and purify the blood. Let her avoid whatever is hot
+seasoned, especially pies and baked meats, which being of hot digestion,
+overcharge the stomach. If she desire fish let it be fresh, and such as
+is taken out of rivers and running streams. Let her eat quinces and
+marmalade, to strengthen her child: for which purpose sweet almonds,
+honey, sweet apples, and full ripe grapes, are also good. Let her
+abstain from all salt, sour, bitter and salt things, and all things that
+tend to provoke the terms--such as garlic, onions, mustard, fennel,
+pepper and all spices except cinnamon, which in the last three months is
+good for her. If at first her diet be sparing, as she increases in
+bigness, let her diet be increased, for she ought to consider that she
+has a child as well as herself to nourish. Let her be moderate in her
+drinking; and if she drinks wine, let it be rather claret than white
+(for it will breed good blood, help the digestion, and comfort the
+stomach, which is weakly during pregnancy); but white wine being
+diuretic, or that which provokes urine, ought to be avoided. Let her be
+careful not to take too much exercise, and let her avoid dancing, riding
+in a coach, or whatever else puts the body into violent motion,
+especially in the first month. But to be more particular, I shall here
+set down rules proper for every month for the child-bearing woman to
+order herself, from the time she first conceived, to the time of her
+delivery.
+
+
+
+_Rules for the First Two Months._
+
+As soon as a woman knows, or has reason to believe, that she has
+conceived, she ought to abstain from all violent motions and exercise;
+whether she walks afoot, or rides on horseback or in a coach, it ought
+to be very gently. Let her also abstain from Venery (for which, after
+conception, she has usually no great inclination), lest there be a mole
+or superfoetation, which is the adding of one embryo to another. Let her
+beware not to lift her arms too high, nor carry great burdens, nor
+repose herself on hard and uneasy seats. Let her use moderately good,
+juicy meat and easy of digestion, and let her wines be neither too
+strong nor too sharp, but a little mingled with water; or if she be very
+abstemious, she may use water wherein cinnamon has been boiled. Let her
+avoid fastings, thirst, watchings, mourning, sadness, anger, and all
+other perturbations of the mind. Let no one present any strange or
+unwholesome thing to her, nor so much as name it, lest she should desire
+it and not be able to get it, and so either cause her to miscarry, or
+the child to have some deformity on that account. Let her belly be kept
+loose with prunes, raisins or manna in her broth, and let her use the
+following electuary, to strengthen the womb and the child--
+
+"Take conserve of borage, buglos and roses, each two ounces; an ounce of
+balm; an ounce each of citron peel and shreds, candied mirobalans, an
+ounce each; extract of wood aloes a scruple; prepared pearl, half a
+drachm; red coral and ivory, of each a drachm; precious stones each a
+scruple; candied nutmegs, two drachms, and with syrup of apples and
+quinces make an electuary."
+
+
+
+_Let her observe the following rules._
+
+"Take pearls prepared, a drachm; red coral and ivory prepared, each half
+a drachm, precious stones, each a scruple; yellow citron peel, mace,
+cinnamon, cloves, each half a drachm; saffron, a scruple; wood aloes,
+half a scruple; ambergris, six drachms; and with six ounces of sugar
+dissolved in rosewater make rolls." Let her also apply strengtheners of
+nutmeg, mace and mastich made up in bags, to the navel, or a toast
+dipped in malmsey, or sprinkled with powdered mint. If she happens to
+desire clay, chalk, or coals (as many women with child do), give her
+beans boiled with sugar, and if she happens to long for anything that
+she cannot obtain, let her presently drink a large draught of pure cold
+water.
+
+
+
+_Rules for the Third Month._
+
+In this month and the next, be sure to keep from bleeding; for though it
+may be safe and proper at other times, yet it will not be so at the end
+of the fourth month; and yet if blood abound, or some incidental disease
+happens which requires evacuation, you may use a cupping glass, with
+scarification, and a little blood may be drawn from the shoulders and
+arms, especially if she has been accustomed to bleed. Let her also take
+care of lacing herself too straitly, but give herself more liberty than
+she used to do; for inclosing her belly in too strait a mould, she
+hinders the infant from taking its free growth, and often makes it come
+before its time.
+
+
+
+_Rules for the Fourth Month._
+
+In this month also you ought to keep the child-bearing woman from
+bleeding, unless in extraordinary cases, but when the month is passed,
+blood-letting and physic may be permitted, if it be gentle and mild, and
+perhaps it may be necessary to prevent abortion. In this month she may
+purge, in an acute disease, but purging may only be used from the
+beginning of this month to the end of the sixth; but let her take care
+that in purging she use no vehement medicine, nor any bitter, as aloes,
+which is disagreeable and hurtful to the child, and opens the mouth of
+the vessels; neither let her use coloquintida, scammony nor turbith; she
+may use cassia, manna, rhubarb, agaric and senna but dyacidodium
+purgans is best, with a little of the electuary of the juice of roses.
+
+
+
+_Rules for the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Months._
+
+In these months, child-bearing women are troubled with coughs, colds,
+heart-beating, fainting, watching, pains in the loins and hips, and
+bleeding. The cough is from a sharp vapour that comes to the jaws and
+rough artery from the terms, or the thin part of that blood got less
+into the reins of the breast; this endangers abortion, and strength
+fails from watching: therefore, purge the humours that come to the
+breast, with rhubarb and agaric, and strengthen the head as in a
+catarrh, and give sweet lenitives as in a cough. Palpitation and
+faintness arises from vapours that go to it by the arteries, or from
+blood that abounds and cannot get out of the womb, but ascends and
+oppresses the heart; and in this case cordials should be used both
+inwardly and outwardly. Watching, is from sharp dry vapours that trouble
+the animal spirits, and in this case use frictions, and let the woman
+wash her feet at bed-time, and let her take syrup of poppies, dried
+roses, emulsions of sweet almonds, and white poppy seed. If she be
+troubled with pains in her loins and hips, as in those months she is
+subject to be, from the weight of her child as it grows big and heavy,
+and so stretches the ligaments of the womb and part adjacent, let her
+hold it up with swathing bands about her neck. About this time also the
+woman often happens to have a flux of blood, either at the nose, womb or
+haemorrhoids, from plenty of blood, or from the weakness of the child
+that takes it not in, or else from evil humour in the blood, that stirs
+up nature and sends it forth. And sometimes it happens that the vessels
+of the womb may be broken, either by some violent motion, fall, cough or
+trouble of the mind (for any of these will work that effect), and this
+is so dangerous, that in such a case the child cannot be well, but if it
+be from blood only, the danger is less, provided it flows by the veins
+of the neck of the womb, for then it prevents plethora and takes not
+away the nourishment of the child; but if it proceeds from the weakness
+of the child, that draws it not in, abortion of the child often follows,
+or hard travail, or else she goes beyond her time. But if it flows from
+the inward veins of the womb, there is more danger by the openness of
+the womb, if it come from evil blood; the danger is alike from
+cacochymy, which is like to fall upon both. If it arises from plethora,
+open a vein, but with great caution, and use astringents, of which the
+following will do well:--Take prepared pearls, a scruple; red coral, two
+scruples; mace, nutmeg, each a drachm; cinnamon, half a drachm; make a
+powder, or with white sugar make rolls. Or give this powder in
+broth:--"Take red coral, a drachm; half a drachm precious stones; red
+sander, half a drachm; bole, a drachm; scaled earth and tormental roots,
+each two scruples, with sugar of roses and Manus Christi; with pearl,
+five drachms; make a powder." You may also strengthen the child at the
+navel, and if there be a cacochymy, alter the humours, and if you can do
+it safely, evacuate; you may likewise use amulets on her hands and about
+her neck. In a flux of haemorrhoids, wear off the pain, and let her
+drink hot wine with a toasted nutmeg. In these months the belly is also
+subject to be bound, but if it be without any apparent disease, the
+broth of a chicken or veal, sodden with oil, or with the decoction of
+mallows or marsh-mallows, mercury or linseed, put up in a clyster, will
+not be amiss, but in less quantity than is given in other cases:--viz.
+of the decoction, five ounces, of common oil, three ounces, of sugar,
+two ounces, and of cassia fistula, one ounce. But if she will not take a
+clyster, one or two yolks of new laid eggs, or a little peas-pottage
+warm, a little salt and sugar, and supped a little before meat, will be
+very convenient. But if her belly be distended and stretched with wind a
+little fennel seed and aniseed reduced to a powder and mixed with honey
+and sugar made after the manner of an electuary, will be very well Also,
+if thighs and feet swell let them be anointed with erphodrinum (which is
+a liquid medicine) made with vinegar and rose-water, mingled with salt.
+
+
+
+_Rules for the Eighth Month._
+
+The eighth month is commonly called the most dangerous; therefore the
+greatest care and caution ought to be used, the diet better in quality,
+but no more, nor indeed, so much in quantity as before, but as she must
+abate her diet, she must increase her exercise; and because then women
+with child, by reason that sharp humours alter the belly, are accustomed
+to weaken their spirits and strength, they may well take before meat, an
+electuary of diarrhoden, or aromaticum rosatum or diamagarton; and
+sometimes they may lick a little honey. As they will loathe, nauseate
+their meat, they may take green ginger, candied with sugar, and the
+rinds of citron and oranges candied; and let them often use honey for
+strengthening the infant. When she is not very far from her labour, let
+her eat every day seven roasted figs before her meat, and sometimes let
+her lick a little honey. But let her beware of salt and powdered meat,
+for it is neither good for her nor the child.
+
+
+
+_Rules for the Ninth Month._
+
+In the ninth month let her have a care of lifting any great weight, but
+let her move a little more, to dilate the parts, and stir up natural
+heat. Let her take heed of stooping, and neither sit too much nor lie on
+her sides, neither ought she to bend herself much enfolded in the
+umbilical ligaments, by which means it often perisheth. Let her walk and
+stir often, and let her exercise be, rather to go upwards than
+downwards. Let her diet, now especially, be light and easy of digestion
+and damask prunes with sugar, or figs with raisins, before meat, as also
+the yolks of eggs, flesh and broth of chickens, birds, partridges and
+pheasants; astringent and roasted meats, with rice, hard eggs, millet
+and such like other things are proper. Baths of sweet water, with
+emollient herbs, ought to be used by her this month with some
+intermission, and after the baths let her belly be anointed with oil of
+sweet roses and of violets; but for her privy parts, it is better to
+anoint them with the fat of hens, geese or ducks, or with oil of
+lilies, and the decoction of linseed and fenugreek, boiled with oil of
+linseed and marshmallows, or with the following liniment:--
+
+Take mallows and marshmallows, cut and shred, of each one ounce; of
+linseed, one ounce; let them be boiled from twenty ounces of water to
+ten; then let her take three ounces of the boiled broth, of oil of
+almonds and oil of flower-de-luce, of each one ounce; of deer's suet,
+three ounces. Let her bathe with this, and anoint herself with it, warm.
+
+If for fourteen days before the birth, she do every morning and evening
+bathe and moisten her belly with muscadine and lavender water, the child
+will be much strengthened thereby. And if every day she eat toasted
+bread, it will hinder anything from growing to the child. Her privy
+parts must be gently stroked down with this fomentation.
+
+"Take three ounces of linseed, and one handful each of mallows and
+marshmallows sliced, then let them be put into a bag and immediately
+boiled." Let the woman with child, every morning and evening, take the
+vapour of this decoction in a hollow stool, taking great heed that no
+wind or air come to her in-parts, and then let her wipe the part so
+anointed with a linen cloth, and she may anoint the belly and groins as
+at first.
+
+When she has come so near to her time, as to be ten or fourteen days
+thereof, if she begins to feel any more than ordinary pain let her use
+every day the following:--"Take mallows and marshmallows, of each a
+handful; camomiles, hard mercury, maidenhair, of each a handful; of
+linseed, four ounces; let them be boiled in a sufficient quantity of
+water as to make a bath therewith." But let her not sit too hot upon the
+seat, nor higher than a little above her navel; nor let her sit upon it
+longer than about half an hour, lest her strength languish and decay,
+for it is better to use it often than to stay too long in it.
+
+And thus have I shown how a child-bearing woman ought to govern herself
+each month during her pregnancy. How she must order herself at her
+delivery, shall be shown in another chapter, after I have first shown
+the intended midwife how the child is first formed in the womb, and the
+manner of its decumbiture there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+     _Of the Parts proper to a Child in the womb; How it is formed
+     there, and the manner of its Situation therein._
+
+
+In the last chapter I treated of conception, showed what it was, how
+accomplished and its signs, and how she who has conceived ought to order
+herself during the time of her pregnancy. Now, before I come to speak of
+her delivery, it is necessary that the midwife be first made acquainted
+with the parts proper to a child in the womb, and also that she be shown
+how it is formed, and the manner of its situation and decumbiture there;
+which are so necessary to her, that without the knowledge thereof, no
+one can tell how to deliver a woman as she ought. This, therefore, shall
+be the work of this chapter. I shall begin with the first of these.
+
+
+
+SECTION I.--_Of the Parts proper to a Child in the Womb._
+
+In this section, I must first tell you what I mean by the parts proper
+to a child in the womb; and they are only those that either help or
+nourish it; and whilst it is lodged in that dark repository of nature,
+and that help to clothe and defend it there and are cast away, as of no
+more use, after it is born, and these are two, viz., the umbilicars, or
+navel vessels, and the secundinum. By the first it is nourished, and by
+the second clothed and defended from wrong. Of each of these I shall
+speak distinctly; and first,
+
+
+
+_Of the Umbilicars, or Navel Vessels._
+
+These are four in number, viz.:--one vein, two arteries, and the vessel
+which is called the urachos.
+
+(1) The vein is that on which the infant is nourished, from the time of
+its conception till the time of its delivery; till being brought into
+the light of the world, it has the same way of concocting the food we
+have. This vein ariseth from the liver of the child, and is divided into
+two parts when it has passed the navel; and these two are divided and
+subdivided, the branches being upheld by the skin called _chorion_ (of
+which I speak by and by), and are joined to the veins of the mother's
+womb, from whence they have their blood for the nourishment of the
+child.
+
+(2) The arteries are two on each side which proceed from the back
+branches of the great artery of the mother, and the vital blood is
+carried by those to the child being ready concocted by the mother.
+
+(3) A nervous or sinewy production is led from the bottom of the
+bladder of the infant to the navel, and this is called _urachos_, and
+its use is, to convey the urine of the infant from the bladder to the
+alantois. Anatomists do very much vary in their opinion concerning this,
+some denying any such thing to be in the delivery of the woman, and
+others on the contrary affirming it; but experience has testified there
+is such a thing, for Bartholomew Carbrolius, the ordinary doctor of
+anatomy to the College of Physicians at Montpellier in France, records
+the history of a maid, whose water being a long time stopped, at last
+issued out through the navel. And Johannes Fernelius speaks of the same
+thing that happened to a man of thirty years of age, who having a
+stoppage at the neck of the bladder, his urine issued out of his navel
+for many months together, and that without any prejudice at all to his
+health, which he ascribes to the ill lying of his navel, whereby the
+urachos was not well dried. And Volchier Coitas quotes such another
+instance in a maid of thirty-four at Nuremburg in Germany. These
+instances, though they happen but seldom, are sufficient to prove that
+there is such a thing as anurachos in men.
+
+These four vessels before mentioned, viz., one vein, two arteries and
+the urachos, join near the navel, and are united by a skin which they
+have from the chorion and so become like a gut or rope, and are
+altogether void of sensibility, and this is that which women call the
+navel-string. The vessels are thus joined together, that so they may
+neither be broken, severed nor entangled; and when the infant is born
+are of no use save only to make up the ligament which stops the hole of
+the navel and for some other physical use, etc.
+
+
+
+_Of the Secundine or After-birth._
+
+Setting aside the name given to this by the Greeks and Latins, it is
+called in English by the name of secundine, after-birth or after-burden;
+which are held to be four in number.
+
+(1) The _first_ is called placenta, because it resembles the form of a
+cake, and is knit both to the navel and chorion, and makes up the
+greatest part of the secundine or after-birth. The flesh of it is like
+that of the melt or spleen, soft, red and tending something to
+blackness, and hath many small veins and arteries in it: and certainly
+the chief use of it is, for containing the child in the womb.
+
+(2) The _second_ is the chorion. This skin and that called the amnios,
+involve the child round, both above and underneath, and on both sides,
+which the alantois does not. This skin is that which is most commonly
+called the secundine, as it is thick and white garnished with many small
+veins and arteries, ending in the placenta before named, being very
+light and slippery. Its use is, not only to cover the child round about,
+but also to receive, and safely bind up the roots of the veins and
+arteries or navel vessels before described.
+
+(3) The _third_ thing which makes up the secundine in the alantois, of
+which there is a great dispute amongst anatomists. Some say there is
+such a thing, and others that there is not. Those who will have it to be
+a membrane, say it is white, soft and exceedingly thin, and just under
+the placenta, where it is knit to the urachos, from which it receives
+the urine; and its office is to keep it separate from the sweat, that
+the saltness of it may not offend the tender skin of the child.
+
+(4) The _fourth_, and last covering of the child is called amnios; and
+it is white, soft and transparent, being nourished by some very small
+veins and arteries. Its use is, not only to enwrap the child, but also
+to retain the sweat of the child.
+
+Having thus described the parts proper to a child in the womb, I will
+next proceed to speak of the formation of the child therein, as soon as
+I have explained the hard terms of the section, that those for whose
+help it is designed, may understand what they read. A _vein_ is that
+which receives blood from the liver, and distributes in several branches
+to all parts of the body. _Nerve_ is the same with _sinew_, and is that
+by which the brain adds sense and motion to the body. _Placenta_,
+properly signifies _sugar_ cake; but in this section it is used to
+signify a spongy piece of flesh resembling a cake, full of veins and
+arteries, and is made to receive a mother's blood appointed for the
+infant's nourishment in the womb. The _chorion_ is an outward skin which
+compasseth the child in the womb. The _amnios_ is the inner skin which
+compasseth the child in the womb. The _alantois_ is the skin that holds
+the urine of the child during the time that it abides in the womb. The
+_urachos_ is the vessel that conveys the urine from the child in the
+womb to the _alantois_. I now proceed to
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_Of the Formation of the Child in the Womb._
+
+To speak of the formation of the child in the womb, we must begin where
+nature begins, and, that is at the act of coition, in which the womb
+having received the generative seed (without which there can be no
+conception), the womb immediately shuts up itself so close that the
+point of a needle cannot enter the inward orifice; and this it does,
+partly to hinder the issuing out of the seed again, and partly to
+cherish it by an inward heat, the better to provoke it to action; which
+is one reason why women's bellies are so lank at their first conception.
+The woman having thus conceived, the first thing which is operative in
+conception is the spirit whereof the seed is full, which, nature
+quickening by the heat of the womb, stirs up the action. The internal
+spirits, therefore, separate the parts that are less pure, which are
+thick, cold and clammy, from those that are more pure and noble. The
+less pure are cast to the outside, and with these seed is circled round
+and the membrane made, in which that seed that is most pure is wrapped
+round and kept close together, that it may be defended from cold and
+other accidents, and operate the better.
+
+The first thing that is formed is the amnios; the next the chorion; and
+they enwrap the seed round like a curtain. Soon after this (for the seed
+thus shut up in the woman lies not idle), the navel vein is bred, which
+pierceth those skins, being yet very tender, and carries a drop of blood
+from the veins of the mother's womb to the seed; from which drop the
+vena cava, or chief vein, proceeds, from which all the rest of the veins
+which nourish the body spring; and now the seed hath something to
+nourish it, whilst it performs the rest of nature's work, and also blood
+administered to every part of it, to form flesh.
+
+This vein being formed, the navel arteries are soon after formed; then
+the great artery, of which all the others are but branches; and then the
+heart, for the liver furnisheth the arteries with blood to form the
+heart, the arteries being made of seed, but the heart and the flesh, of
+blood. After this the brain is formed, and then the nerves to give sense
+and motion to the infant. Afterwards the bones and flesh are formed; and
+of the bones, first of all, the vertebrae or chine bones, and then the
+skull, etc. As to the time in which this curious part of nature's
+workmanship is formed, having already in Chapter II of the former part
+of this work spoken at large upon this point, and also of the
+nourishment of the child in the womb, I shall here only refer the reader
+thereto, and proceed to show the manner in which the child lies in the
+womb.
+
+
+
+SECT. III.--_Of the manner of the Child's lying in the Womb._
+
+This is a thing so essential for a midwife to know, that she can be no
+midwife who is ignorant of it; and yet even about this authors
+extremely differ; for there are not two in ten that agree what is the
+form that the child lies in the womb, or in what fashion it lies there;
+and yet this may arise in a great measure from the different times of
+the women's pregnancy; for near the time of its deliverance out of those
+winding chambers of nature it oftentimes changes the form in which it
+lay before, for another.
+
+I will now show the several situations of the child in the mother's
+womb, according to the different times of pregnancy, by which those that
+are contrary to nature, and are the chief cause of ill labours, will be
+more easily conceived by the understanding midwife. It ought, therefore,
+in the first place to be observed, that the infant, as well male as
+female, is generally situated in the midst of the womb; for though
+sometimes, to appearance a woman's belly seems higher on one side than
+the other, yet it is so with respect to the belly only, and not to her
+womb, in the midst of which it is always placed.
+
+But, in the second place, a woman's great belly makes different figures,
+according to the different times of pregnancy; for when she is young
+with child, the embryo is always found of a round figure, a little long,
+a little oblong, having the spine moderately turned inwards, and the
+thighs folded, and a little raised, to which the legs are so raised,
+that the heels touch the buttocks; the arms are bending, and the hands
+placed upon the knees, towards which part of the body, the head is
+turned downwards towards the inward orifice of the womb, tumbling as it
+were over its head so that then the feet are uppermost, and the face
+towards the mother's great gut; and this turning of the infant in this
+manner, with its head downwards, towards the latter end of a woman's
+reckoning, is so ordered by nature, that it may be thereby the better
+disposed of its passage into the world at the time of its mother's
+labour, which is not then far off (and indeed some children turn not at
+all until the very time of birth); for in this posture all its joints
+are most easily extended in coming forth; for by this means its arms and
+legs cannot hinder its birth, because they cannot be bent against the
+inner orifice of the womb and the rest of the body, being very supple,
+passeth without any difficulty after the head, which is hard and big;
+being passed the head is inclined forward, so that the chin toucheth the
+breast, in which posture, it resembles one sitting to ease nature, and
+stooping down with the head to see what comes from him. The spine of the
+back is at that time placed towards the mother's, the head uppermost,
+the face downwards; and proportionately to its growth, it extends its
+members by little and little, which were exactly folded in the first
+month. In this posture it usually keeps until the seventh or eighth
+month, and then by a natural propensity and disposition of the upper
+first. It is true there are divers children, that lie in the womb in
+another posture, and come to birth with their feet downwards, especially
+if there be twins; for then, by their different motions they do so
+disturb one another, that they seldom come both in the same posture at
+the time of labour, but one will come with the head, and another with
+the feet, or perhaps lie across; but sometimes neither of them will come
+right. But, however the child may be situated in the womb, or in
+whatever posture it presents itself at the time of birth, if it be not
+with its head forwards, as I have before described, it is always against
+nature, and the delivery will occasion the more pain and danger, and
+require greater care and skill from the midwife, than when the labour is
+more natural.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+     _A Guide for Women in Travail, showing what is to be done when they
+     fall in Labour, in order to their Delivery._
+
+
+The end of all that we have been treating of is, the bringing forth of a
+child into the world with safety both to the mother and the infant, as
+the whole time of a woman's pregnancy may be termed a kind of labour;
+for, from the time of the conception to the time of her delivery, she
+labours under many difficulties, is subject to many distempers, and in
+continual danger, from one affection or other, till the time of birth
+comes; and when that comes, the greatest labour and travail come along
+with it, insomuch that then all the other labours are forgotten, and
+that only is called the time of her labours, and to deliver her safely
+is the principal business of the midwife; and to assist therein, shall
+be the chief design of this chapter. The time of the child's being ready
+for its birth, when nature endeavours to cast it forth, is that which is
+properly the time of a woman's labour; nature then labouring to be eased
+of its burden. And since many child-bearing women, (especially the first
+child) are often mistaken in their reckoning and so, when they draw near
+their time take every pain they meet with for their labour, which often
+proves prejudicial and troublesome to them, when it is not so, I will in
+the first section of this chapter, set down some signs, by which a woman
+may know when the true time of her labour is come.
+
+
+
+SECTION I.--_The Signs of the true Time of a Woman's Labour._
+
+When women with child, especially of their first, perceive any
+extraordinary pains in the belly, they immediately send for their
+midwife, as taking it for their labour; and then if the midwife be not a
+skilful and experienced woman, to know the time of labour, but takes it
+for granted without further inquiry (for some such there are), and so
+goes about to put her into labour before nature is prepared for it, she
+may endanger the life of both mother and child, by breaking the amnios
+and chorion. These pains, which are often mistaken for labour, are
+removed by warm clothes laid to the belly, and the application of a
+clyster or two, by which those pains which precede a true labour, are
+rather furthered than hindered. There are also other pains incident to a
+woman in that condition from the flux of the belly, which are easily
+known by the frequent stools that follow them.
+
+The signs, therefore, of labour, some few days before, are that the
+woman's belly, which before lay high, sinks down, and hinders her from
+walking so easily as she used to do; also there flow from the womb slimy
+humours, which nature has appointed to moisten and smooth the passage
+that its inward orifice may be the more easily dilated when there is
+occasion; which beginning to open at this time, suffers that slime to
+flow away, which proceeds from the Glandules called _prostata_. These
+are signs preceding the labour; but when she is presently falling into
+labour, the signs are, great pains about the region of the reins and
+loins, which coming and retreating by intervals, are answered in the
+bottom of the belly by congruous throes, and sometimes the face is red
+and inflamed, the blood being much heated by the endeavours a woman
+makes to bring forth her child; and likewise, because during these
+strong throes her respiration is intercepted, which causes the blood to
+have recourse to her face; also her privy parts are swelled by the
+infant's head lying in the birth, which, by often thrusting, causes
+those parts to descend outwards. She is much subject to vomiting, which
+is a good sign of good labour and speedy delivery, though by ignorant
+people thought otherwise; for good pains are thereby excited and
+redoubled; which vomiting is excited by the sympathy there is between
+the womb and the stomach. Also, when the birth is near, women are
+troubled with a trembling in the thighs and legs, not with cold, like
+the beginning of an ague fit, but with the heat of the whole body,
+though it must be granted, this does not happen always. Also, if the
+humours which then flow from the womb are discoloured with the blood,
+which the midwives call _shows_, it is an infallible mark of the birth
+being near. And if then the midwife puts up her fingers into the neck of
+the womb, she will find the inner orifice dilated; at the opening of
+which the membranes of the infant, containing the waters, present
+themselves and are strongly forced down with each pain she hath; at
+which time one may perceive them sometimes to resist, and then again
+press forward the finger, being more or less hard and extended,
+according as the pains are stronger or weaker. These membranes, with the
+waters in them, when they are before the head of the child, midwives
+call _the gathering of the waters_, resemble to the touch of the fingers
+those eggs which have no shell, but are covered only with a simple
+membrane. After this, the pains still redoubling the membranes are
+broken by a strong impulsation of these waters, which flow away, and
+then the head of the infant is presently felt naked, and presents
+itself at the inward orifice of the womb. When these waters come thus
+away, then the midwife may be assured the birth is very near, this being
+the most certain sign that can be; for the _amnios alantois_, which
+contained these waters, being broken by the pressing forward of the
+birth, the child is no better able to subsist long in the womb
+afterwards than a naked man in a heap of snow. Now, these waters, if the
+child comes presently after them, facilitate the labour by making the
+passage slippery; and therefore, let no midwife (as some have foolishly
+done) endeavour to force away the water, for nature knows best when the
+true time of birth is, and therefore retains the waters till that time.
+But if by accident the water breaks away too long before the birth, then
+such things as will hasten it, may be safely administered, and what
+these are, I will show in another section.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_How a Woman ought to be ordered when the time of her labour
+    is come._
+
+When it is known that the true time of her labour is come by the signs
+laid down in the foregoing, of which those most to be relied upon are
+pains and strong throes in the belly, forcing downwards towards the
+womb, and a dilation of the inward orifice, which may be perceived by
+touching it with the finger, and the gathering of the waters before the
+head of the child, and thrusting down the membranes which contain them;
+through which, between the pains, one may in some manner with the finger
+discover the part which presents itself (as we have said before),
+especially if it be the head of the child, by its roundness and
+hardness; I say, if these things concur and are evident, the midwife may
+be sure it is the time of the woman's labour, and care must be taken to
+get all those things that are necessary to comfort her at that time. And
+the better to help her, be sure to see that she is not tightly laced;
+you must also give her one strong clyster or more, if there be occasion,
+provided it be done at the beginning, and before the child be too
+forward, for it will be difficult for her to receive them afterwards.
+The benefit accruing therefrom will be, that they excite the gut to
+discharge itself of its excrements, so that the rectum being emptied
+there may be the more space for the dilation of the passage; likewise to
+cause the pains to bear the more downward, through the endeavours she
+makes when she is at stool, and in the meantime, all other necessary
+things for her labour should be put in order, both for the mother and
+the child. To this end, some get a midwife's; but a pallet bed, girded,
+is much the best way, placed near the fire, if the season so require,
+which pallet ought to be so placed, that there may be easy access to it
+on every side, that the woman may be the more easily assisted, as there
+is occasion.
+
+If the woman abounds with blood, to bleed her a little more may not be
+improper, for thereby she will both breathe the better, and have her
+breasts more at liberty, and likewise more strength to bear down her
+pains; and this may be done without danger because the child being about
+ready to be born, has no more need of the mother's blood for its
+nourishment; besides, this evacuation does many times prevent her having
+a fever after delivery. Also, before her delivery, if her strength will
+permit, let her walk up and down her chamber; and that she may have
+strength so to do, it will be necessary to give her good strengthening
+things, such as jelly, broth, new laid eggs, or some spoonfuls of burnt
+wine; and let her by all means hold out her pains, bearing them down as
+much as she can, at the time when they take her; and let the midwife
+from time to time touch the inward orifice with her finger, to know
+whether the waters are ready to break and whether the birth will follow
+soon after. Let her also anoint the woman's privities with emollient
+oil, hog's grease, and fresh butter, if she find they are hard to be
+dilated. Let the midwife, likewise, all the time be near the labouring
+woman, and diligently observe her gestures, complaints, and pains, for
+by this she may guess pretty well how far her labour advanceth, because
+when she changeth her ordinary groans into loud cries, it is a sign that
+the child is near the birth; for at the time her pains are greater and
+more frequent. Let the woman likewise, by intervals, rest herself upon
+the bed to regain her strength, but not too long, especially if she be
+little, short and thick, for such women have always worse labour if they
+lie long on their beds in their travail. It is better, therefore, that
+she walk about her chamber as long as she can, the woman supporting her
+under the arms, if it be necessary; for by this means, the weight of the
+child causes the inward orifices of the womb to dilate the sooner than
+in bed, and if her pains be stronger and more frequent, her labour will
+not be near so long. Let not the labouring woman be concerned at those
+qualms and vomitings which, perhaps, she may find come upon her, for
+they will be much for her advantage in the issue, however uneasy she may
+be for a time, as they further her pains and throes by provoking
+downward.
+
+When the waters of the child are ready and gathered (which may be
+perceived through the membranes presenting themselves to the orifice)
+to the bigness of the whole dilatation, the midwife ought to let them
+break of themselves, and not, like some hasty midwives, who being
+impatient of the woman's long labour, break them, intending thereby to
+hasten their business, when instead thereof, they retard it; for by the
+too hasty breaking of these waters (which nature designed to make the
+child slip more easy), the passage remains dry by which means the pains
+and throes of the labouring woman are less efficacious to bring forth
+the infant than they would otherwise have been. It is, therefore, much
+the better way to let the waters break of themselves; after which the
+midwife may with ease feel the child by that part which first presents,
+and thereby discern whether it comes right, that is, with the head
+foremost, for that is the proper and most natural way of the birth. If
+the head comes right, she will find it big, round, hard and equal; but
+if it be any other part, she will find it rugged, unequal, soft and
+hard, according to the nature of the part it is. And this being the true
+time when a woman ought to be delivered, if nature be not wanting to
+perform its office, therefore, when the midwife finds the birth thus
+coming forward let her hasten to assist and deliver it, for it
+ordinarily happens soon after, if it be natural.
+
+But if it happens, as it sometimes may, that the waters break away too
+long before the birth, in such a case, those things which hasten nature
+may safely be administered. For which purpose make use of pennyroyal,
+dittany, juniper berries, red coral, betony and feverfew, boiled in
+white wine, and give a drachm of it, or it would be much better to take
+the juice of it when it is in its prime, which is in May, and having
+clarified it, make it into a syrup with double its weight of sugar, and
+keep it all the year, to use when occasion calls for it; mugwort used in
+the same manner is also good in this case; also a drachm of cinnamon
+powder given inwardly profits much in this case; and so does tansey
+broiled and applied to the privities; or an oil of it, so, made and
+used, as you were taught before. The stone _aetites_ held to the
+privities, is of extraordinary virtue, and instantly draws away, both
+child and after-burden; but great care must be taken to remove it
+presently, or it will draw forth womb and all; for such is the magnetic
+virtue of this stone that both child and womb follow it as readily as
+iron doth the load-stone or the load-stone the north star.
+
+There are many things that physicians affirm are good in this case;
+among which are an ass's or horse's hoof, hung near the privities; a
+piece of red coral hung near the said place. A load-stone helps very
+much, held in the woman's left hand; or the skin cut off a snake, girt
+about the middle, next to the skin. These things are mentioned by
+Mizaldus, but setting those things aside, as not so certain,
+notwithstanding Mizaldus quotes them, the following prescriptions are
+very good to speedy deliverance to women in travail.
+
+(1) A decoction of white wine made in savory, and drank.
+
+(2) Take wild tansey, or silver weed, bruise it, and apply to the
+woman's nostrils.
+
+(3) Take date stones, and beat them to powder, and let her take half a
+drachm of them in white wine at a time.
+
+(4) Take parsley and bruise it and press out the juice, and dip a linen
+cloth in it, and put it so dipped into the mouth of the womb; it will
+presently cause the child to come away, though it be dead, and it will
+bring away the after-burden. Also the juice of the parsley is a thing of
+so great virtue (especially stone parsley) that being drank by a woman
+with child, it cleanseth not only the womb, but also the child in the
+womb, of all gross humours.
+
+(5) A scruple of castorum in powder, in any convenient liquor, is very
+good to be taken in such a case, and so also is two or three drops of
+castorum in any convenient liquor; or eight or nine drops of spirits of
+myrrh given in any convenient liquor, gives speedy deliverance.
+
+(6) Give a woman in such a case another woman's milk to drink; it will
+cause speedy delivery, and almost without pain.
+
+(7) The juice of leeks, being drunk with warm water, highly operates to
+cause speedy delivery.
+
+(8) Take peony seeds and beat them into a powder, and mix the powder
+with oil, with which oil anoint the privities of the woman and child; it
+will give her deliverance speedily, and with less pain than can be
+imagined.
+
+(9) Take a swallow's nest and dissolve it in water, strain it, and drink
+it warm, it gives delivery with great speed and much ease.
+
+Note this also in general, that all that move the terms are good for
+making the delivery easy, such as myrrh, white amber in white wine, or
+lily water, two scruples or a drachm; or cassia lignea, dittany, each a
+drachm; cinnamon, half a drachm, saffron, a scruple; give a drachm, or
+take borax mineral, a drachm, and give it in sack; or take cassia
+lignea, a drachm; dittany, amber, of each a drachm; cinnamon, borax, of
+each a drachm and a half; saffron, a scruple, and give her half a
+drachm; or give her some drops of oil of hazel in convenient liquor; or
+two or three drops of oil of cinnamon in vervain water. Some prepare
+the secundine thus:--Take the navel-string and dry it in an oven, take
+two drachms of the powder, cinnamon a drachm, saffron half a scruple,
+with the juice of savin make trochisks; give two drachms; or wash the
+secundine in wine and bake it in a pot; then wash it in endive water and
+wine, take half a drachm of it; long pepper, galangal, of each half a
+drachm; plantain and endive seed, of each half a drachm; lavender seed,
+four scruples; make a powder, or take laudanum, two drachms; storax,
+calamite, benzoin, of each half a drachm; musk, ambergris each six
+grains, make a powder or trochisks for a fume. Or use pessaries to
+provoke the birth; take galbanum dissolved in vinegar, an ounce; myrrh,
+two drachms, with oil of oat make a pessary.
+
+
+
+_An Ointment For the Navel._
+
+Take oil of keir, two ounces, juice of savine an ounce, of leeks and
+mercury, each half an ounce; boil them to the consumption of the juice;
+add galbanum dissolved in vinegar, half an ounce, myrrh, two drachms,
+storax liquid a drachm, round bitwort, sowbread, cinnamon, saffron, a
+drachm, with wax make an ointment and apply it.
+
+If the birth be retarded through the weakness of the mother, refresh
+her by applying wine and soap to the nose, confect. alkermas. diamarg.
+
+These things may be applied to help nature in her delivery when the
+child comes to the birth the right way, and yet the birth be retarded;
+but if she finds the child comes the wrong way, and that she is not able
+to deliver the woman as she ought to be, by helping nature, and saving
+both mother and child (for it is not enough to lay a woman if it might
+be done any other way with more safety and ease, and less hazard to
+woman and child), then let her send speedily for the better and more
+able to help; and not as I once knew a midwife do, who, when a woman she
+was to deliver had hard labour, rather than a man-midwife should be sent
+for, undertook to deliver the woman herself (though told it was a man's
+business), and in her attempting it, brought away the child, but left
+the head in the mother's womb; and had not a man midwife been presently
+sent for, the mother had lost her life as well as the child; such
+persons may rather be termed butchers than midwives. But supposing the
+woman's labour to be natural, I will next show what the midwife ought to
+do, in order of her delivery.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+     _Of Natural Labour; What it is and what the Midwife is to do in
+     such Labour._
+
+
+SECTION I.--_What Natural Labour is._
+
+There are four things which denominate a woman's natural labour; the
+first is, that it be at the full time, for if a woman comes before her
+time, it cannot be termed natural labour, neither will it be so easy as
+though she had completed her nine months. The second thing is, that it
+be speedy, and without any ill accident; for when the time of her birth
+come, nature is not dilatory in the bringing it forth, without some ill
+accident intervene, which renders it unnatural.
+
+The third is, that the child be alive; for all will grant, that the
+being delivered of a dead child is very unnatural. The fourth is, that
+the child come right, for if the position of the child in the womb be
+contrary to that which is natural, the event will prove it so, by making
+that which should be a time of life, the death both of the mother and
+the child.
+
+Having thus told you what I mean by natural labour, I shall next show
+how the midwife is to proceed therein, in order to the woman's
+delivery. When all the foregoing requisites concur, and after the
+waters be broken of themselves, let there rather a quilt be laid upon
+the pallet bedstead than a feather bed, having there-on linen and cloths
+in many folds, with such other things as are necessary, and that may be
+changed according to the exigency requiring it, so that the woman may
+not be incommoded with the blood, waters and other filth which are
+voided in labour. The bed ought to be ordered, that the woman being
+ready to be delivered, should lie on her back upon it, having her body
+in a convenient posture; this is, her head and breast a little raised,
+so that she may be between lying and sitting, for being so placed, she
+is best capable of breathing, and, likewise, will have more strength to
+bear her pains than if she lay otherwise, or sunk down in her bed. Being
+so placed, she must spread her thighs abroad, folding her legs a little
+towards her buttocks, somewhat raised by a little pillow underneath, to
+the end that her rumps should have more liberty to retire back; and let
+her feet be stayed against some firm thing; besides this, let her take
+firm hold of some of the good women attending her, with her hands, that
+she may the better stay herself during her pains. She being thus placed
+at her bed, having her midwife at hand, the better to assist as nature
+may require, let her take courage, and help her pains as best she can,
+bearing them down when they take her, which she must do by holding her
+breath, and forcing them as much as possible, in like manner as when she
+goes to stool, for by such straining, the diaphragm, or midriff, being
+strongly thrust downward, necessarily forces down the womb and the child
+in it. In the meantime, let the midwife endeavour to comfort her all she
+can, exhorting her to bear her labour courageously, telling her it will
+be quickly over, and that there is no fear but that she will have a
+speedy delivery. Let the midwife also, having no rings on her fingers,
+anoint them with oil of fresh butter, and therewith dilate gently the
+inward orifice of the womb putting her finger ends into the entry
+thereof, and then stretch them one from the other, when her pains take
+her; by this means endeavouring to help forward the child, and thrusting
+by little and little, the sides of the orifice towards the hinder part
+of the child's head, anointing it with fresh butter if it be necessary.
+
+When the head of the infant is a little advanced into the inward
+orifice, the midwife's phrase is:--"It is crowned"; because it girds and
+surrounds it just as a crown; but when it is so far that the extremities
+begin to appear without the privy parts, then they say, "The infant is
+in the passage"; and at this time the woman feels herself as if it were
+scratched, or pricked with pins, and is ready to imagine that the
+midwife hurts her, when it is occasioned by the violent distension of
+those parts and the laceration which sometimes the bigness of the
+child's head causeth there. When things are in this posture, let the
+midwife seat herself conveniently to receive the child, which will come
+quickly, and with her finger ends (which she must be sure to keep close
+pared) let her endeavour to thrust the crowning of the womb (of which I
+have spoken before), back over the head of the child, and as soon as it
+is advanced as far as the ears, or thereabouts, let her take hold of the
+two sides with her two hands, that when a good pain comes she may
+quickly draw forth the child, taking care that the navel-string be not
+entangled about the neck or any part, as sometimes it is, lest thereby
+the after-burden be pulled with violence, and perhaps the womb also, to
+which it is fastened, and so either cause her to flood or else break the
+strings, both which are of bad consequence to the woman, whose delivery
+may thereby be rendered the more difficult. It must also be carefully
+observed that the head be not drawn forth straight, but shaking it a
+little from one side to the other, that the shoulders may sooner and
+easier take their places immediately after it is past, without losing
+time, lest the head being past, the child be stopped there by the
+largeness of the shoulders, and so come in danger of being suffocated
+and strangled in the passage, as it sometimes happens, for the want of
+care therein. But as soon as the head is born, if there be need, she may
+slide her fingers under the armpits, and the rest of the body will
+follow without any difficulty.
+
+As soon as the midwife hath in this manner drawn forth the child, let
+her put it on one side, lest the blood and water which follows
+immediately, should do it any injury by running into its mouth and nose,
+as they would do, if it lay on its back; and so endanger the choking of
+it. The child being thus born, the next thing requisite is, to bring
+away the after-burden, but before that let the midwife be very careful
+to examine whether there be more children in the womb; for sometimes a
+woman may have twins that expected it not; which the midwife may easily
+know by the continuance of the pains after the child is born, and the
+bigness of the mother's belly. But the midwife may be sure of it, if she
+puts her hand up to the entry of the womb, and finds there another
+watery gathering, and the child in it presenting to the passage, and if
+she find it so, she must have a care of going to fetch the after-birth,
+till the woman be delivered of all the children she is pregnant with.
+Wherefore the first string must be cut, being first tied with a thread
+three or four times double, and fasten the other end with string to the
+woman's thighs, to prevent the inconvenience it may cause by hanging
+between the thighs; and then removing the child already born, she must
+take care to deliver her of the rest, observing all the circumstances as
+with the first; after which, it will be necessary to fetch away the
+after-birth, or births. But of that I shall treat in another section,
+and first show what is to be done to the new-born infant.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_Of the Cutting of the Child's Navel String._
+
+Though this is accounted by many but as a trifle, yet great care is to
+be taken about it, and it shows none of the least art and skill of a
+midwife to do it as it should be; and that it may be so done, the
+midwife should observe: (1) The time. (2) The place. (3) The manner. (4)
+The event.
+
+(1) The time is, as soon as ever the infant comes out of the womb,
+whether it brings part of the after-burden with it or not; for
+sometimes the child brings into the world a piece of the amnios upon its
+head, and is what mid wives call the _caul_, and ignorantly attribute
+some extraordinary virtue to the child so born; but this opinion is only
+the effect of their ignorance; for when a child is born with such a
+crown (as some call it) upon its brows, it generally betokens weakness
+and denotes a short life. But to proceed to the matter in hand. As soon
+as the child comes into the world, it should be considered whether it is
+weak or strong; and if it be weak, let the midwife gently put back part
+of the natural and vital blood into the body of the child by its navel;
+for that recruits a weak child (the vital and natural spirits being
+communicated by the mother to the child by its navel-string), but if the
+child be strong, the operation is needless. Only let me advise you, that
+many children that are born seemingly dead, may soon be brought to life
+again, if you squeeze six or seven drops of blood out of that part of
+the navel-string which is cut off, and give it to the child inwardly.
+
+(2) As to the place in which it should be cut, that is, whether it
+should be cut long or short, it is that which authors can scarcely agree
+in, and which many midwives quarrel about; some prescribing it to be cut
+at four fingers' breadth, which is, at best, but an uncertain rule,
+unless all fingers were of one size. It is a received opinion, that the
+parts adapted to the generation are contracted and dilated according to
+the cutting of the navel-string, and this is the reason why midwives are
+generally so kind to their own sex, that they leave a longer part of the
+navel-string of a male than female, because they would have the males
+well provided for the encounters of Venus; and the reason they give, why
+they cut that of the female shorter is, because they believe it makes
+them more acceptable to their husbands. Mizaldus was not altogether of
+the opinion of these midwives, and he, therefore, ordered the navel
+string to be cut long both in male and female children; for which he
+gives the following reason, that the instrument of generation follows
+the proportion of it; and therefore, if it be cut too short in a female,
+it will be a hindrance to her having children. I will not go about to
+contradict the opinions of Mizaldus; these, experience has made
+good:--That one is, that if the navel-string of a child, after it be
+cut, be suffered to touch the ground, the child will never hold its
+water, either sleeping or waking, but will be subjected to an
+involuntary making of water all its lifetime. The other is, that a piece
+of a child's navel-string carried about one, so that it touch his skin,
+defends him that wears it from the falling sickness and convulsions.
+
+(3) As to the manner it must be cut, let the midwife take a brown
+thread, four or five times double, of an ell long, or thereabouts, tied
+with a single knot at each of the ends, to prevent their entangling; and
+with this thread so accommodated (which the woman must have in readiness
+before the woman's labour, as also a good pair of scissors, that no time
+may be lost) let her tie the string within an inch of the belly with a
+double knot, and turning about the end of the thread, let her tie two
+more on the other side of the string, reiterating it again, if it be
+necessary; then let her cut off the navel-string another inch below the
+ligatures, towards the after-birth, so that there only remains but two
+inches of the string, in the midst of which will be the knot we speak
+of, which must be so close knit, as not to suffer a drop of blood to
+squeeze out of the vessels, but care must be taken, not to knit it so
+strait, as to out it in two, and therefore the thread must be pretty
+thick and pretty strait cut, it being better too strait than too loose;
+for some children have miserably lost their lives, with all their blood,
+before it was discovered, because the navel-string was not well tied,
+therefore great care must be taken that no blood squeeze through; for if
+there do, a new knot must be made with the rest of the string. You need
+not fear to bind the navel-string very hard because it is void of sense,
+and that part which you leave, falls off in a very few days, sometimes
+in six or seven, or sooner, but never tarries longer than eight or nine.
+When you have thus cut the navel-string, then take care the piece that
+falls off touch not the ground, for the reason I told you Mizaldus gave,
+which experience has justified.
+
+(4) The last thing I mentioned, was the event or consequence, or what
+follows cutting the navel-string. As soon as it is cut, apply a little
+cotton or lint to the place to keep it warm, lest the cold enter into
+the body of the child, which it most certainly will do, if you have not
+bound it hard enough. If the lint or cotton you apply to it, be dipped
+in oil of roses, it will be the better, and then put another small rag
+three or four times double upon the belly; upon the top of all, put
+another small bolster, and then swathe it with a linen swathe, four
+fingers broad, to keep it steady, lest by moving too much, or from being
+continually stirred from side to side, it comes to fall off before the
+navel-string, which you left remaining, is fallen off.
+
+It is the usual custom of midwives to put a piece of burnt rag to it,
+which we commonly call tinder; but I would rather advise them to put a
+little ammoniac to it, because of its drying qualities.
+
+
+
+SECT. III.--_How to bring away the After-burden._
+
+A woman cannot be said to be fairly delivered, though the child be born,
+till the after-burden be also taken from her; herein differing from most
+animals, who, when they have brought forth their young, cast forth
+nothing else but some water, and the membranes which contained them. But
+women have an after-labour, which sometimes proves more dangerous than
+the first; and how to bring it safely away without prejudice to her,
+shall be my business to show in this section.
+
+As soon as the child is born, before the midwife either ties or cuts the
+navel-string, lest the womb should close, let her take the string and
+wind it once or twice about one or two fingers on her left hand joined
+together, the better to hold it, with which she may draw it moderately,
+and with the right hand, she may only take a single hold of it, above
+the left, near the privities, drawing likewise with that very gently,
+resting the while the forefinger of the same hand, extended and
+stretched forth along the string towards the entrance of the vagina,
+always observing, for the greater facility, to draw it from the side
+where the burden cleaves least; for in so doing, the rest will separate
+the better; and special care must be taken that it be not drawn forth
+with too much violence, lest by breaking the string near the burden, the
+midwife be obliged to put the whole hand into the womb to deliver the
+woman; and she need to be a very skilful person that undertakes it, lest
+the womb, to which the burden is sometimes very strongly fastened, be
+drawn away with it, as has sometimes happened. It is, therefore, best to
+use such remedies as may assist nature. And here take notice, that what
+brings away the birth, will also bring away the after-birth. And
+therefore, for effecting this work, I will lay down the following rules.
+
+(1) Use the same means of bringing away the after-birth, that you made
+use of to bring away the birth; for the same care and circumspection are
+needful now that there were then.
+
+(2) Considering that the labouring woman cannot but be much spent by
+what she has already undergone in bringing forth the infant, be
+therefore sure to give her something to comfort her. And in this case
+good jelly broths, also a little wine and toast in it, and other
+comforting things, will be necessary.
+
+(3) A little hellebore in powder, to make her sneeze, is in this case
+very proper.
+
+(4) Tansey, and the stone aetites, applied as before directed, are also
+of good use in this case.
+
+(5) If you take the herb vervain, and either boil it in wine, or a syrup
+with the juice of it, which you may do by adding to it double its weight
+of sugar (having clarified the juice before you boil it), a spoonful of
+that given to the woman is very efficacious to bring away the secundine;
+and feverfew and mugwort have the same operation taken as the former.
+
+(6) Alexanders[10] boiled in wine, and the wine drank, also sweet
+servile, sweet cicily, angelica roots, and musterwort, are excellent
+remedies in this case.
+
+(7) Or, if this fail, the smoke of marigolds, received up a woman's
+privities by a funnel, have been known to bring away the after-birth,
+even when the midwife let go her hold.
+
+(8) Boil mugwort in water till it be very soft, then take it out, and
+apply it in the manner of a poultice to the navel of the labouring
+woman, and it instantly brings away the birth. But special care must be
+taken to remove it as soon as they come away, lest by its long tarrying
+it should draw away the womb also.
+
+
+
+SECT. IV.--_Of Laborious and Difficult Labours and how the Midwife is
+    to proceed therein._
+
+There are three sorts of bad labours, all painful and difficult, but not
+all properly unnatural. It will be necessary, therefore, to distinguish
+these.
+
+The _first_ of these labours is that when the mother and child suffer
+very much extreme pain and difficulty, even though the child come right;
+and this is distinguishably called the laborious labour.
+
+The _second_ is that which is difficult and differs not much from the
+former, except that, besides those extraordinary pains, it is generally
+attended with some unhappy accident, which, by retarding the birth,
+causes the difficulty; but these difficulties being removed, it
+accelerates the birth, and hastens the delivery.
+
+Some have asked, what is the reason that women bring forth their
+children with so much pain? I answer, the sense of feeling is
+distributed to the whole body by the nerves, and the mouth of the womb
+being so narrow, that it must of necessity be dilated at the time of the
+woman's delivery, the dilating thereof stretches the nerves, and from
+thence comes the pain. And therefore the reason why some women have more
+pain in their labour than others, proceeds from their having the mouth
+of the matrix more full of nerves than others. The best way to remove
+those difficulties that occasion hard pains and labour, is to show first
+from whence they proceed. Now the difficulty of labour proceeds either
+from the mother, or child, or both.
+
+From the mother, by reason of the indisposition of the body, or from
+some particular part only, and chiefly the womb, as when the woman is
+weak, and the mother is not active to expel the burden, or from
+weakness, or disease, or want of spirits; or it may be from strong
+passion of the mind with which she was once possessed; she may also be
+too young, and so may have the passage too narrow; or too old, and then,
+if it be her first child, because her pains are too dry and hard, and
+cannot be easily dilated, as happens also to them which are too lean;
+likewise those who are small, short or deformed, as crooked women who
+have not breath enough to help their pains, and to bear them down,
+persons that are crooked having sometimes the bones of the passage not
+well shaped. The colic also hinders labour, by preventing the true
+pains; and all great and active pains, as when the woman is taken with a
+great and violent fever, a great flooding, frequent convulsions, bloody
+flux, or any other great distemper. Also, excrements retained cause
+great difficulty, and so does a stone in the bladder: or when the
+bladder is full of urine, without being able to void it, or when the
+woman is troubled with great and painful piles. It may also be from the
+passages, when the membranes are thick, the orifice too narrow, and the
+neck of the womb not sufficiently open, the passages strained and
+pressed by tumours in the adjacent parts, or when the bones are too
+firm, and will not open, which very much endangers the mother and the
+child; or when the passages are not slippery, by reason of the waters
+having broken too soon, or membranes being too thin. The womb may also
+be out of order with regard to its bad situation or conformation, having
+its neck too narrow, hard and callous, which may easily be so naturally,
+or may come by accident, being many times caused by a tumour, an
+imposthume, ulcer or superfluous flesh.
+
+As to hard labour occasioned by the child, it is when the child happens
+to stick to a mole, or when it is so weak it cannot break the membranes;
+or if it be too big all over, or in the head only; or if the natural
+vessels are twisted about its neck; when the belly is hydropsical; or
+when it is monstrous, having two heads, or joined to another child,
+also, when the child is dead or so weak that it can contribute nothing
+to its birth; likewise when it comes wrong, or there are two or more.
+And to all these various difficulties there is oftentimes one more, and
+that is, the ignorance of the midwife, who for want of understanding in
+her business, hinders nature in her work instead of helping her.
+
+Having thus looked into the cause of hard labour, I will now show the
+industrious midwife how she may minister some relief to the labouring
+woman under these difficult circumstances. But it will require judgment
+and understanding in the midwife, when she finds a woman in difficult
+labour, to know the particular obstruction, or cause thereof, that so a
+suitable remedy may be applied; as for instance, when it happens by the
+mother's being too young and too narrow, she must be gently treated, and
+the passages anointed with oil, hog's lard, or fresh butter, to relax
+and dilate them the easier, lest there should happen a rupture of any
+part when the child is born; for sometimes the peritoneum breaks, with
+the skin from the privities to the fundament.
+
+But if the woman be in years with her first child, let her lower parts
+be anointed to mollify the inward orifice, which in such a case being
+more hard and callous, does not easily yield to the distention of
+labour, which is the true cause why such women are longer in labour, and
+also why their children, being forced against the inward orifice of the
+womb (which, as I have said, is a little callous) are born with great
+bumps and bruises on their heads.
+
+Those women who are very small and mis-shaped, should not be put to bed,
+at least until the waters are broken, but rather kept upright and
+assisted to walk about the chamber, by being supported under the arms;
+for by that means, they will breathe more freely, and mend their pains
+better than on the bed, because there they lie all of a heap. As for
+those that are very lean, and have hard labour from that cause, let them
+moisten the parts with oil and ointments, to make them more smooth and
+slippery, that the head of the infant, and the womb be not so compressed
+and bruised by the hardness of the mother's bones which form the
+passage. If the cause be weakness, she ought to be strengthened, the
+better to support her pains, to which end give her good jelly broths,
+and a little wine with a toast in it. If she fears her pains, let her be
+comforted, assuring her that she will not endure any more, but be
+delivered in a little time. But if her pains be slow and small, or none
+at all, they must be provoked by frequent and pretty strong clysters;
+let her walk about her chamber, so that the weight of the child may help
+them forward. If she flood or have strong convulsions she must then be
+helped by a speedy delivery; the operation I shall relate in this
+section of unnatural labours. If she be costive, let her use clysters,
+which may also help to dispel colic, at those times very injurious
+because attended with useless pains, and because such bear not downward,
+and so help not to forward the birth. If she find an obstruction or
+stoppage of the urine, by reason of the womb's bearing too much on the
+bladder, let her lift up her belly a little with her hands, and try if
+by that she receives any benefit; if she finds she does not, it will be
+necessary to introduce a catheter into her bladder, and thereby draw
+forth her urine. If the difficulty be from the ill posture of the woman,
+let her be placed otherwise, in a posture more suitable and convenient
+for her; also if it proceeds from indispositions of the womb, as from
+its oblique situation, etc., it must be remedied, as well as it can be,
+by the placing her body accordingly; or, if it be a vicious
+conformation, having the neck too hard, too callous, too straight, it
+must be anointed with oil and ointments, as before directed. If the
+membranes be so strong that the waters do not break in due time, they
+may be broken with the fingers, if the midwife be first well assured
+that the child is come forward into the passage, and ready to follow
+presently after; or else, by the breaking of the waters too soon, the
+child may be in danger of remaining dry a long time; to supply which
+defect, you may moisten the parts with fomentations, decoctions, and
+emollient oils; which yet is not half so well as when nature does her
+work in her own time, with the ordinary slime and waters. The membranes
+sometimes do press forth with the waters, three or four fingers' breadth
+out of the body before the child resembling a bladder full of water; but
+there is no great danger in breaking them, if they be not already
+broken; for when the case is so, the child is always in readiness to
+follow, being in the passage, but let the midwife be very careful not to
+pull it with her hand, lest the after-burden be thereby loosened before
+its time, for it adheres thereto very strongly. If the navel-string
+happen to come first, it must presently be put up again, and kept so, if
+possible, or otherwise, the woman must be immediately delivered. But if
+the after-burden should come first, it must not be put up again by any
+means; for the infant having no further occasion for it, it would be but
+an obstacle if it were put up; in this case, it must be cut off, having
+tied the navel-string, and afterwards draw forth the child with all
+speed that may be, lest it be suffocated.
+
+
+
+SECT. V.--_Of Women labouring of a dead Child._
+
+When the difficulty of labour arises from a dead child, it is a great
+danger to a mother and great care ought to be taken therein; but before
+anything be done, the midwife ought to be well assured that the child is
+dead indeed, which may be known by these signs.
+
+(1) The breast suddenly slacks, or falls flat, or bags down. (2) A great
+coldness possesses the belly of the mother, especially about the navel.
+(3) Her urine is thick, with a filthy stinking settling at the bottom.
+(4) No motion of the child can be perceived; for the trial whereof, let
+the midwife put her hand into warm water, and lay it upon the belly, for
+that, if it is alive, will make it stir. (5) She is very subject to
+dreams of dead men, and affrighted therewith. (6) She has extraordinary
+longings to eat such things as are contrary to nature. (7) Her breath
+stinks, though not used so to do. (8) When she turns herself in her bed,
+the child sways that way like a lump of lead.
+
+These things being carefully observed, the midwife may make a judgment
+whether the child be alive or dead, especially if the woman take the
+following prescription:--"Take half a pint of white wine and burn it,
+and add thereto half an ounce of cinnamon, but no other spices
+whatever, and when she has drunk it, if her travailing pains come upon
+her, the child is certainly dead; but if not, the child may possibly be
+either weak or sick, but not dead. This will bring her pains upon her if
+it be dead, and will refresh the child and give her ease if it be
+living; for cinnamon refresheth and strengtheneth the child.
+
+Now, if upon trial it be found the child is dead, let the mother do all
+she can to forward the delivery, because a dead child can in no wise be
+helpful therein. It will be necessary, therefore, that she take some
+comfortable things to prevent her fainting, by reason of the putrid
+vapours arising from the dead child. And in order to her delivery let
+her take the following herbs boiled in white wine (or at least as many
+of them as you can get), viz., dittany, betony, pennyroyal, sage,
+feverfew, centaury, ivy leaves and berries. Let her also take sweet
+basil in powder, and half a drachm at a time in white wine; let her
+privities also be anointed with the juice of the garden tansey. Or take
+the tansey in the summer when it can most plentifully be had, and before
+it runs up to flower, and having bruised it well, boil it in oil until
+the juice of it be consumed. If you set it in the sun, after you have
+mixed it with oil, it will be more effectual. This, an industrious
+midwife, who would be prepared against all events, ought to have always
+by her. As to the manner of her delivery, the same methods must be used
+as are mentioned in the section of natural labour. And here again, I
+cannot but commend the stone aetites, held near the privities, whose
+magnetic virtue renders it exceedingly necessary on this occasion, for
+it draws the child any way with the same facility that the load-stone
+draws iron.
+
+Let the midwife also make a strong decoction of hyssop with water, and
+let the woman drink it very hot, and it will in a little time bring away
+the dead child.
+
+If, as soon as she is delivered of the dead child, you are in doubt that
+part of the afterbirth is left behind in the body (for in such cases as
+these many times it rots, and comes away piece-meal), let her continue
+drinking the same decoction until her body be cleansed.
+
+A decoction made of herbs, muster-wort, used as you did the decoction of
+hyssop, works the effect. Let the midwife also take the roots of
+pollodum and stamp them well; warm them a little and bind them on the
+sides of her feet, and it will soon bring away the child either dead or
+alive.
+
+The following medicines also are such as stir up the expulsive faculty,
+but in this case they must be stronger, because the motion of the child
+ceases.
+
+Take savine, round birthwort, trochisks of myrrh, castor, cinnamon and
+saffron, each half a drachm; make a powder, give a drachm.
+
+Or she may purge first, and then apply an emollient, anointing her about
+the womb with oil of lilies, sweet almonds, camomiles, hen and
+goose-grease. Also foment to get out the child, with a decoction of
+mercury, orris, wild cucumbers, saecus, broom flowers. Then anoint the
+privities and loins with ointment of sow-bread. Or, take coloquintida,
+agaric, birthwort, of each a drachm; make a powder, add ammoniacum
+dissolved in wine, ox-gall, each two drachms. Or make a fume with an
+ass's hoof burnt, or gallianum, or castor, and let it be taken in with a
+funnel.
+
+To take away pains and strengthen the parts, foment with the decoction
+of mugwort, mallows, rosemary, with wood myrtle, St. John's wort, each
+half an ounce, spermaceti two drachms, deer's suet, an ounce; with wax
+make an ointment. Or take wax six ounces, spermaceti an ounce; melt
+them, dip flux therein, and lay it all over her belly.
+
+If none of these things will do, the last remedy is to try surgery, and
+then the midwife ought without delay to send for an expert and able
+man-midwife, to deliver her by manual operation, of which I shall treat
+more at large in the next chapter.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[10] Horse-parsley.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+     _Of Unnatural Labour._
+
+
+In showing the duty of a midwife, when the child-bearing woman's labour
+is unnatural, it will be requisite to show, in the first place, what I
+mean by unnatural labour, for that women do bring forth in pain and
+sorrow is natural and common to all. Therefore, that which I call
+unnatural is, when the child comes to the birth in a contrary posture to
+that which nature ordained, and in which the generality of the children
+come into the world.
+
+The right and natural birth is when the child comes with its head first;
+and yet this is too short a definition of a natural birth; for if any
+part of the head but the crown comes first, so that the body follows not
+in a straight line, it is a wrong and difficult birth, even though the
+head comes first. Therefore, if the child comes with its feet first, or
+with the side across, it is quite contrary to nature, or to speak more
+plainly, that which I call unnatural.
+
+Now, there are four general ways a child may come wrong. (1) When any of
+the foreparts of the body first present themselves. (2) When by an
+unhappy transposition, any of the hinder parts of the body first present
+themselves. (3) When either of the sides, or, (4) the feet present
+themselves first. To these, the different wrong postures that a child
+can present itself in, may be reduced.
+
+
+
+SECTION I.--_How to deliver a Woman of a Dead Child by Manual
+   Operation._
+
+When manual operation is necessary, let the operator acquaint the woman
+of the absolute necessity there is for such an operation; and that, as
+the child has already lost its life, there is no other way left for the
+saving hers. Let him also inform her, for her encouragement, that he
+doubts not, with the divine blessing, to deliver her safely, and that
+the pains arising therefrom will not be so great as she fears. Then let
+him stir up the woman's pains by giving her some sharp clyster, to
+excite her throes to bear down, and bring forth the child. And if this
+prevails not, let him proceed with the manual operation.
+
+First, therefore, let her be placed across the bed that he may operate
+the easier; and let her lie on her back, with her hips a little higher
+than her head, or at least the body equally placed, when it is necessary
+to put back or turn the infant to give it a better posture. Being thus
+situated, she must fold her legs so as her heels be towards her
+buttocks, and her thighs spread, and so held by a couple of strong
+persons, there must be others also to support her under her arms, that
+the body may not slide down when the child is drawn forth; for which
+sometimes great strength is required. Let the sheets and blankets cover
+her thighs for decency's sake, and with respect to the assistants, and
+also to prevent her catching cold; the operator herein governing himself
+as well with respect to his convenience, and the facility and surety of
+the operation, as to other things. Then let him anoint the entrance to
+the womb with oil or fresh butter, if necessary, that with so more ease
+he may introduce his hand, which must also be anointed, and having by
+the signs above mentioned, received satisfaction that the child is dead,
+he must do his endeavours to fetch it away as soon as he possibly can.
+If the child offer the head first, he must gently put it back until he
+hath liberty to introduce his hand quite into the womb; then sliding it
+along, under the belly, to find the feet, let him draw it forth by
+them, being very careful to keep the head from being locked into the
+passage; and that it be not separated from the body; which may be
+effected the more easily, because the child being very rotten and
+putrefied, the operator need not be so mindful to keep the breast and
+face downwards as he is in living births. But if notwithstanding all
+these precautions, by reason of the child's putrefaction, the head
+should be separated and left behind in the womb, it must be drawn forth
+according to the directions which have been given in the third section
+of this chapter. But when the head, coming first, is so far advanced
+that it cannot well be put back, it is better to draw it forth so, than
+to torment the woman too much by putting it back to turn it, and bring
+it by the feet; but the head being a part round and slippery, it may
+also happen that the operator cannot take hold of it with his fingers by
+reason of its moisture, nor put them up to the side of it, because the
+passage is filled with its bigness; he must, therefore, take a proper
+instrument, and put it up as far as he can without violence, between the
+womb and the child's head (for the child being dead before, there can be
+no danger in the operation), and let him fasten it there, giving it hold
+upon one of the bones of the skull, that it may not slide, and after it
+is well fixed in the head, he may therewith draw it forth, keeping the
+ends of the fingers of his left hand flat upon the opposite side, the
+better to help to disengage it, and by wagging it a little, to conduct
+it directly out of the passage, until the head be quite born; and then,
+taking hold of it with his hands only, the shoulders being drawn into
+the passage, and so sliding the fingers of both hands under the armpits,
+the child may be quite delivered, and then the after-burden fetched, to
+finish the operation, being careful not to pluck the navel-string too
+hard lest it break, as often happens when it is corrupt.
+
+If the dead child comes with the arm up to the shoulders so extremely
+swelled that the woman must suffer too great violence to have it put
+back, it is then (being first well assured the child is dead) best to
+take it off by the shoulder joints, by twisting three or four times
+about, which is very easily done by reason of the softness and
+tenderness of the body. After the arm is so separated, and no longer
+possesses the passage, the operator will have more room to put up his
+hand into the womb, to fetch the child by the feet and bring it away.
+
+But although the operator is sure the child is dead in the womb, yet he
+must not therefore presently use instruments because they are never to
+be used but when hands are not sufficient, and there is no other remedy
+to prevent the woman's danger, or to bring forth the child any other
+way; and the judicious operator will choose that way which is the least
+hazardous, and most safe.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_How a Woman must be Delivered when the Child's Feet come
+   first._
+
+There is nothing more obvious to those whose business it is to assist
+labouring women, than that the several unnatural postures in which
+children present themselves at the birth are the occasions of most of
+the bad labours and ill accidents that happen to them in that condition.
+
+And since midwives are often obliged, because of their unnatural
+situations, to draw the children forth by the feet, I conceive it to be
+most proper first to show how a child must be brought forth that
+presents itself in that posture, because it will be a guide to several
+of the rest.
+
+I know indeed in this case it is the advice of several authors to change
+the figure, and place the head so that it may present to the birth, and
+this counsel I should be very much inclined to follow, could they but
+also show how it may be done. But it will appear very difficult, if not
+impossible to be performed, if we would avoid the danger that by such
+violent agitations both the mother and the child must be put into, and
+therefore my opinion is, that it is better to draw forth by the feet,
+when it presents itself in that posture, than to venture a worse
+accident by turning it.
+
+As soon, therefore, as the waters are broken, and it is known that the
+child come thus and that the womb is open enough to admit the midwife's
+or operator's hand into it, or else by anointing the passage with oil or
+hog's grease, to endeavour to dilate it by degrees, using her fingers to
+this purpose, spreading them one from the other, after they are together
+entered, and continue to do so until they be sufficiently dilated, then
+taking care that her nails be well pared, no rings on her fingers and
+her hands well anointed with oil or fresh butter, and the woman placed
+in the manner directed in the former section, let her gently introduce
+her hand into the entrance of the womb, where finding the child's feet,
+let her draw it forth in the manner I shall presently direct; only let
+her first see whether it presents one foot or both, and if but one foot,
+she ought to consider whether it be the right foot or the left, and also
+in what fashion it comes; for by that means she will soon come to know
+where to find the other, which as soon as she knows and finds, let her
+draw it forth with the other; but of this she must be specially careful,
+viz., that the second be not the foot of another child; for if so, it
+may be of the utmost consequence, for she may sooner split both mother
+and child, than draw them forth. But this may be easily prevented if she
+but slide the hand up by the first leg and thigh to the waist, and there
+finding both thighs joined together, and descending from one and the
+same body. And this is also the best means to find the other foot, when
+it comes but with one.
+
+As soon as the midwife has found both the child's feet, she may draw
+them forth, and holding them together, may bring them little by little
+in this manner, taking afterwards hold of the arms and thighs, as soon
+as she can come at them, drawing them so till the hips come forth. While
+this is doing, let her observe to wrap the parts in a single cloth, so
+that her hands being always greasy slide not in the infant's body, which
+is very slippery, because of the vicious humours which are all over it;
+which being done, she may take hold under the hips, so as to draw it
+forth to the beginning of the breast; and let her on both sides with her
+hand bring down the child's hand along its body, which she may easily
+find; and then let her take care that the belly and face of the child be
+downwards; for if they should be upwards, there would be the same danger
+of its being stopped by the chin, over the share-bone, and therefore, if
+it be not so she must turn it to that posture; which may easily be done
+if she takes a proper hold of the body when the breasts and arms are
+forth, in the manner we have said, and draw it, turning it in proportion
+on that side it most inclines to, till it be turned with the face
+downwards, and so, having brought it to the shoulders, let her lose no
+time, desiring the woman at the same time to bear down, that so drawing
+the head at that instant may take its place, and not be stopped in the
+passage, though the midwife takes all possible care to prevent it. And
+when this happens, she must endeavour to draw forth the child by the
+shoulders (taking care that she separate not the body from the head, as
+I have known it done by the midwife), discharging it by little and
+little from the bones in the passage with the fingers of each hand,
+sliding them on each side opposite the other, sometimes above and
+sometimes under, till the work be ended; endeavouring to dispatch it as
+soon as possible, lest the child be suffocated, as it will unavoidably
+be, if it remain long in that posture; and this being well and
+carefully effected, she may soon after fetch away the after-birth, as I
+have before directed.
+
+
+
+SECT. III.--_How to bring away the Head of the Child, when separated
+    from the Body, and left behind in the Womb._
+
+Though the utmost care be taken in bringing away the child by the feet,
+yet if it happen to be dead, it is sometimes so putrid and corrupt, that
+with the least pull the head separates from the body and remains alone
+in the womb, and cannot be brought away but with a manual operation and
+great difficulty, it being extremely slippery, by reason of the place
+where it is, and from the roundness of its figure, on which no hold can
+well be taken; and so very great is the difficulty in this case that
+sometimes two or three very able practitioners in midwifery have, one
+after the other, left the operation unfinished, as not able to effect
+it, after the utmost industry, skill and strength; so that the woman,
+not being able to be delivered, perished. To prevent which fatal
+accident, let the following operation be observed.
+
+When the infant's head separates from the body, and is left alone
+behind, whether owing to putrefaction or otherwise, let the operator
+immediately, without any delay, while the womb is yet open, direct up
+his right hand to the mouth of the head (for no other hole can there be
+had), and having found it let him put one or two of his fingers into it,
+and the thumb under its chin; then let him draw it little by little,
+holding it by the jaws; but if that fails, as sometimes it will when
+putrefied, then let him pull off the right hand and slide up his left,
+with which he must support the head, and with the right hand let him
+take a narrow instrument called a _crochet_, but let it be strong and
+with a single branch, which he must guide along the inside of his hand,
+with the point of it towards it, for fear of hurting the womb; and
+having thus introduced it, let him turn it towards the head to strike
+either in an eyehole, or the hole of the ear, or behind the head, or
+else between the sutures, as he finds it most convenient and easy; and
+then draw forth the head so fastened with the said instrument, still
+helping to conduct it with his left hand; but when he hath brought it
+near the passage, being strongly fastened to the instrument, let him
+remember to draw forth his hand, that the passage not being filled with
+it, may be larger and easier, keeping still a finger or two on the side
+of the head, the better to disengage it.
+
+There is also another method, with more ease and less hardship than the
+former; let the operator take a soft fillet or linen slip, of about four
+fingers' breadth, and the length of three quarters of an ell or
+thereabouts, taking the two ends with the left hand, and the middle with
+the right, and let him so put it up with his right, as that it may be
+beyond the head, to embrace it as a sling does a stone, and afterwards
+draw forth the fillet by the two ends together; it will thus be easily
+drawn forth, the fillet not hindering the least passage, because it
+takes up little or no space.
+
+When the head is fetched out of the womb care must be taken that not the
+least part of it be left behind, and likewise to cleanse the womb of the
+after-burden, if yet remaining. If the burden be wholly separated from
+the side of the womb, that ought to be first brought away, because it
+may also hinder the taking hold of the head. But if it still adheres to
+the womb, it must not be meddled with till the head be brought away; for
+if one should endeavour to separate it from the womb, it might then
+cause a flooding, which would be augmented by the violence of the
+operation, the vessels to which it is joined remaining for the most part
+open as long as the womb is distended, which the head causeth while it
+is retained in it, and cannot be closed until this strange body be
+voided, and this it doth by contracting and compressing itself
+together, as has been more fully before explained. Besides, the
+after-birth remaining thus cleaving to the womb during the operation,
+prevents it from receiving easily either bruise or hurt.
+
+
+
+SECT. IV.--_How to deliver a Woman when the child's head is presented to
+    the birth._
+
+Though some may think it a natural labour when the child's head come
+first, yet, if the child's head present not the right way, even that is
+an unnatural labour; and therefore, though the head comes first, yet if
+it be the side of the head instead of the crown, it is very dangerous
+both to the mother and the child, for the child's neck would be broken,
+if born in that manner, and by how much the mother's pains continue to
+bear the child, which is impossible unless the head be rightly placed,
+the more the passages are stopped. Therefore, as soon as the position of
+the child is known, the woman must be laid with all speed, lest the
+child should advance further than this vicious posture, and thereby
+render it more difficult to thrust it back, which must be done, in order
+to place the head right in the passage, as it ought to be.
+
+To this purpose, therefore, place the woman so that her buttocks may be
+a little higher than her head and shoulders, causing her to lean a
+little to the opposite side to the child's ill posture; then let the
+operator slide up his hand, well anointed with oil, by the side of the
+child's head; to bring it right gently, with his fingers between the
+head and the womb; but if the head be so engaged that it cannot be done
+that way, he must then put up his hand to the shoulders, that by so
+thrusting them back a little into the womb, sometimes on the one side,
+and sometimes on the other, he may, little by little, give a natural
+position. I confess it would be better if the operator could put back
+the child by its shoulders with both hands, but the head takes up so
+much room, that he will find much ado to put up one, with which he must
+perform this operation, and, with the help of the finger-ends of the
+other hand put forward the child's birth as in natural labour.
+
+Some children present their face first, having their hands turned back,
+in which posture it is extremely difficult for a child to be born; and
+if it continues so long, the face will be swelled and become black and
+blue, so that it will at first appear monstrous, which is occasioned as
+well by the compression of it in that place, as by the midwife's fingers
+in handling it, in order to place it in a better posture. But this
+blackness will wear away in three or four days' time, by anointing it
+often with oil of sweet almonds. To deliver the birth, the same
+operation must be used as in the former, when the child comes first with
+the side of the head; only let the midwife or operator work very gently
+to avoid as much as possible the bruising the face.
+
+
+
+SECT. V.--_How to Deliver a Woman when the Child presents one or both
+    Hands together with the Head._
+
+Sometimes the infant will present some other part together with its
+head; which if it does, it is usually with one or both of its hands; and
+this hinders the birth, because the hands take up part of that passage
+which is little enough for the head alone; besides that, when this
+happens, they generally cause the head to lean on one side; and
+therefore this position may be well styled unnatural. When the child
+presents thus, the first thing to be done after it is perceived, must
+be, to prevent it from coming down more, or engaging further in the
+passage; and therefore, the operator having placed the woman on the bed,
+with her head lower than her buttocks, must guide and put back the
+infant's hand with his own as much as may be, or both of them, if they
+both come down, to give way to the child's head; and this being done,
+if the head be on one side, it must be brought into its natural posture
+in the middle of the passage, that it may come in a straight line, and
+then proceed as directed in the foregoing section.
+
+
+
+SECT. VI.--_How a Woman ought to be delivered, when the Hands and Feet
+    of the Infant come together._
+
+There are none but will readily grant, that when the hands and feet of
+an infant present together, the labour must be unnatural, because it is
+impossible a child should be born in that manner. In this case,
+therefore, when the midwife guides her hand towards the orifice of the
+womb she will perceive only many fingers close together, and if it be
+not sufficiently dilated, it will be a good while before the hands and
+feet will be exactly distinguished; for they are sometimes so shut and
+pressed together, that they seem to be all of one and the same shape,
+but where the womb is open enough to introduce the hand into it, she
+will easily know which are the hands and which are the feet; and having
+taken particular notice thereof, let her slide up her hand and presently
+direct it towards the infant's breast, which she will find very near,
+and then let her gently thrust back the body towards the bottom of the
+womb, leaving the feet in the same place where she found them. And then,
+having placed the woman in a convenient posture, that is to say, her
+buttocks a little raised above her breast (and which situation ought
+also to be observed when the child is to be put back into the womb), let
+the midwife afterwards take hold of the child by the feet, and draw it
+forth, as is directed in the second section.
+
+This labour, though somewhat troublesome, yet is much better than when
+the child presents only its hands; for then the child must be quite
+turned about before it can be drawn forth; but in this they are ready,
+presenting themselves, and there is little to do, but to lift and thrust
+back the upper part of the body, which is almost done of itself, by
+drawing it by the feet alone.
+
+I confess there are many authors that have written of labours, who would
+have all wrong births reduced to a natural figure, which is, to turn it
+that it may come with the head first. But those that have written thus,
+are such as never understood the practical part, for if they had the
+least experience therein, they would know that it is impossible; at
+least, if it were to be done, that violence must necessarily be used in
+doing it, that would probably be the death both of mother and child in
+the operation. I would, therefore, lay down as a general rule, that
+whenever a child presents itself wrong to the birth, in what posture so
+ever, from the shoulders to the feet, it is the way, and soonest done,
+to draw it out by the feet; and that it is better to search for them, if
+they do not present themselves, than to try and put them in their
+natural posture, and place the head foremost; for the great endeavours
+necessary to be used in turning the child in the womb, do so much weaken
+both the mother and the child, that there remains not afterwards
+strength enough to commit the operation to the work of nature; for,
+usually, the woman has no more throes or pains fit for labour after she
+has been so wrought upon; for which reason it would be difficult and
+tedious at best; and the child, by such an operation made very weak,
+would be in extreme danger of perishing before it could be born. It is,
+therefore, much better in these cases to bring it away immediately by
+the feet, searching for them as I have already directed, when they do
+not present themselves; by which the mother will be prevented a tedious
+labour, and the child be often brought alive into the world, who
+otherwise could hardly escape death.
+
+
+
+SECT. VII.--_How a Woman should be delivered that has twins, which
+    present themselves in different postures._
+
+We have already spoken something of the birth of twins in the chapter of
+natural labour, for it is not an unnatural labour barely to have twins,
+provided they come in the right position to the birth. But when they
+present themselves in different postures, they come properly under the
+denomination of unnatural labours; and if when one child presents itself
+in a wrong figure, it makes the labour dangerous and unnatural, it must
+needs make it much more so when there are several, and render it not
+only more painful to the mother and children, but to the operator also;
+for they often trouble each other and hinder both their births. Besides
+which the womb is so filled with them, that the operator can hardly
+introduce his hand without much violence, which he must do, if they are
+to be turned or thrust back, to give them a better position.
+
+When a woman is pregnant with two children, they rarely present to the
+birth together, the one being generally more forward than the other; and
+that is the reason that but one is felt, and that many times the midwife
+knows not that there are twins until the first is born, and that she is
+going to fetch away the afterbirth. In the first chapter, wherein I
+treated of natural labour, I have showed how a woman should be delivered
+of twins, presenting themselves both right; and before I close the
+chapter of unnatural labour, it only remains that I show what ought to
+be done when they either both come wrong or one of them only, as for the
+most part it happens; the first generally coming right, and the second
+with the feet forward, or in some worse posture. In such a case, the
+birth of the first must be hastened as much as possible and to make way
+for the second, which is best brought away by the feet, without
+endeavouring to place it right, because it has been, as well as the
+mother, already tired and weakened by the birth of the first, and there
+would be greater danger to its death, than likelihood of its coming out
+of the womb that way.
+
+But if, when the first is born naturally, the second should likewise
+offer its head to the birth, it would then be best to leave nature to
+finish what she has so well begun, and if nature should be too slow in
+her work, some of those things mentioned in the fourth chapter to
+accelerate the birth, may be properly enough applied, and if, after
+that, the second birth should be delayed, let a manual operation be
+delayed no longer, but the woman being properly placed, as has been
+before directed, let the operator direct his hand gently into the womb
+to find the feet, and so draw forth the second child, which will be the
+more easily effected, because there is a way made sufficiently by the
+birth of the first; and if the waters of the second child be not broke,
+as it often happens, yet, intending to bring it by its feet, he need not
+scruple to break the membranes with his fingers; for though, when the
+birth of a child is left to the operation of nature, it is necessary
+that the waters should break of themselves, yet when the child is
+brought out of the womb by art, there is no danger in breaking them,
+nay, on the contrary it becomes necessary; for without the waters are
+broken, it will be almost impossible to turn the child.
+
+But herein principally lies the care of the operator, that he be not
+deceived, when either the hands or feet of both children offer
+themselves together to the birth; in this case he ought well to consider
+the operation, of whether they be not joined together, or any way
+monstrous, and which part belongs to one child and which to the other;
+so that they may be fetched one after the other, and not both together,
+as may be, if it were not duly considered, taking the right foot of one
+and the left of the other, and so drawing them together, as if they
+both belonged to one body, because there is a left and a right, by which
+means it would be impossible to deliver them. But a skilful operator
+will easily prevent this, if, after having found two or three of several
+children presenting together in the passage, and taking aside two of the
+forwardest, a right and a left, and sliding his arm along the legs and
+thighs up to the wrist, if forward, or to the buttocks, if backwards, he
+finds they both belong to one body; of which being thus assured, he may
+begin to draw forth the nearest, without regarding which is the
+strongest or weakest, bigger or less, living or dead, having first put
+aside that part of the other child which offers to have the more way,
+and so dispatch the first as soon as may be, observing the same rules as
+if there were but one, that is keeping the breast and face downwards,
+with every circumstance directed in that section where the child comes
+with its feet first, and not fetch the burden till the second child is
+born. And therefore, when the operator hath drawn forth one child, he
+must separate it from the burden, having tied and cut the navel-string,
+and then fetch the other by the feet in the same manner, and afterwards
+bring away the after-burden with the two strings as hath been before
+showed. If the children present any other part but the feet, the
+operator may follow the same method as directed in the foregoing
+section, where the several unnatural positions are fully treated of.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+     _Directions for Child-bearing Women in their Lying-in._
+
+
+SECTION I.--_How a Woman newly Delivered ought to be ordered._
+
+As soon as she is laid in her bed, let her be placed in it conveniently
+for ease and rest, which she stands in great need of to recover herself
+of the great fatigue she underwent during her travail, and that she may
+lie the more easily let her hands and body be a little raised, that she
+may breathe more freely, and cleanse the better, especially of that
+blood which then comes away, that so it may not clot, which being
+retained causeth great pain.
+
+Having thus placed her in bed, let her take a draught of burnt white
+wine, having a drachm of spermaceti melted therein. The best vervain is
+also singularly good for a woman in this condition, boiling it in what
+she either eats or drinks, fortifying the womb so exceedingly that it
+will do it more good in two days, than any other thing does in double
+that time, having no offensive taste. And this is no more than what she
+stands in need of; for her lower parts being greatly distended until the
+birth of the infant, it is good to endeavour the prevention of an
+inflammation there. Let there also be outwardly applied, all over the
+bottom of her belly and privities, the following anodyne and
+cataplasm:--Take two ounces of oil of sweet almonds, and two or three
+new laid eggs, yolks and whites, stirring them together in an earthen
+pipkin over hot embers till they come to the consistence of a poultice;
+which being spread upon a cloth, must be applied to those parts
+indifferently warm, having first taken away the closures (which were put
+to her presently after her delivery), and likewise such clots of blood
+as were then left. Let this lie on for five or six hours, and then renew
+it again when you see cause.
+
+Great care ought to be taken at first, that if her body be very weak,
+she be not kept too hot, for extremity of heat weakens nature and
+dissolves the strength; and whether she be weak or strong, be sure that
+no cold air comes near her at first; for cold is an enemy to the
+spermatic parts; if it get into the womb it increases the after pains,
+causes swelling in the womb and hurts the nerves. As to her diet, let it
+be hot, and let her eat but little at a time. Let her avoid the light
+for the first three days, and longer if she be weak, for her labour
+weakens her eyes exceedingly, by a harmony between the womb and them.
+Let her also avoid great noise, sadness and trouble of mind.
+
+If the womb be foul, which may easily be perceived by the impurity of
+the blood (which will then easily come away in clots or stinking, or if
+you suspect any of the after-burden to be left behind, which may
+sometimes happen), make her drink a feverfew, mugwort, pennyroyal and
+mother of thyme, boiled in white wine and sweetened with sugar.
+
+Panado and new laid eggs are the best meat for her at first, of which
+she may eat often, but not too much at a time. And let her nurse use
+cinnamon in all her meats and drinks, for it generally strengthens the
+womb.
+
+Let her stir as little as may be until after the fifth, sixth, or
+seventh day after her delivery, if she be weak; and let her talk as
+little as possible, for that weakens her very much.
+
+If she goes not well to stool, give a clyster made only of the
+decoction of mallows and a little brown sugar.
+
+When she hath lain in a week or more, let her use such things as close
+the womb, of which knot-grass and comfrey are very good, and to them you
+may add a little polypodium, for it will do her good, both leaves and
+root being bruised.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_How to remedy those Accidents which a Lying-in Woman is
+    subject to._
+
+I. The first common and usual accident that troubles women in their
+lying-in is after-pains. They proceed from cold and wind contained in
+the bowels, with which they are easily filled after labour, because then
+they have more room to dilate than when the child was in the womb, by
+which they were compressed; and also, because nourishment and matter,
+contained as well in them as in the stomach, have been so confusedly
+agitated from side to side during the pains of labour, by the throes
+which always must compress the belly, that they could not be well
+digested, whence the wind is afterwards generated and, by consequence,
+the gripes which the woman feels running into her belly from side to
+side, according as the wind moves more or less, and sometimes likewise
+from the womb, because of the compression and commotion which the
+bowels make. This being generally the case, let us now apply a suitable
+remedy.
+
+1. Boil an egg soft, and pour out the yolk of it, with which mix a
+spoonful of cinnamon water, and let her drink it; and if you mix in it
+two grains of ambergris, it will be better; and yet vervain taken in
+anything she drinks, will be as effectual as the other.
+
+2. Give a lying-in woman, immediately after delivery, oil of sweet
+almonds and syrup of maiden-hair mixed together. Some prefer oil of
+walnuts, provided it be made of nuts that are very good; but it tastes
+worse than the other at best. This will lenify the inside of the
+intestines by its unctuousness, and by that means bring away that which
+is contained in them more easily.
+
+3. Take and boil onions well in water, then stamp them with oil of
+cinnamon, spread them on a cloth, and apply them to the region of the
+womb.
+
+4. Let her be careful to keep her belly warm, and not to drink what is
+too cold; and if the pain prove violent, hot cloths from time to time
+must be laid on her belly, or a pancake fried in walnut oil may be
+applied to it, without swathing her belly too strait. And for the better
+evacuating the wind out of the intestines, give her a clyster, which
+may be repeated as often as necessity requires.
+
+5. Take bay-berries, beat them to a powder, put the powder upon a
+chafing-dish of coals, and let her receive the smoke of them up her
+privities.
+
+6. Take tar and bear's grease, of each an equal quantity, boil them
+together, and whilst it is boiling, add a little pigeon's dung to it.
+Spread some of this upon a linen cloth, and apply it to the veins of the
+back of her that is troubled with afterpains, and it will give her
+speedy ease.
+
+Lastly, let her take half a drachm of bay-berries beaten into a powder,
+in a drachm of muscadel or teat.
+
+II. Another accident to which women in child-bed are subject is
+haemorrhoids or piles, occasioned through the great straining in
+bringing the child into the world. To cure this,
+
+1. Let her be let blood in the saphoena vein.
+
+2. Let her use polypodium in her meat, and drink, bruised and boiled.
+
+3. Take an onion, and having made a hole in the middle, of it, fill it
+full of oil, roast it and having bruised it all together, apply it to
+the fundament.
+
+4. Take a dozen of snails without shells, if you can get them, or else
+so many shell snails, and pull them out, and having bruised them with a
+little oil, apply them warm as before.
+
+5. If she go not well to stool, let her take an ounce of cassia fistula
+drawn at night, going to bed; she needs no change of diet after.
+
+III. Retention of the menses is another accident happening to women in
+child-bed, and which is of so dangerous a consequence, that, if not
+timely remedied, it proves mortal. When this happens,
+
+1. Let the woman take such medicines as strongly provoke the terms, such
+as dittany, betony, pennyroyal, feverfew, centaury, juniper-berries,
+peony roots.
+
+2. Let her take two or three spoonfuls of briony water each morning.
+
+3. Gentian roots beaten into a powder, and a drachm of it taken every
+morning in wine, are an extraordinary remedy.
+
+4. The roots of birthwort, either long or round, so used and taken as
+the former, are very good.
+
+5. Take twelve peony seeds, and beat them into a very fine powder, and
+let her drink them in a draught of hot cardus posset, and let her sweat
+after. And if the last medicine do not bring them down the first time
+she takes it, let her take as much more three hours after, and it seldom
+fails.
+
+IV. Overflowing of the menses is another accident incidental to
+child-bed women. For which,
+
+1. Take shepherd's purse, either boiled in any convenient liquor, or
+dried and beaten into a powder, and it will be an admirable remedy to
+stop them, this being especially appropriated to the privities.
+
+2. The flower and leaves of brambles or either of them, being dried and
+beaten into a powder, and a drachm of them taken every morning in a
+spoonful of red wine, or in a decoction of leaves of the same (which,
+perhaps, is much better), is an admirable remedy for the immoderate
+flowing of the term in women.
+
+V. Excoriations, bruises, and rents in the lower part of the womb are
+often occasioned by the violent distention and separation of the
+caruncles in a woman's labour. For the healing whereof,
+
+As soon as the woman is laid, if there be only simple contusions and
+excoriations, then let the anodyne cataplasm, formerly directed, be
+applied to the lower parts to ease the pain, made of the yolks and
+whites of new laid eggs, and oil of roses, boiled a little over warm
+embers, continually stirring it until it be mixed, and then spread on a
+fine cloth; it must be applied very warm to the bearing place for five
+or six hours, and when it is taken away, lay some fine rags, dipped in
+oil of St. John's wort twice or thrice a day; also foment the parts with
+barley water and honey of roses, to cleanse them from the excrements
+which pass. When the woman makes water, let them be defended with fine
+rags, and thereby hinder the urine from causing smart or pain.
+
+VI. The curding and clotting of the milk is another accident that
+happens to women in child-bed, for in the beginning of child-bed, the
+woman's milk is not purified because of the great commotions her body
+suffered during her labour, which affected all the parts, and it is then
+affected with many humours. Now this clotting of the milk does, for the
+most part, proceed from the breasts not being fully drawn, and that,
+either because she has too much milk, and that the infant is too small
+and weak to suck it all, or because she doth not desire to be a nurse,
+for the milk in those cases remaining in the breasts after concoction,
+without being drawn, loses its sweetness and the balsamic qualities it
+had, and by reason of the heat it requires, and the too long stay it
+makes there, is sours, curds and clots, in like manner as we see rennet
+put into ordinary milk to turn it into curds. The curding of the milk
+may also be caused by having taken a great cold, and not keeping the
+breasts well covered.
+
+But from what cause so ever this curding of the milk proceeds, the most
+certain remedy is, to draw the breasts until it is emitted and dried.
+But in regard that the infant by reason of weakness, cannot draw
+strength enough, the woman being hard marked when her milk is curded, it
+will be most proper to get another woman to draw her breasts until the
+milk comes freely, and then she may give her child suck. And that she
+may not afterwards be troubled with a surplus of milk, she must eat such
+diet as give but little nourishment, and keep her body open.
+
+But if the case be such that the woman neither can nor will be a nurse,
+it is necessary to apply other remedies for the curing of this
+distemper; for then it will be best not to draw the breasts, for that
+will be the way to bring more milk into them. For which purpose it will
+be necessary to empty the body by bleeding the arms, besides which, let
+the humours be drawn down by strong clysters and bleeding at the foot;
+nor will it be amiss to purge gently, and to digest, dissolve and
+dissipate the curded milk, four brans dissolved in a decoction of sage,
+milk, smallage and fennel, mixing with it oil of camomile, with which
+oil let the breasts be well anointed. The following liniment is also
+good to scatter and dissipate the milk.
+
+
+
+_A Liniment to Scatter and Dissipate the Milk._
+
+That the milk flowing back to the breast may without offence be
+dissipated, you must use this ointment:--"Take pure wax, two ounces,
+linseed, half a pound; when the wax is melted, let the liniment be made,
+wherein linen cloths must be clipped, and, according to their largeness,
+be laid upon the breasts; and when it shall be dispersed, and pains no
+more, let other linen cloths be laid in the distilled water of acorns,
+and put upon them.
+
+_Note._--That the cloths dipped into distilled water of acorns must be
+used only by those who cannot nurse their own children; but if a
+swelling in the breast of her who gives such do arise, from abundance of
+milk, threatens an inflammation, let her use the former ointment, but
+abstain from using the distilled water of acorns.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+     _Directions for the Nurses, in ordering Newly-born Children._
+
+
+When the child's navel-string hath been cut according to the rules
+prescribed, let the midwife presently cleanse it from the excrements and
+filth it brings into the world with it; of which some are within the
+body, as the urine in the bladder, and the excrements found in the guts;
+and the others without, which are thick, whitish and clammy, proceeding
+from the sliminess of the waters. There are sometimes children covered
+all over with this, that one would think they were rubbed over with soft
+cheese, and some women are of so easy a belief, that they really think
+it so, because they have eaten some while they were with child. From
+these excrements let the child be cleansed with wine and water a little
+warmed, washing every part therewith, but chiefly the head because of
+the hair, also the folds of the groin, and the cods or privities; which
+parts must be gently cleansed with a linen rag, or a soft sponge dipped
+in lukewarm wine. If this clammy or viscous excrement stick so close
+that it will not easily be washed off from those places, it may be
+fetched off with oil of sweet almond, or a little fresh butter melted
+with wine, and afterwards well dried off; also make tents of fine rags,
+and wetting them in this liquor, clear the ears and nostrils; but for
+the eyes, wipe them only with a dry, soft rag, not dipping it in the
+wine, lest it should make them smart.
+
+The child being washed, and cleansed from the native blood and
+impurities which attend it into the world, it must in the next place be
+searched to see whether all things be right about it, and that there is
+no fault nor dislocation; whether its nose be straight, or its tongue
+tied, or whether there be any bruise or tumour of the head; or whether
+the mold be not over shot; also whether the scrotum (if it be a male) be
+not blown up and swelled, and, in short, whether it has suffered any
+violence by its birth, in any part of its body, and whether all the
+parts be well and duly shaped; that suitable remedies may be applied if
+anything be found not right. Nor is it enough to see that all be right
+without, and that the outside of the body be cleansed, but she must also
+observe whether it dischargeth the excrements contained within, and
+whether the passage be open; for some have been born without having been
+perforated. Therefore, let her examine whether the conduits of the urine
+and stool be clear, for want of which some have died, not being able to
+void their excrements, because timely care was not taken at first. As to
+the urine all children, as well males as females, do make water as soon
+as they are born, if they can, especially if they feel the heat of the
+fire, and also sometimes void the excrements, but not so soon as the
+urine. If the infant does not ordure the first day, then put into its
+fundament a small suppository, to stir it up to be discharged, that it
+may not cause painful gripes, by remaining so long in the belly. A sugar
+almond may be proper for this purpose, anointed all over with a little
+boiled honey; or else a small piece of castile-soap rubbed over with
+fresh butter; also give the child for this purpose a little syrup of
+roses or violets at the mouth, mixed with some oil of sweet almonds,
+drawn without a fire, anointing the belly also, with the same oil or
+fresh butter.
+
+The midwife having thus washed and cleansed the child, according to the
+before mentioned directions, let her begin to swaddle it in swathing
+clothes, and when she dresses the head, let her put small rags behind
+the ears, to dry up the filth which usually engenders there, and so let
+her do also in the folds of the armpits and groins, and so swathe it;
+then wrap it up warm in a bed with blankets, which there is scarcely any
+woman so ignorant but knows well enough how to do; only let me give
+them this caution, that they swathe not the child too tightly in its
+blankets, especially about the breast and stomach, that it may breathe
+the more freely, and not be forced to vomit up the milk it sucks,
+because the stomach cannot be sufficiently distended to contain it;
+therefore let its arms and legs be wrapped in its bed, stretched and
+straight and swathed to keep them so, viz., the arms along its sides,
+and its legs equally both together with a little of the bed between
+them, that they may not be galled by rubbing each other; then let the
+head be kept steady and straight, with a stay fastened each side of the
+blanket, and then wrap the child up in a mantle and blankets to keep it
+warm. Let none think this swathing of the infant is needless to set
+down, for it is necessary it should be thus swaddled, to give its little
+body a straight figure, which is most proper and decent for a man, and
+to accustom him to keep upon his feet, who otherwise would go upon all
+fours, as most animals do.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+SECTION I.--_Of Gripes and Pains in the, Bellies of Young Children._
+
+This I mention first, as it is often the first and most common distemper
+which happens to little infants, after their birth; many children being
+so troubled therewith, that it causes them to cry day and night and at
+last die of it. The cause of it for the most part comes from the sudden
+change of nourishment, for having always received it from the umbilical
+vessel whilst in the mother's womb, they come on a sudden not only to
+change the manner of receiving it, but the nature and quality of what
+they received, as soon as they are born; for instead of purified blood
+only, which was conveyed to them by means of the umbilical vein, they
+are now obliged to be nourished by their mother's milk, which they suck
+with their mouths, and from which are engendered many excrements,
+causing gripes and pains; and not only because it is not so pure as the
+blood with which it was nourished in the womb, but because the stomach
+and the intestines cannot make a good digestion, being unaccustomed to
+it. It is sometimes caused also by a rough phlegm, and sometimes by
+worms; for physicians affirm that worms have been bred in children even
+in their mother's belly.
+
+_Cure_. The remedy must be suited to the cause. If it proceed from the
+too sudden change of nourishment, the remedy must be to forbear giving
+the child suck for some days, lest the milk be mixed with phlegm, which
+is then in the stomach corrupt; and at first it must suck but little,
+until it is accustomed to digest it. If it be the excrements in the
+intestines, which by their long stay increase their pains, give them at
+the month a little oil of sweet almonds and syrup of roses; if it be
+worms, lay a cloth dipped in oil of wormwood mixed with ox-gall, upon
+the belly, or a small cataplasm, mixed with the powder of rue, wormwood,
+coloquintida, aloes, and the seeds of citron incorporated with ox-gall
+and the powder of lupines. Or give it oil of sweet almonds and syrup of
+roses; if it be worms, lay a cloth, dipped in oil of wormwood mixed with
+ox-gall, upon the belly, or a small cataplasm mixed with the powder of
+rue, wormwood, coloquintida, aloes, and the seeds of citron incorporated
+with ox-gall and the powder of lupines. Or give it oil of sweet almonds
+with sugar-candy, and a scruple of aniseed; it purgeth new-born babes
+from green cholera and stinking phlegm, and, if it be given with
+sugar-pap, it allays the griping pains of the belly. Also anoint the
+belly with oil of dill, or lay pelitory stamped with oil of camomile to
+the belly.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_Of Weakness In Newly-born Infants._
+
+Weakness is an accident that many children bring into the world along
+with them, and is often occasioned by the labour of the mother; by the
+violence and length whereof they suffer so much, that they are born with
+great weakness, and many times it is difficult to know whether they are
+alive or dead, their body appearing so senseless, and their face so blue
+and livid, that they seem to be quite choked; and even after some hours,
+then-showing any signs of life is attended with weakness, that it looks
+like a return from death, and that they are still in a dying condition.
+
+_Cure_. Lay the infant speedily in a warm blanket, and carry it to the
+fire, and then let the midwife take a little wine in her mouth and spout
+it into its mouth, repeating it often, if there be occasion. Let her
+apply linen dipped in urine to the breast and belly, and let the face be
+uncovered, that it may breathe the more freely; also, let the midwife
+keep its mouth a little open, cleanse the nostrils with small linen
+tents[11] dipt in white wine, that so it may receive the smell of it;
+and let her chafe every part of its body well with warm cloths, to bring
+back its blood and spirits, which being retired inwards through
+weakness, often puts him in danger of being choked. By the application
+of these means, the infant will gradually recover strength, and begin to
+stir its limbs by degrees, and at length to cry; and though it be but
+weakly at first, yet afterwards, as it breathes more freely, its cry
+will become more strong.
+
+
+
+SECT. III.--_Of the Fundament being closed up in a newly-born Infant._
+
+Another defect that new-born infants are liable to is, to have their
+fundaments closed up, by which they can neither evacuate the new
+excrements engendered by the milk they suck, nor that which was amassed
+in their intestines before birth, which is certainly mortal without a
+speedy remedy. There have been some female children who have their
+fundaments quite closed, and yet have voided the excrements of the guts
+by an orifice which nature, to supply the defect, had made within the
+neck of the womb.
+
+_Cure_. Here we must take notice, that the fundament is closed two ways;
+either by a single skin, through which one may discover some black and
+blue marks, proceeding from the excrements retained, which, if one touch
+with the finger, there is a softness felt within, and thereabout it
+ought to be pierced; or else it is quite stopped by a thick, fleshy
+substance, in such sort that there appears nothing without, by which its
+true situation may be known. When there is nothing but the single skin
+which makes the closure, the operation is very easy, and the children
+may do very well; for then an aperture or opening may be made with a
+small incision-knife, cross-ways, that it may the better receive a round
+form, and that the place may not afterwards grow together, taking care
+not to prejudice the sphincter or muscle of the rectum. The incision
+being thus made, the excrements will certainly have issue. But if, by
+reason of their long stay in the belly, they become so dry that the
+infant cannot void them, then let a clyster be given to moisten and
+bring them away; afterwards put a linen tent into the new-made
+fundament, which at first had best be anointed with honey of roses, and
+towards the end, with a drying, cicatrizing ointment, such as unguentum
+album or ponphilex, observing to cleanse the infant of its excrement,
+and dry it again as soon and as often as it evacuates them, that so the
+aperture may be prevented from turning into a malignant ulcer.
+
+But if the fundament be stopped up in such a manner, that neither mark
+nor appearance of it can be seen or felt, then the operation is much
+more difficult, and, even when it is done, the danger is much greater
+that the infant will not survive it. Then, if it be a female, and it
+sends forth its excrements by the way I mentioned before, it is better
+not to meddle than, by endeavouring to remedy an inconvenience, run an
+extreme hazard of the infant's death. But when there is no vent for the
+excrements, without which death is unavoidable, then the operation is
+justifiable.
+
+_Operation_. Let the operator, with a small incision-knife that hath but
+one edge, enter into the void place, and turning the back of it upwards,
+within half a finger's breadth of the child's rump, which is the place
+where he will certainly find the intestines, let him thrust it forward,
+that it may be open enough to give free vent to matter there contained,
+being especially careful of the sphincter; after which, let the wound
+be dressed according to the method directed.
+
+
+
+SECT. IV.--_Of the Thrush, or Ulcers In the Mouth of the Infant._
+
+The thrush is a distemper that children are very subject to, and it
+arises from bad milk, or from foul humour in the stomach; for sometimes,
+though there be no ill humour in the milk itself, yet it may corrupt the
+child's stomach because of its weakness or some other indisposition; in
+which, acquiring an acrimony, instead of being well digested, there
+arise from it thrice biting vapours, which forming a thick viscosity, do
+thereby produce this distemper.
+
+_Cure_. It is often difficult, as physicians tell us, because it is
+seated in hot and moist places, where the putrefaction is easily
+augmented; and because the remedies applied cannot lodge there, being
+soon washed with spittle. But if it arises from too hot quality in the
+nurse's milk, care must be taken to temper and cool, prescribing her
+cool diet, bleeding and purging her also, if there be occasion.
+
+Take lentils, husked, powder them, and lay a little of them upon the
+child's gums. Or take bdellium flowers, half an ounce, and with oil of
+roses make a liniment. Also wash the child's mouth with barley and
+plantain-water, and honey of roses, mixing with them a little verjuice
+of lemons, as well to loosen and cleanse the vicious humours which
+cleave to the inside of the infant's mouth, as to cool those parts which
+are already over-heated. It may be done by means of a small fine rag,
+fastened to the end of a little stick, and dipped therein, wherewith the
+ulcers may be gently rubbed, being careful not to put the child in too
+much pain, lest an inflammation make the distemper worse. The child's
+body must also be kept open, that the humours being carried to the lower
+parts, the vapours may not ascend, as is usual for them to do when the
+body is costive, and the excrements too long retained.
+
+If the ulcers appear malignant, let such remedies be used as do their
+work speedily, that the evil qualities that cause them, being thereby
+instantly corrected, their malignity may be prevented; and in this case,
+touch the ulcers with plantain water, sharpened with spirits of vitriol;
+for the remedy must be made sharp, according to the malignity of the
+distemper. It will be necessary to purge these ill humours out of the
+whole habit of the child, by giving half an ounce of succory and
+rhubarb.
+
+
+
+SECT. V.--_Of Pains in the Ears, Inflammation, Moisture, etc._
+
+The brain in infants is very moist, and hath many excrements which
+nature cannot send out at the proper passages; they get often to the
+ears, and there cause pains, flux of blood, with inflammation and matter
+with pain; this in children is hard to be known as they have no other
+way to make it known but by constant crying; you will perceive them
+ready to feel their ears themselves, but will not let others touch them,
+if they can prevent; and sometimes you may discern the parts about the
+ears to be very red.
+
+These pains, if let alone, are of dangerous consequences, because they
+may bring forth watchings and epilepsy; for the moisture breeds worms
+there, and fouls the spongy bones, and by degrees causes incurable
+deafness.
+
+_Cure_. Allay the pain with all convenient speed, but have a care of
+using strong remedies. Therefore, only use warm milk about the ears,
+with the decoction of poppy tops, or oil of violets; to take away the
+moisture, use honey of roses, and let aqua mollis be dropped into the
+ears; or take virgin honey, half an ounce; red wines two ounces; alum,
+saffron, saltpetre, each a drachm, mix them at the fire; or drop in
+hemp seed oil with a little wine.
+
+
+
+SECT. VI.--_Of Redness and Inflammation of the Buttocks, Groin and the
+    Thighs of a Young Child._
+
+If there be no great care taken to change and wash the child's bed as
+soon as it is fouled with the excrements, and to keep the child very
+clean, the acrimony will be sure to cause redness, and beget a smarting
+in the buttocks, groin and thighs of the child, which, by reason of the
+pain, will afterwards be subject to inflammations, which follow the
+sooner, through the delicacy and tenderness of their skin, from which
+the outward skin of the body is in a short time separated and worn away.
+
+_Cure_. First, keep the child cleanly, and secondly, take off the
+sharpness of its urine. As to keeping it cleanly, she must be a sorry
+nurse who needs to be taught how to do it; for if she lets it but have
+dry, warm and clean beds and cloths, as often and as soon as it has
+fouled and wet them, either by its urine or its excrements, it will be
+sufficient. And as to taking off the sharpness of the child's urine,
+that must be done by the nurse's taking a cool diet, that her milk may
+have the same quality; and, therefore, she ought to abstain from all
+things that may tend to heat it.
+
+But besides these, cooling and drying remedies are requisite to be
+applied to the inflamed parts; therefore let the parts be bathed in
+plantain-water, with a fourth of lime water added to it, each time the
+child's excrements are wiped off; and if the pain be very great, let it
+only be fomented with lukewarm milk. The powder of a post to dry it, or
+a little mill-dust strewed upon the parts affected, may be proper
+enough, and is used by many women. Also, unguentum album, or
+diapompholigos, spread upon a small piece of leather in form of a
+plaster, will not be amiss.
+
+But the chief thing must be, the nurse's taking great care to wrap the
+inflamed parts with fine rags when she opens the child, that these parts
+may not gather and be pained by rubbing together.
+
+
+
+SECT. VII.--_Of Vomiting in Young Children._
+
+Vomiting in young children proceeds sometimes from too much milk, and
+sometimes from bad milk, and as often from a moist, loose stomach; for
+as dryness retains so looseness lets go. This is, for the most part,
+without danger in children; for they that vomit from their birth are
+the lustiest; for the stomach not being used to meat, and milk being
+taken too much, crudities are easily bred, or the milk is corrupted; and
+it is better to vomit these up than to keep them in; but if vomiting
+last long, it will cause an atrophy or consumption, for want of
+nourishment.
+
+_Cure_. If this be from too much milk, that which is emitted is yellow
+and green, or otherwise ill-coloured and stinking; in this case, mend
+the milk, as has been shown before; cleanse the child with honey of
+roses, and strengthen its stomach with syrup of milk and quinces, made
+into an electuary. If the humours be hot and sharp, give the syrup of
+pomegranates, currants and coral, and apply to the belly the plaster of
+bread, the stomach cerate, or bread dipped in hot wine; or take oil of
+mastich, quinces, mint, wormwood, each half an ounce; of nutmegs by
+expression, half a drachm; chemical oil of mint, three drops. Coral hath
+an occult property to prevent vomiting, and is therefore hung about the
+neck.
+
+
+
+SECT. VIII--_Of Breeding Teeth in Young Children._
+
+This is a very great and yet necessary evil in all children, having
+variety of symptoms joined with it. They begin to come forth, not all
+at once, but one after the other, about the sixth or seventh month; the
+fore-teeth coming first, then the eye-teeth, and last of all the
+grinders. The eye-teeth cause more pain to the child than any of the
+rest, because they have a deep root, and a small nerve which has
+communication with that which makes the eye move.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In the breeding of the teeth, first they feel an itching in their gums,
+then they are pierced as with a needle, and pricked by the sharp bones,
+whence proceed great pains, watching, inflammation of the gums, fever,
+looseness and convulsions, especially when they breed their eye-teeth.
+
+The signs when children breed their eye-teeth are these:
+
+1. It is known by the time, which is usually about the seventh month.
+
+2. Their gums are swelled, and they feel a great heat there with an
+itching, which makes them put their fingers into their mouths to rub
+them; a moisture also distils from the gums into the mouth, because of
+the pain they feel there.
+
+3. They hold the nipple faster than before.
+
+4. The gums are white when the teeth begin to come, and the nurse, in
+giving them suck, finds the mouth hotter, and that they are much
+changed, crying every moment, and cannot sleep, or but very little at a
+time.
+
+The fever that follows breeding of teeth comes from choleric humours,
+inflamed by watching, pain and heat. And the longer teeth are breeding,
+the more dangerous it is; so that many in the breeding of them, die of
+fevers and convulsions.
+
+_Cure_. Two things are to be regarded:--one is, to preserve the child
+from the evil accidents that may happen to it by reason of the great
+pain; the other, to assist as much as may be, the cutting of the teeth,
+when they can hardly cut the gums themselves.
+
+For the first of these, viz., the preventing of those accidents to the
+child, the nurse ought to take great care to keep a good diet, and to
+use all things that may cool and temper her milk, that so a fever may
+not follow the pain of the teeth. And to prevent the humour falling too
+much upon the inflamed gums, let the child's belly be always kept loose
+by gentle clysters, if he be bound; though oftentimes there is no need
+of them, because they are at those times usually troubled with a
+looseness; and yet, for all that, clysters may not be improper.
+
+As to the other, which is to assist it cutting the teeth, that the nurse
+must do from time to time by mollifying and loosening them, and by
+rubbing them with her finger dipped in butter or honey; or let the child
+have a virgin-wax candle to chew upon; or anoint the gums with the
+mucilage of quince made with mallow-water, or with the brains of a hare;
+also foment the cheeks with the decoction of althoea, and camomile
+flowers and dill, or with the juice of mallows and fresh butter. If the
+gums are inflamed, add juice of nightshade and lettuce. I have already
+said, the nurse ought to take a temperate diet; I shall now only add,
+that barley-broth, water-gruel, raw eggs, prunes, lettuce and endive,
+are good for her; but let her avoid salt, sharp, biting and peppered
+meats, and wine.
+
+
+
+SECT. IX.--_Of the Flux of the Belly, or Looseness in Infants._
+
+It is very common for infants to have the flux of the belly, or
+looseness, especially upon the least indisposition; nor is it to be
+wondered at, seeing their natural moistness contributes so much thereto;
+and even if it be extraordinarily violent, such are in a better state of
+health than those that are bound. The flux, if violent, proceeds from
+divers causes, as 1. From breeding of the teeth, and is then commonly
+attended with a fever in which the concoction is hindered, and the
+nourishment corrupted. 2. From watching. 3. From pain. 4. From stirring
+up of the humours by a fever. 5. When they suck or drink too much in a
+fever. Sometimes they have a flux without breeding of teeth, from inward
+cold in the guts or stomach that obstructs concoction. If it be from the
+teeth, it is easily known; for the signs of breeding in teeth will
+discover it. If it be from external cold, there are signs of other
+causes. If from a humour flowing from the head there are signs of a
+catarrh, and the excrements are frothy. If crude and raw humours are
+voided, and there be wind, belching, and phlegmatic excrements, or if
+they be yellow, green and stink, the flux is from a hot and sharp
+humour. It is best in breeding of teeth when the belly is loose, as I
+have said before; but if it be too violent, and you are afraid it may
+end in a consumption, it must be stopped; and if the excrements that are
+voided be black, and attended with a fever, it is very bad.
+
+_Cure_. The remedy in this case, is principally in respect to the nurse,
+and the condition of the milk must be chiefly observed; the nurse must
+be cautioned that she eat no green fruit, nor things of hard concoction.
+If the child suck not, remove the flux with such purges as leave a
+cooling quality behind them, as syrup of honey or roses, or a clyster.
+Take the decoction of millium, myrobolans, of each two or three ounces,
+with an ounce or two of syrup of roses, and make a clyster. After
+cleansing, if it proceed from a hot cause, give syrup of dried roses,
+quinces, myrtles and a little sanguis draconis. Also anoint with oil of
+roses, myrtles, mastich, each two drachms; with oil of myrtles and wax
+make an ointment. Or take red roses and moulin, of each a handful;
+cypress roots two drachms; make a bag, boil it in red wine and apply it
+to the belly. Or use the plaster bread or stomach ointment. If the cause
+be cold, and the excrements white give syrup of mastich and quinces,
+with mint-water. Use outwardly, mint, mastich, cummin; or take rose
+seeds, an ounce, cummin, aniseed, each two drachms; with oil of mastich,
+wormwood and wax, make an ointment.
+
+
+
+SECT. X.--_Of the Epilepsy and Convulsions in Children._
+
+This is a distemper that is often fatal to young children, and
+frequently proceeds from the brain, originating either from the parents,
+or from vapours, or bad humours that twitch the membranes of the brain;
+it is also sometimes caused by other distempers and by bad diet;
+likewise, the toothache, when the brain consents, causes it, and so does
+a sudden fright. As to the distemper itself, it is manifest and well
+enough known where it is; and as to the cause whence it comes, you may
+know by the signs of the disease, whether it comes from bad milk, or
+worms, or teeth; if these are all absent, it is certain that the brain
+is first affected; if it come with the small-pox or measles, it ceaseth
+when they come forth, if nature be strong enough.
+
+_Cure_. For the remedy of this grievous, and often mortal distemper,
+give the following powder to prevent it, to a child as soon as it is
+born:--Take male peony roots, gathered in the decrease of the moon, a
+scruple; with leaf gold make a powder; or take peony roots, a drachm;
+peony seeds, mistletoe of the oak, elk's hoof, man's skull, amber, each
+a scruple; musk, two grains; make a powder. The best part of the cure is
+taking care of the nurse's diet, which must be regular, by all means. If
+it be from corrupt milk, provoke a vomit; to do which, hold down the
+tongue, and put a quill dipped in sweet almonds, down the throat. If it
+come from the worms, give such things as will kill the worms. If there
+be a fever, with respect to that also, give coral smaragad and elk's
+hoof. In the fit, give epileptic water, as lavender water, and rub with
+oil of amber, or hang a peony root, and elk's hoof smaragad, about the
+child's neck.
+
+As to a convulsion, it is when the brain labours to cast out that which
+troubles it; the mariner is in the marrow of the back, and fountain of
+the nerves; it is a stubborn disease, and often kills.
+
+Wash the body, when in the fit, with decoction of althoea, lily roots,
+peony and camomile flowerets, and anoint it with man's and goose's
+grease, oils of worms, orris, lilies, foxes, turpentine, mastich, storax
+and calamint. The sun flower is also very good, boiled in water, to wash
+the child.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[11] Tent (_surgical_). A bunch of some fibre such as sponge or
+horsehair introduced into an opening, natural or artificial, to keep it
+open, or increase its calibre.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PROPER AND SAFE REMEDIES
+
+FOR
+
+CURING ALL THOSE DISTEMPERS
+
+THAT ARE PECULIAR
+
+TO THE FEMALE SEX
+
+AND ESPECIALLY THOSE OBSERVATIONS
+
+TO BEARING OF CHILDREN
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BOOK II
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Having finished the first part of this book, and wherein, I hope, amply
+made good my promise to the reader, I am now come to treat only of those
+distempers to which they are more subject when in a breeding condition,
+and those that keep them from being so; together with such proper and
+safe remedies as may be sufficient to repel them. And since amongst all
+the diseases to which human nature is subject, there is none that more
+diametrically opposes the very end of our creation, and the design of
+nature in the formation of different sexes, and the power thereby given
+us for the work of generation, than that of sterility or barrenness
+which, where it prevails, renders the most accomplished midwife but a
+useless person, and destroys the design of our book; I think, therefore,
+that barrenness is an effect that deserves our first and principal
+consideration.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+     _Of Barrenness; its several Kinds; with the proper Remedies for it;
+     and the Signs of Insufficiency both in Men and Women._
+
+
+SECTION I.--_Of Barrenness in General._
+
+Barrenness is either natural or artificial.
+
+Natural barrenness is when a woman is barren, though the instruments of
+generation are perfect both in herself and in her husband, and no
+preposterous or diabolical course used to it, and neither age, nor
+disease, nor any defect hindering, and yet the woman remains naturally
+barren.
+
+Now this may proceed from a natural cause, for if the man and woman be
+of one complexion, they seldom have children, and the reason is clear,
+for the universal course of nature being formed of a composition of
+contraries, cannot be increased by a composition of likes; and,
+therefore, if the constitution of the woman be hot and dry, as well as
+the man's there can be no conception; and if, on the contrary, the man
+should be of a cold and moist constitution, as well as the woman, the
+effect would be the same; and this barrenness is purely natural. The
+only way to help this is, for people, before they marry, to observe each
+others constitution and complexion, if they design to have children. If
+their complexions and constitutions be alike, they are not fit to come
+together, for discordant natures only, make harmony in the work of
+generation.
+
+Another natural cause of barrenness, is want of love between man and
+wife. Love is that vivid principle that ought to inspire each organ in
+the act of generation, or else it will be spiritless and dull; for if
+their hearts be not united in love, how should their seed unite to cause
+Conception? And this is sufficiently evinced, in that there never
+follows conception on a rape. Therefore, if men and women design to have
+children, let them live so, that their hearts as well as their bodies
+may be united, or else they may miss their expectations.
+
+A third cause of natural barrenness, is the letting virgins blood in the
+arm before their natural courses are come down, which is usually in the
+fourteenth and fifteenth year of their age; sometimes, perhaps before
+the thirteenth, but never before the twelfth. And because usually, they
+are out of order, and indisposed before their purgations come down,
+their parents run to the doctor to know what is the matter; and he, if
+not skilled, will naturally prescribe opening a vein in the arm,
+thinking fullness of blood the cause; and thus she seems recovered for
+the present: and when the young virgin happens to be in the same
+disorder, the mother applies again to the surgeon, who uses the same
+remedy; and by these means the blood is so diverted from its proper
+channel, that it comes not down the womb as usual, and so the womb dries
+up, and she is for ever barren. To prevent this, let no virgin blood in
+the arm before her courses come down well; for that will bring the blood
+downwards, and by that means provoke the _menstrua_ to come down.
+
+Another cause of natural barrenness, is debility in copulation. If
+persons perform not that act with all the bent and ardour that nature
+requires, they may as well let it alone; for frigidity and coldness
+never produces conception. Of the cure of this we will speak by and by,
+after I have spoken of accidental barrenness, which is occasioned by
+some morbific matter or infirmity in the body, either of the man or of
+the woman, which being removed they become fruitful. And since, as I
+have before noted, the first and great law of creation, was to increase
+and multiply, and barrenness is in direct opposition to that law, and
+frustrates the end of our creation, and often causes man and wife to
+have hard thoughts one of another, I shall here, for the satisfaction of
+well meaning people, set down the signs and causes of insufficiency both
+in men and women; premising first that when people have no children,
+they must not presently blame either party, for neither may be in fault.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_Signs and Causes of Insufficiency in Men._
+
+One cause may be in some viciousness of the yard, as if the same be
+crooked, or any ligaments thereof distorted and broken, whereby the ways
+and passages, through which the seed should flow, come to be stopped or
+vitiated.
+
+Another cause may be, too much weakness of the yard, and tenderness
+thereof, so that it is not strong enough erected to inject seed into the
+womb; for the strength and stiffness of the yard very much conduces to
+conception, by reason of the forcible injection of the seed.
+
+Also, if the stones have received any hurt, so that they cannot exercise
+the proper gift in producing seed, or if they be oppressed with an
+inflammation, tumour, wound or ulcer, or drawn up within the belly, and
+not appearing outwardly.
+
+Also, a man may be barren by reason of the defect of seed, as first, if
+he cast forth no seed at all, or less in substance than is needful. Or,
+secondly, if the seed be vicious, or unfit for generation; as on the one
+side, it happens in bodies that are gross and fat, the matter of it
+being defective; and on the other side, too much leanness, or continual
+wasting or consumption of the body, destroys seed; nature turning all
+the matter and substance thereof into the nutriment of the body.
+
+Too frequent copulation is also one great cause of barrenness in men;
+for it attracteth the seminal moisture from the stones, before it is
+sufficiently prepared and concocted. So if any one, by daily
+copulation, do exhaust and draw out all their moisture of the seed, then
+do the stones draw the moist humours from the superior veins unto
+themselves; and so, having but a little blood in them, they are forced
+of necessity to cast it out raw and unconcocted, and thus the stones are
+violently deprived of the moisture of their veins, and the superior
+veins, and all the other parts of the body, of their vital spirits;
+therefore it is no wonder that those who use immoderate copulation are
+very weak in their bodies, seeing their whole body is deprived of the
+best and purest blood, and of the spirit, insomuch that many who have
+been too much addicted to that pleasure, have killed themselves in the
+very act.
+
+Gluttony, drunkenness, and other excesses, do so much hinder men from
+fruitfulness, that it makes them unfit for generation.
+
+But among other causes of barrenness of men, this also is one, and makes
+them almost of the nature of eunuchs, and that is the incision or the
+cutting of the veins behind their ears, which in case of distempers is
+oftentimes done; for, according to the opinions of most physicians and
+anatomists, the seed flows from the brain by those veins behind the
+ears, more than any part of the body. From whence it is very probable,
+that the transmission of the seed is hindered by the cutting of the
+veins behind the ears, so that it cannot descend to the testicles, or
+may come thither very crude and raw.
+
+
+
+SECT. III.--_Signs and Causes of Insufficiency or Barrenness in Women._
+
+Although there are many causes of the barrenness of women, yet the chief
+and principal are internal, respecting either the privy parts, the womb
+or menstruous blood.
+
+Therefore, Hippocrates saith (speaking as well of easy as difficult
+conception in women) the first consideration is to be had of their
+species; for little women are more apt to conceive than great, slender
+than gross, white and fair than ruddy and high coloured, black than wan,
+those that have their veins conspicuous, than others; but to be very
+fleshy is evil, and to have great swelled breasts is good.
+
+The next thing to be considered is, the monthly purgations, whether they
+have been duly every month, whether they flow plentifully, are of a good
+colour, and whether they have been equal every month.
+
+Then the womb, or place of conception, is to be considered. It ought to
+be clean and sound, dry and soft, not retracted or drawn up; not prone
+or descending downward; nor the mouth thereof turned away, nor too
+close shut up. But to speak more particularly:--
+
+The first parts to be spoken of are the _pudenda_, or privities, and the
+womb; which parts are shut and enclosed either by nature or against
+nature; and from hence, such women are called _imperforate_; as in some
+women the mouth of their womb continues compressed, or closed up, from
+the time of their birth until the coming down of their courses, and
+then, on a sudden, when their terms press forward to purgation, they are
+molested with great and unusual pains. Sometimes these break of their
+own accord, others are dissected and opened by physicians; others never
+break at all, which bring on disorders that end in death.
+
+All these _Aetius_ particularly handles, showing that the womb is shut
+three manner of ways, which hinders conception. And the first is when
+the _pudenda_ grow and cleave together. The second is, when these
+certain membranes grow in the middle part of the matrix within. The
+third is, when (though the lips and bosom of the _pudenda_ may appear
+fair and open), the mouth of the womb may be quite shut up. All which
+are occasions of barrenness, as they hinder the intercourse with man,
+the monthly courses, and conception.
+
+But amongst all causes of barrenness in women, the greatest is in the
+womb, which is the field of generation; and if this field is corrupt, it
+is in vain to expect any fruit, be it ever so well sown. It may be unfit
+for generation by reason of many distempers to which it is subject; as
+for instance, overmuch heat and overmuch cold; for women whose wombs are
+too thick and cold, cannot conceive, because coldness extinguishes the
+heat of the human seed. Immoderate moisture of the womb also destroys
+the seed of man, and makes it ineffectual, as corn sown in ponds and
+marshes; and so does overmuch dryness of the womb, so that the seed
+perisheth for want of nutriment. Immoderate heat of the womb is also a
+cause of barrenness for it scorcheth up the seed as corn sown in the
+drought of summer; for immoderate heat burns all parts of the body, so
+that no conception can live in the womb.
+
+When unnatural humours are engendered, as too much phlegm, tympanies,
+wind, water, worms, or any other evil humour abounding contrary to
+nature, it causes barrenness as do all terms not coming down in due
+order.
+
+A woman may also have accidental causes of barrenness (at least such as
+may hinder her conception), as sudden frights, anger, grief and
+perturbation of mind; too violent exercises, as leaping, dancing,
+running, after copulation, and the like. But I will now add some signs,
+by which these things may be known.
+
+If the cause of barrenness be in the man, through overmuch heat in the
+seed, the woman may easily feel that in receiving it.
+
+If the nature of the woman be too hot, and so unfit for conception, it
+will appear by her having her terms very little, and the colour
+inclining to yellowness; she is also very hasty, choleric and crafty;
+her pulse beats very swift, and she is very desirous of copulation.
+
+To know whether the fault is in the man or in the woman, sprinkle the
+man's urine upon a lettuce leaf, and the woman's urine upon another, and
+that which dries away first is unfruitful. Also take five wheaten corns
+and seven beans, put them into an earthen pot, and let the party make
+water therein; let this stand seven days, and if in that time they begin
+to sprout, then the party is fruitful; but if they sprout not, then the
+party is barren, whether it be the man or the woman; this is a certain
+sign.
+
+There are some that make this experiment of a woman's fruitfulness; take
+myrrh, red storax and some odoriferous things, and make a perfume of
+which let the woman receive into the neck of the womb through a funnel;
+if the woman feels the smoke ascend through her body to the nose, then
+she is fruitful; otherwise she is barren. Some also take garlic and
+beer, and cause the woman to lie upon her back upon it, and if she feel
+the scent thereof in her nose, it is a sign of her being fruitful.
+
+Culpepper and others also give a great deal of credit to the following
+experiment. Take a handful of barley, and steep half of it in the urine
+of a man, and the other half in the urine of the woman, for the space of
+twenty-four hours; then take it out, and put the man's by itself, and
+the woman's by itself; set it in a flower-pot, or some other thing,
+where let it dry; water the man's every morning with his own urine, and
+the woman's with hers, and that which grows first is the most fruitful;
+but if they grow not at all, they are both naturally barren.
+
+_Cure_. If the barrenness proceeds from stoppage of the menstrua, let
+the woman sweat, for that opens the parts; and the best way to sweat is
+in a hot-house. Then let the womb be strengthened by drinking a draught
+of white wine, wherein a handful of stinking arrach, first bruised, has
+been boiled, for by a secret magnetic virtue, it strengthens the womb,
+and by a sympathetic quality, removes any disease thereof. To which add
+also a handful of vervain, which is very good to strengthen both the
+womb and the head, which are commonly afflicted together by sympathy.
+Having used these two or three days, if they come not down, take of
+calamint, pennyroyal, thyme, betony, dittany, burnet, feverfew, mugwort,
+sage, peony roots, juniper berries, half a handful of each, or as many
+as can be got; let these be boiled in beer, and taken for her drink.
+
+Take one part of gentian-root, two parts of centaury, distil them with
+ale in an alembic after you have bruised the gentian-roots and infused
+them well. This water is an admirable remedy to provoke the terms. But
+if you have not this water in readiness, take a drachm of centaury, and
+half a drachm of gentian-roots bruised, boiled in posset drink, and
+drink half a drachm of it at night going to bed. Seed of wild navew
+beaten to powder, and a drachm of it taken in the morning in white wine,
+also is very good; but if it answers not, she must be let blood in the
+legs. And be sure you administer your medicines a little before the full
+of the moon, by no means in the wane of the moon; if you do, you will
+find them ineffectual.
+
+If barrenness proceed from the overflowing of the menstrua, then
+strengthen the womb as you were taught before; afterwards anoint the
+veins of the back with oil of roses, oil of myrtle and oil of quinces
+every night, and then wrap a piece of white baise about your veins, the
+cotton side next to the skin and keep the same always to it. But above
+all, I recommend this medicine to you. Take comfrey-leaves or roots, and
+clown woundwort, of each a handful; bruise them well, and boil them in
+ale, and drink a good draught of it now and then. Or take cinnamon,
+cassia lignea, opium, of each two drachms; myrrh, white pepper,
+galbanum, of each one drachm; dissolve the gum and opium in white wine;
+beat the rest into powder and make pills, mixing them together exactly,
+and let the patient take two each night going to bed; but let the pills
+not exceed fifteen grains.
+
+If barrenness proceed from a flux in the womb, the cure must be
+according to the cause producing it, or which the flux proceeds from,
+which may be known by signs; for a flux of the womb, being a continual
+distillation from it for a long time together, the colour of what is
+voided shows what humour it is that offends; in some it is red, and that
+proceeds from blood putrified, in some it is yellow, and that denotes
+choler; in others white and pale, and denotes phlegm. If pure blood
+comes out, as if a vein were opened, some corrosion or gnawing of the
+womb is to be feared. All these are known by the following signs:
+
+The place of conception is continually moist with the humours, the face
+ill-coloured, the party loathes meat and breathes with difficulty, the
+eyes are much swollen, which is sometimes without pain. If the offending
+humour be pure blood, then you must let blood in the arm, and the
+cephalic vein is fittest to draw back the blood; then let the juice of
+plantain and comfrey be injected into the womb. If phlegm be a cause,
+let cinnamon be a spice used in all her meats and drinks, and let her
+take a little Venice treacle or mithridate every morning. Let her boil
+burnet, mugwort, feverfew and vervain in all her broths. Also, half a
+drachm of myrrh, taken every morning, is an excellent remedy against
+this malady. If choler be the cause, let her take burrage, buglos, red
+roses, endive and succory roots, lettuce and white poppy-seed, of each a
+handful; boil these in white wine until one half be wasted; let her
+drink half a pint every morning to which half pint add syrup of chicory
+and syrup of peach-flowers, of each an ounce, with a little rhubarb, and
+this will gently purge her. If it proceed from putrified blood, let her
+be bled in the foot, and then strengthen the womb, as I have directed in
+stopping the menstrua.
+
+If barrenness be occasioned by the falling out of the womb, as sometimes
+it happens, let her apply sweet scents to the nose, such as civet,
+galbanum, storax, calamitis, wood of aloes; and such other things as
+are of that nature; and let her lay stinking things to the womb, such as
+asafoetida, oil of amber, or the smoke of her own hair, being burnt; for
+this is a certain truth, that the womb flies from all stinking, and to
+all sweet things. But the most infallible cure in this case is; take a
+common burdock leaf (which you may keep dry, if you please, all the
+year), apply this to her head and it will draw the womb upwards. In fits
+of the mother, apply it to the soles of the feet, and it will draw the
+womb downwards. But seed beaten into a powder, draws the womb which way
+you please, accordingly as it is applied.
+
+If barrenness in the woman proceed from a hot cause, let her take whey
+and clarify it; then boil plantain leaves and roots in it, and drink it
+for her ordinary drink. Let her inject plantain juice into her womb with
+a syringe. If it be in the winter, when you cannot get the juice, make a
+strong decoction of the leaves and roots in water, and inject that up
+with a syringe, but let it be blood warm, and you will find this
+medicine of great efficacy. And further, to take away barrenness
+proceeding from hot causes, take of conserve of roses, cold lozenges,
+make a tragacanth, the confections of trincatelia; and use, to smell to,
+camphor, rosewater and saunders. It is also good to bleed the basilica
+or liver vein, and take four or five ounces of blood, and then take this
+purge; take electuarium de epithymo de succo rosarum, of each two
+drachms and a half; clarified whey, four ounces; mix them well together,
+and take it in the morning fasting; sleep after it about an hour and a
+half, and fast for four hours after; and about an hour before you eat
+anything, drink a good draught of whey. Also take lilywater, four
+ounces; mandragore water, one ounce; saffron, half a scruple; beat the
+saffron to a powder, and mix it with waters, drink them warm in the
+morning; use these eight days together.
+
+
+
+_Some apparent Remedy against Barrenness and to cause Fruitfulness._
+
+Take broom flowers, smallage, parsley seed, cummin, mugwort, feverfew,
+of each half a scruple; aloes, half an ounce; Indian salt, saffron, of
+each half a drachm; beat and mix them together, and put it to five
+ounces of feverfew water warm; stop it up, and let it stand and dry in a
+warm place, and this do, two or three times, one after the other; then
+make each drachm into six pills, and take one of them every night before
+supper.
+
+For a purging medicine against barrenness, take conserve of benedicta
+lax, a quarter of an ounce; depsillo three drachms, electuary de
+rosarum, one drachm; mix them together with feverfew water, and drink it
+in the morning betimes. About three days after the patient hath taken
+this purge, let her be bled, taking four or five ounces from the median,
+or common black vein in the foot; and then give for five successive
+days, filed ivory, a drachm and a half, in feverfew water; and during
+the time let her sit in the following bath an hour together, morning and
+night. Take mild yellow sapes, daucas, balsam wood and fruit, ash-keys,
+of each two handfuls, red and white behen, broom flowers, of each a
+handful; musk, three grains; amber, saffron, of each a scruple; boiled
+in water sufficiently; but the musk, saffron, amber and broom flowers
+must be put into the decoction, after it is boiled and strained.
+
+
+
+_A Confection very good against Barrenness._
+
+Take pistachia, eringoes, of each half an ounce; saffron, one drachm;
+lignum aloes, galengal, mace, coriophilla, balm flowers, red and white
+behen, of each four scruples; syrup of confected ginger, twelve ounces;
+white sugar, six ounces, decoct all these in twelve ounces of balm
+water, and stir them well together; then put in it musk and amber, of
+each a scruple; take thereof the quantity of a nutmeg three times a day;
+in the morning, an hour before noon and an hour after supper.
+
+But if the cause of barrenness, either in man or woman, be through
+scarcity or diminution of the natural seed, then such things are to be
+taken as do increase the seed, and incite to stir up to venery, and
+further conception; which I shall here set down, and then conclude the
+chapter concerning barrenness.
+
+For this, yellow rape seed baked in bread is very good; also young, fat
+flesh, not too much salted; also saffron, the tails of stincus, and long
+pepper prepared in wine. But let such persons eschew all sour, sharp,
+doughy and slimy meats, long sleep after meat, surfeiting and
+drunkenness, and so much as they can, keep themselves from sorrow,
+grief, vexation and anxious care.
+
+These things following increase the natural seed, stir up the venery and
+recover the seed again when it is lost, viz., eggs, milk, rice, boiled
+in milk, sparrows' brains, flesh, bones and all; the stones and pizzles
+of bulls, bucks, rams and bears, also cocks' stones, lambs' stones,
+partridges', quails' and pheasants' eggs. And this is an undeniable
+aphorism, that whatever any creature is addicted unto, they move or
+incite the man or the woman that eats them, to the like, and therefore
+partridges, quails, sparrows, etc., being extremely addicted to venery,
+they work the same effect on those men and women that eat them. Also,
+take notice, that in what part of the body the faculty that you would
+strengthen, lies, take that same part of the body of another creature,
+in whom the faculty is strong, as a medicine. As for instance, the
+procreative faculty lies in the testicles; therefore, cocks' stones,
+lambs' stones, etc., are proper to stir up venery. I will also give you
+another general rule; all creatures that are fruitful being eaten, make
+them fruitful that eat them, as crabs, lobsters, prawns, pigeons, etc.
+The stones of a fox, dried and beaten to a powder, and a drachm taken in
+the morning in sheep's milk, and the stones of a boar taken in like
+manner, are very good. The heart of a male quail carried about a man,
+and the heart of a female quail carried about a woman, causes natural
+love and fruitfulness. Let them, also, that would increase their seed,
+eat and drink of the best, as much as they can; for _sine Cerere el
+Libero, friget Venus_, is an old proverb, which is, "without good meat
+and drink, Venus will be frozen to death."
+
+Pottages are good to increase the seed; such as are made of beans, peas,
+and lupins, mixed with sugar. French beans, wheat sodden in broth,
+aniseed, also onions, stewed garlic, leeks, yellow rapes, fresh mugwort
+roots, eringo roots confected, ginger connected, etc. Of fruits, hazel
+nuts, cyprus nuts, pistachio, almonds and marchpanes thereof. Spices
+good to increase seed are cinnamon, galengal, long pepper, cloves,
+ginger, saffron and asafoetida, a drachm and a half taken in good wine,
+is very good for this purpose.
+
+The weakness and debility of a man's yard, being a great hindrance to
+procreation let him use the following ointment to strengthen it: Take
+wax, oil of beaver-cod, marjoram, gentle and oil of costus, of each a
+like quantity, mix them into an ointment, and put it to a little musk,
+and with it anoint the yard, cods, etc. Take of house emmets, three
+drachms, oil of white safannum, oil of lilies, of each an ounce; pound
+and bruise the ants, and put them to the oil and let them stand in the
+sun six days; then strain out the oil and add to it euphorbium one
+scruple, pepper and rue, of each one drachm, mustard seed half a drachm,
+set this altogether in the sun two or three days, then anoint the
+instrument of generation therewith.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+     _The Diseases of the Womb._
+
+
+I have already said, that the womb is the field of generation; and if
+this field be corrupted, it is vain to expect any fruit, although it be
+ever so well sown. It is, therefore, not without reason that I intend in
+this chapter to set down the several distempers to which the womb is
+obnoxious, with proper and safe remedies against them.
+
+
+
+SECTION I.--_Of the Hot Distemper of the Womb._
+
+The distemper consists in excess of heat; for as heat of the womb is
+necessary for conception, so if it be too much, it nourisheth not the
+seed, but it disperseth its heat, and hinders the conception. This
+preternatural heat is sometimes from the birth, and causeth barrenness,
+but if it be accidental, it is from hot causes, that bring the heat and
+the blood to the womb; it arises also from internal and external
+medicines, and from too much hot meat, drink and exercise. Those that
+are troubled with this distemper have but few courses, and those are
+yellow, black, burnt or sharp, have hair betimes on their privities, are
+very prone to lust, subject to headache, and abound with choler, and
+when the distemper is strong upon them, they have but few terms, which
+are out of order, being bad and hard to flow, and in time they become
+hypochondriacal, and for the most part barren, having sometimes a
+phrenzy of the womb.
+
+_Cure_. The remedy is to use coolers, so that they offend not the
+vessels that most open for the flux of the terms. Therefore, take the
+following inwardly; succory, endive, violets, water lilies, sorrel,
+lettuce, saunders and syrups and conserve made thereof. Also take a
+conserve of succory, violets, water-lilies, burrage, each an ounce;
+conserve of roses, half an ounce, diamargation frigid, diatriascantal,
+each half a drachm; and with syrup of violets, or juice of citrons, make
+an electuary. For outward applications, make use of ointment of roses,
+violets, water-lilies, gourd, Venus navel, applied to the back and
+loins.
+
+Let the air be cool, her garments thin, and her food endive, lettuce,
+succory and barley. Give her no hot meats, nor strong wine, unless mixed
+with water. Rest is good for her, but she must abstain from copulation,
+though she may sleep as long as she pleases.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_Of the Cold Distempers of the Womb._
+
+This distemper is the reverse of the foregoing, and equally an enemy to
+generation, being caused by a cold quality abounding to excess, and
+proceeds from a too cold air, rest, idleness and cooling medicines. It
+may be known by an aversion to venery, and taking no pleasure in the act
+of copulation when the seed is spent; the terms are phlegmatic, thick
+and slimy, and do not flow as they should; the womb is windy and the
+seed crude and waterish. It is the cause of obstructions and barrenness,
+and is hard to be cured.
+
+_Cure_. Take galengal, cinnamon, nutmeg mace, cloves, ginger, cububs,
+cardamom, grains of paradise, each an ounce and a half, galengal, six
+drachms, long pepper, half an ounce, Zedoary five drachms; bruise them
+and add six quarts of wine, put them into a cellar nine days, daily
+stirring them; then add of mint two handfuls, and let them stand
+fourteen days, pour off the wine and bruise them, and then pour on the
+wine again, and distil them. Also anoint with oil of lilies, rue,
+angelica, cinnamon, cloves, mace and nutmeg. Let her diet and air be
+warm, her meat of easy concoction, seasoned with ant-seed, fennel and
+thyme; and let her avoid raw fruits and milk diets.
+
+
+
+SECT. III.--_Of the Inflation of the Womb._
+
+The inflation of the womb is a stretching of it by wind, called by some
+a windy mole; the wind proceeds from a cold matter, whether thick or
+thin, contained in the veins of the womb, by which the heat thereof is
+overcome, and which either flows thither from other parts, or is
+gathered there by cold meats and drinks. Cold air may be a producing
+cause of it also, as women that lie in are exposed to it. The wind is
+contained either in the cavity of the vessels of the womb, or between
+the tumicle, and may be known by a swelling in the region of the womb,
+which sometimes reaches to the navel, loins and diaphragm, and rises and
+abates as the wind increaseth or decreaseth. It differs from the dropsy,
+in that it never swells so high. That neither physician nor midwife may
+take it for dropsy, let them observe the signs of the woman with the
+child laid down in a former part of this work; and if any sign be
+wanting, they may suspect it to be an inflation; of which it is a
+further sign, that in conception the swelling is invariable; also if you
+strike upon the belly, in an inflation, there will be noise, but not so
+in case there be a conception. It also differs from a mole, because in
+that there is a weight and hardness of the belly, and when the patient
+moves from one side to the other she feels a great weight which moveth,
+but not so in this. If the inflation continue without the cavity of the
+womb, the pain is greater and more extensive, nor is there any noise,
+because the wind is more pent up.
+
+_Cure_. This distemper is neither of a long continuance nor dangerous,
+if looked after in time; and if it be in the cavity of the womb it is
+more easily expelled. To which purpose give her diaphnicon, with a
+little castor and sharp clysters that expel the wind. If this distemper
+happen to a woman in travail let her not purge after delivery, nor
+bleed, because it is from a cold matter; but if it come after
+child-bearing, and her terms come down sufficiently, and she has
+fullness of blood, let the saphoena vein be opened, after which, let her
+take the following electuary: take conserve of betony and rosemary, of
+each an ounce and a half; candied eringoes, citron peel candied, each
+half an ounce; diacimium, diagenel, each a drachm; oil of aniseed, six
+drops, and with syrup of citrons make an electuary. For outward
+application make a cataplasm of rue, mugwort, camomile, dill, calamint,
+new pennyroyal, thyme, with oil of rue, keir and camomile. And let the
+following clyster to expel the wind be put into the womb: Take agnus
+castus, cinnamon, each two drachms, boil them in wine to half a pint.
+She may likewise use sulphur, Bath and Spa waters, both inward and
+outward, because they expel the wind.
+
+
+
+SECT. IV.--_Of the Straitness of the Womb and its Vessels._
+
+This is another effect of the womb, which is a very great obstruction to
+the bearing of children, hindering both the flow of the menses and
+conception, and is seated in the vessel of the womb, and the neck
+thereof. The causes of this straitness are thick and rough humours, that
+stop the mouths of the veins and arteries. These humours are bred either
+by gross or too much nourishment, when the heat of the womb is so weak
+that it cannot attenuate the humours, which by reason thereof, either
+flow from the whole body, or are gathered into the womb. Now the vessels
+are made straiter or closer several ways; sometimes by inflammation,
+scirrhous or other tumours; sometimes by compressions, scars, or by
+flesh or membranes that grow after a wound. The signs by which this is
+known are, the stoppage of the terms, not conceiving, and condities
+abounding in the body which are all shown by particular signs, for if
+there is a wound, or the secundine be pulled out by force phlegm comes
+from the wound; if stoppage of the terms be from an old obstruction of
+humours, it is hard to be cured; if it be only from the disorderly use
+of astringents, it is more curable; if it be from a scirrhous, or other
+tumours that compress or close the vessel, the disease is incurable.
+
+_Cure_. For the cure of that which is curable, obstructions must be
+taken away, phlegm must be purged, and she must be let blood, as will be
+hereafter directed in the stoppage of the terms. Then use the following
+medicines: Take of aniseed and fennel seed, each a drachm; rosemary,
+pennyroyal, calamint, betony flowers, each an ounce; castus, cinnamon,
+galengal, each half an ounce; saffron half a drachm, with wine. Or take
+asparagus roots, parsley roots, each an ounce; pennyroyal, calamint,
+each a handful; wallflowers, gilly-flowers, each two handfuls; boil,
+strain and add syrup of mugwort, an ounce and a half. For a fomentation,
+take pennyroyal, mercury, calamint, marjoram, mugwort, each two
+handfuls, sage, rosemary bays, camomile-flowers, each a handful, boil
+them in water and foment the groin and the bottom of the belly; or let
+her sit up to the navel in a bath, and then anoint about the groin with
+oil of rue, lilies, dill, etc.
+
+
+
+SECT. V.--_Of the falling of the Womb._
+
+This is another evil effect of the womb which is both very troublesome,
+and also a hindrance to conception. Sometimes the womb falleth to the
+middle of the thighs, nay, almost to the knees, and may be known then by
+its hanging out. Now, that which causeth the womb to change its place
+is, that the ligaments by which it is bound to the other parts, are not
+in order; for there are four ligaments, two above, broad and membranous,
+round and hollow; it is also bound to the great vessels by veins and
+arteries, and to the back by nerves; but the place is changed when it is
+drawn another way, or when the ligaments are loose, and it falls down by
+its own weight. It is drawn on one side when the menses are hindered
+from flowing, and the veins and arteries are full, namely, those that go
+to the womb. If it be a mole on one side, the liver and spleen cause it;
+by the liver vein on the right side, and the spleen on the left, as they
+are more or less filled. Others are of opinion, it comes from the
+solution of the connexion of the fibrous neck and the parts adjacent;
+and that it is from the weight of the womb descending; this we deny not,
+but the ligaments must be loose or broken. But women with a dropsy could
+not be said to have the womb fallen down, if it came only from
+looseness; but in them it is caused by the saltness of the water, which
+dries more than it moistens. Now, if there be a little tumour, within or
+without the privities, it is nothing else but a descent of the womb, but
+if there be a tumour like a goose's egg and a hole at the bottom and
+there is at first a great pain in the parts to which the womb is
+fastened, as the loins, the bottom of the belly, and the os sacrum, it
+proceeds from the breaking or stretching of the ligaments; and a little
+after the pain is abated, and there is an impediment in walking, and
+sometimes blood comes from the breach of the vessels, and the excrements
+and urine are stopped, and then a fever and convulsion ensueth,
+oftentimes proving mortal, especially if it happen to women with child.
+
+_Cure_. For the cure of this distemper, first put up the womb before the
+air alter it, or it be swollen or inflamed; and for this purpose give a
+clyster to remove the excrements, and lay her upon her back, with her
+legs abroad, and her thighs lifted up and her head down; then take the
+tumour in your hand and thrust it in without violence; if it be swelled
+by alteration and cold, foment it with the decoction of mallows,
+althoea, lime, fenugreek, camomile flowers, bay-berries, and anoint it
+with oil of lilies, and hen's grease. If there be an inflammation, do
+not put it up, but fright it in, by putting a red-hot iron before it
+and making a show as if you intended to burn it; but first sprinkle upon
+it the powder of mastich, frankincense and the like; thus, take
+frankincense, mastich, each two drachms; sarcocol steeped in milk,
+drachm; mummy, pomegranate flowers, sanguisdraconis, each half a drachm.
+When it is put up, let her lie with her legs stretched, and one upon the
+other, for eight or ten days, and make a pessary in the form of a pear,
+with cork or sponge, and put it into the womb, dipped in sharp wine, or
+juice of acacia, with powder of sanguis, with galbanum and bdellium.
+Apply also a cupping-glass, with a great flame, under the navel or paps,
+or both kidneys, and lay this plaster to the back; take opopanax, two
+ounces, storax liquid, half an ounce; mastich, frankincense, pitch,
+bole, each two drachms; then with wax make a plaster; or take laudanum,
+a drachm and a half; mastich, and frankincense, each half a drachm, wood
+aloes, cloves, spike, each a drachm; ash-coloured ambergris, four
+grains: musk, half a scruple; make two round plasters to be laid on each
+side of the navel; make a fume of snails' skins salted, or of garlic,
+and let it be taken in by the funnel. Use also astringent fomentations
+of bramble leaves, plantain, horse-tails, myrtles, each two handfuls;
+wormseed, two handfuls; pomegranate flowers, half an ounce; boil them in
+wine and water. For an injection take comfrey root, an ounce;
+rupturewort, two drachms; yarrow, mugwort, each half an ounce; boil them
+in red wine, and inject with a syringe. To strengthen the womb, take
+hartshorn, bays, of each half a drachm; myrrh half a drachm; make a
+powder of two doses, and give it with sharp wine. Or you may take
+Zedoary, parsnip seed, crabs' eyes prepared, each a drachm, nutmeg, half
+a drachm; and give a drachm, in powder; but astringents must be used
+with great caution, lest by stopping the courses a worse mischief
+follow. To keep in its place, make rollers and ligatures as for a
+rupture; and put pessaries into the bottom of the womb, that may force
+it to remain. Let the diet be such as has drying, astringent and glueing
+qualities, as rice, starch, quinces, pears and green cheese; but let the
+summer fruits be avoided; and let her wine be astringent and red.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+     _Of Diseases Relating to Women's Monthly Courses._
+
+
+SECTION I.--_Of Women's Monthly Courses in General._
+
+That divine Providence, which, with a wisdom peculiar to itself, has
+appointed woman to conceive by coition with man, and to bear and bring
+forth children, has provided for nourishment of children during their
+recess in the womb of their mother, by that redundancy of the blood
+which is natural to all women; and which, flowing out at certain periods
+of time (when they are not pregnant) are from thence called _terms_ and
+_menses_, from their monthly flux of excrementitious and unprofitable
+blood. Now, that the matter flowing forth is excrementitious, is to be
+understood only with respect to the redundancy and overplus thereof,
+being an excrement only with respect to its quantity; for as to its
+quality, it is as pure and incorrupt as any blood in the veins; and this
+appears from the final cause of it, which is the propagation and
+conservation of mankind, and also from the generation of it, being
+superfluity of the last aliment of the fleshy parts. If any ask, if the
+menses be not of hurtful quality, how can they cause such venomous
+effects; if they fall upon trees and herbs, they make the one barren
+and mortify the other: I answer, this malignity is contracted in the
+womb, for the woman, wanting native heat to digest the superfluity,
+sends it to the matrix, where seating itself till the mouth of the womb
+be dilated, it becomes corrupt and mortified; which may easily be,
+considering the heat and moistness of the place; and so this blood being
+out of its proper vessels, offends in quality.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_Of the Terms coming out of order, either before or after the
+usual Time._
+
+Having, in the former part of this work, treated, of the suppression and
+overflowing of the monthly terms, I shall content myself with referring
+the reader thereto, and proceed to speak of their coming out of order,
+either before or after the usual time.
+
+Both these proceed from an ill constitution of body. Everything is
+beautiful in its order, in nature as well as in morality; and if the
+order of nature be broken, it shows the body to be out of order. Of each
+of these effects briefly.
+
+When the monthly courses come before their time, showing a depraved
+excretion, and flowing sometimes twice a month, the cause is in the
+blood, which stirs up the expulsive faculty of the womb, or else in the
+whole body, and is frequently occasioned by the person's diet, which
+increases the blood too much, making it too sharp or too hot. If the
+retentive faculty of the womb be weak, and the expulsive faculty strong,
+and of a quick sense, it brings them forth the sooner. Sometimes they
+flow sooner by reason of a fall, stroke or some violent passion, which
+the parties themselves can best relate. If it be from heat, thin and
+sharp humours, it is known by the distemper of the whole body. The
+looseness of the vessels and the weakness of the retentive faculty, is
+known from a moist and loose habit of the body. It is more troublesome
+than dangerous, but hinders conception, and therefore the cure is
+necessary for all, but especially such as desire children. If it
+proceeds from a sharp blood, let her temper it by a good diet and
+medicines. To which purpose, let her use baths of iron water, that
+correct the distemper of the bowels, and then evacuate. If it proceeds
+from the retentive faculty, and looseness of the vessels, it is to be
+corrected with gentle astringents.
+
+As to the courses flowing after the usual time, the causes are,
+thickness of the blood, and the smallness of its quantity, with the
+stoutness of the passage, and weakness of the expulsive faculties.
+Either of these singly may stop the courses, but if they all concur,
+they render the distemper worse. If the blood abounds not in such a
+quantity as may stir up nature to expel it, its purging must necessarily
+be deferred, till there be enough. And if the blood be thick, the
+passage stopped, and the expulsive faculty weak, the menses must needs
+be out of order and the purging of them retarded.
+
+For the cure of this, if the quantity of blood be small, let her use a
+larger diet, and a very little exercise. If the blood be thick and foul,
+let it be made thin, and the humours mixed therewith, evacuated. It is
+good to purge, after the courses have done flowing, and to use calamint,
+and, indeed, the oftener she purges, the better. She may also use fumes
+and pessaries, apply cupping glasses without scarification to the inside
+of the thighs, and rub the legs and scarify the ankles, and hold the
+feet in warm water four or five days before the courses come down. Let
+her also anoint the bottom of her belly with things proper to provoke
+the terms.
+
+
+
+_Remedies for Diseases in Women's Paps._
+
+Make a cataplasm of bean meal and salad oil, and lay it to the place
+afflicted. Or anoint with the juice of papilaris. This must be done when
+the papa are very sore.
+
+If the paps be hard and swollen, take a handful of rue, colewort roots,
+horehound and mint; if you cannot get all these conveniently, any two
+will do; pound the handful in honey, and apply it once every day till
+healed.
+
+If the nipples be stiff and sore, anoint twice a day with Florence oil,
+till healed. If the paps be flabby and hanging, bruise a little hemlock,
+and apply it to the breast for three days; but let it not stand above
+seven hours. Or, which is safer, rusae juice, well boiled, with a little
+sinapios added thereto, and anoint.
+
+If the paps be hard and dead, make a plate of lead pretty thin, to
+answer the breasts; let this stand nine hours each day, for three days.
+Or sassafras bruised, and used in like manner.
+
+
+
+_Receipt for Procuring Milk._
+
+Drink arpleui, drawn as tea, for twenty-one days. Or eat of aniseeds.
+Also the juice of arbor vitae, a glassful once a day for eleven days, is
+very good, for it quickens the memory, strengthens the body, and causeth
+milk to flow in abundance.
+
+
+
+_Directions for Drawing of Blood._
+
+Drawing of blood was first invented for good and salutary purposes,
+although often abused and misapplied. To bleed in the left arm removes
+long continued pains and headaches. It is also good for those who have
+got falls and bruises.
+
+Bleeding is good for many disorders, and generally proves a cure, except
+in some extraordinary cases, and in those cases bleeding is hurtful. If
+a woman be pregnant, to draw a little blood will give her ease, good
+health, and a lusty child.
+
+Bleeding is a most certain cure for no less than twenty-one disorders,
+without any outward or inward applications; and for many more with
+application of drugs, herbs and flowers.
+
+When the moon is on the increase, you may let blood at any time day or
+night; but when she is on the decline, you must bleed only in the
+morning.
+
+Bleeding may be performed from the month of March to November. No
+bleeding in December, January or February, unless an occasion require
+it. The months of March, April and November, are the three chief months
+of the year for bleeding in; but it may be performed with safety from
+the ninth of March to the nineteenth of November.
+
+To prevent the dangers that may arise from she unskilful drawing of
+blood, let none open a but a person of experience and practice.
+
+There are three sorts of people you must not let draw blood; first
+ignorant and inexperienced persons. Secondly, those who have bad sight
+and trembling hands, whether skilful or unskilled. For when the hand
+trembles, the lance is apt to start from the vein, and the flesh be
+thereby damaged, which may hurt, canker, and very much torment the
+patient. Thirdly, let no woman bleed, but such as have gone through a
+course of midwifery at college, for those who are unskilful may cut an
+artery, to the great damage of the patient. Besides, what is still
+worse, those pretended bleeders, who take it up at their own hand,
+generally keep unedged and rusty lancets, which prove hurtful, even in a
+skilful hand. Accordingly you ought to be cautious in choosing your
+physician; a man of learning knows what vein to open for each disorder;
+he knows how much blood to take as soon as he sees the patient, and he
+can give you suitable advice concerning your disorder.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+ARISTOTLE'S BOOK OF PROBLEMS
+
+WITH OTHER
+
+ASTROMER, ASTROLOGERS AND
+
+PHYSICIANS,
+
+CONCERNING
+
+THE STATE OF MAN'S BODY.
+
+
+Q. Among all living creatures, why hath man only his countenance lifted
+up towards Heaven. A. 1. From the will of the Creator. But although this
+answer be true, yet it seemeth not to be of force, because that so all
+questions might be easily resolved. Therefore, 2. I answer that, for the
+most part, every workman doth make his first work worse, and then his
+second better! so God creating all other animals before man gave them
+their face looking down to the earth; and then secondly he created man,
+unto whom he gave an upright shape, lifted unto heaven, because it is
+drawn from divinity, and it is derived from the goodness of God, who
+maketh all his works both perfect and good. 3. Man only, among all
+living creatures, is ordained to the kingdom of heaven, and therefore
+hath his face elevated and lifted up to heaven, because that despising
+earthly and worldly things, he ought often to contemplate on heavenly
+things. 4. That the reasonable man is like unto angels, and finally
+ordained towards God; and therefore he hath a figure looking upward. 5.
+Man is a microcosm, that is, a little world, and therefore he doth
+command all other living creatures and they obey him. 6. Naturally there
+is unto everything and every work, that form and figure given which is
+fit and proper for its motion; as unto the heavens, roundness, to the
+fire a pyramidical form, that is, broad beneath and sharp towards the
+top, which form is most apt to ascend; and so man has his face towards
+heaven to behold the wonders of God's works.
+
+Q. Why are the heads of men hairy? A. The hair is the ornament of the
+head, and the brain is purged of gross humours by the growing of the
+hair, from the highest to the lowest, which pass through the pores of
+the exterior flesh, become dry, and are converted into hair. This
+appears to be the case, from the circumstance that in all man's body
+there is nothing drier than the hair, for it is drier than the bones;
+and it is well known that some beasts are nourished with bones, as dogs,
+but they cannot digest feathers or hair, but void them undigested, being
+too hot for nourishment. 2. It is answered, that the brain is purged in
+three different ways; of superfluous watery humours by the eyes, of
+choler by the nose, and of phlegm by the hair, which is the opinion of
+the best physicians.
+
+Q. Why have men longer hair on their heads than any other living
+creature? A. Arist. de Generat. Anim. says, that men have the moistest
+brain of all living creatures from which the seed proceedeth which is
+converted into the long hair of the head. 2. The humours of men are fat,
+and do not become dry easily; and therefore the hair groweth long on
+them. In beasts, the humours easily dry, and therefore the hair groweth
+not so long.
+
+Q. Why doth the hair take deeper root in man's skin than in that of any
+other living creatures? A. Because it has greater store of nourishment
+in man, and therefore grows more in the inward parts of man. And this is
+the reason why in other creatures the hair doth alter and change with
+the skin, and not in man, unless by a scar or wound.
+
+Q. Why have women longer hair than men? A. Because women are moister and
+more phlegmatic than men, and therefore there is more matter for hair to
+them, and, by consequence, the length also of their hair. And,
+furthermore, this matter is more increased in women than men from their
+interior parts, and especially in the time of their monthly terms,
+because the matter doth then ascend, whereby the humour that breedeth
+the hair, doth increase. 2. Because women want beards; so the matter of
+the beard doth go into that of the hair.
+
+Q. Why have some women soft hair and some hard? A. 1. The hair hath
+proportion with the skin; of which some is hard, some thick, some subtle
+and soft, some gross; therefore, the hair which grows out of thick,
+gross skin, is thick and gross; that which groweth out of a subtle and
+fine skin, is fine and soft; when the pores are open, then cometh forth
+much humour, and therefore hard hair is engendered; and when the pores
+are strait, then there doth grow soft and fine hair. This doth evidently
+appear in men, because women have softer hair than they; for in women
+the pores are shut and strait, by reason of their coldness. 2. Because
+for the most part, choleric men have harder and thicker hair than
+others, by reason of their heat, and because their pores are always
+open, and therefore they have beards sooner than others. For this reason
+also, beasts that have hard hair are boldest, because such have
+proceeded from heat and choler, examples of which we have in the bear
+and the boar; and contrariwise, those beasts that have soft hair are
+fearful, because they are cold, as the hare and the hart. 3. From the
+climate where a man is born; because in hot regions hard and gross hair
+is engendered, as appears in the Ethiopians, and the contrary is the
+case is cold countries toward the north.
+
+Q. Why have some men curled hair, and some smooth? A. From the superior
+degree of heat in some men, which makes the hair curl and grow upward;
+this is proved by a man's having smooth hair when he goes into a hot
+bath, and it afterwards becomes curled. Therefore keepers of baths have
+often curled hair, as also Ethiopians and choleric men. But the cause of
+this smoothness, is the abundance of moist humours.
+
+Q. Why do women show ripeness by hair in their privy parts, and not
+elsewhere, but men in their breasts? A. Because in men and women there
+is abundance of humidity in that place, but most in women, as men have
+the mouth of the bladder in that place, where the urine is contained, of
+which the hair in the breast is engendered, and especially that about
+the navel. But of women in general, it is said, that the humidity of the
+bladder of the matrix, or womb, is joined and meeteth in that lower
+secret place, and therefore is dissolved and separated in that place
+into vapours and fumes, which are the cause of hair. And the like doth
+happen in other places, as in the hair under the arms.
+
+Q. Why have not women beards? A. Because they want heat; which is the
+case with some effeminate men, who are beardless from the same cause, to
+have complexions like women.
+
+Q. Why doth the hair grow on those that are hanged? A. Because their
+bodies are exposed to the sun, which, by its heat doth dissolve all
+moisture into the fume or vapour of which the hair doth grow.
+
+Q. Why is the hair of the beard thicker and grosser than elsewhere; and
+the more men are shaven, the harder and thicker it groweth? A. Because
+by so much as the humours or vapours of a liquid are dissolved and taken
+away, so much the more doth the humour remaining draw to the same; and
+therefore the more the hair is shaven, the thicker the humours gather
+which engender the hair, and cause it to wax hard.
+
+Q. Why are women smooth and fairer than men? A. Because in women much of
+the humidity and superfluity, which are the matter and cause of the hair
+of the body, is expelled with their monthly terms; which superfluity,
+remaining in men, through vapours passes into hair.
+
+Q. Why doth man, above all other creatures, wax hoary and gray? A.
+Because man hath the hottest heart of all living creatures; and
+therefore, nature being most wise, lest a man should be suffocated
+through the heat of his heart, hath placed the heart, which is most hot,
+under the brain, which is most cold; to the end that the heat of the
+heart may be tempered by the coldness of the brain; and contrariwise,
+that the coldness of the brain may be qualified by the heat of the
+heart; and thereby there might be a temperature in both. A proof of this
+is, that of all living creatures man hath the worst breath when he comes
+to full age. Furthermore, man doth consume nearly half his time in
+sleep, which doth proceed from the great excess of coldness and moisture
+in the brain, and from his wanting natural heat to digest and consume
+that moisture, which heat he hath in his youth, and therefore, in that
+age is not gray, but in old age, when heat faileth; because then the
+vapours ascending from the stomach remain undigested and unconsumed for
+want of natural heat, and thus putrefy, on which putrefaction of humours
+that the whiteness doth follow, which is called grayness or hoariness.
+Whereby it doth appear, that hoariness is nothing but a whiteness of
+hair, caused by a putrefaction of the humours about the roots of the
+hair, through the want of natural heat in old age. Sometimes all
+grayness is caused by the naughtiness of the complexion, which may
+happen in youth: sometimes through over great fear and care as appeareth
+in merchants, sailors and thieves.
+
+Q. Why doth red hair grow white sooner than hair of any other colour? A.
+Because redness is an infirmity of the hair; for it is engendered of a
+weak and infirm matter, that is, of matter corrupted with the flowers of
+the woman; and therefore it waxes white sooner than any other colour.
+
+Q. Why do wolves grow grisly? A. To understand this question, note the
+difference between grayness and grisliness; grayness is caused through
+defect of natural heat, but grisliness through devouring and heat. The
+wolf being a devouring beast, he eateth gluttonously without chewing,
+and enough at once for three days; in consequence of which, gross
+vapours engendered in the wolf's body, which cause grisliness. Grayness
+and grisliness have this difference; grayness is only in the head, but
+grisliness all over the body.
+
+Q. Why do horses grow grisly and gray? A. Because they are for the most
+part in the sun, and heat naturally causes putrefaction; therefore the
+matter of hair doth putrefy, and in consequence they are quickly peeled.
+
+Q. Why do men get bald, and trees let fall their leaves in winter? A.
+The want of moisture is the cause in both, which is proved by a man's
+becoming bald through venery, because by that he lets forth his natural
+humidity and heat; and by that excess in carnal pleasure the moisture is
+consumed which is the nutriment of the hair. Thus, eunuchs and women do
+not grow bald, because they do not part from this moisture; and
+therefore eunuchs are of the complexion of women.
+
+Q. Why are not women bald? A. Because they are cold and moist, which are
+the causes that the hair remaineth; for moistness doth give nutriment to
+the hair, and coldness doth bind the pores.
+
+Q. Why are not blind men naturally bald? A. Because the eye hath
+moisture in it, and that moisture which should pass through by the
+substance of the eyes, doth become a sufficient nutriment for the hair
+and therefore they are seldom bald.
+
+Q. Why doth the hair stand on end when men are afraid? A. Because in
+time of fear the heat doth go from the outward parts of the body into
+the inward to help the heart, and so the pores in which the hair is
+fastened are shut up, after which stopping and shutting up of the pores,
+the standing up of the hair doth follow.
+
+
+
+_Of the Head._
+
+Q. Why is a man's head round? A. Because it contains in it the moistest
+parts of the living creature: and also that the brain may be defended
+thereby, as with a shield.
+
+Q. Why is the head not absolutely long but somewhat round? A. To the end
+that the three creeks and cells of the brain might the better be
+distinguished; that is, the fancy in the forehead, the discoursing or
+reasonable part in the middle, and memory in the hinder-most part.
+
+Q. Why doth a man lift up his head towards the heavens when he doth
+imagine? A. Because the imagination is in the fore part of the head or
+brain, and therefore it lifteth up itself, that the creeks or cells of
+the imagination may be opened, and that the spirits which help the
+imagination, and are fit for that purpose, having their concourse
+thither, may help the imagination.
+
+Q. Why doth a man, when he museth or thinketh of things past, look
+towards the earth? A. Because the cell or creek which is behind, is the
+creek or chamber of the memory; and therefore, that looketh towards
+heaven when the head is bowed down, and so the cell is open, to the end
+that the spirits which perfect the memory should enter it.
+
+Q. Why is not the head fleshy, like other parts of the body? A. Because
+the head would be too heavy, and would not stand steadily. Also, a head
+loaded with flesh, betokens an evil complexion.
+
+Q. Why is the head subject to aches and griefs? A. By reason that evil
+humours, which proceed from the stomach, ascend up to the head and
+disturb the brain, and so cause pain in the head; sometimes it proceeds
+from overmuch filling the stomach, because two great sinews pass from
+the brain to the mouth of the stomach, and therefore these two parts do
+always suffer grief together.
+
+Q. Why have women the headache oftener than men? A. By reason of their
+monthly terms, which men are not troubled with, and by which a moist,
+unclean and venomous fume is produced, that seeks passage upwards, and
+so causes the headache.
+
+Q. Why is the brain white? A. 1. Because it is cold, and coldness is the
+mother of white. 2. Because it may receive the similitude and likeness
+of all colours, which the white colour can best do, because it is most
+simple.
+
+Q. Why are all the senses in the head? A. Because the brain is there, on
+which all the senses depend, and are directed by it; and, consequently,
+it maketh all the spirits to feel, and governeth all the membranes.
+
+Q. Why cannot a person escape death if the brain or heart be hurt? A.
+Because the brain and heart are the two principal parts which concern
+life; and, therefore, if they be hurt, there is no remedy left for cure.
+
+Q. Why is the brain moist? A. Because it may easily receive an
+impression, which moisture can best do, as it appeareth in wax, which
+doth easily receive the print of the seal when soft.
+
+Q. Why is the brain cold? A. 1. Because that by this coldness it may
+clear the understanding of man and make it subtle. 2. That by the
+coldness of the brain, the heat of the heart may be tempered.
+
+
+
+_Of the Eyes._
+
+Q. Why have you one nose and two eyes? A. Because light is more
+necessary to us than smelling; and therefore it doth proceed from the
+goodness of Nature, that if we receive any hurt or loss of one eye, the
+other should remain.
+
+Q. Why have children great eyes in their youth, which become small as
+they grow up? A. It proceeds from the want of fire, and from the
+assemblage and meeting together of the light and humour; the eyes, being
+lightened by the sun, which doth lighten the easy humour thereof and
+purge them: and, in the absence of the sun, those humours become dark
+and black, and the sight not so good.
+
+Q. Why does the blueish grey eye see badly in the day-time and well in
+the night? A. Because greyness is light and shining in itself, and the
+spirits with which we see are weakened in the day-time and strengthened
+in the night.
+
+Q. Why are men's eyes of diverse colours? A. By reason of diversity of
+humours. The eye hath four coverings and three humours. The first
+covering is called consolidative, which is the outermost, strong and
+fat. The second is called a horny skin or covering, of the likeness of
+a horn; which is a clear covering. The third, uvea, of the likeness of a
+black grape. The fourth is called a cobweb. The first humour is called
+_albuginous_, from its likeness unto the white of an egg. The second
+glarial; that is, clear, like unto crystalline. The third vitreous, that
+is, clear as glass. And the diversity of humours causeth the diversity
+of the eyes.
+
+Q. Why are men that have but one eye, good archers? and why do good
+archers commonly shut one? And why do such as behold the stars look
+through a trunk with one eye? A. This matter is handled in the
+perspective arts; and the reason is, as it doth appear in _The Book of
+Causes_, because that every virtue and strength united and knit
+together, is stronger than when dispersed and scattered. Therefore, all
+the force of seeing dispersed in two eyes, the one being shut, is
+gathered into the other, and so the light is fortified in him; and by
+consequence he doth see better and more certainly with one eye being
+shut, than when both are open.
+
+Q. Why do those that drink and laugh much, shed most tears? A. Because
+that while they drink and laugh without measure the air which is drawn
+in doth not pass out through the windpipe, and so with force is
+directed and sent to the eyes, and by their pores passing out, doth
+expel the humours of the eyes; which humour being expelled, brings
+tears.
+
+Q. Why do such as weep much, urine but little? A. Because the radical
+humidity of a tear and of urine are of one and the same nature, and,
+therefore, where weeping doth increase, urine diminishes. And that they
+are of one nature is plain to the taste, because they are both salt.
+
+Q. Why do some that have clear eyes see nothing? A. By reason of the
+oppilation and naughtiness of the sinews with which we see; for the
+temples being destroyed, the strength of the light cannot be carried
+from the brain to the eye.
+
+Q. Why is the eye clear and smooth like glass? A. 1. Because the things
+which may be seen are better beaten back from a smooth thing than
+otherwise, that thereby the sight should strengthen. 2. Because the eye
+is moist above all parts of the body, and of a waterish nature; and as
+the water is clear and smooth, so likewise is the eye.
+
+Q. Why do men and beasts who have their eyes deep in their head best see
+far off? A. Because the force and power by which we see is dispersed in
+them, and both go directly to the thing which is seen. Thus, when a man
+doth stand in a deep ditch or well, he doth see in the daytime the stars
+of the firmament; because then the power of the night and of the beams
+are not scattered.
+
+Q. Wherefore do those men who have eyes far out in their head not see
+far distant? A. Because the beams of the sight which pass from the eye,
+are scattered on every side, and go not directly unto the thing that is
+seen, and therefore the sight is weakened.
+
+Q. Why are so many beasts born blind, as lions' whelps and dogs' whelps.
+A. Because such beasts are not yet of perfect ripeness and maturity, and
+the course of nutriment doth not work in them. Thus the swallow, whose
+eyes, if they were taken out when they are young in their nest, would
+grow in again. And this is the case in many beasts who are brought forth
+before their time as it were dead, as bear's whelps.
+
+Q. Why do the eyes of a woman that hath her flowers, stain new glass?
+And why doth a basilisk kill a man with his sight? A. When the flowers
+do run from a woman, then a most venomous air is distilled from them,
+which doth ascend into a woman's head; and she, having pain in her head,
+doth wrap it up with a cloth or handkerchief; and because the eyes are
+full of insensible holes, which are called pores, there the air seeketh
+a passage, and infects the eyes, which are full of blood. The eyes also
+appear dropping and full of tears, by reason of the evil vapour that is
+in them; and these vapours are incorporated and multiplied till they
+come to the glass before them; and by reason that such a glass is round,
+clear and smooth, it doth easily receive that which is unclean. 2. The
+basilisk is a very venomous and infectious animal, and there pass from
+his eyes vapours which are multiplied upon the thing which is seen by
+him, and even unto the eye of man; the which venomous vapours or humours
+entering into the body, do infect him, and so in the end the man dieth.
+And this is also the reason why the basilisk, looking upon a shield
+perfectly well made with fast clammy pitch, or any hard smooth thing,
+doth kill itself, because the humours are beaten back from the hard
+smooth thing unto the basilisk, by which beating back he is killed.
+
+Q. Why is the sparkling in cats' eyes and wolves' eyes seen in the dark
+and not in the light? A. Because that the greater light doth darken the
+lesser; and therefore, in a greater light the sparkling cannot be seen;
+but the greater the darkness, the easier it is seen, and is more strong
+and shining.
+
+Q. Why is the sight recreated and refreshed by a green colour? A.
+Because green doth merely move the sight, and therefore doth comfort it;
+but this doth not, in black or white colours, because these colours do
+vehemently stir and alter the organ and instrument of the sight, and
+therefore make the greater violence; and by how much the more violent
+the thing is which is felt or seen the more it doth destroy and weaken
+the sense.
+
+
+
+_Of the Nose._
+
+Q. Why doth the nose stand out further than any other part of the body.
+A. 1. Because the nose is, as it were, the sink of the brain, by which
+the phlegm of the brain is purged; and therefore it doth stand forth,
+lest the other parts should be defiled. 2. Because the nose is the
+beauty of the face, and doth smell.
+
+Q. Why hath a man the worst smell of all creatures? A. Because man hath
+most brains of all creatures; and, therefore, by exceeding coldness and
+moisture, the brain wanteth a good disposition, and by consequence, the
+smelling instrument is not good, yea, some men have no smell.
+
+Q. Why have vultures and cormorants a keen smell? A. Because they have a
+very dry brain; and, therefore, the air carrying the smell, is not
+hindered by the humidity of the brain, but doth presently touch its
+instrument; and, therefore, vultures, tigers and other ravenous beasts,
+have been known to come five hundred miles after dead bodies.
+
+Q. Why did nature make the nostrils? A. 1. Because the mouth being shut
+we draw breath in by the nostrils, to refresh the heart. 2. Because the
+air which proceedeth from the mouth doth savour badly, because of the
+vapours which rise from the stomach, but that which we breathe from the
+nose is not noisome. 3. Because the phlegm which doth proceed from the
+brain is purged by them.
+
+Q. Why do men sneeze? A. That the expulsive virtue and power of the
+sight should thereby be purged, and the brain also from superfluities;
+because, as the lungs are purged by coughing, so is the sight and brain
+by sneezing; and therefore physicians give sneezing medicaments to purge
+the brain; and thus it is, such sick persons as cannot sneeze, die
+quickly, because it is a sign their brain is wholly stuffed with evil
+humours, which cannot be purged.
+
+Q. Why do such as are apoplectic sneeze, that is, such as are subject
+easily to bleed? A. Because the passages, or ventricles of the brain are
+stopped, and if they could sneeze, their apoplexy would be loosed.
+
+Q. Why does the heat of the sun provoke sneezing, and not the heat of
+the fire? A. Because the heat of the sun doth dissolve, but not consume,
+and therefore the vapour dissolved is expelled by sneezing; but the heat
+of the fire doth dissolve and consume, and therefore doth rather hinder
+sneezing than provoke it.
+
+
+
+_Of the Ears._
+
+Q. Why do beasts move their ears, and not men? A. Because there is a
+certain muscle near the under jaw which doth cause motion in the ear;
+and therefore, that muscle being extended and stretched, men do not move
+their ears, as it hath been seen in divers men; but all beasts do use
+that muscle or fleshy sinew, and therefore do move their ears.
+
+Q. Why is rain prognosticated by the pricking up of asses' ears? A.
+Because the ass is of a melancholic constitution, and the approach of
+rain produceth that effect on such a constitution. In the time of rain
+all beasts prick up their ears, but the ass before it comes.
+
+Q. Why have some animals no ears? A. Nature giveth unto everything that
+which is fit for it, but if she had given birds ears, their flying would
+have been hindered by them. Likewise fish want ears, because they would
+hinder their swimming, and have only certain little holes through which
+they hear.
+
+Q. Why have bats ears, although of the bird kind? A. Because they are
+partly birds in nature, in that they fly, by reason whereof they have
+wings; and partly they are hairy and seem to be of the nature of mice,
+therefore nature hath given them ears.
+
+Q. Why have men only round ears? A. Because the shape of the whole and
+of the parts should be proportionable, and especially in all things of
+one nature; for as a drop of water is round, so the whole water: and so,
+because a man's head is round, the ears incline towards the same figure;
+but the heads of beasts are somewhat long, and so the ears are drawn
+into length likewise.
+
+Q. Why hath nature given all living creatures ears? A. 1. Because with
+them they should hear. 2. Because by the ear choleric superfluity is
+purged; for as the head is purged of phlegmatic superfluity by the nose,
+so from choleric, by the ears.
+
+
+
+_Of the Mouth._
+
+Q. Why hath the mouth lips to compass it? A. Because the lips cover and
+defend the teeth; for it would be unseemly if the teeth were always
+seen. Also, the teeth being of a cold nature, would be soon hurt if they
+were not covered with lips.
+
+Q. Why has a man two eyes and but one mouth? A. Because a man should
+speak but little, and hear and see much. And by hearing and the light we
+see difference of things.
+
+Q. Why hath a man a mouth? A. 1. Because the mouth is the gate and door
+of the stomach. 2. Because the meat is chewed in the mouth, and prepared
+and made ready for the first digestion. 3. Because the air drawn into
+the hollow of the mouth for the refreshing of the heart, is made pure
+and subtle.
+
+Q. Why are the lips moveable? A. For the purpose of forming the voice
+and words which cannot be perfectly done without them. For as without
+_a, b, c_, there is no writing, so without the lips no voice can well be
+formed.
+
+Q. What causes men to yawn or gape? A. It proceeds from the thick fume
+and vapours that fill the jaws; by the expulsion of which is caused the
+stretching out and expansion of the jaws, and opening of the mouth.
+
+Q. Why doth a man gape when he seeth another do the same? A. It proceeds
+from the imagination. And this is proved by the similitude of the ass,
+who by reason of his melancholy, doth retain his superfluity for a long
+time, and would neither eat nor piss unless he should hear another
+doing the like.
+
+
+
+_Of the Teeth._
+
+Q. Why do the teeth only, amongst all ether bones, experience the sense
+of feeling? A. That they may discern heat and cold, that hurt them,
+which other bones need not.
+
+Q. Why have men more teeth than women? A. By reason of the abundance of
+heat and cold which is more in men than in women.
+
+Q. Why do the teeth grow to the end of our life, and not the other
+bones? A. Because otherwise they would be consumed with chewing and
+grinding.
+
+Q. Why do the teeth only come again when they fall, or be taken out, and
+other bones being taken away, grow no more? A. Because other bones are
+engendered of the humidity which is called radical, and so they breed in
+the womb of the mother, but the teeth are engendered of nutritive
+humidity, which is renewed and increased from day to day.
+
+Q. Why do the fore-teeth fall in youth, and grow again, and not the
+cheek teeth? A. From the defect of matter, and from the figure; because
+the fore-teeth are sharp, and the others broad. Also, it is the office
+of the fore-teeth to cut the meat, and therefore they are sharp; and
+the office of the others to chew the meat, and therefore they are broad
+in fashion, which is fittest for that purpose.
+
+Q. Why do the fore-teeth grow soonest? A. Because we want them sooner in
+cutting than the others in chewing.
+
+Q. Why do the teeth grow black in human creatures in their old age? A.
+It is occasioned by the corruption of the meat, and the corruption of
+phlegm with a choleric humour.
+
+Q. Why are colts' teeth yellow, and of the colour of saffron, when they
+are young, and become white when they grow up? A. Because horses have
+abundance of watery humours in them, which in their youth are digested
+and converted into grossness; but in old age heat diminishes, and the
+watery humours remain, whose proper colour is white.
+
+Q. Why did nature give living creatures teeth? A. To some to fight with,
+and for defence of their lives, as unto wolves and bears, unto some to
+eat with, as unto horses, unto some for the forming of the voices, as
+unto men.
+
+Q. Why do horned beasts want their upper teeth? A. Horns and teeth are
+caused by the same matter, that is, nutrimental humidity, and therefore
+the matter which passeth into the horns turneth not into teeth,
+consequently they want the upper teeth. And such beasts cannot chew
+well; therefore, to supply the want of teeth, they have two stomachs,
+from whence it returns and they chew it again, then it goes into the
+other to be digested.
+
+Q. Why are some creatures brought forth with teeth, as kids and lambs;
+and some without, as men? A. Nature doth not want in necessary things,
+nor abound in things superfluous; and therefore, because these beasts,
+not long after they are fallen, do need teeth, they are fallen with
+teeth; but men, being nourished by their mother, for a long time do not
+stand in need of teeth.
+
+
+
+_Of the Tongue._
+
+Q. Why is the tongue full of pores? A. Because the tongue is the means
+whereby which we taste; and through the mouth, in the pores of the
+tongue, doth proceed the sense of tasting. Again, it is observed, that
+frothy spittle is sent into the mouth by the tongue from the lungs,
+moistening the meat and making it ready for digestion.
+
+Q. Why do the tongues of such as are sick of agues judge all things
+bitter? A. Because the stomachs of such persons are filled with
+choleric humours; and choler is very bitter, as appeareth by the gall;
+therefore this bitter fume doth infect their tongues; and so the tongue,
+being full of these tastes, doth judge everything bitter.
+
+Q. Why doth the tongue water when we hear sour and sharp things spoken
+of? A. Because the imaginative virtue or power is of greater force than
+the power or faculty of tasting; and when we imagine a taste, we
+conceive the power of tasting as a swan; there is nothing felt by the
+taste, but by means of the spittle the tongue doth water.
+
+Q. Why do some persons stammer and lisp? A. Sometimes through the
+moistness of the tongue and brain, as in children, who cannot speak
+plainly nor pronounce many letters. Sometimes it happeneth by reason of
+the shrinking of certain sinews which go to the tongue, which are
+corrupted with phlegm.
+
+Q. Why are the tongues of serpents and mad dogs venomous? A. Because of
+the malignity and tumosity of the venomous humour which predominates in
+them.
+
+Q. Why is a dog's tongue good for medicine, and a horse's tongue
+pestiferous? A. By reason of some secret property, or that the tongue of
+a dog is full of pores, and so doth draw and take away the viscosity of
+the wound. It is observed that a dog hath some humour in his tongue,
+with which, by licking he doth heal; but the contrary effect is the lick
+of a horse's tongue.
+
+Q. Why is spittle white? A. By reason of the continual moving of the
+tongue, whereof heat is engendered, which doth make this superfluity
+white; as seen in the froth of water.
+
+Q. Why is spittle unsavoury and without taste? A. If it had a certain
+determinate taste, then the tongue would not taste at all, but only have
+the taste of spittle, and could not distinguish others.
+
+Q. Why doth the spittle of one that is fasting heal an imposthume? A.
+Because it is well digested and made subtle.
+
+Q. Why do some abound in spittle more than others? A. This doth proceed
+of a phlegmatic complexion, which doth predominate in them; and such are
+liable to a quotidian ague, which ariseth from the predominance of
+phlegm; the contrary in those that spit little, because heat abounds in
+them, which consumes the humidity of the spittle; and so the defect of
+spittle is a sign of fever.
+
+Q. Why is the spittle of a man that is fasting more subtle than of one
+that is full? A. Because the spittle is without the viscosity of meat,
+which is wont to make the spittle of one who is full, gross and thick.
+
+Q. From whence proceeds the spittle of a man? A. From the froth of the
+lungs, which according to the physicians, is the seat of the phlegm.
+
+Q. Why are beasts when going together for generation very full of froth
+and foam? A. Because then the lights and heart are in greater motion of
+lust; therefore there is engendered in them much frothy matter.
+
+Q. Why have not birds spittle? A. Because they have very dry lungs.
+
+Q. Why doth the tongue sometimes lose the use of speaking? A. It is
+occasioned by a palsy or apoplexy, which is a sudden effusion of blood,
+and by gross humours; and sometimes also by infection of _spiritus
+animates_ in the middle cell of the brain which hinders the spirits from
+being carried to the tongue.
+
+
+
+_Of the Roof of the Mouth._
+
+Q. Why are fruits, before they are ripe, of a bitter and sour relish,
+and afterward sweet? A. A sour relish or taste proceeds from coldness
+and want of heat in gross and thick humidity; but a sweet taste is
+produced by sufficient heat; therefore in the ripe fruit humidity is
+subtle through the heat of the sun, and such fruit is commonly sweet;
+but before it is ripe, as humidity is gross or subtle for want of heat,
+the fruit is bitter or sour.
+
+Q. Why are we better delighted with sweet tastes than with bitter or any
+other? A. Because a sweet thing is hot and moist, and through its heat
+dissolves and consumes superfluous humidities, and by this humidity
+immundicity is washed away; but a sharp, eager taste, by reason of the
+cold which predominates in it, doth bind overmuch, and prick and offend
+the parts of the body in purging, and therefore we do not delight in
+that taste.
+
+Q. Why doth a sharp taste, as that of vinegar, provoke appetite rather
+than any other? A. Because it is cold, and doth cool. For it is the
+nature of cold to desire to draw, and therefore it is the cause of
+appetite.
+
+Q. Why do we draw in more air than we breathe out? A. Because much air
+is drawn in that is converted into nutriment, and with the vital spirits
+is contained in the lungs. Therefore a beast is not suffocated as long
+as it receives air with its lungs, in which some part of the air
+remaineth also.
+
+Q. Why doth the air seem to be expelled and put forth, seeing the air is
+invisible, by reason of its variety and thinness? A. Because the air
+which is received in us, is mingled with vapours and fumes from the
+heart, by reason whereof it is made thick, and so is seen. And this is
+proved by experience, because that in winter, we see our breath, for the
+coldness of the air doth bind the air mixed with fume, and so it is
+thickened and made gross, and by consequence is seen.
+
+Q. Why have some persons stinking breath? A. Because of the evil fumes
+that arise from the stomach. And sometimes it doth proceed from the
+corruption of the airy parts of the body, as the lungs. The breath of
+lepers is so infected that it would poison birds if near them, because
+the inward parts are very corrupt.
+
+Q. Why are lepers hoarse? A. Because the vocal instruments are
+corrupted, that is, the lights.
+
+Q. Why do persons become hoarse? A. Because of the rheum descending from
+the brain, filling the conduit of the lights; and sometimes through
+imposthumes of the throat, or rheum gathering in the neck.
+
+Q. Why have the females of all living creatures the shrillest voices,
+the crow only excepted, and a woman a shriller and smaller voice than a
+man? A. By reason of the composition of the veins and vocal arteries the
+voice is formed, as appears by this similitude, that a small pipe
+sounds shriller than a great. Also in women, because the passage where
+the voice is formed is made narrow and strait, by reason of cold, it
+being the nature of cold to bind; but in men, the passage is open and
+wider through heat, because it is the property of heat to open and
+dissolve. It proceedeth in women through the moistness of the lungs, and
+weakness of the heat. Young and diseased men have sharp and shrill
+voices from the same cause.
+
+Q. Why doth the voice change in men at fourteen, and in women at twelve;
+in men they begin to yield seed, in women when their breasts begin to
+grow? A. Because then the beginning of the voice is slackened and
+loosened; and this is proved by the similitude of the string of an
+instrument let down or loosened, which gives a great sound, and also
+because creatures that are gelded, as eunuchs, capons., etc., have
+softer and slenderer voices than others, by the want of their stones.
+
+Q. Why do small birds sing more and louder than great ones, as appears
+in the lark and nightingale? A. Because the spirits of small birds are
+subtle and soft, and the organ conduit strait, as appeareth in a pipe;
+therefore their notes following easily at desire, they sing very soft.
+
+Q. Why do bees, wasps, locusts and many other such like insects, make a
+noise, seeing they have no lungs, nor instruments of music? A. Because
+in them there is a certain small skin, which, when struck by the air,
+causeth a sound.
+
+Q. Why do not fish make a sound? A. Because they have no lungs, but only
+gills, nor yet a heart, and therefore they need not the drawing in of
+the air, and by consequence they make no noise, because a voice is a
+percussion of the air which is drawing.
+
+
+
+_Of the Neck._
+
+Q. Why hath a living creature a neck? A. Because the neck is the
+supporter of the head, and therefore the neck is in the middle between
+the head and the body, to the intent that by it, and by its sinews,
+motion and sense of the body might be conveyed through all the body; and
+that by means of the neck, the heart, which is very hot, might be
+separated from the brain.
+
+Q. Why do some creatures want necks, as serpents and fishes? A. Because
+they want hearts, and therefore want that assistance which we have
+spoken of; or else they have a neck in some inward part of them, which
+is not distinguished outwardly.
+
+Q. Why is the neck full of bones and joints? A. That it may bear and
+sustain the head the better. Also, because the back bone is joined to
+the brain in the neck, and from thence it receives marrow, which is of
+the substance of the brain.
+
+Q. Why have some creatures long necks, as cranes, storks and such like?
+A. Because such birds seek their food at the bottom of waters. And some
+creatures have short necks, as sparrows, hawks, etc., because such are
+ravenous, and therefore for strength have short necks, as appeareth in
+the ox, who has a short neck and strong.
+
+Q. Why is the neck hollow, and especially before, about the tongue? A.
+Because there are two passages, whereof the one doth carry the meat to
+the nutritive instrument, or stomach and liver, which is called by the
+Greeks _Aesophagus_; and the other is the windpipe.
+
+Q. Why is the artery made with rings and circle? A. The better to bow
+and give a good sounding.
+
+
+
+_Of the Shoulders and Arms._
+
+Q. Why hath a man shoulders and arms? A. To lift and carry burdens.
+
+Q. Why are the arms round? A. For the swifter and speedier work.
+
+Q. Why are the arms thick? A. That they may be strong to lift and bear
+burdens, and thrust and give a strong blow; so their bones are thick,
+because they contain much marrow, or they would be easily corrupted and
+injured.
+
+Q. Why do the arms become small and slender in some diseases, as in mad
+men, and such as are sick of the dropsy? A. Because all the parts of the
+body do suffer the one with the other; and therefore one member being in
+grief, all the humours do concur and run thicker to give succour and
+help to the aforesaid grief.
+
+Q. Why have brute beasts no arms? A. Their fore feet are instead of
+arms, and in their place.
+
+
+
+_Of the Hands._
+
+Q. For what use hath a man hands, and an ape also, like unto a man? A.
+The hand is an instrument a man doth especially make use of, because
+many things are done by the hands, and not by any other part.
+
+Q. Why are some men ambo-dexter, that is, they use the left hand as the
+right? A. By reason of the great heat of the heart, and for the hot
+bowing of the same, for it is that which makes a man as nimble of the
+left hand as of the right.
+
+Q. Why are the fingers full of joints? A. To be more fit and apt to
+receive and keep what is put in them.
+
+Q. Why hath every finger three joints, and the thumb but two? A. The
+thumb hath three, but the third is joined to the arm, therefore is
+stronger than the other fingers; and is called pollex or polico, that
+is, to excel in strength.
+
+Q. Why are the fingers of the right hand nimbler than the fingers of the
+left? A. It proceedeth from the heat that predominates in those parts,
+and causeth great agility.
+
+
+
+_Of the Nails._
+
+Q. From whence do nails proceed? A. Of the tumosity and humours, which
+are resolved and go into the extremities of the fingers; and they are
+dried through the power of the external air, and brought to the hardness
+of horn.
+
+Q. Why do the nails of old men grow black and pale? A. Because the heat
+of the heart decaying causeth their beauty to decay also.
+
+Q. Why are men judged to be good or evil complexioned by the colour of
+the nails? A. Because they give witness of the goodness or badness of
+their heart, and therefore of the complexion, for if they be somewhat
+red, they betoken choler well tempered; but if they be yellowish or
+black, they signify melancholy.
+
+Q. Why do white spots appear in the nails? A. Through mixture of phlegm
+with nutriment.
+
+
+
+_Of the Paps and Dugs._
+
+Q. Why are the paps placed upon the breasts? A. Because the breast is
+the seat of the heart, which is most hot; and therefore the paps grow
+there, to the end that the menses being conveyed thither as being near
+the heat of the heart, should the sooner be digested, perfected and
+converted with the matter and substance of the milk.
+
+Q. Why are the paps below the breasts in beasts, and above the breast in
+women? A. Because woman goes upright, and has two legs only; and
+therefore if her paps were below her breasts, they would hinder her
+going; but beasts having four feet prevents that inconveniency.
+
+Q. Whether are great, small or middle-sized paps best for children to
+suck? A. In great ones the heat is dispersed, there is no good
+digestion of the milk; but in small ones the power and force is strong,
+because a virtue united is strongest; and by consequence there is a good
+digestion for the milk.
+
+Q. Why have not men as great paps and breasts as women? A. Because men
+have not monthly terms, and therefore have no vessel deputed for them.
+
+Q. Why do the paps of young women begin to grow about thirteen or
+fifteen years of age? A. Because then the flowers have no course to the
+teats, by which the young one is nourished, but follow their ordinary
+course and therefore wax soft.
+
+Q. Why hath a woman who is with child of a boy, the right pap harder
+than the left? A. Because the male child is conceived in the right side
+of the mother; and therefore the flowers do run to the right pap, and
+make it hard.
+
+Q. Why doth it show weakness of the child, when the milk doth drop out
+of the paps before the woman is delivered? A. Because the milk is the
+proper nutriment of the child in the womb of its mother, therefore if
+the milk run out, it is a token that the child is not nourished, and
+consequently is weak.
+
+Q. Why do the hardness of the paps betoken the health of the child in
+the womb? A. Because the flowers are converted into milk, and thereby
+strength is signified.
+
+Q. Why are women's paps hard when they be with child, and soft at other
+times? A. Because they swell then, and are puffed, and the great
+moisture which proceeds from the flowers doth run into the paps, which
+at other seasons remaineth in the matrix and womb, and is expelled by
+the place deputed for that end.
+
+Q. By what means doth the milk of the paps come to the matrix or womb?
+A. There is a certain knitting and coupling of the paps with the womb,
+and there are certain veins which the midwives do cut in the time of the
+birth of the child, and by those veins the milk flows in at the navel of
+the child, and so it receives nourishment by the navel.
+
+Q. Why is it a sign of a male child in the womb when the milk that
+runneth out of a woman's breast is thick, and not much, and of a female
+when it is thin? A. Because a woman that goeth with a boy hath a great
+heat in her, which doth perfect the milk and make it thick; but she who
+goes with a girl hath not so much heat, and therefore the milk is
+undigested, imperfect, watery and thin, and will swim above the water if
+it be put into it.
+
+Q. Why is the milk white, seeing the flowers are red, of which it is
+engendered? A. Because blood which is well purged and concocted becomes
+white, as appeareth in flesh whose proper colour is white, and being
+boiled, is white. Also, because every humour which is engendered of the
+body, is made like unto that part in colour where it is engendered as
+near as it can be; but because the flesh of the paps is white, therefore
+the colour of the milk is white.
+
+Q. Why doth a cow give milk more abundantly than other beasts? A.
+Because she is a great eating beast, where there is much monthly
+superfluity engendered, there is much milk; because it is nothing else
+but the blood purged and tried.
+
+Q. Why is not milk wholesome? A. 1. Because it curdeth in the stomach,
+whereof an evil breath is bred. 2. Because the milk doth grow sour in
+the stomach, where evil humours are bred, and infect the breath.
+
+Q. Why is milk bad for such as have the headache? A. Because it is
+easily turned into great fumosities, and hath much terrestrial substance
+in it, the which ascending, doth cause the headache.
+
+Q. Why is milk fit nutriment for infants? A. Because it is a natural and
+usual food, and they were nourished by the same in the womb.
+
+Q. Why are the white-meats made of a newly milked cow good? A. Because
+milk at that time is very springy, expels fumosities, and, as it were,
+purges at that time.
+
+Q. Why is the milk naught for the child, if the woman giving suck uses
+carnal copulation? A. Because in time of carnal copulation, the best
+part of the milk goes to the seed vessels, and to the womb, and the
+worst remain in the paps, which hurts the child.
+
+Q. Why do physicians forbid the eating of fish and milk at the same
+time? A. Because they produce a leprosy, and because they are
+phlegmatic.
+
+Q. Why have not birds and fish milk and paps? A. Because paps would
+hinder the flight of birds. And although fish have neither paps nor
+milk, the females cast much spawn, which the male touches with a small
+gut, and causes their kind to continue in succession.
+
+
+
+_Of the Back._
+
+Q. Why have beasts a back? A. 1. Because the back is the way and mien of
+the body from which are extended and spread throughout, all the sinews
+of the backbone. 2. Because it should be a guard and defence for the
+soft parts of the body, as for the stomach, liver, lights and such like.
+3. Because it is the foundation of all the bones, as the ribs, fastened
+to the back bone.
+
+Q. Why hath the back bone so many joints or knots, called _spondyli_? A.
+Because the moving and bending it, without such joints, could not be
+done; and therefore they are wrong who say that elephants have no such
+joints, for without them they could not move.
+
+Q. Why do fish die after their back bones are broken? A. Because in fish
+the back bone is instead of the heart; now the heart is the first thing
+that lives and the last that dies; and when that bone is broken, fish
+can live no longer.
+
+Q. Why doth a man die soon after the marrow is hurt or perished? A.
+Because the marrow proceeds from the brain, which is the principal part
+of a man.
+
+Q. Why have some men the piles? A. Those men are cold and melancholy,
+which melancholy first passes to the spleen, its proper seat, but there
+cannot be retained, for the abundancy of blood; for which reason it is
+conveyed to the back bone, where there are certain veins which terminate
+in the back, and receive the blood. When those veins are full of the
+melancholy blood, then the conduits of nature are opened, and the blood
+issues out once a month, like women's terms. Those men who have this
+course of blood, are kept from many infirmities, such as dropsy, plague,
+etc.
+
+Q. Why are the Jews much subject to this disease? A. Because they eat
+much phlegmatic and cold meats, which breed melancholy blood, which is
+purged with the flux. Another reason is, motion causes heat and heat
+digestion; but strict Jews neither move, labour nor converse much, which
+breeds a coldness in them, and hinders digestion, causing melancholic
+blood, which is by this means purged out.
+
+
+
+_Of the Heart._
+
+Q. Why are the lungs light, spongy and full of holes? A. That the air
+may be received into them for cooling the heart, and expelling humours,
+because the lungs are the fan of the heart; and as a pair of bellows is
+raised up by taking in the air, and shrunk by blowing it out, so
+likewise the lungs draw the air to cool the heart, and cast it out, lest
+through too much air drawn in, the heart should be suffocated.
+
+Q. Why is the flesh of the lungs white? A. Because they are in continual
+motion.
+
+Q. Why have those beasts only lungs that have hearts? A. Because the
+lungs be no part for themselves, but for the heart, and therefore, it
+were superfluous for those creatures to have lungs that have no hearts.
+
+Q. Why do such creatures as have no lungs want a bladder? A. Because
+such drink no water to make their meat digest and need no bladder for
+urine; as appears in such birds as do not drink at all, viz., the falcon
+and sparrow hawk.
+
+Q. Why is the heart in the midst of the body? A. That it may import life
+to all, parts of the body, and therefore it is compared to the sun,
+which is placed in the midst of the planets, to give light to them all.
+
+Q. Why only in men is the heart on the left side? A. To the end that the
+heat of the heart may mitigate the coldness of the spleen; for the
+spleen is the seat of melancholy, which is on the left side also.
+
+Q. Why is the heart first engendered; for the heart doth live first and
+die last? A. Because the heart is the beginning and original of life,
+and without it no part can live. For of the seed retained in the matrix,
+there is first engendered a little small skin, which compasses the seed;
+whereof first the heart is made of the purest blood; then of blood not
+so pure, the liver; and of thick and cold blood the marrow and brain.
+
+Q. Why are beasts bold that have little hearts? A. Because in a little
+heart the heat is well united and vehement, and the blood touching it,
+doth quickly heat it and is speedily carried to the other parts of the
+body, which give courage and boldness.
+
+Q. Why are creatures with a large heart timorous, as the hare? A. The
+heart is dispersed in such a one, and not able to heat the blood which
+cometh to it; by which means fear is bred.
+
+Q. How is it that the heart is continually moving? A. Because in it
+there is a certain spirit which is more subtle than air, and by reason
+of its thickness and rarefaction, seeks a larger space, filling the
+hollow room of the heart; hence the dilating and opening of the heart,
+and because the heart is earthly the thrusting and moving ceasing, its
+parts are at rest, tending downwards. As a proof of this, take an acorn,
+which, if put into the fire, the heat doth dissolve its humidity,
+therefore occupies a greater space, so that the rind cannot contain it,
+but puffs up, and throws it into the fire. The like of the heart.
+Therefore the heart of a living creature is triangular, having its least
+part towards its left side, and the greater towards the right; and doth
+also open and shut in the least part, by which means it is in continual
+motion; the first motion is called _diastole_, that is extending the
+heart or breast; the other _systole_, that is, shutting of the heart;
+and from these all the motions of the body proceed, and that of the
+pulse which the physicians feel.
+
+Q. How comes it that the flesh of the heart is so compact and knit
+together? A. Because in thick compacted substances heat is commonly
+received and united. And because the heart with its heat should moderate
+the coldness of the brain, it is made of that fat flesh apt to keep a
+strong heat.
+
+Q. How comes the heart to be the hottest part of all living creatures?
+A. It is so compacted as to receive the heat best, and because it should
+mitigate the coldness of the brain.
+
+Q. Why is the heart the beginning of life? A. It is plain that in it the
+vital spirit is bred, which is the heat of life; and therefore the heart
+having two receptacles, viz., the right and the left the right hath more
+blood than spirits; which spirit is engendered to give life and vivify
+the body.
+
+Q. Why is the heart long and sharp like a pyramid? A. The round figure
+hath an angle, therefore the heart is round, for fear any poison or
+hurtful matter should be retained in it; and because that figure is
+fittest for motion.
+
+Q. How comes the blood chiefly to be in the heart? A. The blood in the
+heart has its proper or efficient place, which some attribute to the
+liver; and therefore the heart doth not receive blood from any other
+parts but all other parts of it.
+
+Q. How happens it that some creatures want a heart? A. Although they
+have no heart, yet they have somewhat that answers for it, as appears in
+eels and fish that have the back bone instead of the heart.
+
+Q. Why does the heart beat in some creatures after the head is cut off,
+as in birds and hens? A. Because the heart lives first and dies last,
+and therefore beats longer than other parts.
+
+Q. Why doth the heat of the heart sometimes fail of a sudden, and in
+those who have the falling sickness? A. This proceeds from the defect of
+the heart itself, and of certain small skins with which it is covered,
+which, being infected and corrupted, the heart faileth on a sudden;
+sometimes only by reason of the parts adjoining; and therefore, when any
+venomous humour goes out of the stomach that turns the heart and parts
+adjoining, that causeth this fainting.
+
+
+
+_Of the Stomach._
+
+Q. For what reason is the stomach large and wide? A. Because in it the
+food is first concocted or digested as it were in a pot, to the end that
+which is pure should be separated from that which is not; and therefore,
+according to the quantity of food, the stomach is enlarged.
+
+Q. How comes it that the stomach is round? A. Because if it had angles
+and corners, food would remain in them and breed ill-humours, so that a
+man would never want agues, which humours are evacuated and consumed,
+and not hid in any such corners, by the roundness of the stomach.
+
+Q. How comes the stomach to be full of sinews? A. Because the sinews can
+be extended and enlarged, and so is the stomach when it is full; but
+when empty it is drawn together, and therefore nature provides the
+sinews.
+
+Q. How comes the stomach to digest? A. Because of the heat which is in
+it, and comes from the parts adjoining, that is, the liver and the
+heart. For as we see in metals the heat of the fire takes away the rust
+and dross from iron, the silver from tin, and gold from copper; so also
+by digestion the pure is separated from the impure.
+
+Q. For what reason doth the stomach join the liver? A. Because the liver
+is very hot, and with its heat helps digestion, and provokes appetite.
+
+Q. Why are we commonly cold after dinner? A. Because then the heat goes
+to the stomach to further digestion, and so the other parts grow cold.
+
+Q. Why is it hurtful to study soon after dinner? A. Because when the
+heat labours to help the imagination in study, it ceases from digesting
+the food, which remains undigested; therefore people should walk
+sometimes after meals.
+
+Q. How cometh the stomach slowly to digest meat? A. Because it swims in
+the stomach. Now, the best digestion is in the bottom of the stomach,
+because the fat descends not there; such as eat fat meat are very sleepy
+by reason that digestion is hindered.
+
+Q. Why is all the body wrong when the stomach is uneasy? A. Because the
+stomach is knit with the brain, heart and liver, which are the principal
+parts in man; and when it is not well, the others are indisposed.
+Again, if the first digestion be hindered, the others are also
+hindered; for in the first digestion is the beginning of the infirmity
+in the stomach.
+
+Q. Why are young men sooner hungry than old men? A. Young men do digest
+for three causes; 1. For growing; 2. For restoring life; and 3. For
+conservation of life. Also, young men are hot and dry, and therefore the
+heat doth digest more, and by consequence they desire more.
+
+Q. Why do physicians prescribe that men should eat when they have an
+appetite? A. Because much hunger and emptiness will fill the stomach
+with naughty rotten humours, which are drawn in instead of meat; for, if
+we fast over night we have an appetite to meat, but none in the morning;
+as then the stomach is filled with naughty humours, and especially its
+mouth, which is no true filling, but a deceitful one. And, therefore,
+after we have eaten a little, our stomach comes to us again; for the
+first morsel, having made clean the mouth of the stomach, doth provoke
+the appetite.
+
+Q. Why do physicians prescribe that we should not eat too much at a
+time, but little by little? A. Because when the stomach is full, the
+meat doth swim in it, which is a dangerous thing. Another reason is,
+that as very green wood doth put out the fire, so much meat chokes the
+natural heat and puts it out; and therefore the best physic is to use
+temperance in eating and drinking.
+
+Q. Why do we desire change of meals according to the change of times; as
+in winter, beef, mutton; in summer light meats, as veal, lamb, etc.? A.
+Because the complexion of the body is altered and changed according to
+the time of year. Another reason is, that this proceeds from the quality
+of the season: because the cold in winter doth cause a better digestion.
+
+Q. Why should not the meat we eat be as hot as pepper and ginger? A.
+Because as hot meat doth inflame the blood, and dispose it to a leprosy,
+so, on the contrary, meat too cold doth mortify and chill the blood. Our
+meat should not be over sharp, because it wastes the constitution; too
+much sauce doth burn the entrails, and inclineth to too often drinking;
+raw meat doth the same; and over sweet meats to constipate and cling the
+veins together.
+
+Q. Why is it a good custom to eat cheese after dinner, and pears after
+all meat? A. Because, by reason of its earthliness and thickness it
+tendeth down towards the bottom of the stomach, and so put down the
+meat; and the like of pears. Note, that new cheese is better than old,
+and that old soft cheese is very bad, and causeth the headache and
+stopping of the liver; and the older the worse. Whereof it is said that
+cheese digesteth all things but itself.
+
+Q. Why are nuts good after cheese, as the proverb is, "After fish nuts,
+and after flesh cheese?" A. Because fish is of hard digestion, and doth
+easily putrefy and corrupt; and nuts are a remedy against poison.
+
+Q. Why is it unwholesome to wait long for one dish after another, and to
+eat of divers kinds of meat? A. Because the first begins to digest when
+the last is eaten, and so digestion is not equally made. But yet this
+rule is to be noted; dishes light of digestion, as chickens, kids, veal,
+soft eggs and such like, should be first eaten; because, if they should
+be first served and eaten and were digested, they would hinder the
+digestion of the others; and the light meats not digested would be
+corrupted in the stomach and kept in the stomach violently, whereof
+would follow belching, loathing, headache, bellyache and great thirst.
+It is very hurtful too, at the same meal to drink wine and milk, because
+they are productive of leprosy.
+
+Q. Whether is meat or drink best for the stomach? A. Drink is sooner
+digested than meat, because meat is of greater substance, and more
+material than drink, and therefore meat is harder to digest.
+
+Q. Why is it good to drink after dinner? A. Because the drink will make
+the meat readier to digest. The stomach is like unto a pot which doth
+boil meat, and therefore physicians do counsel to drink at meals.
+
+Q. Why is it good to forbear a late supper? A. Because there is little
+moving or stirring after supper, and so the meat is not sent down to the
+bottom of the stomach, but remaineth undigested, and so breeds hurts;
+therefore a light supper is best.
+
+
+
+_Of the Blood._
+
+Q. Why is it necessary that every living creature that hath blood have
+also a liver? A. Because the blood is first made in the liver, its seat,
+being drawn from the stomach by certain principal veins, and so
+engendered.
+
+Q. Why is the blood red? A. 1. It is like the part in which it is made,
+viz., the liver, which is red. 2. It is likewise sweet, because it is
+well digested and concocted; but if it hath a little earthly matter
+mixed with it, that makes it somewhat salt.
+
+Q. How is women's blood thicker than men's? Their coldness thickens,
+binds, congeals, and joins together.
+
+Q. How comes the blood to all parts of the body through the liver, and
+by what means? A. Through the principal veins, as the veins of the head,
+liver, etc., to nourish the body.
+
+
+
+_Of the Urine._
+
+Q. How doth the urine come into the bladder, seeing the bladder is shut?
+A. Some say sweatings; others, by a small skin in the bladder, which
+opens and lets in the urine. Urine is a certain and not deceitful
+messenger of the health or infirmity of man. Men make white urine in the
+morning, and before dinner red, but after dinner pale, and also after
+supper.
+
+Q. Why is it hurtful to drink much cold water? A. Because one contrary
+doth hinder and expel another; water is very cold, and lying so in the
+stomach, doth hinder digestion.
+
+Q. Why is it unwholesome to drink new wine? A. 1. It cannot be digested;
+therefore it causeth the belly to swell, and a kind of bloody flux. 2.
+It hinders making water.
+
+Q. Why do physicians forbid us to labour presently after dinner? A. 1.
+Because the motion hinders the virtue and power of digestion. 2.
+Because stirring immediately after dinner causes the different parts of
+the body to draw the meat to them, which often breeds sickness. 3.
+Because motion makes the food descend before it is digested. And after
+supper it is good to walk a little, that the food may go to the bottom
+of the stomach.
+
+Q. Why is it good to walk after dinner? A. Because it makes a man well
+disposed, and fortifies and strengthens the natural heat, causing the
+superfluity of the stomach to descend.
+
+Q. Why is it wholesome to vomit? A. It purges the stomach of all naughty
+humours, expelling them, which would breed again if they should remain
+in it; and purges the eyes and head, clearing the brain.
+
+Q. How comes sleep to strengthen the stomach and the digestive faculty?
+A. Because in sleep the heat draws inwards, and helps digestion; but
+when we awake, the heat returns, and is dispersed through the body.
+
+
+
+_Of the Gall and Spleen._
+
+Q. How come living creatures to have a gall? A. Because choleric humours
+are received into it, which through their acidity helps the guts to
+expel superfluities; also it helps digestion.
+
+Q. How comes the jaundice to proceed from the gall? A. The humour of the
+gall is bluish and yellow; therefore when its pores are stopped the
+humour cannot go into the sack thereof, but are mingled with the blood,
+wandering throughout all the body and infecting the skin.
+
+Q. Why hath a horse, mule, ass or cow a gall? A. Though these creatures
+have no gall in one place, as in a purse or vessel, yet they have one
+dispersed in small veins.
+
+Q. How comes the spleen to be black? A. It is occasioned by terrestrial
+and earthy matter of a black colour. According to physicians, the spleen
+is the receptacle of melancholy, and that is black.
+
+Q. Why is he lean who hath a large spleen? A. Because the spleen draws
+much water to itself, which would turn to fat; therefore, men that have
+a small spleen are fat.
+
+Q. Why does the spleen cause men to laugh, as says Isidorus; "We laugh
+with the spleen, we are angry with the gall, we are wise with the heart,
+we love with the liver, we feel with the brain, and speak with the
+lungs"? A. The reason is, the spleen draws much melancholy to it, being
+its proper seat, the which melancholy proceeds from sadness, and is
+there consumed; and the cause failing, the effect doth so likewise. And
+by the same reason the gall causes anger, for choleric men are often
+angry, because they have much gall.
+
+
+
+_Of Carnal Copulation._
+
+Q. Why do living creatures use carnal copulation? A. Because it is most
+natural in them to get their like.
+
+Q. What is carnal copulation? A. It is a mutual action of male and
+female, with instruments ordained for that purpose to propagate their
+kind.
+
+Q. Why is this action good in those that use it lawfully and moderately?
+A. Because it eases and lightens the body, clears the mind, comforts the
+head and senses, and expels melancholy.
+
+Q. Why is immoderate carnal copulation hurtful? A. Because it destroys
+the sight, dries the body, and impairs the brain, often causes fevers
+and shortens life also.
+
+Q. Why doth carnal copulation injure melancholic or choleric men,
+especially thin men? A. Because it dries the bones much which are
+naturally so. On the contrary, it is good for the phlegmatic and
+sanguine, because they abound with that substance which by nature, is
+necessarily expelled.
+
+Q. Why should not the act be used when the body is full? A. Because it
+hinders digestion; and it is not good for a hungry belly, because it
+weakens.
+
+Q. Why is it not good soon after a bath? A. Because then the pores are
+open, and the heat dispersed through the body: for after bathing, it
+cools the body too much.
+
+Q. Why is it not proper after vomiting or looseness? A. Because it is
+dangerous to purge twice a day; for in this act the veins are purged,
+and the guts by the vomit.
+
+Q. Why is there such delight in the act of venery? A. Because this act
+is such a contemptible thing in itself, that all creatures would
+naturally abhor it were there no pleasure in it; and therefore nature
+readily uses it, that all kinds of living things should be maintained
+and kept up.
+
+Q. Why do such as use it often take less delight in it than those who
+come to it seldom? A. 1. The passages of the seed are over large and
+wide; and therefore it makes no stay there, which would cause the
+delight. 2. Through often evacuation there is little seed left, and
+therefore no delight. 3. Because such, instead of seed there is cast out
+blood, undigested and raw, or some other watery substance, which is not
+hot, and therefore affords no delight.
+
+
+
+_Of the Seed of Man and Beasts._
+
+Q. How, and of what cometh the seed of man? A. Some philosophers and
+physicians say, it is superfluous humours; others say, that the seed is
+pure blood, flowing from the brain, concocted and whitened in the
+testicles; but sweat, urine, spittle, phlegm, choler, and the like, and
+blood dispersed throughout the whole body, come chiefly from the heart,
+liver and brain, because those parts are greatly weakened by casting
+seed; and therefore it appears that frequent carnal copulation is not
+good.
+
+Q. Why is a man's seed white, and a woman's red? A. It is white in men
+by reason of great heat and quick digestion, because it is rarefied in
+the testicles; but a woman's is red, because her terms corrupt the
+undigested blood, and it hath its colour.
+
+Q. How come females to have monthly courses? A. Because they are cold in
+respect of men, and because all their nourishment cannot be converted
+into blood, a great part of which turns to menses, which are monthly
+expelled.
+
+Q. For what reason do the menses not come down in females before the age
+of thirteen? A. Because young women are hot, and digest all their
+nourishment.
+
+Q. For what reason do they leave off at about fifty? A. Because nature
+is then so exhausted, they cannot expel them by reason of weakness.
+
+Q. Why have not breeding women the menses? A. Because that then they
+turn into milk, and into the nourishment of the child: for if a woman
+with child have them, it is a sign that she will miscarry.
+
+Q. Why are they termed _menstrua_, from the word _mensis_, a month? A.
+Because it is a space of time that measures the moon, as she ends her
+course in twenty-nine days, and fourteen hours.
+
+Q. Why do they continue longer with some than others, as with some six
+or seven, but commonly with all three days? A. The first are cold,
+therefore they increase most in them, and consequently are longer
+expelling; other women are hot, and therefore have fewer and are sooner
+expelled.
+
+Q. Are the menses which are expelled, and those by which the child is
+engendered, all one? A. No, because the one are unclean, and unfit for
+that purpose; but the other very pure and clear, therefore the fittest
+for generation.
+
+Q. Why have not women their menses all one and the same time, but some
+in the new moon, some in the full, and others at the wane? A. From their
+several complexions, and though all women (in respect of men) are
+phlegmatic, yet some are more sanguine than others, some more choleric;
+and as the moon hath her quarters, so have women their complexions; the
+first sanguine, the second choleric.
+
+Q. Why do women easily conceive after their menses? A. Because the womb
+being cleansed, they are better prepared for conception.
+
+Q. Why do women look pale when they first have their menses upon them?
+A. Because the heat goes from the outward parts of the body to the
+inward, to help nature to expel their terms, which deprivation of heat
+doth cause a paleness in the face. Or, because that flux is caused of
+raw humours, which, when they run, make the face colourless.
+
+Q. Why do they at that time abhor their meat? A. Because nature labours
+more to expel their terms than digest; and, therefore, if they should
+eat, their food would remain raw in the stomach.
+
+Q. Why are some women barren and do not conceive? A. 1. It proceeds
+sometimes from the man who may be of a cold nature, so that his seed is
+unfit for generation. 2. Because it is waterish, and so doth not stay in
+the womb. 3. By reason that the seed of them both hath not a like
+proportion, as if the man be melancholy and the woman sanguine, or the
+man choleric and the woman phlegmatic.
+
+Q. Why do fat women seldom conceive? A. Because they have a slippery
+womb, and the seed will not stay in it. Or, because the mouth of the
+matrix is very strait, and the seed cannot enter it, or, if it does, it
+is so very slowly that it grows cold and unfit for generation.
+
+Q. Why do those of a hot constitution seldom conceive? A. Because the
+seed in them is extinguished or put out, as water cast into fire;
+whereof we find that women who vehemently desire the flesh seldom
+conceive.
+
+Q. Why are whores never with child? A. By reason of divers seeds, which
+corrupt and spoil the instruments of conception, for it makes them so
+slippery, that they cannot retain seed. Or, else, it is because one
+man's seed destroys another's, so neither is good for generation.
+
+Q. Why do women conceive twins? A. Because there are seven cells or
+receptacles in the womb; wherefore they may naturally have so many
+children at once as there falls seed into these cells.
+
+Q. Why are twins but half men, and not so strong as others? A. The seed
+that should have been for one, is divided into two and therefore they
+are weakly and seldom live long.
+
+
+
+_Of Hermaphrodites._
+
+Q. How are hermaphrodites begotten? A. Nature doth always tend to that
+which is best, and always intendeth to beget the male and not the
+female, because the female is only for the male's mate. Therefore the
+male is sometimes begotten in all its principal parts; and, yet, through
+the indisposition of the womb and object, and inequality of the seeds,
+when nature cannot perfect the male, she brings forth the female too.
+And therefore natural philosophers say, that an hermaphrodite is
+impotent in the privy parts of a man, as appears by experience.
+
+Q. Is an hermaphrodite accounted a man or a woman? A. It is to be
+considered in which member he is fittest for copulation; if he be
+fittest in the woman's, then he is a woman; if in a man's, then he is a
+man.
+
+Q. Should he be baptized in the name of a man or a woman? A. In the
+name of a man, because names are given _ad placitum_, and therefore he
+should be baptized, according to the worthiest name, because every agent
+is worthier than its patient.
+
+
+
+_Of Monsters._
+
+Q. Doth nature make any monsters? A. She doth; if she did not, then
+would she be deprived of her end. For of things possible, she doth
+always propose to bring forth that which is most perfect and best; but
+in the end, through the evil disposition of the matter, not being able
+to bring forth that which she intended, she brings forth that which she
+can. As it happened in Albertus's time, when in a certain village, a cow
+brought forth a calf, half a man; then the countrymen suspecting a
+shepherd, would have burnt him with the cow; but Albertus, being skilled
+in astronomy, said that this did proceed from a certain constellation,
+and so delivered the shepherd from their hands.
+
+Q. Are they one or two? A. To find out, you must look into the heart, if
+there be two hearts, there be two men.
+
+Q. Why are some children like their father, some like their mother, some
+to both and some to neither? A. If the seed of the father wholly
+overcome that of the mother the child doth resemble the father; but if
+the mother's predominate, then it is like the mother; but if he be like
+neither, that doth sometimes happen through the four qualities,
+sometimes through the influence of some heavenly constellation.
+
+Q. Why are children oftener like the father than the mother? A. It
+proceeds from the imagination of the mother in the act of copulation, as
+appeared in a queen who had her imagination on a blackamoor; and in the
+Ethiopian queen who brought forth a white child, because her imagination
+was upon a white colour; as is seen in Jacob's skill in casting rods of
+divers colours into the water, when his sheep went to ram.
+
+Q. Why do children born in the eighth month for the most part die
+quickly, and why are they called the children of the moon? A. Because
+the moon is a cold planet, which has dominion over the child, and
+therefore doth bind it with coldness, which is the cause of its death.
+
+Q. Why doth a child cry as soon as it is born? A. Because of the sudden
+change from heat to cold: which cold doth affect its tenderness. Another
+reason is, because the child's soft and tender body is wringed and put
+together coming out of the narrow and strait passage of the matrix, and
+especially, the brain being moist, and the head being pressed and
+wrinkled together, is the cause that some humours distil by the eyes,
+which are the cause of tears and weeping.
+
+Q. Why doth the child put its fingers into its mouth as soon as it
+cometh into the world? A. Because that coming out of the womb it cometh
+out of a hot bath, and entering into the cold, puts them into its mouth
+for want of heat.
+
+
+
+_Of the Child in the Womb._
+
+Q. How is the child engendered in the womb? A. The first six days the
+seed hath this colour of milk, but in the six following a red colour,
+which is near unto the disposition of the flesh; and then it is changed
+into a thick substance of blood. But in the twelve days following, this
+substance becomes so thick and round that it is capable of receiving
+shape and form.
+
+Q. Doth the child in the womb void excrements or make water? No. Because
+it hath not the first digestion which is in the stomach. It receives no
+food by the mouth, but by the navel; therefore, makes no urine but
+sweats, which is but little, and is received in a skin in the matrix,
+which at the birth is cast out.
+
+
+
+_Of Abortion and Untimely Birth._
+
+Q. Why do women that eat unwholesome meats, easily miscarry? A. Because
+they breed putrefied seed, which the mind abhorring doth cast it out of
+the womb as unfit for the shape which is adapted to receive the soul.
+
+Q. Why doth wrestling and leaping cause the casting of the child, as
+some subtle women do on purpose? A. The vapour is burning, and doth
+easily hurt the tender substance of the child, entering in at the pores
+of the matrix.
+
+Q. Why doth much joy cause a woman to miscarry? A. Because in the time
+of joy, a woman is destitute of heat, and so a miscarriage doth follow.
+
+Q. Why do women easily miscarry when they are first with child, viz.,
+the first, second or third month? A. As apples and pears easily fall at
+first, because the knots and ligaments are weak, so it is with a child
+in the womb.
+
+Q. Why is it hard to miscarry in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth
+month? A. Because the ligaments are stronger and well fortified.
+
+
+
+_Of Divers Matters._
+
+Q. Why has not a man a tail like a beast? A. Because man is a noble
+creature, whose property is to sit; which a beast, having a tail,
+cannot.
+
+Q. Why does hot water freeze sooner than cold? A. Hot water is thinner,
+and gives better entrance to the frost.
+
+Q. Why is every living creature dull after copulation? A. By reason that
+the act is filthy and unclean; and so every living creature abhors it.
+When men do think upon it, they are ashamed and sad.
+
+Q. Why cannot drunken men judge of taste as well as sober men? A.
+Because the tongue, being full of pores and spongy, receives more
+moisture into it, and more in drunken men than in sober; therefore, the
+tongue, through often drinking, is full of bad humours, and so the
+faculty of tasting is rendered out of order; also, through the
+thickening of the taste itself, drink taken by drunkards is not
+presently felt. And by this may also be understood why drunkards have
+not a perfect speech.
+
+Q. Why have melancholy beasts long ears? A. The ears proceed from a dry
+and cold substance, called gristle, which is apt to become bone; and
+because melancholy beasts do abound with this kind of substance, they
+have long ears.
+
+Q. Why do hares sleep with their eyes open? A. 1. They have their eyes
+standing out, and their eyelids short, therefore, never quite shut. 2.
+They are timorous, and as a safe-guard to themselves, sleep with their
+eyes open.
+
+Q. Why do not crows feed their young till they be nine days old? A.
+Because seeing them of another colour, they think they are of another
+kind.
+
+Q. Why are sheep and pigeons mild? A. They want galls, the cause of
+anger.
+
+Q. Why have birds their stones inward? A. Because if outward, they would
+hinder their flying and lightness.
+
+Q. How comes it that birds do not piss? A. Because that superfluity
+which would be converted into urine, is turned into feathers.
+
+Q. Why do we hear better in the night than by day? A. Because there is a
+greater quietness in the night than in the day, for the sun doth not
+exhale the vapours by night, but it doth in the day, therefore the moon
+is more fit than in the day; and the moon being fit, the motion is
+better received, which is said to be caused by a sound.
+
+Q. For what reason doth a man laugh sooner when touched in the armpits
+than in any other part of the body? A. Because there is in that place a
+meeting of many sinews, and the mean we touch, which is the flesh, is
+more subtle than in other parts, and therefore of finer feeling. When a
+man is moderately and gently touched there the spirits that are
+dispersed run into the face and causes laughter.
+
+Q. Why do some women love white men and some black men? A. 1. Some have
+weak sight, and such delight in black, because white doth hurt the sight
+more than black. 2. Because like delight in like; but some women are of
+a hot nature, and such are delighted with black, because blackness
+followeth heat; and others are of a cold nature, and those are delighted
+with white, because cold produces white.
+
+Q. Why do men incline to sleep after labour? A. Because, through
+continual moving, the heat is dispersed to the external parts of the
+body, which, after labour, is gathered together in the internal parts,
+there to digest; and from digestion, vapours arise from the heart to the
+brain, which stop the passage by which the natural heat should be
+dispersed to the external part; and then, the external parts being cold
+and thick, by reason of the coldness of the brain sleep is easily
+procured. By this it appeareth that such as eat and drink too much, do
+sleep much and long, because there are great store of humours and
+vapours bred in such persons which cannot be consumed and digested by
+the natural heat.
+
+Q. Why are such as sleep much, evil disposed and ill-coloured? A.
+Because in too much sleep moisture is gathered together, which cannot be
+consumed, and so it doth covet to go out through the superficial parts
+of the body, and especially it resorts to the face, and therefore is the
+cause of bad colours, as appeareth in such as are phlegmatic and who
+desire more sleep than others.
+
+Q. Why do some imagine in their sleep that they eat and drink sweet
+things? A. Because the phlegm drawn up by the jaws doth distil and drop
+to the throat; and this phlegm is sweet after a sore sweat, and that
+seemeth so to them.
+
+Q. Why do some dream in their sleep that they are in the water and
+drowned, and some that they were in the water and not drowned;
+especially such as are phlegmatic? A. Because when the phlegmatic
+substance doth turn to the high parts of the body, then many think they
+are in the water and drowned; but when that substance draweth into the
+internal parts, then they think they escape. Another reason may be,
+overmuch repletion and drunkenness: and therefore, when men are overmuch
+filled with meat, the fumes and vapours ascend and gather together, and
+they think they are drowned and strangled; but if they cannot ascend so
+high then they seem to escape.
+
+Q. May a man procure a dream by an external cause? A. It may be done. If
+a man speak softly in another man's ear and awake him not, then of his
+stirring of the spirits there are thunderings and buzzings in the head,
+which cause dreamings.
+
+Q. How many humours are there in a man's body? A. Four, whereof every
+one hath its proper place. The first is choler, called by physicians
+_flava bilis_, which is placed in the liver. The second is melancholy,
+called _atra bilis_, whose seat is in the spleen. The third is phlegm,
+whose place is in the head. The fourth is blood, whose place is in the
+heart.
+
+Q. What condition and quality hath a man of a sanguine complexion? A. It
+is fair and beautiful; hath his hair for the most part smooth; is bold;
+retaineth that which he hath conceived; is shame-faced, given to music,
+a lover of sciences, liberal, courteous, and not desirous of revenge.
+
+Q. What properties do follow those of a phlegmatic complexion? A. They
+are dull of wit, their hair never curls, they are seldom very thirsty,
+much given to sleep, dream of things belonging to water, are fearful,
+covetous, given to heap up riches, and are weak in the act of venery.
+
+Q. What are the properties of a choleric man? A. He is brown in
+complexion, unquiet, his veins hidden, eateth little and digesteth less,
+dreameth of dark and confused things, is sad, fearful, exceedingly
+covetous, and incontinent.
+
+Q. What dreams do follow these complexions? A. Pleasant, merry dreams do
+follow the sanguine; fearful dreams, the melancholic; the choleric dream
+of children fighting and fire; the phlegmatic dream of water. This is
+the reason why a man's complexion is said to be known by his dreams.
+
+Q. What is the reason that if you cover an egg over with salt, and let
+it lie in it a few days, all the meat within is consumed? A. A great
+dryness of the salt consumes the substance of the egg.
+
+Q. Why is the melancholic complexion the worst? A. Because it proceeds
+from the dregs of the blood, is an enemy to mirth and bringeth on aged
+appearance and death, being cold and dry.
+
+Q. What is the cause that some men die joyful, and some in extreme
+grief? A. Over-great joy doth overmuch heat the internal parts of the
+body; and overmuch grief doth drown and suffocate the heart, which
+failing, a man dieth.
+
+Q. Why hath a man so much hair on his head? A. The hair on his head
+proceeds from the vapours which arise from the stomach, and ascend to
+the head, and also of the superfluities which are in the brain; and
+those two passing through the pores of the head are converted into hair,
+by reason of the heat and dryness of the head. And because man's body is
+full of humours, and he hath more brains than any other living
+creatures.
+
+Q. How many ways is the brain purged and other hidden places of the
+body? A. Four; the watery and gross humours are purged by the eyes,
+melancholy by the ears, choler by the nose, and phlegm by the hair.
+
+Q. What is the reason that such as are very fat in their youth, are in
+danger of dying on a sudden? A. Such have very small and close veins, by
+reason of their fatness, so that the air and the breath can hardly have
+free course in them; and thereupon the natural heat wanting the
+refreshment of air, is put out, and as it were, quenched.
+
+Q. Why do garlic and onions grow after they are gathered? A. It
+proceedeth from the humidity that is in them.
+
+Q. Why do men feel cold sooner than women? A. Because men, being more
+hot than women, have their pores more open, and therefore it doth sooner
+enter into them than women.
+
+Q. Why are not old men so subject to the plague as young men and
+children? A. They are cold, and their pores are not so open as in youth;
+and therefore the infecting air doth not penetrate so soon by reason of
+their coldness.
+
+Q. Why do we cast water in a man's face when he swooneth? A. Because
+through the coldness of water the heat may run to the heart, and so give
+strength.
+
+Q. Why are those waters best and most delicate which run towards the
+rising sun? A. Because they are soonest stricken with the sunbeams, and
+made pure and subtle, the sun having them under it, and by that means
+taking off the coldness and gross vapours which they gather from the
+ground they run through.
+
+Q. Why have women such weak and small voices? A. Because their
+instruments and organs of speaking, by reason of their coldness, are
+small and narrow; and therefore, receiving but little air, cause the
+voice to be effeminate.
+
+Q. Whereof doth it proceed that want of sleep doth weaken the brain and
+body? A. Much watching doth engender choler, the which being hot both
+dry up and lessen the humours which serve the brain, the head, and other
+parts of the body.
+
+Q. Wherefore doth vinegar so readily staunch blood? A. From its cold
+virtue, for all cold is naturally binding, and vinegar being cold, hath
+the like property.
+
+Q. Why is sea-water salter in summer than in winter? A. From the heat of
+the sun, seeing by experiment that a salt thing being heated becometh
+more salt.
+
+Q. Why do men live longer in hot regions than in cold? A. Because they
+may be more dry, and by that means the natural heat is better preserved
+in them than in cold countries.
+
+Q. Why is well-water seldom or ever good? A. All water which standeth
+still in the spring and is never heated by the sunbeams, is very heavy,
+and hath much matter in it, and therefore wanting the heat of the sun,
+is naught.
+
+Q. Why do men sleep better and more at ease on the right side than on
+the left? A. Because when they be on the left side, the lungs do lie
+upon and cover the heart, which is on that side under the pap; now the
+heart, the fountain of life, being thus occupied and hindered with the
+lungs, cannot exercise its own proper operation, as being overmuch
+heated with the lungs lying upon it, and therefore wanting the
+refreshment of the air which the lungs do give it, like the blowing of a
+pair of bellows, is choked and suffocated, but by lying on the right
+side, those inconveniences are avoided.
+
+Q. What is the reason that old men sneeze with great difficulty? A.
+Because that through their coldness their arteries are very narrow and
+close, and therefore the heat is not of force to expel the cold.
+
+Q. Why doth a drunken man think that all things about him do turn round?
+A. Because the spirits which serve the sight are mingled with vapours
+and fumes, arising from the liquors he has drunk; the overmuch heat
+causeth the eye to be in continual motion, and the eye being round,
+causeth all things about it to seem to go round.
+
+Q. Wherefore doth it proceed, that bread which is made with salt is
+lighter than that which is made without it, considering that salt is
+very heavy of itself? A. Although bread is very heavy of itself, yet the
+salt dries it and makes it light, by reason of the heat which it hath;
+and the more heat there is in it, the better the bread is, and the
+lighter and more wholesome for the body.
+
+Q. Why is not new bread good for the stomach? A. Because it is full of
+moistness, and thick, hot vapours, which do corrupt the blood, and hot
+bread is blacker than cold, because heat is the mother of blackness, and
+because the vapours are not gone out of it.
+
+Q. Why do lettuces make a man sleep? A. Because they engender gross
+vapours.
+
+Q. Why do the dregs of wine and oil go to the bottom, and those of honey
+swim uppermost? A. Because the dregs of wine and oil are earthly, and
+therefore go to the bottom; but honey is a liquid that cometh from the
+stomach and belly of the bee; and is there in some sort putrefied and
+made subtle; on which account the dregs are most light and hot, and
+therefore go uppermost.
+
+Q. Why do cats' and wolves' eyes shine in the night, and not in the day?
+A. The eyes of these beasts are by nature more crystalline than the eyes
+of other beasts, and therefore do so shine in darkness; but the
+brightness of the sun doth hinder them from being seen in the day-time.
+
+Q. What is the reason that some men, if they see others dance, do the
+like with their hands and feet, or by other gestures of the body? A.
+Because the sight having carried and represented unto the mind that
+action, and judging the same to be pleasant and delightful, and
+therefore the imagination draweth the like of it in conceit and stirs up
+the body by the gestures.
+
+Q. Why does much sleep cause some to grow fat and some lean? A. Those
+who are of ill complexion, when they sleep, do consume and digest the
+superfluities of what they have eaten, and therefore become fat. But
+such as are of good complexion, when they sleep are more cold, and
+digest less.
+
+Q. How much, and from what cause do we suffer hunger better than thirst?
+A. When the stomach hath nothing else to consume, it consumeth the
+phlegm and humours which it findeth most ready and most at hand; and
+therefore we suffer hunger better than thirst, because the heat hath
+nothing to refresh itself with.
+
+Q. Why doth the hair fall after a great sickness? A. Where the sickness
+is long, as in the ague, the humours of the head are dried up through
+overmuch heat, and, therefore, wanting nourishment, the hair falls.
+
+Q. Why doth the hair of the eyebrows grow long in old men? A. Because
+through their age the bones are thin through want of heat, and therefore
+the hair doth grow there, by reason of the rheum of the eye.
+
+Q. Whereof proceedeth gaping? A. Of gross vapours, which occupy the
+vital spirits of the head, and of the coldness of the senses causing
+sleepiness.
+
+Q. What is the reason that some flowers do open with the sun rising, and
+shut with the sun setting? A. Cold doth close and shut, as hath been
+said, but the heat of the sun doth open and enlarge. Some compare the
+sun to the soul of the body; for as the soul giveth life, so the sun
+doth give life, and vivificate all things; but cold bringeth death,
+withering and decaying all things.
+
+Q. Why doth grief cause men to grow old and grey? A. Age is nothing else
+but dryness and want of humours in the body; grief then causeth
+alteration, and heat dryness; age and greyness follow immediately.
+
+Q. Why are gelded beasts weaker than such as are not gelded? A. Because
+they have less heat, and by that means less force and strength.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE PROBLEMS OF
+
+MARCUS ANTONINUS SANCTIPERTIAS
+
+
+Q. Why is it esteemed, in the judgment of the most wise, the hardest
+thing to know a man's self? A. Because nothing can be known that is of
+so great importance to man for the regulation of his conduct in life.
+Without this knowledge, man is like the ship without either compass or
+rudder to conduct her to port, and is tossed by every passion and
+prejudice to which his natural constitution is subjected. To know the
+form and perfection of man's self, according to the philosophers, is a
+task too hard; and a man, says Plato, is nothing, or if he be anything,
+he is nothing, but his soul.
+
+Q. Why is a man, though endowed with reason, the most unjust of all
+living creatures? A. Because only man is desirous of honour; and so it
+happens that every one covets to seem good, and yet naturally shuns
+labour, though he attain no virtue by it.
+
+Q. Why doth immoderate copulation do more hurt than immoderate letting
+of blood? A. The seed is full of nutriment, and better prepared for the
+nurture of the body, than the blood; for the blood is nourished by the
+seed.
+
+Q. What is the reason that those that have long yards cannot beget
+children? A. The seed, in going a long distance, doth lose the spirit,
+and therefore becomes cold and unfit.
+
+Q. Why do such as are corpulent cast forth but little seed in the act of
+copulation, and are often barren? A. Because the seed of such goeth to
+nourish the body. For the same reason corpulent women have but few
+menses.
+
+Q. How come women to be prone to venery in the summer time and men in
+the winter? A. In summer the man's testicles hang down and are feebler
+than in winter, or because hot natures become more lively in the cold
+season; for a man is hot and dry, and a woman cold and moist; and
+therefore in summer the strength of men decays, and that of women
+increases, and they grow livelier by the benefit of the contrary
+quality.
+
+Q. Why is man the proudest of all living creatures? A. By reason of his
+great knowledge; or, as philosophers say, all intelligent beings having
+understanding, nothing remains that escapes man's knowledge in
+particular; or it is because he hath rule over all earthly creatures,
+and all things seem to be brought under his dominion.
+
+Q. Why have beasts their hearts in the middle of their breasts, and man
+his inclining to the left? A. To moderate the cold on that side.
+
+Q. Why doth the woman love the man best who has got her maidenhead? A.
+By reason of shame-facedness; Plato saith, shame-facedness doth follow
+love, or, because it is the beginning of great pleasure, which doth
+bring a great alteration in the whole body, whereby the powers of the
+mind are much delighted, and stick and rest immoveable in the same.
+
+Q. How come hairy people to be more lustful than any other? A. Because
+they are said to have greater store of excrements and seed as
+philosophers assert.
+
+Q. What is the cause that the suffocation of the matrix, which happens
+to women through strife and contention, is more dangerous than the
+detaining of the flowers? A. Because the more perfect an excrement is in
+its natural disposition, the worse it is when it is altered from that
+disposition, and drawn to the contrary quality; as is seen in vinegar,
+which is sharpest when it is made of the best wine. And so it happens
+that the more men love one another the more they fall into variance and
+discord.
+
+Q. How come women's bodies to be looser, softer and less than man's; and
+why do they want hair? A. By reason of their menses; for with them their
+superfluities go away, which would produce hair; and thereby the flesh
+is filled, consequently the veins are more hid in women than in men.
+
+Q. What is the reason that when we think upon a horrible thing, we are
+stricken with fear? A. Because the conceit or imagination of things has
+force and virtue. For Plato saith, the fancy of things has some affinity
+with things themselves; for the image and representation of cold and
+heat is such as the nature of things are. Or it is this, because when we
+comprehend any dreadful matter, the blood runneth to the internal parts;
+and therefore the external parts are cold and shake with fear.
+
+Q. Why doth a radish root help digestion and yet itself remaineth
+undigested? A. Because the substance consisteth of divers parts; for
+there are some thin parts in it, which are fit to digest meat, the which
+being dissolved, there doth remain some thick and close substance in it,
+which the heat cannot digest.
+
+Q. Why do such as cleave wood, cleave it easier in the length than
+athwart? A. Because in the wood there is a grain, whereby, if it be cut
+in length, in the very cutting, one part naturally separateth from
+another.
+
+Q. What is the reason, that if a spear be stricken on the end, the sound
+cometh sooner to one who standeth near, than to him who striketh? A.
+Because, as hath been said, there is a certain long grain in wood,
+directly forward, filled with air, but on the other side there is none,
+and therefore a beam or spear being stricken on the end, the air which
+is hidden receiveth a sound in the aforesaid grain which serveth for its
+passage; and, seeing the sound cannot go easily out of it is carried
+into the ear of him who is opposite; as those passages do not go from
+side to side, a sound cannot be distinctly heard there.
+
+Q. Why are the thighs and calves of the legs of men flesh, seeing the
+legs of beasts are not so? A. Because men only go upright; and therefore
+nature hath given the lower parts corpulency, and taken it away from the
+upper; and thus she hath made the buttocks, the thighs, and calves of
+the legs fleshy.
+
+Q. Why are the sensible powers in the heart; yet if the hinder part of
+the brain be hurt, the memory suffereth by it; if the forepart, the
+imagination; if the middle, the cogitative part? A. It is because the
+brain is appointed by nature to cool the blood of the heart; whereof it
+is, that in divers of its parts it serveth the powers and instruments
+with their heart, for every action of the soul doth not proceed from one
+measure of heat.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE PROBLEMS OF
+
+ALEXANDER APHRODISEUS
+
+
+Q. Why doth the sun make a man black and dirt white, wax soft and dirt
+hard? A. By reason of the disposition of the substance that doth suffer.
+All humours, phlegm excepted, when heated above measure, do seem black
+about the skin; and dirt, being full either of saltpetre, or salt
+liquor, when the sun hath consumed its dregs and filth, doth become
+white again. When the sun hath stirred up and drawn the humidity of the
+wax, it is softened; but in the dirt, the sun doth consume the humidity,
+which is very much and makes it hard.
+
+Q. Why are round ulcers hard to be cured? A. Because they are bred of a
+sharp choler, which eats and gnaws; and because it doth run, dropping
+and gnawing, it makes a round ulcer; for which reason it requires dry
+medicines, as physicians assert.
+
+Q. Why is honey sweet to all men, but to such as have jaundice? A.
+Because they have much bitter choler all over their bodies, which
+abounds in the tongue; whence it happens when they eat honey the humours
+are stirred, and the taste itself, by the bitterness of choler, causes
+an imagination that the honey is bitter.
+
+Q. Why doth water cast on serpents, cause them to fly? A. Because they
+are dry and cold by nature, having but little blood, and therefore fly
+from excessive coldness.
+
+Q. Why doth an egg break if roasted, and not if boiled? A. When moisture
+comes near the fire, it is heated very much, and so breeds wind, which
+being put up in little room, forces its way out, and breaks the shell:
+the like happens in tubs or earthen vessels when new wine is put into
+them; too much phlegm breaks the shell of an egg in roasting; it is the
+same with earthen pots too much heated; wherefore some people wet an egg
+when they intend to roast it. Hot water, by its softness, doth dissipate
+its humidity by little and little, and dissolves it through the thinness
+and passages of the shell.
+
+Q. Why do men wink in the act of copulation, and find a little
+alteration in all other senses? A. Because, being overcome by the effect
+of that pleasure, they do comprehend it the better.
+
+Q. Why have children gravel breeding in their bladders, and old men in
+their kidneys and veins? A. Because children have straight passages in
+their kidneys, and an earthly thick humour is thrust with violence by
+the urine to the bladder, which hath wide conduits or passages, that
+give room for the urine and humour whereof gravel is engendered, which
+waxes thick, and seats itself, as the manner of it is. In old men it is
+the reverse, for they have wide passages of the veins, back and kidneys,
+that the urine may pass away, and the earthly humour congeal and sink
+down; the colour of the gravel shows the humour whereof the stone comes.
+
+Q. Why is it, if the stone do congeal and wax hard through heat, we use
+not contrary things to dissolve it by coldness, but light things, as
+parsley, fennel and the like? A. It is thought, to fall out by an
+excessive scorching heat, by which the stones do crumble into sand, as
+in the manner of earthen vessels, which, when they are overheated or
+roasted, turn to sand. And by this means it happens that small stones
+are avoided, together with sand, in making water. Sometimes cold drink
+thrusts out the stone, the kidneys being stretched and casting it out by
+a great effort; thus easing the belly of its burden. Besides, it often
+happens that immoderate heat of the kidneys, or of the veins of the back
+(through which the stone doth grow) is quenched with coldness.
+
+Q. Why is the curing of an ulcer or bile in the kidneys or bladder very
+hard? A. Because the urine being sharp, doth ulcerate the sore. Ulcers
+are worse to cure in the bladder than in the kidneys, because urine
+stays in the former, but runs away from the latter.
+
+Q. Why do chaff and straw keep water hot, but make snow cold? A. Because
+the nature of chaff wants a manifest quantity; seeing, therefore that of
+its own nature, it can easily be mingled, and consumed by that which it
+is annexed onto, it easily assumes the same nature, and being put into
+hot things, it is easily hot, heats again, and keeps hot; and on the
+contrary, being made cold by the snow, and making the snow cold it keeps
+in its coldness.
+
+Q. Why have we oftentimes a pain in making water? A. Because sharp
+choler issuing out, and pricking the bladder of the urine, doth provoke
+and stir up the whole body to ease the part offended, and to expel the
+humour moderately. This doth happen most of all unto children, because
+they have moist excrements by reason of their often drinking.
+
+Q. Why have some medicines of one kind contrary effects, as experience
+proves; for mastich doth expel, dissolve and also knit; and vinegar
+cools and heats? A. Because there are some small invisible bodies in
+them, not in confusion, but by interposition; as sand moistened doth
+clog together and seem to be but one body, though indeed there are many
+small bodies in sand. And since this is so, it is not absurd that the
+contrary qualities and virtues should be hidden in mastich, and that
+nature hath given that virtue to these bodies.
+
+Q. Why do nurses rock and move their children when they would rock them
+to sleep? A. To the end that the humours being scattered by moving, may
+move the brains; but those of more years cannot endure this.
+
+Q. Why doth oil, being drunk, cause one to vomit, and especially yellow
+choler? A. Because being light, and ascending upwards it provoketh the
+nutriment in the stomach, and lifteth it up; and so, the stomach being
+grieved, summoneth the ejective virtue to vomit, and especially choler,
+because that is light and consisteth of subtle parts, and therefore the
+sooner carried upward; for when it is mingled with any moist thing, it
+runneth into the highest room.
+
+Q. Why doth not oil mingle with moist things? A. Because, being pliant,
+soft and thick in itself, it cannot be divided into parts, and so cannot
+be mingled; neither if it be put on the earth can it enter into it.
+
+Q. Why are water and oil frozen in cold weather, and wine and vinegar
+not? A. Because that oil being without quality, and fit to be compounded
+with anything, is cold quickly and so extremely that it is most cold.
+Water being cold of nature, doth easily freeze when it is made colder
+than its own nature. Wine being hot, and of subtle parts, suffereth no
+freezing.
+
+Q. Why do contrary things in quality bring forth the same effect? A.
+That which is moist is hardened and bound alike by heat and cold. Snow
+and liquid do freeze with cold; a plaster and gravel in the bladder are
+made dry with heat. The effect indeed is the same, but by two divers
+actions; the heat doth consume and eat the abundance of moisture; but
+the cold stopping and shutting with its over much thickness, doth wring
+out the filthy humidity, like as a sponge wrung with the hand doth cast
+out the water which it hath in the pores and small passages.
+
+Q. Why doth a shaking or quivering seize us oftentimes when any fearful
+matter doth happen, as a great noise or a crack made, the sudden
+downfall of water, or the fall of a large tree? A. Because that
+oftentimes the humours being digested and consumed by time and made thin
+and weak, all the heat vehemently, suddenly and sharply flying into the
+inward part of the body, consumeth the humours which cause the disease.
+So treacle hath this effect, and many such like, which are hot and dry
+when taken after connexion.
+
+Q. Why do steel glasses shine so clearly? A. Because they are lined in
+the inside with white lead, whose nature is shining, and being put to
+glass, which is lucid and transparent, doth shine much more; and casts
+its beams through its passages, and without the body of the glass; and
+by that means the glass is very shining and clear.
+
+Q. Why do we see ourselves in glasses and clear water? A. Because the
+quality of the sight, passing into the bright bodies by reflection, doth
+return again on the beam of the eyes, as the image of him who looketh on
+it.
+
+Q. What is the reason that if you cast a stone in standing water which
+is near the surface of the earth, it causes many circles, and not if the
+water be deep in the earth? A. Because the stone, with the vehemence of
+the cast, doth agitate the water in every part of it, until it come to
+the bottom; and if there be a very great vehemence in the throw, the
+circle is still greater, the stone going down to the bottom causing many
+circles. For, first of all, it doth divide the outermost and superficial
+parts of the water in many parts, and so, always going down to the
+bottom, again dividing the water, it maketh another circle, and this is
+done successively until the stone resteth; and because the vehemence of
+the stone is slackened, still as it goes down, of necessity the last
+circle is less than the first, because by that and also by its force the
+water is divided.
+
+Q. Why are such as are deaf by nature, dumb? A. Because they cannot
+speak and express that which they never hear. Some physicians do say,
+that there is one knitting and uniting of sinews belonging to the like
+disposition. But such as are dumb by accident are not deaf at all, for
+then there ariseth a local passion.
+
+Q. Why doth itching arise when an ulcer doth wax whole and phlegm
+ceases? A. Because the part which is healed and made sound doth pursue
+the relic of the humours which remained there against nature, and which
+was the cause of the bile, and so going out through the skin, and
+dissolving itself, doth originally cause the itch.
+
+Q. How comes a man to sneeze oftener and more vehemently than a beast?
+A. Because he uses more meats and drinks, and of more different sorts,
+and that more than is requisite; the which, when he cannot digest as he
+would, he doth gather together much air and spirit, by reason of much
+humidity; the spirits then very subtle, ascending into the head, often
+force a man to void them, and so provoke sneezing. The noise caused
+thereby proceeds from a vehement spirit or breath passing through the
+conduit of the nostrils, as belching doth from the stomach or farting by
+the fundament, the voice by the throat, and a sound by the ear.
+
+Q. How come the hair and nails of dead people to grow? A. Because the
+flesh rotting, withering and falling away, that which was hidden about
+the root of the hair doth now appear as growing. Some say that it grows
+indeed, because carcasses are dissolved in the beginning to many
+excrements and superfluities by putrefaction. These going out at the
+uppermost parts of the body by some passages, do increase the growth of
+the hair.
+
+Q. Why does not the hair of the feet soon grow grey? A. For this reason,
+because that through great motion they disperse and dissolve the
+superfluous phlegm that breeds greyness. The hair of the secrets grows
+very late, because of the place, and because that in carnal copulation
+it dissolves the phlegm also.
+
+Q. Why, if you put hot burnt barley upon a horse's sore, is the hair
+which grows upon the sore not white, but like the other hair? A. Because
+it hath the force of expelling; and doth drive away and dissolve the
+phlegm, as well as all other unprofitable matter that is gathered
+together through the weakness of the parts, or condity of the sore.
+
+Q. Why doth the hair never grow on an ulcer or bile? A. Because man hath
+a thick skin, as is seen by the thickness of his hair; and if the scar
+be thicker than the skin itself, it stops the passages from whence the
+hair should grow. Horses have thinner skins, as is plain by their hair;
+therefore all passages are not stopped in their wounds and sores; and
+after the excrements which were gathered together have broken a passage
+through those small pores the hair doth grow.
+
+Q. Why is Fortune painted with a double forehead, the one side bald and
+the other hairy? A. The baldness signifies adversity, and hairiness
+prosperity, which we enjoy when it pleaseth her.
+
+Q. Why have some commended flattery? A. Because flattery setteth forth
+before our eyes what we ought to be, though not what we are.
+
+Q. Wherefore should virtue be painted girded? A. To show that virtuous
+men should not be slothful, but diligent and always in action.
+
+Q. Why did the ancients say it was better to fall into the hands of a
+raven than a flatterer? A. Because ravens do not eat us till we be dead,
+but flatterers devour us alive.
+
+Q. Why have choleric men beards before others? A. Because they are hot,
+and their pores large.
+
+Q. How comes it that such as have the hiccups do ease themselves by
+holding their breath? A. The breath retained doth heat the interior
+parts of the body, and the hiccups proceeds from cold.
+
+Q. How comes it that old men remember well what they have seen and done
+in their youth, and forget such things as they see and do in their old
+age? A. Things learned in youth take deep root and habitude in a person,
+but those learned in age are forgotten because the senses are then
+weakened.
+
+Q. What kind of covetousness is best? A. That of time when employed as
+it ought to be.
+
+Q. Why is our life compared to a play? A. Because the dishonest do
+occupy the place of the honest, and the worst sort the room of the good.
+
+Q. Why do dolphins, when they appear above the water, denote a storm or
+tempest approaching? A. Because at the beginning of a tempest there do
+arise from the bottom of the sea, certain hot exhalations and vapours
+which heat the dolphins, causing them to rise up for cold air.
+
+Q. Why did the Romans call Fabius Maximus the target of the people, and
+Marcellus the sword? A. Because the one adapted himself to the service
+of the commonwealth, and the other was very eager to revenge the
+injuries of his country; and yet they were in the senate joined
+together, because the gravity of the one would moderate the courage and
+boldness of the other.
+
+Q. Why doth the shining of the moon hurt the head? A. Because it moves
+the humours of the brain, and cannot afterwards dissolve them.
+
+Q. If water do not nourish, why do men drink it? A. Because water
+causeth the nutriment to spread through the body.
+
+Q. Why is sneezing good? A. Because it purgeth the brain as milk is
+purged by the cough.
+
+Q. Why is hot water lighter than cold? A. Because boiling water has less
+ventosity and is more light and subtle, the earthly and heavy substance
+being separated from it.
+
+Q. How comes marsh and pond water to be bad? A. By reason they are
+phlegmatic, and do corrupt in summer; the fineness of water is turned
+into vapours, and the earthiness doth remain.
+
+Q. Why are studious and learned men soonest bald? A. It proceeds from a
+weakness of the spirits, or because warmth of digestion cause phlegm to
+abound in them.
+
+Q. Why doth much watching make the brain feeble? A. Because it increases
+choler, which dries and extenuates the body.
+
+Q. Why are boys apt to change their voices about fourteen years of age?
+A. Because that then nature doth cause a great and sudden change of
+voice; experience proves this to be true; for at that time we may see
+that women's paps do grow great, do hold and gather milk, and also those
+places that are above their hips, in which the young fruit would remain.
+Likewise men's breasts and shoulders, which then can bear great and
+heavy burdens; also their stones in which their seed may increase and
+abide, and in their privy members, to let out the seed with ease.
+Further all the body is made bigger and dilated, as the alteration and
+change of every part doth testify, and the harshness of the voice and
+hoarseness; for the rough artery, the wind pipe, being made wide in the
+beginning, and the exterior and outward part being unequal to the
+throat, the air going out the rough, unequal and uneven pipe doth then
+become unequal and sharp, and after, hoarse, something like unto the
+voice of a goat, wherefore it has its name called Bronchus. The same
+doth also happen to them unto whose rough artery distillation doth
+follow; it happens by reason of the drooping humidity that a slight
+small skin filled unequally causes the uneven going forth of the spirit
+and air. Understand, that the windpipe of goats is such by reason of the
+abundance of humidity. The like doth happen unto all such as nature hath
+given a rough artery, as unto cranes. After the age of fourteen they
+leave off that voice, because the artery is made wider and reacheth its
+natural evenness and quality.
+
+Q. Why do hard dens, hollow and high places, send back the likeness and
+sound of the voice? A. Because that in such places also by reflection do
+return back the image of a sound, for the voice doth beat the air, and
+the air the place, which the more it is beaten the more it doth bear,
+and therefore doth cause the more vehement sound of the voice; moist
+places, and as it were, soft, yielding to the stroke, and dissolving it,
+give no sound again; for according to the quantity of the stroke, the
+quality and quantity of the voice is given, which is called an echo.
+Some do idly fable that she is a goddess; some say that Pan was in love
+with her, which without doubt is false. He was some wise man, who did
+first desire to search out the cause of the voice, and as they who love,
+and cannot enjoy that love, are grieved, so in like manner was he very
+sorry until he found out the solution of that cause; as Endymion also,
+who first found out the course of the moon, watching all night, and
+observing her course, and searching her motion, did sleep in the
+daytime, and that she came to him when he was asleep, because she did
+give the philosopher the solution of the course herself. They say also
+that he was a shepherd, because that in the desert and high places, he
+did mark the course of the moon. And they gave him also the pipe because
+that the high places are blown with wind, or else because he sought out
+the consonancy of figures. Prometheus also, being a wise man, sought the
+course of the star, which is called the eagle in the firmament, his
+nature and place; and when he was, as it were, wasted with the desire of
+learning, then at last he rested, when Hercules did resolve unto him all
+doubts with his wisdom.
+
+Q. Why do not swine cry when they are carried with their snouts upwards?
+A. Because that of all other beasts they bend more to the earth. They
+delight in filth, and that they seek, and therefore in the sudden change
+of their face, they be as it were strangers, and being amazed with so
+much light do keep that silence; some say the windpipe doth close
+together by reason of the straitness of it.
+
+Q. Why do swine delight in dirt? A. As physicians do say, they are
+naturally delighted with it, because they have a great liver, in which
+desire it, as Aristotle saith, the wideness of their snout is the case,
+for he that hath smelling which doth dissolve itself, and as it were
+strive with stench.
+
+Q. Why do many beasts when they see their friends, and a lion and a
+bull beat their sides when they are angry? A. Because they have the
+marrow of their backs reaching to the tail, which hath the force of
+motion in it, the imagination acknowledging that which is known to them,
+as it were with the hand, as happens to men, doth force them to move
+their tails. This doth manifestly show some secret force to be within
+them, which doth acknowledge what they ought. In the anger of lions and
+bulls, nature doth consent to the mind, and causeth it to be greatly
+moved, as men do sometimes when they are angry, beating their hands on
+other parts; when the mind cannot be revenged on that which doth hurt,
+it presently seeks out some other source, and cures the malady with a
+stroke or blow.
+
+Q. How come steel glasses to be better for the sight than any other
+kind? A. Because steel is hard, and doth present unto us more
+substantially the air that receiveth the light.
+
+Q. How doth love show its greater force by making the fool to become
+wise, or the wise to become a fool? A. In attributing wisdom to him that
+has it not; for it is harder to build than to pull down; and ordinarily
+love and folly are but an alteration of the mind.
+
+Q. How comes much labour and fatigue to be bad for the sight? A.
+Because it dries the blood too much.
+
+Q. Why is goat's milk reckoned best for the stomach? A. Because it is
+thick, not slimy, and they feed on wood and boughs rather than on grass.
+
+Q. Why do grief and vexation bring grey hairs? A. Because they dry,
+which bringeth on greyness.
+
+Q. How come those to have most mercy who have the thickest blood? A.
+Because the blood which is fat and thick makes the spirits firm and
+constant, wherein consists the force of all creatures.
+
+Q. Whether it is hardest, to obtain a person's love, or to keep it when
+obtained? A. It is hardest to keep it, by reason of the inconstancy of
+man, who is quickly angry, and soon weary of a thing; hard to be gained
+and slippery to keep.
+
+Q. Why do serpents shun the herb rue? A. Because they are cold, dry and
+full of sinews, and that herb is of a contrary nature.
+
+Q. Why is a capon better to eat than a cock? A. Because a capon loses
+not his moisture by treading of the hens.
+
+Q. Why is our smell less in winter than in summer? A. Because the air is
+thick, and less moveable.
+
+Q. Why does hair burn so quickly? A. Because it is dry and cold.
+
+Q. Why is love compared to a labyrinth? A. Because the entry and coming
+in is easy, and the going out almost impossible or hard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PART IV
+
+DISPLAYING THE SECRETS OF
+
+NATURE
+
+RELATING TO
+
+PHYSIOGNOMY
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+SECTION 1.--_Of Physiognomy, showing what it is, and whence it is
+derived._
+
+Physiognomy is an ingenious science, or knowledge of nature, by which
+the inclinations and dispositions of every creature are understood, and
+because some of the members are uncompounded, and entire of themselves,
+as the tongue, the heart, etc., and some are of a mixed nature, as the
+eyes, the nose and others, we therefore say that there are signs which
+agree and live together, which inform a wise man how to make his
+judgment before he be too rash to deliver it to the world.
+
+Nor is it to be esteemed a foolish or idle art, seeing it is derived
+from the superior bodies; for there is no part of the face of man but
+what is under the peculiar influence or government, not only of the
+seven planets but also of the twelve signs of Zodiac; and the
+dispositions, vices, virtues and fatality, either of a man or woman are
+plainly foretold, if the person pretending to the knowledge thereof be
+an artist, which, that my readers may hereby attain it I shall set these
+things in a clearer light.
+
+The reader should remember that the forehead is governed by Mars; the
+right eye is under the domination of Sol; the left is ruled by the Moon;
+the right ear is under Jupiter; the left, Saturn, the rule of the nose
+is claimed by Venus, which, by the way, is one reason that in all
+unlawful venereal encounters, the nose is too subject to bear the scars
+that are gotten in those wars; and nimble Mercury, the significator of
+eloquence claims the dominion of the mouth, and that very justly.
+
+Thus have the seven planets divided the face among them, but not with so
+absolute a way but that the twelve signs of the Zodiac do also come in
+with a part (see the engraving) and therefore the sign Cancer presides
+in the upper part of the forehead, and Leo attends upon the right
+eyebrow, as Saggittarius does upon the right eye, and Libra upon the
+right ear, upon the left eyebrow you will find Aquarius; and Gemini and
+Aries taking care of the left ear; Taurus rules in the middle of the
+forehead, and Capricorn the chin; Scorpio takes upon him the protection
+of the nose; Virgo claims the precedence of the right cheek, Pisces the
+left. And thus the face of man is cantoned out amongst the signs and
+planets; which being carefully attended to, will sufficiently inform
+the artist how to pass a judgment. For according to the sign or planet
+ruling so also is the judgment to be of the part ruled, which all those
+that have understanding know easily how to apply.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In the judgment that is to be made from physiognomy, there is a great
+difference betwixt a man and a woman; the reason is, because in respect
+of the whole composition men more fully comprehend it than women do, as
+may evidently appear by the manner and method we shall give. Wherefore
+the judgments which we shall pass in every chapter do properly concern a
+man, as comprehending the whole species, and but improperly the woman,
+as being but a part thereof, and derived from the man, and therefore,
+whoever is called to give judgment on such a face, ought to be wary
+about all the lines and marks that belong to it, respect being also had
+to the sex, for when we behold a man whose face is like unto a woman's
+and we pass a judgment upon it, having diligently observed it, and not
+on the face only, but on other parts of the body, as hands, etc., in
+like manner we also behold the face of a woman, who in respect to her
+flesh and blood is like unto a man, and in the disposure also of the
+greatest part of the body. But does physiognomy give the same judgment
+on her, as it does of a man that is like unto her? By no means, but far
+otherwise, in regard that the conception of the woman is much different
+from that of a man, even in those respects which are said to be common.
+Now in those common respects two parts are attributed to a man, and a
+third part to a woman.
+
+Wherefore it being our intention to give you an exact account, according
+to the rule of physiognomy of all and every part of the members of the
+body, we will begin with the head, as it hath relation only to man and
+woman, and not to any other creature, that the work may be more obvious
+to every reader.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+     _Of the Judgment of Physiognomy._
+
+
+Hair that hangs down without curling, if it be of a fair complexion,
+thin and soft withal, signifies a man to be naturally faint-hearted, and
+of a weak body, but of a quiet and harmless disposition. Hair that is
+big, and thick and short withal, denotes a man to be of a strong
+constitution, secure, bold, deceitful and for the most part, unquiet and
+vain, lusting after beauty, and more foolish than wise, though fortune
+may favour him. He whose hair is partly curled and partly hanging down,
+is commonly wise or a very great fool, or else as very a knave as he is
+a fool. He whose hair grows thick on his temples and his brow, one may
+certainly at first sight conclude that such a man is by nature simple,
+vain, luxurious, lustful, credulous, clownish in his speech and
+conversation and dull in his apprehension. He whose hair not only curls
+very much, but bushes out, and stands on end, if the hair be white or of
+a yellowish colour, he is by nature proud and bold, dull of
+apprehension, soon angry, and a lover of venery, and given to lying,
+malicious and ready to do any mischief. He whose hair arises in the
+corners of the temples, and is gross and rough withal, is a man highly
+conceited of himself, inclined to malice, but cunningly conceals it, is
+very courtly and a lover of new fashions. He who hath much hair, that is
+to say, whose hair is thick all over his head, is naturally vain and
+very luxurious, of a good digestion, easy of belief, and slow of
+performance, of a weak memory and for the most part unfortunate. He
+whose hair is of a reddish complexion, is for the most part, if not
+always, proud, deceitful, detracting and full of envy. He whose hair is
+extraordinarily fair, is for the most part a man fit for the most
+praiseworthy enterprises, a lover of honour, and much more inclined to
+do good than evil; laborious and careful to perform whatsoever is
+committed to his care, secret in carrying on any business, and
+fortunate. Hair of a yellowish colour shows a man to be good
+conditioned, and willing to do anything, fearful, shamefaced and weak of
+body, but strong in the abilities of the mind, and more apt to remember,
+than to avenge an injury. He whose hair is of a brownish colour, and
+curled not too much nor too little, is a well-disposed man, inclined to
+that which is good, a lover of peace, cleanliness and good manners. He
+whose hair turns grey or hoary in the time of his youth, is generally
+given to women, vain, false, unstable, and talkative. [Note. That
+whatever signification the hair has in men, it has the same in women
+also.]
+
+The forehead that riseth in a round, signifies a man liberally merry, of
+a good understanding, and generally inclined to virtue. He whose
+forehead is fleshy, and the bone of the brow jutting out, and without
+wrinkles, is a man much inclined to suits of law, contentious, vain,
+deceitful, and addicted to follow ill courses. He whose forehead is
+very low and little, is of a good understanding, magnanimous, but
+extremely bold and confident, and a great pretender to love and honour.
+He whose forehead seems sharp, and pointed up in the corners of his
+temples, so that the bone seems to jut forth a little, is a man
+naturally weak and fickle, and weak in the intellectuals. He whose brow
+upon the temples is full of flesh, is a man of a great spirit, proud,
+watchful and of a gross understanding. He whose brow is full of
+wrinkles, and has as it were a seam coming down the middle of the
+forehead, so that a man may think he has two foreheads, is one that is
+of a great spirit, a great wit, void of deceit, and yet of a hard
+fortune. He who has a full, large forehead, and a little round withal,
+destitute of hair, or at least that has little on it is bold, malicious,
+full of choler and apt to transgress beyond all bounds, and yet of a
+good wit and very apprehensive. He whose forehead is long and high and
+jutting forth, and whose face is figured, almost sharp and peaked
+towards the chin, is one reasonably honest, but weak and simple, and of
+a hard fortune.
+
+Those eyebrows that are much arched, whether in man or woman, and which
+by frequent motion elevate themselves, show the person to be proud,
+high-spirited, vain-glorious, bold and threatening, a lover of beauty,
+and indifferently inclined to either good or evil. He whose eyelids bend
+down when he speaks to another or when he looks upon him, and who has a
+kind of skulking look, is by nature a penurious wretch, close in all his
+actions, of a very few words, but full of malice in his heart. He whose
+eyebrows are thick, and have but little hair upon them, is but weak in
+his intellectuals, and too credulous, very sincere, sociable, and
+desirous of good company. He whose eyebrows are folded, and the hair
+thick and bending downwards, is one that is clownish and unlearned,
+heavy, suspicious, miserable, envious, and one that will cheat and cozen
+you if he can. He whose eyebrows have but short hair and of a whitish
+colour is fearful and very easy of belief, and apt to undertake
+anything. Those, on the other side, whose eyebrows are black, and the
+hair of them thin, will do nothing without great consideration, and are
+bold and confident of the performance of what they undertake; neither
+are they apt to believe anything without reason for so doing.
+
+If the space between the eyebrows be of more than the ordinary distance,
+it shows the person to be hard-hearted, envious, close, cunning,
+apprehensive, greedy of novelties, of a vain fortune, addicted to
+cruelty more than love. But those men whose eyebrows are at a lesser
+distance from each other, are for the most part of a dull understanding;
+yet subtle enough in their dealings, and of an uncommon boldness, which
+is often attended with great felicity; but that which is most
+commendable in them is, that they are most sure and constant in their
+friendship.
+
+Great and full eyes in either man or woman, show the person to be for
+the most part slothful, bold, envious, a bad concealer of secrets,
+miserable, vain, given to lying, and yet a bad memory, slow in
+invention, weak in his intellectuals, and yet very much conceited of
+that little knack of wisdom he thinks himself master of. He whose eyes
+are hollow in his head, and therefore discerns well at a great distance,
+is one that is suspicious, malicious, furious, perverse in his
+conversation, of an extraordinary memory, bold, cruel, and false, both
+in words and deeds, threatening, vicious, luxurious, proud, envious and
+treacherous; but he whose eyes are, as it were, starting out of his
+head, is a simple, foolish person, shameless, very fertile and easy to
+be persuaded either to vice or virtue. He who looks studiously and
+acutely, with his eyes and eyelids downwards, denotes thereby to be of a
+malicious nature, very treacherous, false, unfaithful, envious,
+miserable, impious towards God, and dishonest towards men. He whose
+eyes are small and conveniently round, is bashful and weak, very
+credulous, liberal to others, and even in his conversation. He whose
+eyes look asquint, is thereby denoted to be a deceitful person, unjust,
+envious, furious, a great liar, and as the effect of all that is
+miserable. He who hath a wandering eye and which is rolling up and down,
+is for the most part a vain, simple, deceitful, lustful, treacherous, or
+high-minded man, an admirer of the fair sex, and one easy to be
+persuaded to virtue or vice. He or she whose eyes are twinkling, and
+which move forward or backward, show the person to be luxurious,
+unfaithful and treacherous, presumptuous, and hard to believe anything
+that is spoken. If a person has any greenness mingled with the white of
+his eye, such is commonly silly, and often very false, vain and
+deceitful, unkind to his friends, a great concealer of his own secrets,
+and very choleric. Those whose eyes are every way rolling up and down,
+or they who seldom move their eyes, and when they do, as it were, draw
+their eyes inwardly and accurately fasten them upon some object, such
+are by their inclinations very malicious, vain-glorious, slothful,
+unfaithful, envious, false and contentious. They whose eyes are addicted
+to blood-shot, are naturally proud, disdainful, cruel, without shame,
+perfidious and much inclined to superstition. But he whose eyes are
+neither too little nor too big, and inclined to black, do signify a man
+mild, peaceable, honest, witty, and of a good understanding; and one
+that, when need requires, will be serviceable to his friends.
+
+A long and thin nose, denotes a man bold, furious, angry, vain, easy to
+be persuaded either to good or evil, weak and credulous. A long nose
+extended, the tip of it bending downwards, shows the person to be wise,
+discreet, secret and officious, honest, faithful and one that will not
+be over-reached in bargaining.
+
+A bottle-nose is what denotes a man to be impetuous in the obtaining of
+his desires, also a vain, false, luxurious, weak and uncertain man; apt
+to believe and easy to be persuaded. A broad nose in the middle, and
+less towards the end, denotes a vain, talkative person, a liar, and one
+of hard fortune. He who hath a long and great nose is an admirer of the
+fair sex, and well accomplished for the wars of Venus, but ignorant of
+the knowledge of anything that is good, extremely addicted to vice;
+assiduous in the obtaining what he desires, and very secret in the
+prosecution of it; and though very ignorant, would fain be thought very
+knowing.
+
+A nose very sharp on the tip of it, and neither too long nor too short,
+too thick nor too thin, denotes the person, if a man, to be of a fretful
+disposition, always pining and peevish; and if a woman, a scold, or
+contentious, wedded to her own humours, of a morose and dogged carriage,
+and if married, a plague to her husband. A nose very round at the end of
+it, and having but little nostrils, shows the person to be munificent
+and liberal, true to his trust, but withal, very proud, credulous and
+vain. A nose very long and thin at the end of it, and something round,
+withal, signifies one bold in his discourse, honest in his dealings,
+patient in receiving, and slow in offering injuries, but yet privately
+malicious. He whose nose is naturally more red than any other part of
+his face, is thereby denoted to be covetous, impious, luxurious, and an
+enemy to goodness. A nose that turns up again, and is long and full at
+the tip of it, shows the person that has it to be bold, proud, covetous,
+envious, luxurious, a liar and deceiver, vain, glorious, unfortunate and
+contentious. He whose nose riseth high in the middle, is prudent and
+polite, and of great courage, honourable in his actions, and true to his
+word. A nose big at the end shows a person to be of a peaceable
+disposition, industrious and faithful, and of a good understanding. A
+very wide nose, with wide nostrils, denotes a man dull of apprehension,
+and inclined more to simplicity than wisdom, and withal vain,
+contentious and a liar.
+
+When the nostrils are close and thin, they denote a man to have but
+little testicles, and to be very desirous of the enjoyment of women, but
+modest in his conversation. But he whose nostrils are great and wide, is
+usually well hung and lustful; but withal of an envious, bold and
+treacherous disposition and though dull of understanding, yet confident
+enough.
+
+A great and wide mouth shows a man to be bold, warlike, shameless and
+stout, a great liar and as great a talker, also a great eater, but as to
+his intellectuals, he is very dull, being for the most part very simple.
+
+A little mouth shows the person to be of a quiet and pacific temper,
+somewhat reticent, but faithful, secret, modest, bountiful, and but a
+little eater.
+
+He whose mouth smells of a bad breath, is one of a corrupted liver and
+lungs, is oftentimes vain, wanton, deceitful, of indifferent intellect,
+envious, covetous, and a promise-breaker. He that has a sweet breath, is
+the contrary.
+
+The lips, when they are very big and blubbering, show a person to be
+credulous, foolish, dull and stupid, and apt to be enticed to anything.
+Lips of a different size denote a person to be discreet, secret in all
+things, judicious and of a good wit, but somewhat hasty. To have lips,
+well coloured and more thin than thick, shows a person to be
+good-humoured in all things and more easily persuaded to good than evil.
+To have one lip bigger than the other, shows a variety of fortunes, and
+denotes the party to be of a dull, sluggish temper, but of a very
+indifferent understanding, as being much addicted to folly.
+
+When the teeth are small, and but weak in performing their office, and
+especially if they are short and few, though they show the person to be
+of a weak constitution, yet they denote him to be of a meek disposition,
+honest, faithful and secret in whatsoever he is intrusted with. To have
+some teeth longer and shorter than others, denotes a person to be of a
+good apprehension, but bold, disdainful, envious and proud. To have the
+teeth very long, and growing sharp towards the end, if they are long in
+chewing, and thin, denotes the person to be envious, gluttonous, bold,
+shameless, unfaithful and suspicious. When the teeth look very brown or
+yellowish, whether they be long or short, it shows the person to be of a
+suspicious temper, envious, deceitful and turbulent. To have teeth
+strong and close together, shows the person to be of a long life, a
+desirer of novelties, and things that are fair and beautiful, but of a
+high spirit, and one that will have his humour in all things; he loves
+to hear news, and to repeat it afterwards, and is apt to entertain
+anything on his behalf. To have teeth thin and weak, shows a weak,
+feeble man, and one of a short life, and of a weak apprehension; but
+chaste, shame-faced, tractable and honest.
+
+A tongue to be too swift of speech shows a man to be downright foolish,
+or at best but a very vain wit. A stammering tongue, or one that
+stumbles in the mouth, signifies a man of a weak understanding, and of a
+wavering mind, quickly in a rage, and soon pacified. A very thick and
+rough tongue denotes a man to be apprehensive, subtle and full of
+compliments, yet vain and deceitful, treacherous, and prone to impiety.
+A thin tongue shows a man of wisdom and sound judgment, very ingenious
+and of an affable disposition, yet somewhat timorous and too credulous.
+
+A great and full voice in either sex shows them to be of a great spirit,
+confident, proud and wilful. A faint and weak voice, attended with but
+little breath, shows a person to be of good understanding, a nimble
+fancy, a little eater, but weak of body, and of a timorous disposition.
+A loud and shrill voice, which sounds clearly denotes a person
+provident, sagacious, true and ingenious, but withal capricious, vain,
+glorious and too credulous. A strong voice when a man sings denotes him
+to be of a strong constitution, and of a good understanding, a nimble
+fancy, a little eater, but weak of body, and of a timorous disposition.
+
+A strong voice when a man sings, denotes him to be of a strong
+constitution, and of a good understanding, neither too penurious nor too
+prodigal, also ingenious and an admirer of the fair sex. A weak and
+trembling voice shows the owner of it to be envious, suspicious, slow in
+business, feeble and fearful. A loud, shrill and unpleasant voice,
+signifies one bold and valiant, but quarrelsome and injurious and
+altogether wedded to his own humours, and governed by his own counsels.
+A rough and hoarse voice, whether in speaking or singing, declares one
+to be a dull and heavy person, of much guts and little brains. A full
+and yet mild voice, and pleasing to the hearer, shows the person to be
+of a quiet and peaceable disposition (which is a great virtue and rare
+to be found in a woman), and also very thrifty and secret, not prone to
+anger, but of a yielding temper. A voice beginning low or in the bass,
+and ending high in the treble, denotes a person to be violent, angry,
+bold and secure.
+
+A thick and full chin abounding with too much flesh, shows a man
+inclined to peace, honest and true to his trust, but slow in invention,
+and easy to be drawn either to good or evil. A peaked chin and
+reasonably full of flesh, shows a person to be of a good understanding,
+a high spirit and laudable conversation. A double chin shows a peaceable
+disposition, but dull of apprehension, vain, credulous, a great
+supplanter, and secret in all his actions. A crooked chin, bending
+upwards, and peaked for want of flesh, is by the rules of physiognomy,
+according to nature, a very bad man, being proud, imprudent, envious,
+threatening, deceitful, prone to anger and treachery, and a great thief.
+
+The hair of young men usually begins to grow down upon their chins at
+fifteen years of age, and sometimes sooner. These hairs proceed from the
+superfluity of heat, the fumes whereof ascend to their chin, like smoke
+to the funnel of a chimney; and because it cannot find an open passage
+by which it may ascend higher, it vents itself forth in the hairs which
+are called the beard. There are very few, or almost no women at all,
+that have hairs on their cheeks; and the reason is, that those humours
+which cause hair to grow on the cheeks of a man are by a woman
+evacuated in the monthly courses, which they have more or less,
+according to the heat or coldness of their constitution, and the age and
+motion of the moon, of which we have spoken at large in the first part
+of this book. Yet sometimes women of a hot constitution have hair to be
+seen on their cheeks, but more commonly on their lips, or near their
+mouths, where the heat most aboundeth. And where this happens, such
+women are much addicted to the company of men, and of a strong and manly
+constitution. A woman who hath little hair on her cheeks, or about her
+mouth and lips, is of a good complexion, weak constitution, shamefaced,
+mild and obedient, whereas a woman of a more hot constitution is quite
+otherwise. But in a man, a beard well composed and thick of hair,
+signifies a man of good nature, honest, loving, sociable and full of
+humanity; on the contrary, he that hath but a little beard, is for the
+most part proud, pining, peevish and unsociable. They who have no
+beards, have always shrill and a strange kind of squeaking voices, and
+are of a weak constitution, which is apparent in the case of eunuchs,
+who, after they are deprived of their virility are transformed from the
+nature of men into the condition of women.
+
+Great and thick ears are a certain sign of a foolish person, or a bad
+memory and worse understanding. But small and thin ears show a person to
+be of a good wit, grave, sweet, thrifty, modest, resolute, of a good
+memory, and one willing to serve his friend. He whose ears are longer
+than ordinary, is thereby signified to be a bold man, uncivil, vain,
+foolish, serviceable to another more than to himself, and a man of small
+industry, but of a great stomach.
+
+A face apt to sweat on every motion, shows a person to be of a very hot
+constitution, vain and luxurious, of a good stomach, but of a bad
+understanding, and a worse conversation. A very fleshy face shows the
+person to be of a fearful disposition, but a merry heart, and withal
+bountiful and discreet, easy to be entreated, and apt to believe
+everything. A lean face, by the rules of physiognomy, denotes the person
+to be of a good understanding, but somewhat capricious and disdainful in
+his conversation. A little and round face, shows a person to be simple,
+very fearful, of a bad memory, and a clownish disposition. A plump face,
+full of carbuncles, shows a man to be a great drinker of wine, vain,
+daring, and soon intoxicated. A face red or high coloured, shows a man
+much inclined to choler, and one that will be soon angry and not easily
+pacified. A long and lean face, shows a man to be both bold, injurious
+and deceitful. A face every way of a due proportion, denotes an
+ingenious person, one fit for anything and very much inclined to what is
+good. One of a broad, full, fat face is, by the rules of physiognomy, of
+a dull, lumpish, heavy constitution, and that for one virtue has three
+vices. A plain, flat face, without any rising shows a person to be very
+wise, loving and courtly in his carriage, faithful to his friend and
+patient in adversity. A face sinking down a little, with crosses in it,
+inclining to leanness, denotes a person to be very laborious, but
+envious, deceitful, false, quarrelsome, vain and silly, and of a dull
+and clownish behaviour. A face of a handsome proportion, and more
+inclining to fat than lean, shows a person just in his actions, true to
+his word, civil, and respectful in his behaviour, of an indifferent
+understanding, and of an extraordinary memory. A crooked face, long and
+lean, denotes a man endued with as bad qualities as the face is with ill
+features. A face broad about the brows, and sharper and less as it grows
+towards the chin, shows a man simple and foolish in managing his
+affairs, vain in his discourse, envious in his nature, deceitful,
+quarrelsome and rude in his conversation. A face well-coloured, full of
+good features, and of an exact symmetry, and a just proportion in all
+its parts, and which is delightful to look upon, is commonly the index
+of a fairer mind and shows a person to be well disposed; but withal
+declares that virtue is not so impregnably seated there, but that by
+strong temptations (especially by the fair sex) it may be supplanted and
+overcome by vice. A pale complexion, shows the person not only to be
+fickle, but very malicious, treacherous, false, proud, presumptuous, and
+extremely unfaithful. A face well-coloured, shows the person to be of a
+praiseworthy disposition and a sound complexion, easy of belief, and
+respectful to his friend, ready to do a courtesy, and very easy to be
+drawn to anything.
+
+A great head, and round, withal, denotes the person to be secret, and of
+great application in carrying on business, and also ingenious and of a
+large imaginative faculty and invention; and likewise laborious,
+constant and honest. The head whose gullet stands forth and inclines
+towards the earth, signifies a person thrifty, wise, peaceable, secret,
+of a retired temper, and constant in the management of his affairs. A
+long head and face, and great, withal, denotes a vain, foolish, idle and
+weak person, credulous and very envious. To have one's head always
+shaking and moving from side to side, denotes a shallow, weak person,
+unstable in all his actions, given to lying, a great deceiver, a great
+talker, and prodigal in all his fortunes. A big head and broad face,
+shows a man to be very courageous, a great hunter after women, very
+suspicious, bold and shameless. He who hath a very big head, but not so
+proportionate as it ought to be to the body, if he hath a short neck and
+crooked gullet is generally a man of apprehension, wise, secret,
+ingenious, of sound judgment, faithful, true and courteous to all. He
+who hath a little head, and long, slender throat, is for the most part a
+man very weak, yet apt to learn, but unfortunate in his actions. And so
+much shall suffice with respect to judgment from the head and face.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+     _Of Judgments drawn from several other parts of Man's Body._
+
+
+In the body of man the head and feet are the principal parts, being the
+index which heaven has laid open to every one's view to make a judgment
+therefrom, therefore I have been the larger in my judgment from the
+several parts thereof. But as to the other parts, I shall be much more
+brief as not being so obvious to the eyes of men; yet I would proceed in
+order.
+
+The throat, if it be white, whether it be fat or lean, shows a man to be
+vain-glorious, timorous, wanton, and very much subject to choler. If the
+throat be so thin and lean that the veins appear, it shows a man to be
+weak, slow, and a dull and heavy constitution.
+
+A long neck shows one to have a long and slender foot, and that the
+person is stiff and inflexible either to good or evil. A short neck
+shows one to be witty and ingenious, but deceitful and inconstant, well
+skilled in the use of arms, and yet cares not to use them, but is a
+great lover of peace and quietness.
+
+A lean shoulder bone, signifies a man to be weak, timorous, peaceful,
+not laborious, and yet fit for any employment. He whose shoulder bones
+are of a great bigness is commonly, by the rule of physiognomy, a strong
+man, faithful but unfortunate; somewhat dull of understanding, very
+laborious, a great eater and drinker, and one equally contented in all
+conditions. He whose shoulder bone seems to be smooth, is by the rule of
+nature, modest in his look, and temperate in all his actions, both at
+bed and board. He whose shoulder bone bends, and is crooked inwardly, is
+commonly a dull person and deceitful.
+
+Long arms, hanging down and touching the knees, though such arms are
+rarely seen, denotes a man liberal, but withal vain-glorious, proud and
+inconstant. He whose arms are very short in respect to the stature of
+his body, is thereby signified to be a man of high and gallant spirit,
+of a graceful temper, bold and warlike. He whose arms are full of bones,
+sinews and flesh, is a great desirer of novelties and beauties, and one
+that is very credulous and apt to believe anything. He whose arms are
+very hairy, whether they be lean or fat, is for the most part a
+luxurious person, weak in body and mind, very suspicious and malicious
+withal. He whose arms have no hair on them at all, is of a weak
+judgment, very angry, vain, wanton, credulous, easily deceived himself,
+yet a great deceiver of others, no fighter, and very apt to betray his
+dearest friends.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+     _Of Palmistry, showing the various Judgments drawn from the Hand._
+
+
+Being engaged in this fourth part to show what judgment may be drawn,
+according to physiognomy, from the several parts of the body, and coming
+in order to speak of the hands, it has put me under the necessity of
+saying something about palmistry, which is a judgment made of the
+conditions, inclinations, and fortunes of men and women, from the
+various lines and characters nature has imprinted in their hands, which
+are almost as serious as the hands that have them.
+
+The reader should remember that one of the lines of the hand, and which
+indeed is reckoned the principal, is called the line of life; this line
+encloses the thumb, separating it from the hollow of the hand. The next
+to it, which is called the natural line, takes its beginning from the
+rising of the forefinger, near the line of life, and reaches to the
+table line, and generally makes a triangle. The table line, commonly
+called the line of fortune, begins under the little finger, and ends
+near the middle finger. The girdle of Venus, which is another line so
+called begins near the first joint of the little finger, and ends
+between the fore-finger and the middle finger. The line of death is that
+which plainly appears in a counter line to that of life, and is called
+the sister line, ending usually as the other ends; for when the line of
+life is ended, death comes, and it can go no farther. There are lines in
+the fleshy parts, as in the ball of the thumb, which is called the mount
+of Venus; under each of the fingers are also mounts, which are governed
+by several planets; and the hollow of the hand is called the plain of
+Mars.
+
+I proceed to give judgment from these several lines:--In palmistry, the
+left hand is chiefly to be regarded, because therein the lines are most
+visible, and have the strictest communication with the heart and brain.
+In the next place, observe the line of life, and if it be fair, extended
+to its full length, and not broken with an intermixture of cross lines,
+it shows long life and health, and it is the same if a double line
+appears, as there sometimes does. When the stars appear in this line, it
+is a signification of great losses and calamities; if on it there be the
+figures of two O's or a Q, it threatens the person with blindness; if it
+wraps itself about the table line, then does it promise wealth and
+honour to be attended by prudence and industry. If the line be cut and
+jagged at the upper end, it denotes much sickness; if this line be cut
+by any lines coming from the mount of Venus, it declares the person to
+be unfortunate in love and business also, and threatens him with sudden
+death. A cross below the line of life and the table line, shows the
+person to be very liberal and charitable, one of a noble spirit. Let us
+now see the signification of the table line.
+
+The table line, when broad and of a lively colour, shows a healthful
+constitution, and a quiet contented mind, and a courageous spirit, but
+if it has crosses towards the little finger, it threatens the party with
+much affliction by sickness. If the line be double, or divided into
+three parts at any of the extremities, it shows the person to be of a
+generous temper, and of a good fortune to support it; but if this line
+be forked at the end, it threatens the person shall suffer by jealousies
+and doubts, and loss of riches gotten by deceit. If three points such as
+these
+
+    * *
+     *
+
+are found in it, they denote the person prudent and liberal, a lover of
+learning, and of a good temper, if it spreads towards the fore and
+middle finger and ends blunt, it denotes preferment. Let us now see what
+is signified by the middle line. This line has in it oftentimes (for
+there is scarce a hand in which it varies not) divers very significant
+characters. Many small lines between this and the table line threaten
+the party with sickness, and also gives him hopes of recovery. A half
+cross branching into this line, declares the person shall have honour,
+riches, and good success in all his undertakings. A half moon denotes
+cold and watery distempers; but a sun or star upon this line, denotes
+prosperity and riches; this line, double in a woman, shows she will have
+several husbands, but no children.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The line of Venus, if it happens to be cut or divided near the
+forefinger, threatens ruin to the party, and that it shall befall him by
+means of lascivious women and bad company. Two crosses upon the line,
+one being on the forefinger and the other bending towards the little
+finger, show the party to be weak, and inclined to modesty and virtue,
+indeed it generally denotes modesty in women; and therefore those who
+desire such, usually choose them by this standard.
+
+The liver line, if it be straight and crossed by other lines, shows the
+person to be of a sound judgment, and a piercing understanding, but if
+it be winding, crooked and bending outward, it draws deceit and
+flattery, and the party is not to be trusted. If it makes a triangle or
+quadrangle, it shows the person to be of a noble descent, and ambitious
+of honour and promotion. If it happens that this line and the middle
+line begin near each other, it denotes a person to be weak in his
+judgment, if a man; but if a woman, in danger by hard labour.
+
+The plain of Mars being in the hollow of the hand, most of the lines
+pass through it, which renders it very significant. This plain being
+crooked and distorted, threatens the party to fall by his enemies. When
+the lines beginning at the wrist are long within the plain, reaching to
+the brawn of the hand, that shows the person to be much given to
+quarrelling, often in broils and of a hot and fiery spirit, by which he
+suffers much damage. If deep and long crosses be in the middle of the
+plain, it shows the party shall obtain honour by martial exploits; but
+if it be a woman, she shall have several husbands and easy labour with
+her children.
+
+The line of Death is fatal, when crosses or broken lines appear in it;
+for they threaten the person with sickness and a short life. A clouded
+moon appearing therein, threatens a child-bed woman with death. A bloody
+spot in the line, denotes a violent death. A star like a comet,
+threatens ruin by war, and death by pestilence. But if a bright sun
+appears therein, it promises long life and prosperity.
+
+As for the lines of the wrist being fair, they denote good fortune; but
+if crossed and broken, the contrary.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+     _Judgments according to Physiognomy, drawn from the several parts
+     of the Body, from the Hands to the Feet._
+
+
+A large and full breast, shows a man valiant and courageous, but withal
+proud and hard to deal with, quickly angry, and very apprehensive of an
+injury; he whose breast is narrow, and which riseth a little in the
+middle of it, is, by the best rule of physiognomy, of a clear spirit, of
+a great understanding, good in counsel, very faithful, clean both in
+mind and body, yet as an enemy to this, he is soon angry, and inclined
+long to keep it. He whose breast is somewhat hairy, is very luxurious,
+and serviceable to another. He who hath no hair upon his breast, is a
+man weak by nature, of a slender capacity and very timorous, but of a
+laudable life and conversation, inclined to peace, and much retired to
+himself.
+
+The back of the chin bone, if the flesh be anything hairy and lean, and
+higher than any other part that is behind, signifies a man shameless,
+beastly and withal malicious. He whose back is large, big and fat, is
+thereby denoted to be a strong and stout man, but of a heavy
+disposition, vain, slow and full of deceit.
+
+He or she whose belly is soft over all the body, is weak, lustful, and
+fearful upon little or no occasion, of a good understanding, and an
+excellent invention, but little eaters, faithful, but of various
+fortune, and meet with more adversity than prosperity. He whose flesh is
+rough and hard, is a man of strong constitution and very bold, but vain,
+proud and of a cruel temper. A person whose skin is smooth, fat and
+white, is a person, curious, vain-glorious, timorous, shame-faced,
+malicious, false, and too wise to believe all he hears.
+
+A thigh, full of strong, bristly hair, and the hair inclined to curl,
+signifies one lustful, licentious, and fit for copulation. Thighs with
+but little hair, and those soft and slender, show the person to be
+reasonably chaste, and one that has no great desire to coition, and who
+will have but few children.
+
+The legs of both men and women have a fleshy substance behind, which are
+called calves, which nature hath given them (as in our book of living
+creatures we have observed), in lieu of those long tails which other
+creatures have pendant behind. Now a great calf, and he whose legs are
+of great bone, and hair withal, denotes the person to be strong, bold,
+secure, dull in understanding and slow in business, inclined to
+procreation, and for the most part fortunate in his undertakings.
+Little legs, and but little hair on them, show the person to be weak,
+fearful, of a quick understanding, and neither luxurious at bed nor
+board. He whose legs do much abound with hair, shows he has great store
+in another place, and that he is lustful and luxurious, strong, but
+unstable in his resolution, and abounding with ill humours.
+
+The feet of either men or women, if broad and thick with flesh, and long
+in figure, especially if the skin feels hard, they are by nature of a
+strong constitution, and gross nutriment, but of weak intellect, which
+renders the understanding vain. But feet that are thin and lean, and of
+a soft skin, show the person to be but weak of body, but of a strong
+understanding and an excellent wit.
+
+The soles of the feet do administer plain and evident signs, whereby the
+disposition and constitution of men and women may be known, as do the
+palms of their hands, as being full of lines, by which lines all the
+fortunes and misfortunes of men and women may be known, and their
+manners and inclinations made plainly to appear. But this in general we
+may take notice, as that many long lines and strokes do presage great
+affliction, and a very troublesome life, attended with much grief and
+toil, care, poverty, and misery; but short lines, if they are thick and
+full of cross lines, are yet worse in every degree. Those, the skin of
+whose soles is very thick and gross, are, for the most part, able,
+strong and venturous. Whereas, on the contrary, those the skin of whose
+soles of their feet is thin, are generally weak and timorous.
+
+I shall now, before I conclude (having given an account of what
+judgments may be made by observing the several parts of the body, from
+the crown of the head to the soles of the feet), give an account of what
+judgments may be drawn by the rule of physiognomy from things extraneous
+which are found upon many, and which indeed to them are parts of the
+body, but are so far from being necessary parts that they are the
+deformity and burden of it, and speak of the habits of the body, as they
+distinguish persons.
+
+
+
+_Of Crooked and Deformed Persons._
+
+A crooked breast and shoulder, or the exuberance of flesh in the body
+either of man or woman, signifies the person to be extremely
+parsimonious and ingenious, and of a great understanding, but very
+covetous and scraping after the things of the world, attended also with
+a very bad memory, being also very deceitful and malicious; they are
+seldom in a medium, but either virtuous or extremely vicious. But if
+the person deformed hath an excrescence on his breast instead of on the
+back, he is for the most part of a double heart, and very mischievous.
+
+
+
+_Of the divers Manners of going, and particular Posture both of Men and
+Women._
+
+He or she that goes slowly, making great steps as they go, are generally
+persons of bad memory, and dull of apprehension, given to loitering, and
+not apt to believe what is told them. He who goes apace, and makes short
+steps, is most successful in all his undertakings, swift in his
+imagination, and humble in the disposition of his affairs. He who makes
+wide and uneven steps, and sidelong withal, is one of a greedy, sordid
+nature, subtle, malicious, and willing to do evil.
+
+
+
+_Of the Gait or Motion in Men and Women._
+
+Every man hath a certain gait or motion, and so in like manner hath
+every woman; for a man to be shaking his head, or using any light motion
+with his hands or feet, whether he stands or sits, or speaks, is always
+accompanied with an extravagant motion, unnecessary, superfluous and
+unhandsome. Such a man, by the rule of physiognomy is vain, unwise,
+unchaste, a detractor, unstable and unfaithful. He or she whose motion
+is not much when discoursing with any one, is for the most part wise and
+well bred, and fit for any employment, ingenious and apprehensive,
+frugal, faithful and industrious in business. He whose posture is
+forwards and backwards, or, as it were, whisking up and down, mimical,
+is thereby denoted to be a vain, silly person, of a heavy and dull wit,
+and very malicious. He whose motion is lame and limping, or otherwise
+imperfect, or that counterfeits an imperfection is denoted to be
+envious, malicious, false and detracting.
+
+
+
+_Judgment drawn from the Stature of Man._
+
+Physiognomy draws several judgments also from the stature of man, which
+take as followeth; if a man be upright and straight, inclined rather to
+leanness than fat, it shows him to be bold, cruel, proud, clamorous,
+hard to please, and harder to be reconciled when displeased, very
+frugal, deceitful, and in many things malicious. To be of tall stature
+and corpulent with it, denotes him to be not only handsome but valiant
+also, but of no extraordinary understanding, and which is worst of all,
+ungrateful and trepanning. He who is extremely tall and very lean and
+thin is a projecting man, that designs no good to himself, and suspects
+every one to be as bad as himself, importunate to obtain what he
+desires, and extremely wedded to his own humour. He who is thick and
+short, is vain, envious, suspicious, and very shallow of apprehension,
+easy of belief, but very long before he will forget an injury. He who is
+lean and short but upright withal, is, by the rules of physiognomy, wise
+and ingenious, bold and confident, and of a good understanding, but of a
+deceitful heart. He who stoops as he goes, not so much by age as custom,
+is very laborious, a retainer of secrets, but very incredulous and not
+easy to believe every vain report he hears. He that goes with his belly
+stretching forth, is sociable, merry, and easy to be persuaded.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+     _Of the Power of the Celestial Bodies over Men and Women._
+
+
+Having spoken thus largely of Physiognomy, and the judgment given
+thereby concerning the dispositions and inclinations of men and women,
+it will be convenient here to show how all these things come to pass;
+and how it is that the secret inclinations and future fate of men and
+women may be known from the consideration of the several parts of the
+bodies. They arise from the power and dominion of superior powers to
+understand the twelve signs of the Zodiac, whose signs, characters and
+significations are as follows:--
+
+[Illustration]
+
+_Aries_, the Ram, which governs the head and face.
+
+_Taurus_, the Bull, which governs the neck.
+
+_Gemini_, the Twins, which governs the hands and arms.
+
+_Cancer_, the Crab, governs the breast and stomach.
+
+_Leo_, the Lion, governs the back and heart
+
+_Virgo_, the Virgin, governs the belly and bowels.
+
+_Libra_, the Balance, governs the veins and loins.
+
+_Scorpio_, the Scorpion, governs the secret parts.
+
+_Sagittary_, the Centaur, governs the thighs.
+
+_Capricorn_, the Goat, governs the knees.
+
+_Aquarius_, the Water-Bearer, governs the legs and ankles.
+
+_Pisces_, the Fish, governs the feet.
+
+It is here furthermore necessary to let the reader know, that the
+ancients have divided the celestial sphere into twelve parts, according
+to the number of these signs, which are termed houses; as in the first
+house, Aries, in the second Taurus, in the third Gemini, etc. And
+besides their assigning the twelve signs of the twelve houses, they
+allot to each house its proper business.
+
+To the first house they give the signification of life.
+
+The second house has the signification of wealth, substances, or riches.
+
+The third is the mansion of brethren.
+
+The fourth, the house of parentage.
+
+The fifth is the house of children.
+
+The sixth is the house of sickness or disease.
+
+The seventh is the house of wedlock, and also of enemies, because
+oftentimes a wife or husband proves the worst enemy.
+
+The eighth is the house of death.
+
+The ninth is the house of religion.
+
+The tenth is the signification of honours.
+
+The eleventh of friendship.
+
+The twelfth is the house of affliction and woe.
+
+Now, astrologically speaking, a house is a certain place in the heaven
+or firmament, divided by certain degrees, through which the planets have
+their motion, and in which they have their residence and are situated.
+And these houses are divided by thirty degrees, for every sign has so
+many degrees. And these signs or houses are called the houses of such
+and such planets as make their residence therein, and are such as
+delight in them, and as they are deposited in such and such houses are
+said to be either dignified or debilitated. For though the planets in
+their several revolutions go through all the houses, yet there are some
+houses which they are more properly said to delight in. As for instance,
+Aries and Scorpio are the houses of Mars; Taurus and Libra of Venus;
+Gemini and Virgo of Mercury; Sagittarius and Pisces are the houses of
+Jupiter; Capricorn and Aquarius are the houses of Saturn; Leo is the
+house of the Sun; and Cancer is the house of the Moon.
+
+Now to sum up the whole, and show how this concerns Physiognomy, is
+this:--as the body of man, as we have shown, is not only governed by the
+signs and planets, but every part is appropriated to one or another of
+them, so according to the particular influence of each sign and planet,
+so governing is the disposition, inclination, and nature of the person
+governed. For such and such tokens and marks do show a person to be born
+under such and such a planet; so according to the nature, power and
+influences of the planets, is the judgment to be made of that person. By
+which the reader may see that the judgments drawn from physiognomy are
+grounded upon a certain verity.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Aristotle the Famous
+Philosopher, by Anonymous
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12699 ***
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Aristotle the Famous
+Philosopher, by Anonymous
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher
+       Containing his Complete Masterpiece and Family Physician; his
+              Experienced Midwife, his Book of Problems and his Remarks on
+              Physiognomy
+
+
+Author: Anonymous
+
+Release Date: June 24, 2004 [EBook #12699]
+Last Updated: February 18, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF ARISTOTLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<hr class="long" />
+<!-- Page 1 --><a name='Page_1' id="Page_1"></a>
+<!-- move illustration -->
+ <!-- Page 2 --><a name='Page_2' id="Page_2"></a>
+<h1>THE WORKS OF<br />
+ARISTOTLE<br />
+THE FAMOUS PHILOSOPHER</h1>
+<br />
+<h2>Containing his Complete Masterpiece and Family Physician; his
+Experienced Midwife, his Book of Problems and his Remarks on
+Physiognomy</h2>
+<br />
+<h3>COMPLETE EDITION, WITH ENGRAVINGS</h3>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='Illustration' id="Illustration"></a>
+<center><img src='img/co001.jpg' alt=
+'Frontispiece ' title='Frontispiece ' /></center>
+<hr class="long" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+<br />
+<div class="contents"><!-- title page -->
+<p class="part"><a href='#THE_MIDWIFES_VADE_MECUM'>THE MIDWIFE'S
+VADE-MECUM</a></p>
+<!-- part 1, book 1, the masterpiece -->
+<!-- the masterpiece is running head throughout the book -->
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_THE_MASTERPIECE">THE
+MASTERPIECE</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>On marriage and at what age young men and virgins are capable
+of it: and why so much desire it. Also, how long men and women are
+capable of it.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER
+II</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>How to beget a male or female child; and of the Embryo and
+perfect Birth; and the fittest time for the copula.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER
+III</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The reason why children are like their parents; and that the
+Mother's imagination contributes thereto; and whether the man or
+the woman is the cause of the male or female child.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER
+IV</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>That Man's Soul is not propagated by their parents, but is
+infused by its Creator, and can neither die nor corrupt. At what
+time it is infused. Of its immortality and certainty of its
+resurrection.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER
+V</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Monsters and Monstrous Births; and the several reasons
+thereof, according to the opinions of the Ancients. Also, whether
+the Monsters are endowed with reasonable Souls; and whether the
+Devils can engender; is here briefly discussed.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER
+VI</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the happy state of matrimony, as it is appointed by God,
+the true felicity that rebounds thereby to either sex; and to what
+end it is ordained.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER
+VII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Errors in Marriages; Why they are, and the Injuries caused
+by them</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER
+VIII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The Opinion of the Learned concerning Children conceived and
+born within Seven Months; with Arguments upon the Subject to
+prevent Suspicion of Incontinency, and bitter Contest on that
+Account. To which are added Rules to Know the Disposition of Man's
+Body by the Genital Parts</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER
+IX</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Green-Sickness in Virgins, with its causes, signs and
+cures; together with the chief occasions of Barrenness in Women,
+and the Means to remove the Cause, and render them
+fruitful</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER
+X</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Virginity, what it is, in what it consists, and how vitiated;
+together with the Opinions of the Learned about the Change of Sex
+in the Womb, during the Operation of Nature in forming the
+Body.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER
+XI</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Directions and Cautions for Midwives; and, first, what ought
+to be the qualifications of a midwife.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER
+XII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Further Directions to Midwives, teaching them what they ought
+to do, and what to avoid</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER
+XIII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The External, and Internal Organs of Generation in
+Women</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER
+XIV</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>A description of the Fabric of the Womb, the preparing
+Vessels and Testicles in Women. Also of the Different and
+Ejaculatory Vessels</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER
+XV</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>A Description of the Use and Action of the several Generative
+Parts in Women</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER
+XVI</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Organs of Generation in Man</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER
+XVII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>A word of Advice to both Sexes, consisting of several
+Directions with regard to Copulation</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<!-- LOOKING GLASS -->
+<!-- part 2, book ?, a private looking glass for the female sex -->
+<!-- the masterpiece is still running head ... we are mostly ignoring this -->
+<!-- title page -->
+<p class="part"><a href=
+'#A_PRIVATE_LOOKING_GLASS_FOR_THE_FEMALE_SEX'>A PRIVATE LOOKING
+GLASS FOR THE FEMALE SEX</a></p>
+<!--
+<p class="part"><a href="#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II">PART II.</p>
+-->
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Treating of the several Maladies incident to the womb, with
+proper remedies for the cure of each</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Retention of the Courses</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Excessive Menstruation</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Weeping of the Womb.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The false Courses, or Whites.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The Suffocation of the Mother</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Descending or Falling of the Womb.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Inflammation of the Womb</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Scirrhous Tumours, or Hardness of the Womb</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Dropsy of the Womb</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Moles and False Conceptions</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Conception and its Signs, and How a Woman may know whether
+it be Male or Female</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Untimely Births</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Directions for Pregnant Women</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Directions for Women when they are taken in Labour, to ensure
+their safe Delivery, and Directions for Midwives</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>What ought to be done in cases of extremity, especially in
+women who, in labour, are attacked by a flux of blood, convulsions
+and fits of wind.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>How child-bearing Women ought to be ordered after
+Delivery</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Acute Pains after Delivery</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<!-- FAMILY PHYSICIAN -->
+<!-- part ?, book ? -->
+<!-- title page -->
+<p class="part"><a href='#FAMILY_PHYSICIAN'>THE FAMILY
+PHYSICIAN</a></p>
+<!-- title page -->
+<p class="part"><a href='#EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE'>THE EXPERIENCED
+MIDWIFE</a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER
+I</a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Conception; what it is; how women are to order themselves
+after Conception.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Parts proper to a Child in the womb; How it is formed
+there, and the manner of its Situation therein.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>A Guide for Women in Travail, showing what is to be done when
+they fall in Labour, in order to their Delivery</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER
+V</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Natural Labour; What it is and what the Midwife is to do
+in such Labour</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Unnatural Labour</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Directions for Child-bearing Women in their Lying-in.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Directions for the Nurses, in ordering Newly-born
+Children</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a></p>
+<!-- PROPER AND SAFE REMEDIES -->
+<!-- part ?, book 2 -->
+<!-- title page -->
+<p class="part"><a href='#PROPER_AND_SAFE_REMEDIES'>PROPER AND SAFE
+REMEDIES</a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#REMEDIES_CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Barrenness; its several Kinds; with the proper Remedies
+for it; and the Signs of Insufficiency both in Men and
+Women</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#REMEDIES_CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER
+II</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The Diseases of the Womb</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#REMEDIES_CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER
+III</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Diseases Relating to Women's Monthly Courses</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<!-- PROPER AND SAFE REMEDIES -->
+<!-- part ?, book 2 -->
+<!-- title page -->
+<p class="part"><a href='#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS'>ARISTOTLE'S BOOK OF
+PROBLEMS</a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Eyes"><i>Of
+the Eyes</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Nose"><i>Of
+the Nose</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Ears"><i>Of
+the Ears</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Mouth"><i>Of
+the Mouth</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Teeth"><i>Of
+the Teeth</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Tongue"><i>Of
+the Tongue</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Roof_of_the_Mouth"><i>Of the Roof of the
+Mouth</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Neck"><i>Of
+the Neck</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Shoulders_and_Arms"><i>Of the Shoulders and
+Arms</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Hands"><i>Of
+the Hands</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Nails"><i>Of
+the Nails</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Paps_and_Dugs"><i>Of the Paps and
+Dugs</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Back"><i>Of
+the Back</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Heart"><i>Of
+the Heart</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Stomach"><i>Of
+the Stomach</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Blood"><i>Of
+the Blood</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Urine"><i>Of
+the Urine</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Gall_and_Spleen"><i>Of the Gall and
+Spleen</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Carnal_Copulation"><i>Of Carnal
+Copulation</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Seed_of_Man_and_Beasts"><i>Of the Seed of
+Man and Beasts</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Hermaphrodites"><i>Of
+Hermaphrodites</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Monsters"><i>Of
+Monsters</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Child_in_the_Womb"><i>Of the Child in the
+Womb</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Abortion_and_Untimely_Birth"><i>Of Abortion
+and Untimely Birth</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Divers_Matters"><i>Of Divers
+Matters</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_ALEXANDER_APHRODISEUS">THE PROBLEMS OF ALEXANDER
+APHRODISEUS</a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_MARCUS_ANTONINUS_SANCTIPERTIAS">THE PROBLEMS OF
+MARCUS ANTONINUS SANCTIPERTIAS</a></p>
+<!-- physiognomy -->
+<!-- part 4, book ? -->
+<!-- title page -->
+<p class="part"><a href='#PHSIOGNOMY'>THE SECRETS OF NATURE
+RELATING TO PHYSIOGNOMY</a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER
+I</a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER
+II</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Judgment of Physiognomy</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER
+III</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Judgments drawn from several other parts of Man's
+Body</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER
+IV</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Palmistry, showing the various Judgments drawn from the
+Hand</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER
+V</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Judgments according to Physiognomy, drawn from the several
+parts of the Body, from the Hands to the Feet</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER
+VI</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Power of the Celestial Bodies over Men and
+Women</i>.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<br />
+<hr class="long" />
+<br />
+<a name='THE_MIDWIFES_VADE_MECUM' id="THE_MIDWIFES_VADE_MECUM"></a>
+<h1>THE MIDWIFE'S VADE-MECUM</h1>
+<!-- Page 3 --><a name='Page_3' id="Page_3"></a>
+<h3>Containing</h3>
+<h2>PARTICULAR DIRECTIONS FOR MIDWIVES, NURSES, ETC.</h2>
+<hr class="short" />
+<h2>SOME GENUINE RECIPES FOR CAUSING SPEEDY DELIVERY.</h2>
+<hr class="short" />
+<h2>APPROVED DIRECTIONS FOR NURSES.</h2>
+<hr class="short" />
+<center><img src='img/co003.jpg' alt=
+'Medical Knowledge' title='Medical Knowledge' /></center>
+<!-- Page 4 --><a name='Page_4' id="Page_4"></a>
+<center><img src='img/co002.jpg' alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<!-- Page 5 --><a name='Page_5' id="Page_5"></a>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='PART_I' id="PART_I"></a>
+<h1>PART I&mdash;BOOK I</h1>
+<!-- Page 6 --><a name='Page_6' id="Page_6"></a> <a name=
+'VADEMECUM_PART_I_THE_MASTERPIECE' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_THE_MASTERPIECE"></a>
+<h2>THE MASTERPIECE</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>On marriage and at what age young men and virgins are capable
+of it: and why so much desire it. Also, how long men and women are
+capable of it.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>There are very few, except some professional debauchees, who
+will not readily agree that "Marriage is honourable to all," being
+ordained by Heaven in Paradise; and without which no man or woman
+can be in a capacity, honestly, to yield obedience to the first law
+of the creation, "Increase and Multiply." And since it is natural
+in young people to desire the embraces, proper to the marriage bed,
+it behoves parents to look after their children, and when they find
+them inclinable to marriage, not violently to restrain their
+inclinations (which, instead of allaying <!-- Page 7 --><a name=
+'Page_7' id="Page_7"></a> them, makes them but the more impetuous)
+but rather provide such suitable matches for them, as may make
+their lives comfortable; lest the crossing of those inclinations
+should precipitate them to commit those follies that may bring an
+indelible stain upon their families. The inclination of maids to
+marriage may be known by many symptoms; for when they arrive at
+puberty, which is about the fourteenth or fifteenth year of their
+age, then their natural purgations begin to flow; and the blood,
+which is no longer to augment their bodies, abounding, stirs up
+their minds to venery. External causes may also incline them to it;
+for their spirits being brisk and inflamed, when they arrive at
+that age, if they eat hard salt things and spices, the body becomes
+more and more heated, whereby the desire to veneral embraces is
+very great, and sometimes almost insuperable. And the use of this
+so much desired enjoyment being denied to virgins, many times is
+followed by dismal consequences; such as the green weesel colonet,
+short-breathing, trembling of the heart, etc. But when they are
+married and their veneral desires satisfied by the enjoyment of
+their husbands, these distempers vanish, and they become more gay
+and lively than before. Also, their eager staring at men, and
+affecting their company, shows that nature pushes them upon
+coition; <!-- Page 8 --><a name='Page_8' id="Page_8"></a> and their
+parents neglecting to provide them with husbands, they break
+through modesty and satisfy themselves in unlawful embraces. It is
+the same with brisk widows, who cannot be satisfied without that
+benevolence to which they were accustomed when they had their
+husbands.</p>
+<p>At the age of 14, the menses, in virgins, begin to flow; then
+they are capable of conceiving, and continue generally until 44,
+when they cease bearing, unless their bodies are strong and
+healthful, which sometimes enables them to bear at 65. But many
+times the menses proceed from some violence done to nature, or some
+morbific matter, which often proves fatal. And, hence, men who are
+desirous of issue ought to marry a woman within the age aforesaid,
+or blame themselves if they meet with disappointment; though, if an
+old man, if not worn out with diseases and incontinency, marry a
+brisk, lively maiden, there is hope of him having children to 70 or
+80 years.</p>
+<p>Hippocrates says, that a youth of 15, or between that and 17,
+having much vital strength, is capable of begetting children; and
+also that the force of the procreating matter increases till 45,
+50, and 55, and then begins to flag; the seed, by degrees, becoming
+unfruitful, the natural spirits being extinguished, and the humours
+dried up. Thus, in general, but as to <!-- Page 9 --><a name=
+'Page_9' id="Page_9"></a> individuals, it often falls out
+otherwise. Nay, it is reported by a credible author, that in
+Swedland, a man was married at 100 years of age to a girl of 30
+years, and had many children by her; but his countenance was so
+fresh, that those who knew him not, imagined him not to exceed 50.
+And in Campania, where the air is clear and temperate, men of 80
+marry young virgins, and have children by them; which shows that
+age in them does not hinder procreation, unless they be exhausted
+in their youths and their yards be shrivelled up.</p>
+<p>If any would know why a woman is sooner barren than a man, they
+may be assured that the natural heat, which is the cause of
+generation, is more predominant in the man than in the woman; for
+since a woman is more moist than a man, as her monthly purgations
+demonstrate, as also the softness of her body; it is also apparent
+that he does not much exceed her in natural heat, which is the
+chief thing that concocts the humours in proper aliment, which the
+woman wanting grows fat; whereas a man, through his native heat,
+melts his fat by degrees and his humours are dissolved; and by the
+benefit thereof are converted into seed. And this may also be
+added, that women, generally, are not so strong as men, nor so wise
+or prudent; nor have so much reason and ingenuity in ordering
+<!-- Page 10 --><a name='Page_10' id="Page_10"></a> affairs; which
+shows that thereby the faculties are hindered in operations.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_II' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_II"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>How to beget a male or female child; and of the Embryo and
+perfect Birth; and the fittest time for the copula.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>When a young couple are married, they naturally desire children;
+and therefore adopt the means that nature has appointed to that
+end. But notwithstanding their endeavours they must know that the
+success of all depends on the blessing of the Gods: not only so,
+but the sex, whether male or female, is from their disposal also,
+though it cannot be denied, that secondary causes have influence
+therein, especially two. First, the general humour, which is
+brought by the arteria praeparantes to the testes, in form of
+blood, and there elaborated into seed, by the seminifical faculty
+residing in them. Secondly, the desire of coition, which fires the
+imagination with unusual fancies, and by the sight of brisk,
+charming beauty, may soon inflame the appetite. But if nature be
+enfeebled, some meats <!-- Page 11 --><a name='Page_11' id=
+"Page_11"></a> must be eaten as will conduce to afford such aliment
+as makes the seed abound, and restores the exhaustion of nature
+that the faculties may freely operate, and remove impediments
+obstructing the procreating of children. Then, since diet alters
+the evil state of the body to a better, those subject to barrenness
+must eat such meats as are juicy and nourish well, making the body
+lively and full of sap; of which faculty are all hot moist meats.
+For, according to Galen, seed is made of pure concocted and windy
+superfluity of blood, whence we may conclude, that there is a power
+in many things, to accumulate seed, and also to augment it; and
+other things of force to cause desire, as hen eggs, pheasants,
+woodcocks, gnat-snappers, blackbirds, thrushes, young pigeons,
+sparrows, partridges, capons, almonds, pine nuts, raisins,
+currants, strong wines taken sparingly, especially those made of
+the grapes of Italy. But erection is chiefly caused by scuraum,
+eringoes, cresses, crysmon, parsnips, artichokes, turnips,
+asparagus, candied ginger, acorns bruised to powder and drank in
+muscadel, scallion, sea shell fish, etc. But these must have time
+to perform their operation, and must be used for a considerable
+time, or you will reap but little benefit from them. The act of
+coition being over, let the woman repose herself on her right side,
+with her head lying low, <!-- Page 12 --><a name='Page_12' id=
+"Page_12"></a> and her body declining, that by sleeping in that
+posture, the cani, on the right side of the matrix, may prove the
+place of conception; for therein is the greatest generative heat,
+which is the chief procuring cause of male children, and rarely
+fails the expectations of those that experience it, especially if
+they do but keep warm, without much motion, leaning to the right,
+and drinking a little spirit of saffron and juice of hissop in a
+glass of Malaga or Alicant, when they lie down and arise, for a
+week.</p>
+<p>For a female child, let the woman lie on her left side, strongly
+fancying a female in the time of procreation, drinking the
+decoction of female mercury four days from the first day of
+purgation; the male mercury having the like operation in case of a
+male; for this concoction purges the right and left side of the
+womb, opens the receptacles, and makes way for the seminary of
+generation. The best time to beget a female is, when the moon is in
+the wane, in Libra or Aquaries. Advicenne says, that when the
+menses are spent and the womb cleansed, which is commonly in five
+or seven days at most, if a man lie with his wife from the first
+day she is purged to the fifth, she will conceive a male; but from
+the fifth to the eighth a female; and from the eighth to the
+twelfth a male again: but after that perhaps neither distinctly,
+but both <!-- Page 13 --><a name='Page_13' id="Page_13"></a> in an
+hermaphrodite. In a word, they that would be happy in the fruits of
+their labour, must observe to use copulation in due distance of
+time, not too often nor too seldom, for both are alike hurtful; and
+to use it immoderately weakens and wastes the spirits and spoils
+the seed. And this much for the first particular.</p>
+<p>The second is to let the reader know how the child is formed in
+the womb, what accidents it is liable to there, and how nourished
+and brought forth. There are various opinions concerning this
+matter; therefore, I shall show what the learned say about it.</p>
+<p>Man consists of an egg, which is impregnated in the testicles of
+the woman, by the more subtle parts of the man's seed; but the
+forming faculty and virtue in the seed is a divine gift, it being
+abundantly imbued with vital spirit, which gives sap and form to
+the embryo, so that all parts and bulk of the body, which is made
+up in a few months and gradually formed into the likely figure of a
+man, do consist in, and are adumbrated thereby (most sublimely
+expressed, Psalm cxxxix.: "I will praise Thee, O Lord, for I am
+fearfully and wonderfully made.")</p>
+<p>Physicians have remarked four different times at which a man is
+framed and perfected in the womb; the first after coition, being
+perfectly formed in the week if no flux happens, which
+<!-- Page 14 --><a name='Page_14' id="Page_14"></a> sometimes falls
+out through the slipperiness of the head of the matrix, that slips
+over like a rosebud that opens suddenly. The second time of forming
+is assigned when nature makes manifest mutation in the conception,
+so that all the substance seems congealed, flesh and blood, and
+happens twelve or fourteen days after copulation. And though this
+fleshy mass abounds with inflamed blood, yet it remains
+undistinguishable, without form, and may be called an embryo, and
+compared to seed sown in the ground, which, through heat and
+moisture, grows by degrees to a perfect form in plant or grain. The
+third time assigned to make up this fabric is when the principal
+parts show themselves plain; as the heart, whence proceed the
+arteries, the brain, from which the nerves, like small threads, run
+through the whole body; and the liver, which divides the chyle from
+the blood, brought to it by the vena porta. The two first are
+fountains of life, that nourish every part of the body, in framing
+which the faculty of the womb is bruised, from the conception of
+the eighth day of the first month. The fourth, and last, about the
+thirtieth day, the outward parts are seen nicely wrought,
+distinguished by joints, from which time it is no longer an embryo,
+but a perfect child.</p>
+<p>Most males are perfect by the thirtieth day,
+<!-- Page 15 --><a name='Page_15' id="Page_15"></a> but females
+seldom before the forty-second or forty-fifth day, because the heat
+of the womb is greater in producing the male than the female. And,
+for the same reason, a woman going with a male child quickens in
+three months, but going with a female, rarely under four, at which
+time its hair and nails come forth, and the child begins to stir,
+kick and move in the womb, and then the woman is troubled with a
+loathing for meat and a greedy longing for things contrary to
+nutriment, as coals, rubbish, chalk, etc., which desire often
+occasions abortion and miscarriage. Some women have been so
+extravagant as to long for hob nails, leather, horse-flesh, man's
+flesh, and other unnatural as well as unwholesome food, for want of
+which thing they have either miscarried or the child has continued
+dead in the womb for many days, to the imminent hazard of their
+lives. But I shall now proceed to show by what means the child is
+maintained in the womb, and what posture it there remains in.</p>
+<p>The learned Hippocrates affirms that the child, as he is placed
+in the womb, has his hands on his knees, and his head bent to his
+feet, so that he lies round together, his hands upon his knees and
+his face between them, so that each eye touches each thumb, and his
+nose betwixt his knees. And of the same opinion in this matter
+<!-- Page 16 --><a name='Page_16' id="Page_16"></a> was
+Bartholinus. Columbus is of opinion that the figure of the child in
+the womb is round, the right arm bowed, the fingers under the ear,
+and about the neck, the head bowed so that the chin touches the
+breast, the left arm bowed above both breast and face and propped
+up by the bending of the right elbow; the legs are lifted upwards,
+the right so much that the thigh touches the belly, the knee the
+navel, the heel touches the left buttock, and the foot is turned
+back and covers the secrets; the left thigh touches the belly, and
+the leg lifted up to the breast.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_III' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_III"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The reason why children are like their parents; and that the
+Mother's imagination contributes thereto; and whether the man or
+the woman is the cause of the male or female child.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>In the case of similitude, nothing is more powerful than the
+imagination of the mother; for if she fix her eyes upon any object
+it will so impress her mind, that it oftentimes so happens
+<!-- Page 17 --><a name='Page_17' id="Page_17"></a> that the child
+has a representation thereof on some part of the body. And, if in
+act of copulation, the woman earnestly look on the man, and fix her
+mind on him, the child will resemble its father. Nay, if a woman,
+even in unlawful copulation, fix her mind upon her husband, the
+child will resemble him though he did not beget it. The same effect
+has imagination in occasioning warts, stains, mole-spots, and
+dartes; though indeed they sometimes happen through frights, or
+extravagant longing. Many women, in being with child, on seeing a
+hare cross the road in front of them, will, through the force of
+imagination, bring forth a child with a hairy lip. Some children
+are born with flat noses and wry mouths, great blubber lips and
+ill-shaped bodies; which must be ascribed to the imagination of the
+mother, who has cast her eyes and mind upon some ill-shaped
+creature. Therefore it behoves all women with child, if possible,
+to avoid such sights, or at least, not to regard them. But though
+the mother's imagination may contribute much to the features of the
+child, yet, in manners, wit, and propension of the mind, experience
+tells us, that children are commonly of the condition with their
+parents, and possessed of similar tempers. But the vigour or
+disability of persons in the act of copulation many times cause it
+to be otherwise; <!-- Page 18 --><a name='Page_18' id=
+"Page_18"></a> for children begotten through the heat and strength
+of desire, must needs partake more of the nature and inclination of
+their parents, than those begotten at a time when desires are
+weaker; and, therefore, the children begotten by men in their old
+age are generally weaker than, those begotten by them in their
+youth. As to the share which each of the parents has in begetting
+the child, we will give the opinions of the ancients about it.</p>
+<p>Though it is apparent that the man's seed is the chief efficient
+being of the action, motion, and generation: yet that the woman
+affords seed and effectually contributes in that point to the
+procreation of the child, is evinced by strong reasons. In the
+first place, seminary vessels had been given her in vain, and
+genital testicles inverted, if the woman wanted seminal
+excrescence, for nature does nothing in vain; and therefore we must
+grant, they were made for the use of seed and procreation, and
+placed in their proper parts; both the testicles and the
+receptacles of seed, whose nature is to operate and afford virtue
+to the seed. And to prove this, there needs no stronger argument,
+say they, than that if a woman do not use copulation to eject her
+seed, she often falls into strange diseases, as appears by young
+men and virgins. A second reason they urge is, that although the
+<!-- Page 19 --><a name='Page_19' id="Page_19"></a> society of a
+lawful bed consists not altogether in these things, yet it is
+apparent the female sex are never better pleased, nor appear more
+blythe and jocund, than when they are satisfied this way; which is
+an inducement to believe they have more pleasure and titulation
+therein than men. For since nature causes much delight to accompany
+ejection, by the breaking forth of the swelling spirits and the
+swiftness of the nerves; in which case the operation on the woman's
+part is double, she having an enjoyment both by reception and
+ejection, by which she is more delighted in.</p>
+<p>Hence it is, they say, that the child more frequently resembles
+the mother than the father, because the mother contributes more
+towards it. And they think it may be further instanced, from the
+endeared affection they bear them; for that, besides their
+contributing seminal matters, they feed and nourish the child with
+the purest fountain of blood, until its birth. Which opinion Galen
+affirms, by allowing children to participate most of the mother;
+and ascribes the difference of sex to the different operations of
+the menstrual blood; but this reason of the likeness he refers to
+the power of the seed; for, as the plants receive more nourishment
+from fruitful ground, than from the industry of the husbandman, so
+the infant receives more abundance <!-- Page 20 --><a name=
+'Page_20' id="Page_20"></a> from the mother than the father. For
+the seed of both is cherished in the womb, and then grows to
+perfection, being nourished with blood. And for this reason it is,
+they say, that children, for the most part, love their mothers
+best, because they receive the most of their substance from their
+mother; for about nine months she nourishes her child in the womb
+with the purest blood; then her love towards it newly born, and its
+likeness, do clearly show that the woman affords seed, and
+contributes more towards making the child than the man.</p>
+<p>But in this all the ancients were very erroneous; for the
+testicles, so called in women, afford not only seed, but are two
+eggs, like those of fowls and other creatures; neither have they
+any office like those of men, but are indeed the ovaria, wherein
+the eggs are nourished by the sanguinary vessels disposed
+throughout them; and from thence one or more as they are fecundated
+by the man's seed is separated and conveyed into the womb by the
+ovaducts. The truth of this is plain, for if you boil them the
+liquor will be of the same colour, taste and consistency, with the
+taste of birds' eggs. If any object that they have no shells, that
+signifies nothing: for the eggs of fowls while they are on the
+ovary, nay, after they are fastened into the uterus, have no shell.
+And though <!-- Page 21 --><a name='Page_21' id="Page_21"></a> when
+they are laid, they have one, yet that is no more than a defence
+with which nature has provided them against any outward injury,
+while they are hatched without the body; whereas those of women
+being hatched within the body, need no other fence than the womb,
+by which they are sufficiently secured. And this is enough, I hope,
+for the clearing of this point.</p>
+<p>As for the third thing proposed, as whence grow the kind, and
+whether the man or the woman is the cause of the male or female
+infant&mdash;the primary cause we must ascribe to God as is most
+justly His due, who is the Ruler and Disposer of all things; yet He
+suffers many things to proceed according to the rules of nature by
+their inbred motion, according to usual and natural courses,
+without variation; though indeed by favour from on high, Sarah
+conceived Isaac; Hannah, Samuel; and Elizabeth, John the Baptist;
+but these were all extraordinary things, brought to pass by a
+Divine power, above the course of nature. Nor have such instances
+been wanting in later days; therefore, I shall wave them, and
+proceed to speak of things natural.</p>
+<p>The ancient physicians and philosophers say that since these two
+principles out of which the body of man is made, and which renders
+the <!-- Page 22 --><a name='Page_22' id="Page_22"></a> child like
+the parents, and by one or other of the sex, viz., seed common to
+both sexes and menstrual blood, proper to the woman only; the
+similitude, say they, must needs consist in the force of virtue of
+the male or female, so that it proves like the one or the other,
+according to the quantity afforded by either, but that the
+difference of sex is not referred to the seed, but to the menstrual
+blood, which is proper to the woman, is apparent; for, were that
+force altogether retained in the seed, the male seed being of the
+hottest quality, male children would abound and few of the female
+be propagated; wherefore, the sex is attributed to the temperament
+or to the active qualities, which consists in heat and cold and the
+nature of the matter under them&mdash;that is, the flowing of the
+menstruous blood. But now, the seed, say they, affords both force
+to procreate and to form the child, as well as matter for its
+generation; and in the menstruous blood there is both matter and
+force, for as the seed most helps the maternal principle, so also
+does the menstrual blood the potential seed, which is, says Galen,
+blood well concocted by the vessels which contain it. So that the
+blood is not only the matter of generating the child, but also
+seed, it being impossible that menstrual blood has both
+principles.</p>
+<p>The ancients also say that the seed is the
+<!-- Page 23 --><a name='Page_23' id="Page_23"></a> stronger
+efficient, the matter of it being very little in quantity, but the
+potential quality of it is very strong; wherefore, if these
+principles of generation, according to which the sex is made were
+only, say they, in the menstrual blood, then would the children be
+all mostly females; as were the efficient force in the seed they
+would be all males; but since both have operation in menstrual
+blood, matter predominates in quantity and in the seed force and
+virtue. And, therefore, Galen thinks that the child receives its
+sex rather from the mother than the father, for though his seed
+contributes a little to the natural principle, yet it is more
+weakly. But for likeliness it is referred rather to the father than
+to the mother. Yet the woman's seed receiving strength from the
+menstrual blood for the space of nine months, overpowers the man's
+in that particular, for the menstrual blood rather cherishes the
+one than the other; from which it is plain the woman affords both
+matter to make and force and virtue to perfect the conception;
+though the female's be fit nutriment for the male's by reason of
+the thinness of it, being more adapted to make up conception
+thereby. For as of soft wax or moist clay, the artificer can frame
+what he intends, so, say they, the man's seed mixing with the
+woman's and also with the menstrual blood, <!-- Page 24 --><a name=
+'Page_24' id="Page_24"></a> helps to make the form and perfect part
+of man.</p>
+<p>But, with all imaginary deference to the wisdom of our fathers,
+give me leave to say that their ignorance of the anatomy of man's
+body have led them into the paths of error and ran them into great
+mistakes. For their hypothesis of the formation of the embryo from
+commixture of blood being wholly false, their opinion in this case
+must of necessity be likewise. I shall therefore conclude this
+chapter by observing that although a strong imagination of the
+mother may often determine the sex, yet the main agent in this case
+is the plastic or formative principle, according to those rules and
+laws given us by the great Creator, who makes and fashions it, and
+therein determines the sex, according to the council of his
+will.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_IV' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_IV"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>That Man's Soul is not propagated by their parents, but is
+infused by its Creator, and can neither die nor corrupt. At what
+time it is infused. Of its immortality and certainty of its
+resurrection.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Man's soul is of so divine a nature and excellency that man
+himself cannot comprehend it, <!-- Page 25 --><a name='Page_25' id=
+"Page_25"></a> being the infused breath of the Almighty, of an
+immortal nature, and not to be comprehended but by Him that gave
+it. For Moses, relating the history of man, tells us that "God
+breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a
+living soul." Now, as for all other creatures, at His word they
+were made and had life, but the creature that God had set over His
+works was His peculiar workmanship, formed by Him out of the dust
+of the earth, and He condescended to breathe into his nostrils the
+breath of life, which seems to denote both care and, if we may so
+term it, labour, used about man more than about all other living
+creatures, he only partaking and participating of the blessed
+divine nature, bearing God's image in innocence and purity, whilst
+he stood firm; and when, by his fall, that lively image was
+defaced, yet such was the love of the Creator towards him that he
+found out a way to restore him, the only begotten son of the
+Eternal Father coming into the world to destroy the works of the
+devil, and to raise up man from that low condition to which sin and
+his fall had reduced him, to a state above that of the angels.</p>
+<p>If, therefore, man would understand the excellency of his soul,
+let him turn his eyes inwardly and look unto himself and search
+diligently his own mind, and there he shall see many admirable
+<!-- Page 26 --><a name='Page_26' id="Page_26"></a> gifts and
+excellent ornaments, that must needs fill him with wonder and
+amazement; as reason, understanding, freedom of will, memory, etc.,
+that clearly show the soul to be descended from a heavenly
+original, and that therefore it is of infinite duration and not
+subject to annihilation.</p>
+<p>Yet for its many operations and offices while in the body it
+goes under several denominations: for when it enlivens the body it
+is called the soul; when it gives knowledge, the judgment of the
+mind; and when it recalls things past, the memory; when it
+discourses and discerns, reason; when it contemplates, the spirit;
+when it is the sensitive part, the senses. And these are the
+principal offices whereby the soul declares its powers and performs
+its actions. For being seated in the highest parts of the body it
+diffuses its force into every member. It is not propagated from the
+parents, nor mixed with gross matter, but the infused breath of
+God, immediately proceeding from Him; not passing from one to
+another as was the opinion of Pythagoras, who held a belief in
+transmigration of the soul; but that the soul is given to every
+infant by infusion, is the most received and orthodox opinion. And
+the learned do likewise agree that this is done when the infant is
+perfected in the womb, which happens about the twenty-
+<!-- Page 27 --><a name='Page_27' id="Page_27"></a> fourth day
+after conception; especially for males, who are generally born at
+the end of nine months; but in females, who are not so soon formed
+and perfected, through defect of heat, until the fiftieth day. And
+though this day in either case cannot be truly set down, yet
+Hippocrates has given his opinion, that it is so when the child is
+formed and begins to move, when born in due season. In his book of
+the nature of infants, he says, if it be a male and be perfect on
+the thirtieth day, and move on the seventieth, he will be born in
+the seventh month; but if he be perfectly formed on the
+thirty-fifth day, he will move on the seventieth and will be born
+in the eighth month. Again, if he be perfectly formed on the
+forty-fifth day, he will move on the ninetieth and be born in the
+ninth month. Now from these paring of days and months, it plainly
+appears that the day of forming being doubled, makes up the day of
+moving, and the day, three times reckoned, makes up the day of
+birth. As thus, when thirty-five perfects the form, if you double
+it, makes seventy the day of motion; and three times seventy
+amounts to two hundred and ten days; while allowing thirty days to
+a month makes seven months, and so you must consider the rest. But
+as to a female the case is different; for it is longer perfecting
+in the womb, the mother ever going <!-- Page 28 --><a name=
+'Page_28' id="Page_28"></a> longer with a girl than with a boy,
+which makes the account differ; for a female formed in thirty days
+does not move until the seventieth day, and is born in the seventh
+month; when she is formed on the fortieth day, she does not move
+till the eightieth and is born in the eighth month; but, if she be
+perfectly formed on the forty-fifth day she moves on the ninetieth,
+and the child is born in the ninth month; but if she that is formed
+on the sixtieth day, moves on the one hundred and tenth day, she
+will be born in the tenth month. I treat the more largely of love
+that the reader may know that the reasonable soul is not propagated
+by the parents, but is infused by the Almighty, when the child has
+its perfect form, and is exactly distinguished in its
+lineaments.</p>
+<p>Now, as the life of every other creature, as Moses shows, is in
+the blood, so the life of man consists in the soul, which although
+subject to passion, by reason of the gross composures of the body,
+in which it has a temporary confinement, yet it is immortal and
+cannot in itself corrupt or suffer change, it being a spark of the
+Divine Mind. And that every man has a peculiar soul plainly appears
+by the vast difference between the will, judgment, opinions,
+manners, and affections in men. This David observes when he says:
+"God hath fashioned the hearts <!-- Page 29 --><a name='Page_29'
+id="Page_29"></a> and minds of men, and has given to every one his
+own being and a soul of its own nature." Hence Solomon rejoiced
+that God had given him a soul, and a body agreeable to it. It has
+been disputed among the learned in what part of the body the soul
+resides; some are of opinion its residence is in the middle of the
+heart, and from thence communicates itself to every part, which
+Solomon (Prov. iv. 23) seems to confirm when he says: "Keep thy
+heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life."
+But many curious physicians, searching the works of nature in man's
+anatomy, do affirm that its chief seat is in the brain, from whence
+proceed the senses, the faculties, and actions, diffusing the
+operations of the soul through all parts of the body, whereby it is
+enlivened with heat and force to the heart, by the arteries,
+corodities, or sleepy arteries, which part upon the throat; which,
+if they happen to be broken or cut, they cause barrenness, and if
+stopped an apoplexy; for there must necessarily be ways through
+which the spirits, animal and vital, may have intercourse and
+convey native heat from the soul. For though the soul has its chief
+seat in one place, it operates in every part, exercising every
+member which are the soul's instruments, by which she discovers her
+power. But if it happen that any of the original parts are out of
+<!-- Page 30 --><a name='Page_30' id="Page_30"></a> tune, its whole
+work is confused, as appears in idiots and mad men; though, in some
+of them, the soul, by a vigorous exertion of its power, recovers
+its innate strength and they become right after a long despondency
+in mind, but in others it is not recovered again in this life. For,
+as fire under ashes, or the sun obscured from our sight by thick
+clouds, afford not their native lustre, so the soul, overwhelmed in
+moist or morbid matter, is darkened and reason thereby overclouded;
+and though reason shines less in children than it does in such as
+are arrived at maturity, yet no man must imagine that the soul of
+an infant grows up with the child, for then would it again decay;
+but it suits itself to nature's weakness, and the imbecility of the
+body wherein it is placed, that it may operate the better. And as
+the body is more capable of recovering its influence, so the soul
+does more and more exert its faculties, having force and endowment
+at the time it enters the form of a child in the womb; for its
+substance can receive nothing less. And thus much to prove that the
+soul does not come from the parents, but is infused by God. I shall
+next prove its immortality and demonstrate the certainty of our
+resurrection.</p>
+<!-- Page 31 --><a name='Page_31' id="Page_31"></a>
+<h4>OF THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL</h4>
+<p>That the soul of man is a Divine ray, infused by the Sovereign
+Creator, I have already proved, and now come to show that whatever
+immediately proceeds from Him, and participates of His nature, must
+be as immortal as its original; for, though all other creatures are
+endowed with life and motion, they yet lack a reasonable soul, and
+from thence it is concluded that their life is in their blood, and
+that being corruptible they perish and are no more; but man being
+endowed with a reasonable soul and stamped with a Divine image, is
+of a different nature, and though his body is corruptible, yet his
+soul being of an immortal nature cannot perish; but at the
+dissolution of the body returns to God who gave it, either to
+receive reward or punishment. Now, that the body can sin of itself
+is impossible, because wanting the soul, which is the principle of
+life, it cannot act nor proceed to anything either good or evil;
+for could it do so, it might even sin in the grave. But it is plain
+that after death there is a cessation; for as death leaves us so
+judgment will find us.</p>
+<p>Now, reason having evidently demonstrated the soul's
+immortality, the Holy Scriptures do abundantly give testimony of
+the truth of the <!-- Page 32 --><a name='Page_32' id=
+"Page_32"></a> resurrection, as the reader may see by perusing the
+14th and 19th chapters of Job and 5th of John. I shall, therefore,
+leave the further discussion of this matter to divines, whose
+province it is, and return to treat of the works of nature.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_V' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_V"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Monsters and Monstrous Births; and the several reasons
+thereof, according to the opinions of the Ancients. Also, whether
+the Monsters are endowed with reasonable Souls; and whether the
+Devils can engender; is here briefly discussed.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>By the ancients, monsters are ascribed to depraved conceptions,
+and are designated as being excursions of nature, which are vicious
+in one of these four ways: either in figure, magnitude, situation,
+or number.</p>
+<p>In figure, when a man bears the character of a beast, as did the
+beast in Saxony. In magnitude, when one part does not equalise with
+another; as when one part is too big or too little for the other
+parts of the body. But this is so common among us that I need not
+produce a testimony.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 33 --><a name='Page_33' id="Page_33"></a></p>
+<center><img src='img/bw033.png'  alt=
+'Monster at Ravenna' title='' /></center>
+<p class="blkquot">There was a Monster at Ravenna in Italy of this
+kind, in the year 1512.</p>
+<p>I now proceed to explain the cause of their generation, which is
+either divine or natural. The divine cause proceeds from God's
+permissive will, suffering parents to bring forth abominations for
+their filthy and corrupt affections, which are let loose unto
+wickedness like brute beasts which have no understanding. Wherefore
+it was enacted among the ancient Romans that those who were in any
+way deformed, should not be admitted into religious houses.
+<!-- Page 34 --><a name='Page_34' id="Page_34"></a> And St. Jerome
+was grieved in his time to see the lame and the deformed offering
+up spiritual sacrifices to God in religious houses. And Keckerman,
+by way of inference, excludes all that are ill-shapen from this
+presbyterian function in the church. And that which is of more
+force than all, God himself commanded Moses not to receive such to
+offer sacrifice among his people; and he also renders the reason
+Leviticus, xxii. 28, "Lest he pollute my sanctuaries." Because of
+the outward deformity, the body is often a sign of the pollution of
+the heart, as a curse laid on the child for the incontinency of its
+parents. Yet it is not always so. Let us therefore duly examine and
+search out the natural cause of their generation, which (according
+to the ancients who have dived into the secrets of nature) is
+either in the mother or in the agent, in the seed, or in the
+womb.</p>
+<p>The matter may be in default two ways&mdash;by defect or by
+excess: by defect, when the child has only one arm; by excess, when
+it has four hands or two heads. Some monsters are begotten by a
+woman's unnatural lying with beasts; as in the year 1603, there was
+a monster begotten by a woman's generating with a dog; which from
+the navel upwards had the perfect resemblance of its mother: but
+from its navel downwards it resembled a dog.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 35 --><a name='Page_35' id="Page_35"></a></p>
+<center><img src='img/bw035.png'  alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<p>The agent or womb may be in fault three ways; firstly, the
+formative faculty, which may be too strong or too weak, by which is
+procured a depraved figure; secondly, to the instrument or place of
+conception, the evil confirmation or the disposition whereof will
+cause a monstrous birth; thirdly, in the imaginative power at the
+time of conception; which is of such a force that it stamps the
+character of the thing imagined on the child. Thus the children of
+an adulteress may be like her husband, though begotten by another
+man, which is caused through the force of imagination
+<!-- Page 36 --><a name='Page_36' id="Page_36"></a> that the woman
+has of her own husband at the act of coition. And I have heard of a
+woman, who, at the time of conception, beholding the picture of a
+blackamoor, conceived and brought forth an Ethiopian. I will not
+trouble you with more human testimonies, but conclude with a
+stronger warrant. We read (Gen. xxx. 31) how Jacob having agreed
+with Laban to have all the spotted sheep <!-- Page 37 --><a name=
+'Page_37' id="Page_37"></a> for keeping his flock to augment his
+wages, took hazel rods and peeled white streaks on them, and laid
+them before the sheep when they came to drink, which coupling
+together there, whilst they beheld the rods, conceived and brought
+forth young.</p>
+<center><img src='img/bw036.png' alt=
+"&quot;Where children thus are born with hairy coats Heaven's wrath unto the kingdom it denotes&quot;"
+     title='' />
+<div class='poem'>
+<div class='stanza'><span>"Where children thus are born with hairy
+coats<br /></span> <span>Heaven's wrath unto the kingdom it
+denotes"<br /></span></div>
+</div>
+</center>
+<p>Another monster representing a hairy child. It was all covered
+with hair like a beast. That which made it more frightful was, that
+its navel was in the place where its nose should stand, and its
+eyes placed where the mouth should have been, and its mouth placed
+in the chin. It was of the male kind, and was born in France, in
+the year 1597, at a town called Arles in Provence, and lived a few
+days, frightening all that beheld it. It was looked upon as a
+forerunner of desolations which soon after happened to that
+kingdom, in which men to each other were more like brutes than
+human creatures.</p>
+<p>There was a monster born at Nazara in the year 1530. It had four
+arms and four legs.</p>
+<p>The imagination also works on the child, after conception, of
+which we have a pregnant instance.</p>
+<p>A worthy gentlewoman in Suffolk, who being with child and
+passing by a butcher who was killing his meat, a drop of blood
+sprung on her <!-- Page 38 --><a name='Page_38' id="Page_38"></a>
+face, whereupon she said her child would have a blemish on its
+face, and at the birth it was found marked with a red spot.</p>
+<center><img src='img/bw038.png' alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<p>Likewise in the reign of Henry III, there was a woman delivered
+of a child having two heads and four arms, and the bodies were
+joined at the back; the heads were so placed that they looked
+contrary ways; each had two distinct arms and hands. They would
+both laugh, both <!-- Page 39 --><a name='Page_39' id=
+"Page_39"></a> speak, and both cry, and be hungry together;
+sometimes the one would speak and the other keep silence, and
+sometimes both speak together. They lived several years, but one
+outlived the other three years, carrying the dead one (for there
+was no parting them) till the survivor fainted with the burden, and
+more with the stench of the dead carcase.</p>
+<center><img src='img/bw039.png'  alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<p>It is certain that monstrous births often happen by means of
+undue copulation; for some there are, who, having been long absent
+from one another, and having an eager desire
+<!-- Page 40 --><a name='Page_40' id="Page_40"></a> for enjoyment,
+consider not as they ought, to do as their circumstances demand.
+And if it happen that they come together when the woman's menses
+are flowing, and notwithstanding, proceed to the act of copulation,
+which is both unclean and unnatural, the issue of such copulation
+does often prove monstrous, as a just punishment for doing what
+nature forbids. And, therefore, though men should be ever so eager
+for it, yet women, knowing their own condition, should at such
+times positively refuse their company. And though such copulations
+do not always produce monstrous birth, yet <!-- Page 41 --><a name=
+'Page_41' id="Page_41"></a> the children, thus begotten, are
+generally heavy, dull, and sluggish, besides defective in their
+understandings, lacking the vivacity and loveliness with which
+children begotten in proper season are endowed.</p>
+<center><img src='img/bw040.png'  alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<center><img src='img/bw041.png' alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<p>In Flanders, between Antwerp and Mechlin, in a village called
+Uthaton, a child was born which had two heads, four arms, seeming
+like two girls joined together, having two of their arms lifted up
+between and above their heads, <!-- Page 42 --><a name='Page_42'
+id="Page_42"></a> the thighs being placed as it were across one
+another, according to the figure on p. 39. How long they lived I
+had no account of.</p>
+<p>By the figure on p. 40 you may see that though some of the
+members are wanting, yet they are supplied by other members.</p>
+<p>It remains now that I make some inquiry whether those that are
+born monsters have reasonable souls, and are capable of
+resurrection. And here both divines and physicians are of opinion
+that those who, according to the order of generations deduced from
+our first parents, proceed by mutual means from either sex, though
+their outward shape be deformed and monstrous, have notwithstanding
+a reasonable soul, and consequently their bodies are capable of
+resurrection, as other men's and women's are; but those monsters
+that are not begotten by men, but are the product of women's
+unnatural lusts in copulating with other creatures shall perish as
+the brute beasts by whom they were begotten, not having a
+reasonable soul nor any breath of the Almighty infused into them;
+and such can never be capable of resurrection. And the same is also
+true of imperfect and abortive births.</p>
+<p>Some are of opinion that monsters may be engendered by some
+infernal spirit. Of this mind was Adigus Fariur, speaking of a
+deformed <!-- Page 43 --><a name='Page_43' id="Page_43"></a>
+monster born at Craconia; and Hieronimus Cardamnus wrote of a maid
+that was got with child by the devil, she thinking it had been a
+fair young man. The like also is recorded by Vicentius, of the
+prophet Merlin, that he was begotten by an evil spirit. But what a
+repugnance it would be both to religion and nature, if the devils
+could beget men; when we are taught to believe that not any was
+ever begotten without human seed, except the Son of God. The devil
+then being a spirit and having no corporeal substance, has
+therefore no seed of generation; to say that he can use the act of
+generation effectually is to affirm that he can make something out
+of nothing, and consequently to affirm the devil to be God, for
+creation belongs to God only. Again, if the devil could assume to
+himself a human body and enliven the faculties of it, and cause it
+to generate, as some affirm he can, yet this body must bear the
+image of the devil. And it borders on blasphemy to think that God
+should so far give leave to the devil as out of God's image to
+raise his own diabolical offspring. In the school of Nature we are
+taught the contrary, viz., that like begets like; therefore, of a
+devil cannot man be born. Yet, it is not denied, but the devils,
+transforming themselves into human shapes, may abuse both men and
+<!-- Page 44 --><a name='Page_44' id="Page_44"></a> women, and,
+with wicked people, use carnal copulation; but that any unnatural
+conjunction can bring forth a human creature is contrary to nature
+and all religion.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_VI' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_VI"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the happy state of matrimony, as it is appointed by God,
+the true felicity that rebounds thereby to either sex; and to what
+end it is ordained.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Without doubt the uniting of hearts in holy wedlock is of all
+conditions the happiest; for then a man has a second self to whom
+he can reveal his thoughts, as well as a sweet companion in his
+labours, toils, trials, and difficulties. He has one in whose
+breast, as in a safe cabinet, he can confide his inmost secrets,
+especially where reciprocal love and inviolable faith is centred;
+for there no care, fear, jealousy, mistrust or hatred can ever
+interpose. For base is the man that hateth his own flesh! And truly
+a wife, if rightly considered, as Adam <!-- Page 45 --><a name=
+'Page_45' id="Page_45"></a> well observed, is or</p>
+<div class='poem'>
+<div class='stanza'><span>"I take not that to be my dowry,
+which<br /></span> <span>The vulgar sort do wealth and honour
+call;<br /></span> <span>That all my wishes terminate in
+this:&mdash;&mdash;<br /></span> <span>I'll obey my husband and be
+chaste withall;<br /></span> <span>To have God's fear, and beauty
+in my mind,<br /></span> <span>To do those good who are virtuously
+inclined."<br /></span></div>
+</div>
+ought to be esteemed of every honest man as "Bone of his bone and
+flesh of his flesh," etc. Nor was it the least care of the Almighty
+to ordain so near a union, and that for two causes; the first, for
+the increase of posterity; the second, to restrain man's wandering
+desires and affections; nay, that they might be yet happier, when
+God has joined them together, he "blessed them," as in Gen. ii. An
+ancient writer, contemplating this happy state, says, in the
+economy of Xenophon, "that the marriage bed is not only the most
+pleasant, but also profitable course of life, that may be entered
+on for the preservation and increase of posterity. Wherefore, since
+marriage is the most safe, and delightful situation of man he does
+in no ways provide amiss for his own tranquillity who enters into
+it, especially when he comes to maturity of years."<br />
+<br />
+<p>There are many abuses in marriage contrary to what is ordained,
+the which in the ensuing chapter I shall expose to view. But to
+proceed: Seeing our blessed Saviour and His holy apostles detested
+unlawful lusts, and pronounced those to be excluded the kingdom of
+heaven that polluted themselves with adultery and whoring, I cannot
+conceive what face people have to colour their impieties, who
+hating matrimony, make it their study how they may
+<!-- Page 46 --><a name='Page_46' id="Page_46"></a> live
+licentiously: for, in so doing, they take in themselves torment,
+enmity, disquietude, rather than certain pleasure, not to mention
+the hazard of their immortal soul; and certain it is that mercenary
+love (or as the wise man called it harlot-smiles) cannot be true
+and sincere and therefore not pleasant, but rather a net laid to
+betray such as trust in them with all mischief, as Solomon observes
+of the young man void of understanding, who turned aside to the
+harlot's house, "as a bird to the snare of the fowler, or as an ox
+to the slaughter, till a dart was struck through his liver." Nor in
+this case can they have children, those endearing pledges of
+conjugal affection; or if they have, they will rather redound to
+their shame than comfort, bearing the odious brand of bastards.
+Harlots, likewise are like swallows, flying in the summer season of
+prosperity; but the black stormy weather of adversity coming, they
+take wing and fly into other regions&mdash;that is, seek other
+lovers; but a virtuous, chaste wife, fixing her entire love upon
+her husband, and submitting to him as her head and king, by whose
+directions she ought to steer in all lawful courses, will, like a
+faithful companion, share patiently with him in all adversities,
+run with cheerfulness through all difficulties and dangers, though
+ever so hazardous, to preserve and assist him, in poverty,
+<!-- Page 47 --><a name='Page_47' id="Page_47"></a> sickness, or
+whatsoever misfortunes befall him, acting according to her duty in
+all things; but a proud, imperious harlot will do no more than she
+lists, in the sunshine of prosperity; and like a horse-leech, ever
+craving, and never satisfied; still seeming displeased, if all her
+extravagant cravings be not answered; not regarding the ruin and
+misery she brings on him by those means, though she seems to doat
+upon him, used to confirming her hypocrisy with crocodile tears,
+vows and swoonings, when her cully has to depart awhile, or seems
+but to deny immediate desires; yet this lasts no longer than she
+can gratify her appetite, and prey upon his fortune.</p>
+<p>Now, on the contrary, a loving, chaste and even-tempered wife,
+seeks what she may to prevent such dangers, and in every condition
+does all she can to make him easy. And, in a word, as there is no
+content in the embraces of a harlot, so there is no greater joy in
+the reciprocal affection and endearing embraces of a loving,
+obedient, and chaste wife. Nor is that the principal end for which
+matrimony was ordained, but that the man might follow the law of
+his creation by increasing his kind and replenishing the earth; for
+this was the injunction laid upon him in Paradise, before his fall.
+To conclude, a virtuous wife is a crown and
+<!-- Page 48 --><a name='Page_48' id="Page_48"></a> ornament to her
+husband, and her price is above all rubies: but the ways of a
+harlot are deceitful.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_VII' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_VII"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Errors in Marriages; Why they are, and the Injuries caused
+by them</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>By errors in marriage, I mean the unfitness of the persons
+marrying to enter into this state, and that both with respect to
+age and the constitution of their bodies; and, therefore, those who
+design to enter into that condition ought to observe their ability
+and not run themselves into inconveniences; for those that marry
+too young may be said to marry unseasonably, not considering their
+inability, nor examining the forces of nature; for some, before
+they are ripe for the consummation of so weighty a matter, who
+either rashly, of their own accord, or by the instigation of
+procurers or marriage-brokers, or else forced thereto by their
+parents who covet a large dower take upon them this yoke to their
+prejudice; by which some, before the expiration of a year, have
+been so enfeebled, that all <!-- Page 49 --><a name='Page_49' id=
+"Page_49"></a> their vital moisture has been exhausted; which had
+not been restored again without great trouble and the use of
+medicines. Therefore, my advice is: that it is not convenient to
+suffer children, or such as are not of age, to marry, or get
+children.</p>
+<p>He that proposes to marry, and wishes to enjoy happiness in that
+state, should choose a wife descended from honest and temperate
+parents, she being chaste, well bred, and of good manners. For if a
+woman has good qualities, she has portion enough. That of Alcmena,
+in Plautus, is much to the purpose, where he brings in a young
+woman speaking thus:&mdash;</p>
+<div class='poem'>
+<div class='stanza'><span>"I take not that to be my dowry,
+which<br /></span> <span>The vulgar sort do wealth and honour
+call;<br /></span> <span>That all my wishes terminate in
+this:&mdash;&mdash;<br /></span> <span>I'll obey my husband and be
+chaste withall;<br /></span> <span>To have God's fear, and beauty
+in my mind,<br /></span> <span>To do those good who are virtuously
+inclined."<br /></span></div>
+</div>
+<p>And I think she was in the right, for such a wife is more
+precious than rubies.</p>
+<p>It is certainly the duty of parents to bring up their children
+in the ways of virtue, and to have regard to their honour and
+reputation; and especially to virgins, when grown to be
+marriageable. For, as has been noted, if through the too great
+severity of parents, they may be crossed in their love, many of
+them throw themselves into the unchaste arms of the first alluring
+tempter that comes in the way, being, through the softness and
+flexibility of their nature, and the strong desire they have after
+what nature strongly incites them to, easily induced to believe
+men's false vows of promised marriage, to cover their shame: and
+then too late, their parents repent of their severity which has
+brought an indelible stain upon their families.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 50 --><a name='Page_50' id="Page_50"></a></p>
+<center><img src='img/co004.jpg'  alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<p><!-- Page 51 --><a name='Page_51' id="Page_51"></a></p>
+<center><img src='img/co005.jpg' alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<!-- Page 52 --><a name='Page_52' id="Page_52"></a>
+<p>Another error in marriage is, the inequality of years in the
+parties married; such as for a young man, who, to advance his
+fortune, marries a woman old enough to be his grandmother: between
+whom, for the most part, strife, jealousies, and dissatisfaction
+are all the blessings which crown the genial bed, is being
+impossible for such to have any children. The like may be said,
+though with a little excuse, when an old doting widower marries a
+virgin in the prime of her youth and her vigour, who, while he
+vainly tries to please her, is thereby wedded to his grave. For, as
+in green youth, it is unfit and unseasonable to think of marriage,
+so to marry in old age is just the same; for they that enter upon
+it too soon are soon <!-- Page 53 --><a name='Page_53' id=
+"Page_53"></a> exhausted, and fall into consumptions and divers
+other diseases; and those who procrastinate and marry unseemingly,
+fall into the like troubles; on the other side having only this
+honour, if old men, they become young cuckolds, especially if their
+wives have not been trained up in the paths of virtue, and lie too
+much open to the importunity and temptation of lewd and debauched
+men. And thus much for the errors of rash and inconsiderate
+marriages.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_VIII' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_VIII"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The Opinion of the Learned concerning Children conceived and
+born within Seven Months; with Arguments upon the Subject to
+prevent Suspicion of Incontinency, and bitter Contest on that
+Account. To which are added Rules to Know the Disposition of Man's
+Body by the Genital Parts</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Many bitter quarrels happen between men and their wives upon the
+man's supposition that the child comes too soon, and by
+consequence, that he could not be the father; whereas, it is
+<!-- Page 54 --><a name='Page_54' id="Page_54"></a> the want of
+understanding the secrets of nature which brings the man into that
+error; and which, had he known, might have cured him of his
+suspicion and jealousy.</p>
+<p>To remove which, I shall endeavour to prove, that it is
+possible, and has been frequently known, that children have been
+born at seven months. Paul, the Counsel, has this passage in the
+19th Book of Pleadings, viz.: "It is now a received truth, that a
+perfect child may be born in the seventh month, by the authority of
+the learned Hippocrates; and therefore, we must believe that a
+child born at the end of the seventh month in lawful matrimony may
+be lawfully begotten."</p>
+<p>Galen is of opinion that there is no certain time set for the
+bearing of children; and that from Pliny's authority, who makes
+mention of a woman that went thirteen months with child; but as to
+what concerns the seventh month, a learned author says, "I know
+several married people in Holland that had twins born in the
+seventh month, who lived to old age, having lusty bodies and lively
+minds. Wherefore their opinion is absurd, who assert that a child
+at seven months cannot be perfect and long lived; and that it
+cannot in all parts be perfect until the ninth month." Thereupon
+the author proceeds to tell a passage from his own knowledge, viz.:
+"<!-- Page 55 --><a name='Page_55' id="Page_55"></a> Of late there
+happened a great disturbance among us, which ended not without
+bloodshed; and was occasioned by a virgin, whose chastity had been
+violated, descending from a noble family of unspotted fame. Several
+charged the fact upon the Judge, who was president of a city in
+Flanders, who firmly denied it, saying he was ready to take his
+oath that he never had any carnal copulation with her, and that he
+would not father that, which was none of his; and farther argued,
+that he verily believed it was a child born in seven months,
+himself being many miles distant from the mother of it when it was
+conceived. Upon which the judges decreed that the child should be
+viewed by able physicians and experienced women, and that they
+should make their report. They having made diligent inquiry, all of
+them with one mind, concluded the child, without discussing who was
+the father, was born within the space of seven months, and that it
+was carried in the mother's womb but twenty-seven weeks and some
+odd days; but if she should have gone full nine months, the child's
+parts and limbs would have been more firm and strong, and the
+structure of the body more compact; for the skin was very loose,
+and the breast bone that defends the heart, and the gristles that
+lay over the stomach, lay higher than <!-- Page 56 --><a name=
+'Page_56' id="Page_56"></a> naturally they should be, not plain,
+but crooked and sharp, rigid or pointed, like those of a young
+chicken hatched in the beginning of spring. And being a female, it
+wanted nails upon the joints of the fingers; upon which, from the
+masculous cartilaginous matter of the skin, nails that are very
+smooth do come, and by degrees harden; she had, instead of nails, a
+thin skin or film. As for her toes, there were no signs of nails
+upon them, wanting the heat which was expanded to the fingers from
+the nearness of the heart. All this was considered, and above all,
+one gentlewoman of quality that assisted, affirming that she had
+been the mother of nineteen children, and that divers of them had
+been born and lived at seven months, though within the seventh
+month. For in such cases, the revolution of the month ought to be
+observed, which perfects itself in four bare weeks, or somewhat
+less than twenty-eight days; in which space of the revolution, the
+blood being agitated by the force of the moon, the courses of women
+flow from them; which being spent, and the matrix cleansed from the
+menstruous blood which happens on the fourth day, then, if a man on
+the seventh day lie with his wife, the copulation is most natural,
+and then the conception is best: and the child thus begotten may be
+born in the seventh month and prove <!-- Page 57 --><a name=
+'Page_57' id="Page_57"></a> very healthful. So that on this report,
+the supposed father was pronounced innocent; the proof that he was
+100 miles distant all that month in which the child was begotten;
+as for the mother she strongly denied that she knew the father,
+being forced in the dark; and so, through fear and surprise, was
+left in ignorance."</p>
+<p>As for coition, it ought not to be used unless the parties be in
+health, lest it turn to the disadvantage of the children so
+begotten, creating in them, through the abundance of ill humours,
+divers languishing diseases. Wherefore, health is no better
+discerned than by the genitals of the man; for which reasons
+midwives, and other skilful women, were formerly wont to see the
+testicles of children, thereby to conjecture their temperature and
+state of body; and young men may know thereby the signs and
+symptoms of death; for if the cases of the testicles be loose and
+feeble, which are the proofs of life, are fallen, but if the secret
+parts are wrinkled and raised up, it is a sign that all is well,
+but that the event may exactly answer the prediction, it is
+necessary to consider what part of the body the disease possesseth;
+for if it chance to be the upper part that is afflicted, as the
+head or stomach, then it will not so then appear by the members,
+which are unconnected <!-- Page 58 --><a name='Page_58' id=
+"Page_58"></a> with such grievances; but the lower part of the body
+exactly sympathising with them, their liveliness, on the contrary,
+makes it apparent; for nature's force, and the spirits that have
+their intercourse, first manifest themselves therein; which
+occasions midwives to feel the genitals of children, to know in
+what part the gulf is residing, and whether life or death be
+portended thereby, the symptoms being strongly communicated to the
+vessels, that have their intercourse with the principal seat of
+life.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_IX' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_IX"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Green-Sickness in Virgins, with its causes, signs and
+cures; together with the chief occasions of Barrenness in Women,
+and the Means to remove the Cause, and render them
+fruitful</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The green-sickness is so common a complaint amongst virgins,
+especially those of a phlegmatic complexion, that it is easily
+discerned, showing itself by discolouring the face, making it look
+green, pale, and of a dusty colour, proceeding from raw and
+indigested humours; nor doth <!-- Page 59 --><a name='Page_59' id=
+"Page_59"></a> it only appear to the eye, but sensibly affects the
+person with difficulty of breathing, pains in the head, palpitation
+of the heart, with unusual beatings and small throbbings of the
+arteries in the temples, back and neck, which often cast them into
+fevers when the humour is over vicious; also loathing of meat and
+the distention of the hypochondriac part, by reason of the
+inordinate effluxion of the menstruous blood of the greater
+vessels; and from the abundance of humours, the whole body is often
+troubled with swellings, or at least the thighs, legs and ankles,
+all above the heels; there is also a weariness of the body without
+any reason for it.</p>
+<p>The Galenical physicians affirm, that this distemper proceeds
+from the womb; occasioned by the gross, vicious and rude humours
+arising from several inward causes; but there are also outward
+causes which have a share in the production of it; as taking cold
+in the feet, drinking of water, intemperance of diet, eating things
+contrary to nature, viz., raw or burnt flesh, ashes, coals, old
+shoes, chalk, wax, nutshells, mortar, lime, oatmeal, tobacco pipes,
+etc., which occasion both a suppression of the menses and
+obstructions through the whole body; therefore, the first thing
+necessary to vindicate the cause, is matrimonial conjunction,
+<!-- Page 60 --><a name='Page_60' id="Page_60"></a> and such
+copulation as may prove satisfactory to her that is afflicted, for
+then the menses will begin to flow according to their natural and
+due course, and the humours being dispersed, will soon waste
+themselves; and then no more matter being admitted to increase
+them, they will vanish and a good temperament of body will return;
+but in case this best remedy cannot be had soon enough, then let
+blood in the ankles, and if she be about sixteen, you may likewise
+do it in the arm, but let her be bled sparingly, especially if the
+blood be good. If the disease be of any continuance, then it is to
+be eradicated by purging, preparation of the humour being first
+considered, which may be done by the virgin's drinking the
+decoction of guaiacum, with dittany of erete; but the best purge in
+this case ought to be made of aloes, agaric, senna, rhubarb; and
+for strengthening the bowels and removing obstructions, chaly-beate
+medicines are chiefly to be used. The diet must be moderate, and
+sharp things by all means avoided.</p>
+<p>And now, since barrenness daily creates discontent, and that
+discontent breeds indifference between man and wife, or, by
+immediate grief, frequently casts the woman into one or another
+distemper, I shall in the next place treat thereof.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>OF BARRENNESS.</h3>
+<p><!-- Page 61 --><a name='Page_61' id="Page_61"></a> Formerly,
+before women came to the marriage-bed, they were first searched by
+the mid-wife, and those only which she allowed of as fruitful were
+admitted. I hope, therefore, it will not be amiss to show you how
+they may prove themselves and turn barren ground into fruitful
+soil. Barrenness is a deprivation of the life and power which ought
+to be in the seed to procreate and propagate; for which end men and
+women were made. Causes of barrenness may be over much cold or
+heat, drying up the seed and corrupting it, which extinguishes the
+life of the seed, making it waterish and unfit for generation. It
+may be caused also, by the not flowing or over-flowing of the
+courses by swellings, ulcers, and inflammation of the womb, by an
+excrescence of flesh growing about the mouth of the matrix, by the
+mouth of the matrix being turned up to the back or side by the
+fatness of the body, whereby the mouth of the matrix is closed up,
+being pressed with the omentum or caul, and the matter of the seed
+is turned to fat; if she be a lean and dry body, and though she do
+conceive, yet the fruit of her body will wither before it come to
+perfection, for want of nourishment. One main cause of barrenness
+is attributed to want of a convenient <!-- Page 62 --><a name=
+'Page_62' id="Page_62"></a> moderating quality, which the woman
+ought to have with the man; as, if he be hot, she must be cold; if
+he be dry, she must be moist; as, if they be both dry or both moist
+of constitution, they cannot propagate; and yet, simply considering
+of themselves, they are not barren, for she who was before as the
+barren fig-tree being joined to an apt constitution becomes as the
+fruitful vine. And that a man and woman, being every way of like
+constitution, cannot create, I will bring nature itself for a
+testimony, who hath made man of a better constitution than woman,
+that the quality of the one, may moderate the quality of the
+other.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SIGNS OF BARRENNESS.</h3>
+<p>If barrenness proceeds from overmuch heat, if she is a dry body,
+subject to anger, has black hair, quick pulse, and her purgations
+flow but little, and that with pain, she loves to play in the
+courts of Venus. But if it comes by cold, then the signs are
+contrary to the above mentioned. If through the evil quality of the
+womb, make a suffumigation of red styrax, myrrh, cassia-wood,
+nutmeg, and cinnamon; and let her receive the fumes into her womb,
+covering her very close; and if the odour so received passes
+through the body to the mouth <!-- Page 63 --><a name='Page_63' id=
+"Page_63"></a> and nostrils, she is fruitful. But if she feels not
+the fumes in her mouth and nostrils, it argues barrenness one of
+these ways&mdash;that the spirit of the seed is either extinguished
+through cold, or dissipated through heat. If any woman be suspected
+to be unfruitful, cast natural brimstone, such as is digged out of
+mines, into her urine, and if worms breed therein, she is not
+barren.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>PROGNOSTICS.</h3>
+<p>Barrenness makes women look young, because they are free from
+those pains and sorrows which other women are accustomed to. Yet
+they have not the full perfection of health which other women
+enjoy, because they are not rightly purged of the menstruous blood
+and superfluous seed, which are the principal cause of most uterine
+diseases.</p>
+<p>First, the cause must be removed, the womb strengthened, and the
+spirits of the seed enlivened. If the womb be over hot, take syrup
+of succory, with rhubarb, syrup of violets, roses, cassia,
+purslain. Take of endive, water-lilies, borage flowers, of each a
+handful; rhubarb, mirobalans, of each three drachms; make a
+decoction with water, and to the straining of the syrup add
+electuary violets one ounce, syrup of cassia half an ounce, manna
+three <!-- Page 64 --><a name='Page_64' id="Page_64"></a> drachms;
+make a potion. Take of syrup of mugwort one ounce, syrup of
+maiden-hair two ounces, pulv-elect triasand one drachm; make a
+julep. Take prus. salt, elect. ros. mesua, of each three drachms,
+rhubarb one scruple, and make a bolus; apply to the loins and privy
+parts fomentations of the juice of lettuce, violets, roses,
+malloes, vine leaves and nightshade; anoint the secret parts with
+the cooling unguent of Galen.</p>
+<p>If the power of the seed be extinguished by cold, take every
+morning two spoonfuls of cinnamon water, with one scruple of
+mithridate. Take syrup of calamint, mugwort and betony, of each one
+ounce; waters of pennyroyal, feverfew, hyssop and sage, of each two
+ounces; make a julep. Take oil of aniseed two scruples and a half;
+diacimini, diacliathidiamosei and diagla-ongoe, of each one drachm,
+sugar four ounces, with water of cinnamon, and make lozenges; take
+of them a drachm and a half twice a day, two hours before meals;
+fasten cupping glasses to the hips and belly. Take of styrax and
+calamint one ounce, mastick, cinnamon, nutmeg, lign, aloes, and
+frankincense, of each half ounce; musk, ten grains, ambergris, half
+a scruple; make a confection with rosewater, divide it into four
+equal parts; one part make a pomatum oderation to smell at
+<!-- Page 65 --><a name='Page_65' id="Page_65"></a> if she be not
+hysterical; of the second, make a mass of pills, and let her take
+three every other night: of the third make a pessary, dip it in oil
+of spikenard, and put it up; of the fourth, make a suffumigation
+for the womb.</p>
+<p>If the faculties of the womb be weakened, and the life of the
+seed suffocated by over much humidity flowing to those parts: take
+of betony, marjoram, mugwort, pennyroyal and balm, of each a
+handful; roots of alum and fennel, of each two drachms; aniseed and
+cummin, of each one drachm, with sugar and water a sufficient
+quantity; make a syrup, and take three ounces every morning.</p>
+<p>Purge with the following things; take of the diagnidium, two
+grains, spicierum of castor, a scruple, pill foedit two scruples,
+with syrup of mugwort, make six pills. Take apeo, diagem. diamoser,
+diamb. of each one drachm; cinnamon, one drachm and a half; cloves,
+mace and nutmeg, of each half a drachm; sugar six ounces, with
+water of feverfew; make lozenges, to be taken every morning. Take
+of decoction of sarsaparilla and virga aurea, not forgetting sage,
+which Agrippa, wondering at its operation, has honoured with the
+name of <i>sacra herba</i>, a holy herb. It is recorded by
+Dodonoeus in the <i>History of Plants</i>, lib. ii. cap. 77, that
+after a great mortality among the Egyptians, the surviving
+<!-- Page 66 --><a name='Page_66' id="Page_66"></a> women, that
+they might multiply quickly, were commanded to drink the juice of
+sage, and to anoint the genitals with oil of aniseed and spikenard.
+Take mace, nutmeg, cinnamon, styrax and amber, of each one drachm;
+cloves, laudanum, of each half a drachm; turpentine, a sufficient
+quantity; trochisks, to smooth the womb. Take roots of valerian and
+elecampane, of each one pound; galanga, two ounces; origan
+lavender, marjoram, betony, mugwort, bay leaves, calamint, of each
+a handful; make an infusion with water, in which let her sit, after
+she hath her courses.</p>
+<p>If barrenness proceed from dryness, consuming the matter of the
+seed; take every day almond milk, and goat's milk extracted with
+honey, but often of the root satyrion, candied, and electuary of
+diasyren. Take three wethers' heads, boil them until all the flesh
+comes from the bones, then take melilot, violets, camomiles,
+mercury, orchia with their roots, of each a handful; fenugreek,
+linseed, valerian roots, of each one pound; let all these be
+decocted in the aforesaid broth, and let the woman sit in the
+decoction up to the navel.</p>
+<p>If barrenness be caused by any proper effect of the womb, the
+cure is set down in the second book. Sometimes the womb proves
+barren where there is no impediment on either side,
+<!-- Page 67 --><a name='Page_67' id="Page_67"></a> except only in
+the manner of the act; as when in the emission of the seed, the man
+is quick and the woman is slow, whereby there is not an emission of
+both seeds at the same instant as the rules of conception require.
+Before the acts of coition, foment the privy parts with the
+decoction of betony, sage, hyssop and calamint and anoint the mouth
+and neck of the womb with musk and civet.</p>
+<p>The cause of barrenness being removed, let the womb be
+strengthened as follows; Take of bay berries, mastic, nutmeg,
+frankincense, nuts, laudanum, giapanum, of each one drachm,
+styracis liquid, two scruples, cloves half a scruple, ambergris two
+grains, then make a pessary with oil of spikenard.</p>
+<p>Take of red roses, lapididis hoematis, white frankincense, of
+each half an ounce. Dragon's blood, fine bole, mastic, of each two
+drachms; nutmeg, cloves, of each one drachm; spikenard, half a
+scruple, with oil of wormwood; make a plaster for the lower part of
+the belly, then let her eat candied eringo root, and make an
+injection only of the roots of satyrion.</p>
+<p>The aptest time for conception is instantly after the menses
+have ceased, because then the womb is thirsty and dry, apt both to
+draw the seed and return it, by the roughness of the inward
+surface, and besides, in some, the mouth <!-- Page 68 --><a name=
+'Page_68' id="Page_68"></a> of the womb is turned into the back or
+side, and is not placed right until the last day of the
+courses.</p>
+<p>Excess in all things is to be avoided. Lay aside all passions of
+the mind, shun study and care, as things that are enemies to
+conception, for if a woman conceive under such circumstances,
+however wise the parents may be, the children, at best, will be but
+foolish; because the mental faculties of the parents, viz., the
+understanding and the rest (from whence the child derives its
+reason) are, as it were, confused through the multiplicity of cares
+and thought; of which we have examples in learned men, who, after
+great study and care, having connection with their wives, often
+beget very foolish children. A hot and moist air is most suitable,
+as appears by the women in Egypt, who often bring forth three or
+four children at one time.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_X' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_X"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 69 --><a name='Page_69' id="Page_69"></a> CHAPTER
+X</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Virginity, what it is, in what it consists, and how vitiated;
+together with the Opinions of the Learned about the Change of Sex
+in the Womb, during the Operation of Nature in forming the
+Body.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>There are many ignorant people that boast of their skill in the
+knowledge of virginity, and some virgins have undergone harsh
+censures through their ignorant conclusions; I therefore thought it
+highly necessary to clear up this point, that the towering
+imaginations of conceited ignorance might be brought down, and the
+fair sex (whose virtues are so illustriously bright that they
+excite our wonder and command our imitation), may be freed from the
+calumnies and detractions of ignorance and envy; and so their
+honour may continue as unspotted, as they have kept their persons
+uncontaminated and free from defilement.</p>
+<p>Virginity, in a strict sense, signifies the prime, the chief,
+the best of anything; and this makes men so desirous of marrying
+virgins, imagining some secret pleasure is to be enjoyed in their
+embraces, more than in those of widows, or of such as have been
+lain with before, though not many years ago, a very great personage
+thought <!-- Page 70 --><a name='Page_70' id="Page_70"></a>
+differently, and to use his own expression:&mdash;"The getting a
+maidenhead was such a piece of drudgery, that it was fitter for a
+coal heaver than a prince."<a name='FNanchor_1_1' id=
+"FNanchor_1_1"></a> <a href='#Footnote_1_1'><sup>[1]</sup></a> But
+this was only his opinion, for I am sure that other men think
+differently.</p>
+<p>The curious inquirers into the secrets of Nature, have observed,
+that in young maidens in the <i>sinus pudoris</i>, or in what is
+called the neck of the womb, is that wonderful production usually
+called the <i>hymen</i>, but in French <i>bouton de rose</i>, or
+rosebud, because it resembles the expanded bud of a rose or a gilly
+flower. From this the word <i>defloro</i>, or, deflower, is
+derived, and hence taking away virginity is called deflowering a
+virgin, most being of the opinion that the virginity is altogether
+lost when this membrane is fractured and destroyed by violence;
+when it is found perfect and entire, however, no penetration has
+been effected; and in the opinion of some learned physicians there
+is neither hymen nor expanded skin which contains blood in it,
+which some people think, flows from the ruptured membrane at the
+first time of sexual intercourse.</p>
+<p>Now this <i>claustrum virginale</i>, or flower, is composed of
+four little buds like myrtle berries, which are full and plump in
+virgins, but hang <!-- Page 71 --><a name='Page_71' id=
+"Page_71"></a> loose and flag in women; and these are placed in the
+four angles of the <i>sinus pudoris</i>, joined together by little
+membranes and ligatures, like fibres, each of them situated in the
+testicles, or spaces between each bud, with which, in a manner,
+they are proportionately distended, and when once this membrane is
+lacerated, it denotes <i>Devirgination</i>. Thus many ignorant
+people, finding their wives defective in this respect on the first
+night, have immediately suspected their chastity, concluding that
+another man had been there before them, when indeed, such a rupture
+may happen in several ways accidentally, as well as by sexual
+intercourse, viz. by violent straining, coughing, or sneezing, the
+stoppage of the urine, etc., so that the entireness or the fracture
+of that which is commonly taken for a woman's virginity or
+maidenhead, is no absolute sign of immorality, though it is more
+frequently broken by copulation than by any other means.<a name=
+'FNanchor_2_2' id="FNanchor_2_2"></a> <a href=
+'#Footnote_2_2'><sup>[2]</sup></a></p>
+<p><!-- Page 72 --><a name='Page_72' id="Page_72"></a> And now to
+say something of the change of the sexes in the womb. The genital
+parts of the sexes are so unlike each other in substance,
+composition, situation, figure, action and use that nothing is more
+unlike to each other than they are, and the more, all parts of the
+body (the breasts excepted, which in women swell, because Nature
+ordained them for suckling the infant) have an exact resemblance to
+each other, so much the more do the genital parts of one sex
+differ, when compared with the other, and if they be thus different
+in form, how much more are they so in their use.</p>
+<p>The venereal feeling also proceeds from different causes; in men
+from the desire of emission, and in women from the desire of
+reception. All these things, then, considered I cannot but wonder,
+he adds, how any one can imagine that the female genital organs can
+be changed into the male organ, since the sexes
+<!-- Page 73 --><a name='Page_73' id="Page_73"></a> can be
+distinguished only by those parts, nor can I well impute the reason
+for this vulgar error to anything but the mistake of inexpert
+midwives, who have been deceived by the faulty conformation of
+those parts, which in some males may have happened to have such
+small protrusions that they could not be seen, as appears by the
+example of a child who was christened in Paris under the name of
+<i>Ivan</i>, as a girl, and who afterwards turned out to be a boy,
+and on the other hand, the excessive tension of the clytoris in
+newly-born female infants may have occasioned similar mistakes.
+Thus far Pliny in the negative, and notwithstanding what he has
+said, there are others, such as Galen, who assert the affirmative.
+"A man," he says, "is different from a woman, only by having his
+genitals outside his body, whereas a woman has them inside her."
+And this is certain, that if Nature having formed a male should
+convert him into a female, she has nothing else to do but to turn
+his genitals inward, and again to turn a woman into a man by a
+contrary operation. This, however, is to be understood of the child
+whilst it is in the womb and not yet perfectly formed, for Nature
+has often made a female child, and it has remained so for a month
+or two, in its mother's womb; but afterwards the heat greatly
+<!-- Page 74 --><a name='Page_74' id="Page_74"></a> increasing in
+the genital organs, they have protruded and the child has become a
+male, but nevertheless retained some things which do not befit the
+masculine sex, such as female gestures and movements, a high voice,
+and a more effeminate temper than is usual with men; whilst, on the
+other hand, the genitals have become inverted through cold humours,
+but yet the person retained a masculine air, both in voice and
+gesture. Now, though both these opinions are supported by several
+reasons, yet I think the latter are nearer the truth, for there is
+not that vast difference between the genitals of the two sexes as
+Pliny asserts; for a woman has, in a way, the same <i>pudenda</i>
+as a man, though they do not appear outwardly, but are inverted for
+the convenience of generation; one being solid and the other
+porous, and that the principal reason for changing sexes is, and
+must be attributed to heat or cold, which operates according to its
+greater or lesser force.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<!-- Page 75 --><a name='Page_75' id="Page_75"></a>
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+<a name='Footnote_1_1' id="Footnote_1_1"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_1_1'>[1]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p>Attributed to George IV (Translator).</p>
+</div>
+<a name='Footnote_2_2' id="Footnote_2_2"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_2_2'>[2]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p>A young man was once tried at Rutland Assizes for violating a
+virgin, and after close questioning, the girl swearing positively
+in the matter, and naming the time, place and manner of the action,
+it was resolved that she should be examined by a skilful surgeon
+and two midwives, who were to report on oath, which they did, and
+declared that the membranes were intact and unlacerated, and that,
+in their opinion, her body had not been penetrated. This had its
+due effect upon the jury, and they acquitted the prisoner, and the
+girl afterwards confessed that she swore it against him out of
+revenge, as he had promised to marry her, and had afterwards
+declined.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XI' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XI"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Directions and Cautions for Midwives; and, first, what ought
+to be the qualifications of a midwife.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>A midwife who wishes to acquit herself well in her employment,
+ought certainly not to enter upon it rashly or unadvisedly, but
+with all imaginable caution, remembering that she is responsible
+for any mischief which may happen through her ignorance or neglect.
+None, therefore, should undertake that duty merely because of their
+age or because they themselves have had many children, for, in
+such, generally, many things will be found wanting, which she
+should possess. She ought to be neither too old nor too young,
+neither very fat, nor so thin, as to be weak, but in a good habit
+of body; not subject to illness, fears, nor sudden frights;
+well-made and neat in her attire, her hands small and smooth, her
+nails kept well-trimmed and without any rings on her fingers whilst
+she is engaged in her work, nor anything upon her wrists that may
+obstruct her. And to these ought to be added activity, and a due
+amount of strength, with much caution and diligence, nor should she
+be given to drowsiness or impatience.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 76 --><a name='Page_76' id="Page_76"></a> She should
+be polite and affable in her manners, sober and chaste, not given
+to passion, liberal and compassionate towards the poor, and not
+greedy of gain when she attends the rich. She should have a
+cheerful and pleasant temper, so that she may be the more easily
+able to comfort her patients during labour. She must never be in a
+hurry, though her business may call her to some other case, lest
+she should thereby endanger the mother or the child.</p>
+<p>She ought to be wary, prudent, and intelligent, but above all,
+she ought to be possessed by the fear of God, which will give her
+both "knowledge and discretion," as the wise man says.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XII' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XII"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Further Directions to Midwives, teaching them what they ought
+to do, and what to avoid</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Since the duties of a midwife have such a great influence on the
+well-doing or the contrary of both women and children, in the first
+<!-- Page 77 --><a name='Page_77' id="Page_77"></a> place, she must
+be diligent in gaining all such knowledge as may be useful to her
+in her practice, and never to think herself so perfect, but that it
+may be possible for her to add to her knowledge by study and
+experience. She should, however, never try any experiments unless
+she has tried them, or knows that they can do no harm; practising
+them neither upon rich nor poor, but freely saying what she knows,
+and never prescribing any medicines which will procure abortion,
+even though requested; for this is wicked in the highest degree,
+and may be termed murder. If she be sent for to people whom she
+does not know, let her be very cautious before she goes, lest by
+attending an infectious woman, she runs the danger of injuring
+others, as sometimes happens. Neither must she make her dwelling a
+receiving-house for big-bellied women to discharge their load, lest
+it get her a bad name and she by such means loses her practice.</p>
+<p>In attending on women, if the birth happens to be difficult, she
+must not seem to be anxious, but must cheer the woman up and do all
+she can to make her labour easy. She will find full directions for
+this, in the second part of this book.</p>
+<p>She must never think of anything but doing well, seeing that
+everything that is required <!-- Page 78 --><a name='Page_78' id=
+"Page_78"></a> is in readiness, both for the woman and for
+receiving the child, and above all, let her keep the woman from
+becoming unruly when her pains come on, lest she endanger her own
+life, and the child's as well.</p>
+<p>She must also take care not to be hurried over her business but
+wait God's time for the birth, and she must by no means allow
+herself to be upset by fear, even if things should not go well,
+lest that should make her incapable of rendering that assistance
+which the woman in labour stands in need of, for where there is the
+most apparent danger, there the most care and prudence are required
+to set things right.</p>
+<p>And now, because she can never be a skilful midwife who knows
+nothing but what is to be seen outwardly, I do not think it will be
+amiss but rather very necessary, modestly to describe the
+generative parts of women as they have been anatomised by learned
+men, and to show the use of such vessels as contribute to
+generation.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XIII' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XIII"></a> <!-- Page 79 --><a name=
+'Page_79' id="Page_79"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The External, and Internal Organs of Generation in
+Women</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>If it were not for the public benefit, especially for that of
+the professors and practitioners of the art of midwifery, I would
+refrain from treating the secrets of Nature, because they may be
+turned to ridicule by lascivious and lewd people. But as it is
+absolutely necessary that they should be known for the public good,
+I will not omit them because some may make a wrong use of them.
+Those parts which can be seen at the lowest part of the stomach are
+the <i>fissure magna</i>, or the <i>great cleft</i>, with its
+<i>labia</i> or lips, the <i>Mons Veneris</i>, or Mountain of
+Venus, and the hair. These together are called the <i>pudenda</i>,
+or things to be ashamed of because when they are exposed they cause
+a woman <i>pudor</i>, or shame. The <i>fissure magna</i> reaches
+from the lower part of the <i>os pubis</i>, to within an inch of
+the <i>anus</i>, but it is less and closer in virgins than in those
+who have borne children, and has two lips, which grow thicker and
+fuller towards the pubis, and meeting on the middle of the <i>os
+pubis</i>, form that rising hill <!-- Page 80 --><a name='Page_80'
+id="Page_80"></a> which is called the <i>Mons Veneris</i>, or the
+Hill of Venus.</p>
+<p>Next come the <i>Nymphae</i> and the <i>Clitoris</i>, the former
+of which is a membrany and moist substance, spongy, soft and partly
+fleshy, of a red colour and in the shape of two wings, which are
+joined at an acute angle at their base, producing a fleshy
+substance there which covers the clitoris, and sometimes they
+extend so far, that an incision is required to make room for a
+man's instrument of generation.</p>
+<p>The <i>Clitoris</i> is a substance in the upper part of the
+division where the two wings meet, and the seat of venereal
+pleasure, being like a man's <i>penis</i> in situation, substance,
+composition and power of erection, growing sometimes to the length
+of two inches out of the body, but that never happens except
+through extreme lustfulness or some extraordinary accident. This
+<i>clitoris</i> consists of two spongy and skinny bodies,
+containing a distinct original from the <i>os pubis</i>, its tip
+being covered with a tender skin, having a hole or passage like a
+man's yard or <i>penis</i>, although not quite through, in which
+alone, and in its size it differs from it.</p>
+<p>The next things are the fleshy knobs of the great neck of the
+womb, and these knobs are behind the wings and are four in number,
+<!-- Page 81 --><a name='Page_81' id="Page_81"></a> resembling
+myrtle berries, and being placed quadrangularly one against the
+other, and here the orifice of the bladder is inserted, which opens
+into the fissures, to evacuate the urine, and one of these knobs is
+placed before it, and closes up the passage in order to secure it
+from cold, or any suchlike inconvenience.</p>
+<p>The lips of the womb, which appear next, disclose its neck, if
+they are separated, and two things may be observed in them, which
+are the neck itself and the <i>hymen</i>, or more properly, the
+<i>claustrum virginale</i>, of which I have spoken before. By the
+neck of the womb we must understand the channel that lies between
+the above-mentioned knobs and the inner bone of the womb, which
+receives the penis like a sheath, and so that it may be more easily
+dilated by the pleasure of procreation, the substance is sinewy and
+a little spongy. There are several folds or pleats in this cavity,
+made by tunicles, which are wrinkled like a full blown rose. In
+virgins they appear plainly, but in women who are used to
+copulation they disappear, so that the inner side of the neck of
+the womb appears smooth, but in old women it is more hard and
+gristly. But though this channel is sometimes crooked and sinks
+down yet at the times of copulation, labour, or of the monthly
+flow, it is erected or distended, <!-- Page 82 --><a name='Page_82'
+id="Page_82"></a> which overtension occasions the pain in
+childbirth.</p>
+<p>The hymen, or <i>claustrum virginale</i>, is that which closes
+the neck of the womb, and is broken by the first act of copulation;
+its use being rather to check the undue menstrual flow in virgins,
+rather than to serve any other purpose, and usually when it is
+broken, either by copulation, or by any other means, a small
+quantity of blood flows from it, attended with some little pain.
+From this some observe that between the folds of the two tunicles,
+which constitute the neck of the womb there are many veins and
+arteries running along, and arising from, the vessels on both sides
+of the thighs, and so passing into the neck of the womb, being very
+large; and the reason for this is, that the neck of the bladder
+requires to be filled with great vigour, so as to be dilated, in
+order that it may lay hold of the penis better; for great heat is
+required in such motions, and that becomes more intense by the act
+of friction, and consumes a considerable amount of moisture, for
+supplying which large vessels are absolutely necessary.</p>
+<p>Another cause of the largeness of the vessels is, that menses
+make their way through them, which often occasions pregnant women
+to continue menstruating: for though the womb be
+<!-- Page 83 --><a name='Page_83' id="Page_83"></a> shut up, yet
+the passages in the neck of the womb through which these vessels
+pass, are open. In this case, we may further observe, that as soon
+as the <i>pudenda</i> are penetrated, there appear two little pits
+or holes which contain a secretion, which is expelled during
+copulation, and gives the woman great pleasure.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XIV' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XIV"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>A description of the Fabric of the Womb, the preparing
+Vessels and Testicles in Women. Also of the Different and
+Ejaculatory Vessels</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The womb is joined to its neck in the lower part of the
+<i>Hypogastrium</i> where the hips are the widest and broadest, as
+they are greater and broader there than those of men, and it is
+placed between the bladder and the straight gut, which keeps it
+from swaying, and yet gives it freedom to stretch and dilate, and
+again to contract, as nature requires. Its shape is somewhat round
+and not unlike a gourd, growing smaller and more acute towards
+<!-- Page 86 --><a name='Page_86' id="Page_86"></a>
+<!-- Page 84 --><a name='Page_84' id="Page_84"></a>
+<!-- Page 85 --><a name='Page_85' id="Page_85"></a> one end, being
+knit together by its own ligaments; its neck likewise is joined by
+its own substance and by certain membranes that fasten into the
+<i>os sacrum</i> and the share-bone. Its size varies much in
+different women, and the difference is especially great between
+those who have borne children and those who have had none. Its
+substance exceeds a thumb's breadth in thickness, and so far from
+decreasing conception, it rather increases; and in order to
+strengthen it it is interwoven with fibres which cross it from side
+to side, some of which are straight and some winding, and its
+proper vessels are veins, arteries and nerves. Amongst these there
+are two small veins which pass into the womb from the spermatic
+vessels, and two larger ones from the neck: the mouth of these
+veins pierces as far as the inward cavity.</p>
+<center><img src='img/co007.jpg' alt=
+'Position of a Child in the Womb just before delivery.' title=
+'' /></center>
+<center><img src='img/co006.jpg' alt=
+'The action of quickening' title='' /></center>
+<p>The womb has two arteries on both sides of the spermatic vessels
+and the hypogastric, which accompany the veins; and besides these,
+there are several little nerves in the form of a net, which extend
+throughout it, from the bottom of the <i>pudenda</i>; their chief
+function is sensibility and pleasure, as they move in sympathy
+between the head and the womb.</p>
+<p>It may be further noted that the womb is occasionally moveable
+by means of the two ligaments that hang on either side of it, and
+often rises and falls. The neck of the womb
+<!-- Page 87 --><a name='Page_87' id="Page_87"></a> is extremely
+sensitive, so that if it be at any time out of order through over
+fatness, moisture or relaxation, it thereby becomes subject to
+barrenness. With pregnant women, a glutinous matter is often found
+at the entrance to the womb so as to facilitate the birth; for at
+the time of delivery, the mouth of the womb is opened as wide as
+the size of the child requires, and dilates equally from top to
+bottom.</p>
+<p>The spermatic vessels in women, consist of two veins and two
+arteries, which differ from those of men only in size and the
+manner of their insertion; for the number of veins and arteries is
+the same as in men, the right vein issuing from the trunk of the
+hollow vein descending and besides them there are two arteries,
+which flow from the aorta.</p>
+<p>These vessels are narrower and shorter in women than in men; but
+it must be noticed that they are more intertwined and contorted
+than in men, and shrink together by reason of their shortness that
+they may, by their looseness, be better stretched out when
+necessary: and these vessels in women are carried in an oblique
+direction through the lesser bowels and testicles but are divided
+into two branches half way. The larger goes to the stones and forms
+a winding body, and wonderfully inoculates the lesser branches
+where it disperses <!-- Page 88 --><a name='Page_88' id=
+"Page_88"></a> itself, and especially at the higher part of the
+bottom of the womb, for its nourishment, and that part of the
+courses may pass through the vessels; and seeing that women's
+testicles are situated near the womb, for that cause those vessels
+do not fall from the peritoneum, nor do they make so much passage
+as in men, as they do not extend to the share-bone.</p>
+<p>The stones of woman, commonly called <i>testicles</i>, do not
+perform the same function as in men, for they are altogether
+different in position, size, temperature, substance, form and
+covering. They are situated in the hollow of the muscles of the
+loins, so that, by contracting greater heat, they may be more
+fruitful, their office being to contain the ova or eggs, one of
+which, being impregnated by the man's seed engenders the child.
+They are, however, different from those of the male in shape,
+because they are smaller and flatter at each end, and not so round
+or oval; the external superficies is also more unequal, and has the
+appearance of a number of knobs or kernels mixed together.</p>
+<p>There is a difference, also, in the substance, as they are much
+softer and more pliable, and not nearly so compact. Their size and
+temperature are also different for they are much colder and smaller
+than in men, and their covering or enclosure is likewise quite
+different; for as <!-- Page 89 --><a name='Page_89' id=
+"Page_89"></a> men's are wrapped in several covers, because they
+are very pendulous and would be easily injured unless they were so
+protected by nature, so women's stones, being internal and thus
+less subject to being hurt, are covered by only one membrane, and
+are likewise half covered by the peritoneum.</p>
+<p>The ejaculatory vessels are two small passages, one on either
+side, which do not differ in any respect from the spermatic veins
+in substance. They rise in one place from the bottom of the womb,
+and do not reach from their other extremity either to the stones or
+to any other part, but are shut up and impassable, and adhere to
+the womb as the colon does to the blind gut, and winding half way
+about; and though the testicles are not close to them and do not
+touch them, yet they are fastened to them by certain membranes
+which resemble the wing of a bat, through which certain veins and
+arteries passing from the end of the testicles may be said to have
+their passages going from the corners of the womb to the testicles,
+and these ligaments in women are the <i>cremasters</i><a name=
+'FNanchor_3_3' id="FNanchor_3_3"></a> <a href=
+'#Footnote_3_3'><sup>[3]</sup></a> in men, of which I shall speak
+more fully when I come to describe the male parts of
+generation.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<!-- Page 90 --><a name='Page_90' id="Page_90"></a>
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+<a name='Footnote_3_3' id="Footnote_3_3"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_3_3'>[3]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p>Muscles by which the testicles are drawn up.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XV' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XV"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>A Description of the Use and Action of the several Generative
+Parts in Women</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The external parts, commonly called the <i>pudenda</i>, are
+designed to cover the great orifice and to receive the man's penis
+or yard in the act of sexual intercourse, and to give passage to
+the child and to the urine. The use of the wings and knobs, like
+myrtle berries, is for the security of the internal parts, closing
+the orifice and neck of the bladder and by their swelling up, to
+cause titillation and pleasure in those parts, and also to obstruct
+the involuntary passage of the urine.</p>
+<p>The action of the clitoris in women is similar to that of the
+penis in men, viz., <i>erection</i>; and its lower end is the glans
+of the penis, and has the same name. And as the <i>glans</i> of man
+are the seat of the greatest pleasure in copulation, so is this in
+the woman.</p>
+<p>The action and use of the neck on the womb is the same as that
+of the penis, viz., erection, brought about in different ways:
+first, in copulation it becomes erect and made straight for the
+passage of the penis into the womb; <!-- Page 91 --><a name=
+'Page_91' id="Page_91"></a> secondly, whilst the passage is filled
+with the vital blood, it becomes narrower for embracing the penis;
+and the uses of this erection are twofold:&mdash;first, because if
+the neck of the womb were not erected, the man's yard could find no
+proper passage to the womb, and, secondly, it hinders any damage or
+injury that might ensue through the violent striking of the
+<i>penis</i> during the act of copulation.</p>
+<p>The use of the veins that pass through the neck of the womb, is
+to replenish it with blood and vigour, that so, as the moisture is
+consumed by the heat engendered by sexual intercourse, it may be
+renewed by those vessels; but their chief business is to convey
+nutriment to the womb.</p>
+<p>The womb has many properties belonging to it: first, the
+retention of the impregnated egg, and this is conception, properly
+so called; secondly, to cherish and nourish it, until Nature has
+fully formed the child, and brought it to perfection, and then it
+operates strongly in expelling the child, when the time of its
+remaining has expired, becoming dilated in an extraordinary manner
+and so perfectly removed from the senses that they cannot
+injuriously affect it, retaining within itself a power and strength
+to eject the foetus, unless it be rendered deficient by any
+accident; and in such a case <!-- Page 92 --><a name='Page_92' id=
+"Page_92"></a> remedies must be applied by skilful hands to
+strengthen it, and enable it to perform its functions; directions
+for which will be given in the second book.</p>
+<p>The use of the preparing vessels is this; the arteries convey
+the blood to the testicles; some part of it is absorbed in
+nourishing them, and in the production of these little bladders
+(which resemble eggs in every particular), through which the
+<i>vasa preparantia</i> run, and which are absorbed in them; and
+the function of the veins is to bring back whatever blood remains
+from the above mentioned use. The vessels of this kind are much
+shorter in women than in men, because they are nearer to the
+testicles; this defect is, however, made good by the many intricate
+windings to which those vessels are subject; for they divide
+themselves into two branches of different size in the middle and
+the larger one passes to the testicles.</p>
+<p>The stones in women are very useful, for where they are
+defective, the work of generation is at an end. For though those
+bladders which are on the outer surface contain no seed, as the
+followers of Galen and Hippocrates wrongly believed, yet they
+contain several eggs, generally twenty in each testicle; one of
+which being impregnated by the animated part of the man's seed in
+the act of copulation, descends <!-- Page 93 --><a name='Page_93'
+id="Page_93"></a> through the oviducts into the womb, and thus in
+due course of time becomes a living child.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XVI' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XVI"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Organs of Generation in Man</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Having given a description of the organs of generation in women,
+with the anatomy of the fabric of the womb, I shall now, in order
+to finish the first part of this treatise, describe the organs of
+generation in men, and how they are fitted for the use for which
+Nature intended them.</p>
+<p>The instrument of generation in men (commonly called the yard,
+in Latin, <i>penis</i>, from <i>pendo</i>, to hang, because it
+hangs outside the belly), is an organic part which consists of
+skin, tendons, veins, arteries, sinews and great ligaments; and is
+long and round, and on the upper side flattish, seated under the
+<i>os pubis</i>, and ordained by Nature partly for the evacuation
+of urine, and partly for conveying the <!-- Page 94 --><a name=
+'Page_94' id="Page_94"></a> seed into the womb; for which purpose
+it is full of small pores, through which the seed passes into it,
+through the <i>vesicula seminalis,</i><a name='FNanchor_4_4' id=
+"FNanchor_4_4"></a> <a href='#Footnote_4_4'><sup>[4]</sup></a> and
+discharges the urine when they make water; besides the common
+parts, viz., the two nervous bodies, the septum, the urethra, the
+glans, four muscles and the vessels. The nervous bodies (so called)
+are surrounded with a thick white, penetrable membrane, but their
+inner substance is spongy, and consists chiefly of veins, arteries,
+and nervous fibres, interwoven like a net. And when the nerves are
+filled with animal vigour and the arteries with hot, eager blood,
+the penis becomes distended and erect; also the neck of the
+<i>vesicula urinalis</i>,<a name='FNanchor_5_5' id=
+"FNanchor_5_5"></a> <a href='#Footnote_5_5'><sup>[5]</sup></a> but
+when the influx of blood ceases, and when it is absorbed by the
+veins, the penis becomes limp and flabby. Below those nervous
+bodies is the urethra, and whenever they swell, it swells also. The
+penis has four muscles; two shorter ones springing from the <i>Cox
+endix</i> and which serve for erection, and on that account they
+are called <i>erectores</i>; two larger, coming from <i>sphincters
+ani</i>, which serve to dilate the urethra so as to discharge the
+semen, and these are called dilatantes, or wideners. At the end of
+the penis is the <i>glans,</i> <!-- Page 95 --><a name='Page_95'
+id="Page_95"></a> covered with a very thin membrane, by means of
+which, and of its nervous substance, it becomes most extremely
+sensitive, and is the principal seat of pleasure in copulation. The
+outer covering of the <i>glans</i> is called the <i>preputium</i>
+(foreskin), which the Jews cut off in circumcision, and it is
+fastened by the lower part of it to the <i>glans</i>. The penis is
+also provided with veins, arteries and nerves.</p>
+<p>The <i>testiculi</i>, stones or testicles (so called because
+they testify one to be a man), turn the blood, which is brought to
+them by the spermatic arteries into seed. They have two sorts of
+covering, common and proper; there are two of the common, which
+enfold both the testes. The outer common coat, consists of the
+<i>cuticula</i>, or true skin, and is called the scrotum, and hangs
+from the abdomen like a purse; the inner is the <i>membrana
+carnosa</i>. There are also two proper coats&mdash;the outer called
+<i>cliotrodes</i>, or virginales; the inner <i>albugidia;</i> in
+the outer the cremaster is inserted. The <i>epididemes</i>, or
+<i>prostatae</i> are fixed to the upper part of the testes, and
+from them spring the <i>vasa deferentia</i>, or
+<i>ejaculatoria</i>, which deposit the seed into the <i>vesicule
+seminales</i> when they come near the neck of the bladder. There
+are two of these <i>vesiculae</i>, each like a bunch of grapes,
+which emit the seed into the urethra <!-- Page 96 --><a name=
+'Page_96' id="Page_96"></a> in the act of copulation. Near them are
+the <i>prostatae</i>, about the size of a walnut, and joined to the
+neck of the bladder. Medical writers do not agree about the use of
+them, but most are of the opinion that they produce an oily and
+sloppy discharge to besmear the urethra so as to defend it against
+the pungency of the seed and urine. But the vessels which convey
+the blood to the testes, from which the seed is made, are the
+<i>arteriae spermaticae</i> and there are two of them also. There
+are likewise two veins, which carry off the remaining blood, and
+which are called <i>venae spermaticae</i>.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+<a name='Footnote_4_4' id="Footnote_4_4"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_4_4'>[4]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p>Seminal vesicle.</p>
+</div>
+<a name='Footnote_5_5' id="Footnote_5_5"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_5_5'>[5]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p>Urinary vesicle.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XVII' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XVII"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>A word of Advice to both Sexes, consisting of several
+Directions with regard to Copulation</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>As Nature has a mutual desire for copulation in every creature,
+for the increase and propagation of its kind, and more especially
+in man, <!-- Page 97 --><a name='Page_97' id="Page_97"></a> the
+lord of creation and the masterpiece of Nature, in order that such
+a noble piece of divine workmanship should not perish, something
+ought to be said concerning it, it being the foundation of
+everything that we have hitherto been treating of, since without
+copulation there can be no generation. Seeing, therefore, so much
+depends upon it, I have thought it necessary, before concluding the
+first book, to give such directions to both sexes, for the
+performance of that act, as may appear efficacious to the end for
+which nature designed it, but it will be done with such caution as
+not to offend the chastest ear, nor to put the fair sex to the
+blush when they read it.</p>
+<p>In the first place, then, when a married couple from the desire
+of having children are about to make use of those means that Nature
+has provided for that purpose, it is well to stimulate the body
+with generous restoratives, that it may be active and vigorous. And
+the imagination should be charmed with sweet music, and if all care
+and thoughts of business be drowned in a glass of rosy wine, so
+that their spirit may be raised to the highest pitch of ardour, it
+would be as well, for troubles, cares or sadness are enemies to the
+pleasures of Venus. And if the woman should conceive when sexual
+intercourse takes place at such times of disturbance,
+<!-- Page 98 --><a name='Page_98' id="Page_98"></a> it would have a
+bad effect upon the child. But though generous restoratives may be
+employed for invigorating nature, yet all excess should be
+carefully avoided, for it will check the briskness of the spirits
+and make them dull and languid, and as it also interferes with
+digestion, it must necessarily be an enemy <i>to</i> copulation;
+for it is food taken moderately and that is well digested, which
+enables a man to perform the dictates of Nature with vigour and
+activity, and it is also necessary, that in their mutual embraces
+they meet each other with equal ardour, for, if not, the woman
+either will not conceive, or else the child may be weak bodily, or
+mentally defective. I, therefore, advise them to excite their
+desires mutually before they begin their conjugal intercourse, and
+when they have done what nature requires, a man must be careful not
+to withdraw himself from his wife's arms too soon, lest some sudden
+cold should strike into the womb and occasion miscarriage, and so
+deprive them of the fruits of their labour.</p>
+<p>And when the man has withdrawn himself after a suitable time,
+the woman should quietly go to rest, with all calmness and
+composure of mind, free from all anxious and disturbing thoughts,
+or any other mental worry. And she must, as far as possible, avoid
+turning <!-- Page 99 --><a name='Page_99' id="Page_99"></a> over
+from the side on which she was first lying, and also keep from
+coughing and sneezing, because as it violently shakes the body, it
+is a great enemy to conception.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='A_PRIVATE_LOOKING_GLASS_FOR_THE_FEMALE_SEX' id=
+"A_PRIVATE_LOOKING_GLASS_FOR_THE_FEMALE_SEX"></a>
+<h1><!-- Page 100 --><a name='Page_100' id="Page_100"></a> A<br />
+PRIVATE LOOKING-GLASS<br />
+FOR THE<br />
+FEMALE SEX</h1>
+<hr class="short" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II' id="LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II"></a>
+<h2>PART II</h2>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_I' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_I"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Treating of the several Maladies incident to the womb, with
+proper remedies for the cure of each</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The womb is placed in the <i>hypogastrium</i>, or lower part of
+the body, in the cavity called the <i>pelvis</i>, having the
+straight gut on one side to <!-- Page 101 --><a name='Page_101' id=
+"Page_101"></a> protect it against the hardness of the backbone,
+and the bladder on the other side to protect it against blows. Its
+form or shape is like a virile member, with this exception, that
+the man's is outside, and the woman's inside.</p>
+<p>It is divided into the neck and body. The neck consists of a
+hard fleshy substance, much like cartilage, and at the end of it
+there is a membrane placed transversely, which is called the hymen.
+Near the neck there is a prominent pinnacle, which is called the
+door of the womb, because it preserves the <i>matrix</i> from cold
+and dust. The Greeks called it <i>clitoris</i>, and the Latins
+<i>praeputium muliebre</i>, because the Roman women abused these
+parts to satisfy their mutual unlawful lusts, as St. Paul says,
+Romans 1. 26.</p>
+<p>The body of the womb is where the child is conceived, and this
+is not altogether round, but dilates itself into two angles; the
+outward part is full of sinews, which are the cause of its
+movements, but inside it is fleshy. It is wrongly said, that in the
+cavity of the womb there are seven divided cells or receptacles for
+the male seed, but anatomists know that there are only two, and
+also that those two are not divided by a partition, but only by a
+line or suture running through the middle of it.</p>
+<p>At the bottom of the cavity there are little
+<!-- Page 102 --><a name='Page_102' id="Page_102"></a> holes called
+<i>cotyledones</i>, which are the ends of certain veins or
+arteries, and serve breeding women to convey nourishment to the
+child, which is received by the umbilical and other veins, to carry
+the courses to the <i>matrix</i>.</p>
+<p>As to menstruation, it is defined as a monthly flow of bad and
+useless blood, and of the super-abundance of it, for it is an
+excrement in quality, though it is pure and incorrupt, like the
+blood in the veins. And that the menstruous blood is pure in
+itself, and of the same quality as that in the veins, is proved in
+two ways.&mdash;First, from the final object of the blood, which is
+the propagation and preservation of mankind, that man might be
+conceived; and that, being begotten, he might be comforted and
+preserved both in and out of the womb, and all allow that it is
+true that a child in the matrix is nourished by the blood. And it
+is true that when it is out of it, it is nourished by the same; for
+the milk is nothing but the menstruous blood made white in the
+breast. Secondly, it is proved to be true by the way it is
+produced, as it is the superfluity of the last aliment of the
+fleshy parts.</p>
+<p>The natural end of man and woman's being is to propagate. Now,
+in the act of conception one must be an active agent and the other
+passive, for if both were similarly constituted, they
+<!-- Page 103 --><a name='Page_103' id="Page_103"></a> could not
+propagate. Man, therefore, is hot and dry, whilst woman is cold and
+moist: he is the agent, and she the passive or weaker vessel, that
+she may be subject to the office of the man. It is necessary that
+woman should be of a cold constitution, because a redundancy of
+Nature for the infant that depends on her is required of her; for
+otherwise there would be no surplus of nourishment for the child,
+but no more than the mother requires, and the infant would weaken
+the mother, and like as in the viper, the birth of the infant would
+be the death of the parent.</p>
+<p>The monthly purgations continue from the fifteenth to the
+forty-sixth or fiftieth year; but a suppression often occurs, which
+is either natural or morbid: the courses are suppressed naturally
+during pregnancy, and whilst the woman is suckling. The morbid
+suppression remains to be spoken of.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_II' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_II"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 104 --><a name='Page_104' id="Page_104"></a> CHAPTER
+II</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Retention of the Courses</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The suppression of the menstrual periods, is an interruption of
+that accustomed evacuation of blood, which comes from the matrix
+every month, and the part affected is the womb.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CAUSE.</h3>
+<p>The cause of this suppression is either external or internal.
+The external cause may be heat or dryness of air, want of sleep,
+too much work, violent exercise, etc., whereby the substance is so
+consumed, and the body so exhausted that nothing is left over to be
+got rid of, as is recorded of the Amazons who, being active and
+constantly in motion, had their courses very little, if at all. Or
+it may be brought about by cold which is very frequent, as it
+vitiates and thickens the blood, and binds up the passages, so that
+it cannot flow out.</p>
+<p>The internal cause is either instrumental or material; in the
+womb or in the blood. In the womb, it may be in various ways; by
+humours, and abscesses and ulcers, by the narrowness of the veins
+and passages, or by the adipose membrane in fat bodies, pressing on
+the neck of the <!-- Page 105 --><a name='Page_105' id=
+"Page_105"></a> matrix, but then they must have hernia, zirthilis,
+for in men the membrane does not reach so low; by too much cold or
+heat, the one vitiating the action, and the other consuming the
+matter through the wrong formation of the uterine parts; by the
+neck of the womb being turned aside, and sometimes, though rarely,
+by a membrane or excrescence of the flesh growing at the mouth or
+neck of the womb. The blood may be in fault in two ways, in
+quantity and in quality; in quantity, when it is so consumed that
+no surplus is left over, as in viragoes or virile women, who,
+through their heat and natural strength, consume it all in their
+last nourishment; as Hippocrates writes of Prethusa, for when her
+husband praised her overmuch, her courses were suppressed, her
+voice changed and she got a beard with a manly face. But I think,
+rather that these must be <i>Gynophagi,</i> or woman-eaters, rather
+than women-breeders, because they consume one of the principles of
+generation, which gives a being to the world, viz., the menstruous
+blood. The blood may likewise be lost, and the courses checked by
+nosebleeding, by bleeding piles, by dysentery, commonly called the
+bloody flux, by many other discharges, and by chronic diseases.
+Secondly, the matter may be vitiated in quality, and if it be
+sanguineous, sluggish, <!-- Page 106 --><a name='Page_106' id=
+"Page_106"></a> bilious or melancholy, and any of these will cause
+an obstruction in the veins.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SIGNS.</h3>
+<p>Signs which manifest the disease are pains in the head, neck,
+back and loins; weariness of the whole body (but especially of the
+hips and legs, because the womb is near those parts); palpitation
+of the heart. The following are particular signs:&mdash;If the
+suppression arises from a cold, the woman becomes heavy, sluggish,
+pale and has a slow pulse; Venus' combats are neglected, the urine
+is thick, the blood becomes watery and great in quantity, and the
+bowels become constipated. If it arises from heat, the signs are
+just the opposite. If the retention be natural and arises from
+conception, this may be known by drinking hydromel, i.e., water and
+honey, after supper, before going to bed, by the effect which it
+has; for if after taking it, she feels a heating pain about the
+navel and the lower parts of the abdomen, it is a sign that she has
+conceived, and that the suppression is natural.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>PROGNOSTICS.</h3>
+<p>The whole body is affected by any disorder of the womb, and
+especially the heart, the liver <!-- Page 107 --><a name='Page_107'
+id="Page_107"></a> and the brain, and there is a singular sympathy
+between the womb and those three organs. Firstly, the womb
+communicates with the heart by the mediation of those arteries
+which come from the aorta. Hence, when menstruation is suppressed,
+fainting, swooning, a very low pulse, and shortness of breath will
+ensue. Secondly, it communicates with the liver by the veins
+derived from the hollow vein. Obstructions, jaundice, dropsy,
+induration of the spleen will follow. Thirdly, it communicates with
+the brain by the nerves and membranes of the back; hence arise
+epilepsy, madness, fits of melancholy, pains in the back of the
+head, unaccountable fears and inability to speak. I may, therefore,
+well agree with Hippocrates that if menstruation be suppressed,
+many dangerous diseases will follow.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CURE.</h3>
+<p>In the cure of this, and of all the other following cases, I
+shall observe the following order:&mdash;The cures will be taken
+from surgical, pharmaceutical and diuretical means. The suppression
+has a plethoric effect, and must be removed by the evacuation;
+therefore we begin with bleeding. In the middle of the menstrual
+period, open the liver vein, and two days before, open
+<!-- Page 108 --><a name='Page_108' id="Page_108"></a> the saphena
+in both feet; if the repletion is not very great apply cupping
+glasses to the legs and thighs, although there may be no hope of
+removing the suppression. As in some women, the cotyledones are so
+closed up that nothing but copulation will open them, yet it will
+be well to relieve the woman as much as possible by opening the
+hemoroid veins by applying a leech. After bleeding let the place be
+prepared and made flexible with syrup of stychas, calamint, betony,
+hyssop, mugwort, horehound, fumitary, maidenhair. Bathe the parts
+with camomiles, pennyroyal, savias, bay-leaves, juniper-berries,
+rue, marjoram, feverfew. Take a handful each of nep, maidenhair,
+succory and betony leaves and make a decoction, and take three
+ounces of it, syrup of maidenhair, mugwort and succory, half an
+ounce of each. After she comes out of her bath, let her drink it
+off. Purge with <i>Pill agaric, fleybany, corb, feriae</i>. In this
+case, Galen recommends <i>pilulae of caberica coloquintida</i>;
+for, as they are good for purging the bad humours, so also they
+open the passages of the womb, and strengthen it by their aromatic
+qualities.</p>
+<p>If the stomach be over-loaded, let her take an emetic, yet such
+a one as may work both ways, lest if it only works upwards, it
+should check the humours too much. Take two drachms of
+<!-- Page 109 --><a name='Page_109' id="Page_109"></a> trochisks of
+agaric, infuse this in two ounces of oxymel in which dissolve one
+scruple and a half of <i>electuary dissarum</i>, and half an ounce
+of <i>benedic laxit</i>. Take this as a purge.</p>
+<p>After the humour has been got rid of, proceed to more suitable
+and stronger remedies. Take a drachm and a half of trochisk of
+myrrh; ten grains of musk with the juice of smallage; make twelve
+pills and take six every morning, or after supper, on going to bed.
+Take half an ounce of cinnamon, two drachms each of smirutium, or
+rogos, valerin aristolochia; two scruples each of astrumone root
+and saffron; two drachms of spec. diambia; four scruples of
+trochisk of myrrh; two scruples tartari vitriolari; make half into
+a powder; make lozenges with mugwort water and sugar, and take one
+drachm of them every morning; or mix a drachm of the powder with
+one drachm of sugar, and take it in white wine. Take two drachms
+each of prepared steel and spec. hair; one scruple each of borax
+and spec. of myrrh, with savine juice; make it up into eighty-eight
+lozenges and take three every other day before dinner. Take one
+scruple of castor, half a drachm of wild carrot seed with syrup of
+mugwort, and make four pills, take them in the morning fasting, for
+three days following, before the usual time of purging. Take five
+drachms each of agaric, <!-- Page 110 --><a name='Page_110' id=
+"Page_110"></a> aristolochia, and juice of horehound; six drachma
+each of rhubarb, spikenard, aniseed, guidanum, asafoetida,
+mallow-root, gentian, of the three peppers and of liquorice: make
+an electuary with honey, and take three drachms for a dose. For
+phlegmatic constitutions nothing can be better than the decoction
+of guaiacum wood with a little disclaim, taken fasting in the
+morning, for twelve days consecutively, without producing
+sweating.</p>
+<p>Treat the lower parts of the body to suffumigating, pessaries,
+ointments and injections; for fumigating use cinnamon, nutmeg, the
+berries of the bay tree, mugwort, galbanum, molanthium, amber, etc.
+Make pessaries of figs and the bruised leaves of dog's mercury,
+rolled up in lint, and if a stronger one is required, make one of
+myrrh, opopanax, ammoniac, galbanum, sagepanum, mithridate, agaric,
+coloquintida, tec. Make injections of a decoction of origane
+mugwort, dog's mercury, betony, and eggs; inject into the womb with
+a female syringe. Take half an ounce each of oil of almonds,
+lilies, capers, camomiles; two drachms each of laudanum and oil of
+myrrh; make a salve with wax, with which anoint the place; make
+injections of fenugreek, camomiles, melilot, dill, marjoram,
+pennyroyal, feverfew, juniper berries and calamint; but if the
+suppression arises <!-- Page 111 --><a name='Page_111' id=
+"Page_111"></a> from a lack of matter, then the courses ought not
+to be brought on until the spirits be raised and the amount of
+blood increased; or if it arises from affections of the womb
+itself, as dropsy or inflammation, then particular care must be
+used; but I will not lay stress on this here, but will mention the
+remedies in their order.</p>
+<p>If the retention comes from repletion or fullness, if the air be
+hot and dry, take moderate exercise before meals, and very light
+diet and drinks, and with your food take garden savory&mdash;thyme
+and origane, if it arises from emptiness and defect of matter: if
+the weather be moist and moderately hot, avoid exercise and late
+hours; let your food be nourishing and easy of digestion, such as
+raw eggs, lamb, chickens, almonds, milk and the like.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_III' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_III"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 112 --><a name='Page_112' id="Page_112"></a> CHAPTER
+III</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Excessive Menstruation</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The learned say, that truth is manifested by comparing
+contraries, and so, as I have above spoken of the suppression of
+menstruation, it is now necessary that I should treat of excessive
+menstruation, which is no less dangerous than the former. This
+immoderate monthly flow is defined as a sanguineous discharge, as
+it consists merely of blood, wherein it differs from the false
+courses or whites, of which I shall speak further on. Secondly, it
+is said to proceed from the womb; for there are two ways in which
+the blood issues forth; one by the internal veins of the body of
+the womb (and this is properly called the monthly flow), the other
+is by those veins which terminate in the neck of the matrix, which
+Aetius calls haemorrhoids of the womb. In quantity, Hippocrates
+said, it should be about eighteen ounces, and they should last
+about three days: and when the faculties of the body are weakened
+by their flow, we may take it that the discharge is inordinate. In
+bodies which abound in gross humours, this immoderate flow
+sometimes unburdens nature of her load and ought not to be checked
+without a physician's advice.</p>
+<br />
+<!-- Page 113 --><a name='Page_113' id="Page_113"></a>
+<h3>CAUSE.</h3>
+<p>The cause is either internal or external. The internal cause is
+threefold; in the substance, the instrument or the power. The
+matter, which is the blood, may be vitiated in two ways; first, by
+the heat of the constitution, climate or season, heating the blood,
+whereby the passages are dilated, and the power weakened so that it
+cannot retain the blood. Secondly, by falls, blows, violent
+motions, rupture of the veins, etc. The external cause may be the
+heat of the air, heavy burdens, unnatural childbirth, etc.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SIGNS.</h3>
+<p>In this excessive flow the appetite is lessened, conception is
+checked and all the functions weakened; the feet swell, the colour
+of the face changes, and the whole body is weakened. If the flow
+comes from the rupture of a vein, the body is sometimes cold, the
+blood flows out in streams, suddenly, and causes great pain. If it
+arises from heat, and the orifice of the vein is dilated, there is
+little or no pain, but yet the blood flows faster than it does when
+caused by erosion, but not so fast as it does in a rupture. If
+caused by erosion, the woman feels a scalding of the passage, and
+it differs from the other two, <!-- Page 114 --><a name='Page_114'
+id="Page_114"></a> in so much as it does not flow so quickly or so
+freely as they do. If it is caused by weakness of the womb, the
+woman feels a dislike for sexual intercourse. Lastly, if it
+proceeds from the defective quality of the blood let some of it
+drop into a cloth, and when it is dry, you may judge, of the
+quality by the colour. If it be passionate it will be yellow; if
+melancholy, it will be black, and if phlegmatic, it will be
+waterish and whitish.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>PROGNOSTICS.</h3>
+<p>If convulsions are joined to the flow, it is dangerous, because
+that intimates that the noble parts are affected, convulsions
+caused by emptiness are deadly. If they continue long, they will be
+very difficult to cure, and it was one of the miracles which our
+Saviour Christ wrought, to cure a woman of this disease of twelve
+years standing.</p>
+<p>To conclude, if the flow be excessive, many diseases will
+follow, which will be almost impossible to cure; the blood, being
+consumed together with the innate heat, either morbid, dropsical,
+or paralytical diseases will follow.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CURE.</h3>
+<p>The cure consists in three particulars. First,
+<!-- Page 115 --><a name='Page_115' id="Page_115"></a> in expelling
+and carrying away the blood. Secondly, in connecting and removing
+the fluxibility of the matter. Thirdly, in incorporating the veins
+and faculties. For the first, to get rid of the superfluous blood,
+open a vein in the arm, and draw off as much blood as the strength
+of the patient will allow; not all at one time, but at intervals,
+for by those means the spirits are less weakened, and the reaction
+so much the greater.</p>
+<p>Apply cupping glasses to the breasts and also over the liver,
+and to correct the flexibility of the matter, purgative means,
+moderated by astringents, may be employed.</p>
+<p>If it is caused by erosion, and salt phlegm, prepare with syrup
+of violets, wormwood, roses, citron peel, succory, etc. Then make
+the following purge:&mdash;mirabolans, half an ounce; trochisks of
+agaric, one drachm; make a decoction with the plantain-water, and
+add syrup of roses lax. three ounces, and make a draught.</p>
+<p>If caused by any mental excitement, prepare the body by syrup of
+roses, myrtles, sorrel and parsley, mixed with plantain-water,
+knot-grass and endive. Then purge with the following
+draught:&mdash;Take one drachm each of the void of mirabolans, and
+rhubarb, cinnamon fifteen grains; infuse for a night in endive
+water; add to the strained water half an ounce of pulp of
+<!-- Page 116 --><a name='Page_116' id="Page_116"></a> tamarinds
+and of cassia, and make a draught. If the blood be waterish as it
+is in dropsical subjects and flows out easily on account of its
+thinness, it will be a good plan to draw off the water by purging
+with agaric, elaterium and coloquintida. Sweating is also useful in
+this case, as by it the noxious matter is carried off, and the
+motion of the blood to other parts. To produce sweating, employ
+cardus water, and mithridate, or a decoction of guaiacum and
+sarsaparilla. Gum guaiacum is also a great producer of
+perspiration, and sarsaparilla pills, taken every night before
+going to bed are also highly to be recommended. If the blood pours
+out, without any evil quality in itself, then strengthening means
+only should be employed, which is a thing to be done in cases of
+inordinate discharge.</p>
+<p>Take one scruple of ol. ammoniac, one drachm of treacle, half an
+ounce of conserve of roses and make an electuary with syrup of
+myrtle, or if the discharge be of long standing take two drachms of
+matrix, one drachm of olilanum troch. de carbara, a scruple of
+balustium; make into a powder and form into pills with syrup of
+quinces, and take one before every meal. Take two scruples each of
+troch. dechambede, scoriaferri, coral and frankincense; pound these
+to a fine powder, and make into lozenges with sugar and plantain
+water. Asses' dung is also approved <!-- Page 117 --><a name=
+'Page_117' id="Page_117"></a> of, whether taken inwardly with syrup
+of quinces or applied outwardly with steeled water. Galen by
+sending the juice of it into the womb by means of a syringe for
+four days consecutively, cured this immediate flow, which could not
+be checked in any other way. Let the patient take one scruple and a
+half of pilon in water before going to bed; make a fumigation for
+the womb of mastic, frankincense and burnt frogs, adding the hoof
+of a mule. Take an ounce each of the juice of knot-grass, comfoly
+and quinces; a drachm of camphor; dip a piece of silk or cotton
+into it and apply it to the place. Take half an ounce each of oil
+of mastic, myrtle, and quinces; a drachm each of fine bole and
+troch. decardas, and a sufficient quantity of dragon's blood, make
+an ointment and apply it before and behind. Take an ounce and a
+half each of plantain, shepherd's purse and red rose leaves; an
+ounce of dried mint, and three ounces of bean flour; boil all these
+in plantain water and make two plasters:&mdash;apply one before and
+one behind. If the blood flows from those veins which are
+terminated at the neck of the matrix, then it is not called an
+undue discharge of the <i>menses</i>, but haemorrhoids of the womb.
+The same remedy, however, will serve for both, only the
+instrumental cure will be a little different; for in uterine
+haemorrhoids, the ends of the <!-- Page 120 --><a name='Page_120'
+id="Page_120"></a> <!-- Page 118 --><a name='Page_118' id=
+"Page_118"></a> <!-- Page 119 --><a name='Page_119' id=
+"Page_119"></a> veins hang over like teats, which must be removed
+by cutting, and then the veins closed with aloes, fine bole, burnt
+alum, myrrh, mastic, with comfoly-juice and knot grass, laid upon
+it like a plaster.</p>
+<center><img src='img/co009.jpg' alt=
+'Position of the Embryos in a plural conception' title=
+'' /></center>
+<center><img src='img/co008.jpg' alt=
+'Process of Delivery.' title='' /></center>
+<p>The air should be cold and dry, and all motion of the body
+should be prohibited. Her diet should consist of pheasants,
+partridges, grouse, rabbits, calves' feet, etc., and her drink
+should be mixed with the juice of pomegranates and quinces.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_IV' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_IV"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Weeping of the Womb.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The weeping of the womb is an unnatural flow of blood, coming
+from it in drops, like tears, and causing violent pains in it, and
+occurring at no fixed period or time. By some it is supposed to be
+produced by the excessive flow of the courses, as they flow
+copiously and freely; this is continued, though only little at a
+time, and accompanied by great pain and difficulty of
+<!-- Page 121 --><a name='Page_121' id="Page_121"></a> passing it,
+and on this account it is compared to the strangury.</p>
+<p>The cause is in the power, instrument or matter; in the power,
+on account of its being enfeebled so that it cannot expel the
+blood, and which, remaining there, makes that part of the womb grow
+hard, and distends the vessels, and from that, pains in the womb
+arise. In the instrument, from the narrowness of the passage.
+Lastly, it may be the matter of the blood which is at fault, and
+which may be in too great quantities; or the quality may be bad, so
+that it is thick and gross and cannot flow out as it ought to do,
+but only in drops. The signs will best be ascertained by the
+patient's own account, but there will be pains in the head, stomach
+and back, with inflammation, difficulty of breathing and
+excoriation of the matrix. If the patient's strength will permit
+it, first open a vein in the arm, rub the upper parts and let a
+cord be fastened tightly round the arm, so that the force of the
+blood may be carried backward; then apply such things as may relax
+the womb, and assuage the heat of the blood, as poultices made of
+bran, linseed, mallows, dog's mercury and artiplex. If the blood be
+viscous and thick, add mugwort, calamint, dictain and betony to it,
+and let the patient take about the size of a nutmeg of Venic
+treacle, and syrup of mugwort <!-- Page 122 --><a name='Page_122'
+id="Page_122"></a> every morning; make an injection of aloes, dog's
+mercury, linseed, groundsel, mugwort, fenugreek, with sweet almond
+oil.</p>
+<p>Sometimes it is caused by wind, and then bleeding must not be
+had recourse to, but instead take one ounce of syrup of feverfew;
+half an ounce each of honey, syrup of roses, syrup of stachus; an
+ounce each of calamint water, mugwort, betony and hyssop, and make
+a julep. If the pain continues, use this purge:&mdash;Take a drachm
+of spec. Hitrae, half an ounce of diacatholicon, one ounce of syrup
+of roses and laxative, and make a draught with a decoction of
+mugwort and the four cordial flowers. If it proceeds from weakness,
+she must be strengthened, but if from grossness of blood, let the
+quality of it be altered, as I have shown in the preceding chapter.
+Lastly, if her bowels are confined, move them by an injection of a
+decoction of camomiles, betony, feverfew, mallows, linseed,
+juniper-berries, cumminseed, aniseed, melilot, and add to it half
+an ounce of diacatholicon; two drachms of hiera piera, an ounce
+each of honey and oil and a drachm and a half of sol. nitre. The
+patient must abstain from salt, acid and windy food.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_V' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_V"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 123 --><a name='Page_123' id="Page_123"></a> CHAPTER
+V</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The false Courses, or Whites.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>From the womb, not only the menstruous blood proceeds, but many
+evacuations, which were summed up by the ancients under the title
+of <i>rhoos gunaikeios</i>,<a name='FNanchor_6_6' id=
+"FNanchor_6_6"></a> <a href='#Footnote_6_6'><sup>[6]</sup></a>
+which is the distillation of a variety of corrupt humours through
+the womb, which flow from the whole body or a part of it, varying
+both in courses and colour.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CAUSE.</h3>
+<p>The cause is either promiscuously in the whole body, by a
+cacochymia; or weakness of it, or in some of its parts, as in the
+liver, which by a weakness of the blood producing powers, cause a
+production of corrupt blood, which then is reddish. Sometimes, when
+the fall is sluggish in its action, and does not get rid of those
+superfluities engendered in the liver, the matter is yellowish.
+Sometimes it is in the spleen when it does not cleanse the blood of
+the dregs and rejected particles, and then the matter which flows
+forth is blackish. It may also come from <!-- Page 124 --><a name=
+'Page_124' id="Page_124"></a> a cold in the head, or from any other
+decayed or corrupted member, but if the discharge be white, the
+cause lies either in the stomach or loins. In the stomach, by some
+crude substance there, and vitiated by grief, melancholy or some
+other mental disturbance; for otherwise, if the matter were only
+crude phlegm and noways corrupt, being taken into the liver it
+might be converted into the blood; for phlegm in the ventricle is
+called nourishment half digested; but being corrupt, though sent
+into the liver it cannot be turned into nutriment, for the second
+decoction in the stomach cannot correct that which the first
+corrupted; and therefore the liver sends it to the womb, which can
+neither digest nor reject it, and so it is voided out with the same
+colour which it had in the ventricle. The cause may also be in the
+veins being overheated whereby the spermatical matter flows out
+because of its thinness. The external causes may be moistness of
+the air, eating bad food, anger, grief, sloth, too much sleep,
+costiveness.</p>
+<p>The signs are bodily disturbances, shortness of breathing, and
+foul breath, a distaste for food, swollen eyes and feet, and low
+spirits; discharges of different colours, as red, black, green,
+yellow and white from the womb. It differs from the flowing of the
+courses and from too abundant menstruation, in so far as it keeps
+no <!-- Page 125 --><a name='Page_125' id="Page_125"></a> certain
+period, and is of many colours, all of which spring from blood.</p>
+<p>If the flux be phlegmatic, it will last long and be hard to
+cure, but if sickness or diarrhoea supervene, it carries off the
+humour and cures the disease. If it is abundant it does not last so
+long, but it is more dangerous, for it will cause a cleft in the
+neck of the womb, and sometimes also an excoriation of the matrix;
+if melancholy, it must be dangerous and obstinate. The flux of the
+haemorrhoids, however, assists the cure.</p>
+<p>If the matter which flows out be reddish, open a vein in the
+arm; if not, apply ligatures to the arms and shoulders. Galen
+boasts that he cured the wife of Brutus, who was suffering from
+this disease, by rubbing the upper part with honey.</p>
+<p>If it is caused by the brain, take syrup of betony and marjoram.
+Give as a purgative <i>Pill. coch.</i> or <i>Agaric</i>; make
+nasalia of sage, or hyssop juice, betony, flagella, with one drop
+of oil of <i>Elect. Dianth. Rosat. Diambrae, diamosci dulus</i>,
+one drachm of each, and make lozenges to be taken every morning and
+evening. <i>Auri Alexandrina</i>, half a drachm at night on going
+to bed. If these things have no effect, try suffumigation and
+plasters, as they are prescribed above.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 126 --><a name='Page_126' id="Page_126"></a> If it
+arises from crudities of the stomach or from a cold, disordered
+liver, take a decoction of <i>lignum sanctum</i> every morning,
+purge with <i>pill de agaric, de hermadact, de hiera, diacolinthis,
+foetid-agrigatio</i>; take two drachms of elect. aromet-roses, one
+scruple each of dried citron peel, nutmeg, long pepper; one drachm
+of draglanga; half a scruple each of <i>fantalum album,</i> ling,
+aloes; six ounces of sugar, with mint water: make lozenges of it,
+and take them before meals. If there be repletion besides the
+rigidity of the liver, purging by means of an emetic is to be
+recommended, for which take three drachms of the electuary diasatu.
+Galen allows diuretical remedies, such as <i>aqua
+petrofolma</i>.</p>
+<p>If the discharge be angry, treat it with syrup of roses,
+violets, endive and succory; give a purge of mirabolans, manna,
+rhubarb, and cassia. Take two drachms of rhubarb, one of aniseed,
+and one scruple and a half of cinnamon; infuse them into six ounces
+of syrup of prunes, and add one ounce of strained manna, and take
+it in the morning as required. Take one drachm each of the
+following drugs: <i>diatonlanton, diacorant, diarthod, abbaris,
+dyacydomei</i>, four ounces of sugar, and make into lozenges with
+plantain water. If the gall be sluggish, and does not stir the
+bowels, give warm injections of a decoction
+<!-- Page 127 --><a name='Page_127' id="Page_127"></a> of the four
+mollifying herbs, with honey of roses and aloes.</p>
+<p>If the flow be bilious, treat the patient with syrup of
+maiden-hair; epithynium, polypody, borage, buglos, fumitary, hart's
+tongue and syrups, bisantius, which must be made without vinegar,
+else it will assist the disease instead of nature, for melancholy
+is increased by the use of vinegar, and both Hippocrates, Silvius
+and Avenzoar reject it as injurious for the womb, and therefore not
+to be used internally in uterine diseases. <i>Pilulae sumariae,
+pilulae lud. delupina, lazuli diosena</i> and <i>confetio hamec</i>
+are purges of bile. Take two ounces of pounded prunes, one drachm
+of senna, a drachm and a half each of epithimium, polypody and
+fumitary, and an ounce of sour dates, and make a decoction with
+endive water; take four ounces of it and add three drachms of
+hamesech and three of manna. Or take a scruple each of <i>pil.
+indic. foetid, agarici, trochis ati</i>; one scruple of rhubarb
+pills, six grains of lapis lazuli, make into pills with epithimium,
+and take them once a week. Take three drachms of elect.
+loetificans. Galen three drachms, a drachm each of
+<i>diamargaritum, calimi, diamosci dulus</i>; a drachm of conserve
+of borage, violets and burglos; one drachm of candied citron peel,
+seven ounces of sugar, and make into lozenges with rose water.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 128 --><a name='Page_128' id="Page_128"></a> Lastly
+let the womb be cleansed of all corrupt matter, and then be
+strengthened. In order to purify it, make injections of the
+decoction of betony, feverfew, spikenard, bismust, mercury and
+sage, and add two ounces each of sugar and sweet almond oil;
+pessaries may also be made of silk or cotton, softened in the juice
+of the above mentioned herbs.</p>
+<p>You must prepare trochisks, thus, to strengthen the womb. Take
+one ounce each of mugwort, feverfew, myrrh, amber, mace, storax,
+ling aloes and red roses, and make lozenges or troches with
+mucilage of tragacanth; throw one of them on to hot coals and
+fumigate the womb with red wine, in which mastic, fine bole,
+malustia and red roots have been decocted; anoint the matrix with
+oil of quinces and myrtles, and apply a plaster to it, for the
+womb; and let the woman take <i>diamosdum dulco</i>, <i>aract</i>,
+and <i>slemoticum</i> every morning.</p>
+<p>A drying diet is recommended as best, because in these cases the
+body abounds with phlegmatic and crude humours. On this account,
+Hippocrates advises the patient to go to bed supperless. Her food
+should consist of partridges, pheasant and grouse, roasted rather
+than boiled, too much sleep must be prohibited whilst moderate
+exercise is very advisable.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><!-- Page 129 --><a name='Page_129' id="Page_129"></a>
+FOOTNOTES:</p>
+<a name='Footnote_6_6' id="Footnote_6_6"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_6_6'>[6]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p>The female flowing.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_VI' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_VI"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The Suffocation of the Mother</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>This, which if simply considered, will be found to be merely the
+cause of an effect, is called in English, "the suffocation of the
+mother," not because the womb is strangled, but because by its
+retraction towards the midriff and stomach, which presses it up, so
+that the instrumental cause of respiration, the midriff, is
+suffocated, and acting with the brain, cause the animating faculty,
+the efficient cause of respiration, also to be interrupted, when
+the body growing cold, and the action weakened, the woman falls to
+the ground as if she were dead.</p>
+<p>Some women remain longer in those hysterical attacks than
+others, and Rabbi Moses mentions some who lay in the fit for two
+days. Rufus writes of one who continued in it for three days and
+three nights, and revived at the end of the three days. And I will
+give you an example so that we may take warning by the example of
+other men. Paroetus mentions a Spanish woman who was suddenly
+seized with suffocation of the womb, and was thought to be dead.
+Her friends, for their own satisfaction, sent for a surgeon in
+order to have her <!-- Page 130 --><a name='Page_130' id=
+"Page_130"></a> opened, and as soon as he began to make an
+incision, she began to move, and come to herself again with great
+cries, to the horror and surprise of all those present.</p>
+<p>In order that the living may be distinguished from the dead, old
+writers prescribe three experiments. The first is, to lay a feather
+on the mouth, and by its movements you may judge whether the
+patient be alive or dead; the second is, to place a glass of water
+on the breast, and if it moves, it betokens life; the third is, to
+hold a bright, clean, looking-glass to the mouth and nose, and if
+the glass be dimmed with a little moisture on it, it betokens life.
+These three experiments are good, but you must not depend upon them
+too much, for though the feather and the glass do not move, and the
+looking-glass continues bright and clear, yet it is not a necessary
+consequence that she is dead. For the movement of the lungs, by
+which breathing is produced, may be checked, so that she cannot
+breathe, and yet internal heat may remain, which is not evident by
+the motion of the breast or lungs, but lies hidden in the heart and
+arteries.</p>
+<p>Examples of this we find in flies and swallows, who seem dead to
+all outward appearances, breathless and inanimate, and yet they
+live by that heat which is stored up in the heart
+<!-- Page 131 --><a name='Page_131' id="Page_131"></a> and inward
+arteries. At the approach of summer, however, the internal heat,
+being restored to the outer parts, they are then brought to life
+again, out of their sleeping trance.</p>
+<p>Those women, therefore, who apparently die suddenly, and from no
+visible cause, should not be buried until the end of three days,
+lest the living be buried instead of the dead.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CURE.</h3>
+<p>The part affected is the womb, of which there are two
+motions&mdash;natural and symptomatic. The natural motion is, when
+the womb attracts the male seed, or expels the infant, and the
+symptomatical motion, of which we are speaking, is a convulsive
+drawing up of the womb.</p>
+<p>The cause is usually in the retention of the seed, or in the
+suppression of the menses, which causes a repletion of the corrupt
+humours of the womb, from which a windy refrigeration arises, which
+produces a convulsion of the ligaments of the womb. And just as it
+may arise from humidity or repletion, so also, as it is a
+convulsion, it may be caused by dryness or emptiness. Lastly also,
+it may arise from abortion or from difficult childbirth.</p>
+<br />
+<!-- Page 132 --><a name='Page_132' id="Page_132"></a>
+<h3>SIGNS.</h3>
+<p>On the approach of suffocation of the womb the face becomes
+pale, there is a weakness of the legs, shortness of breathing,
+frigidity of the whole body, with a spasm in the throat, and then
+the woman falls down, bereft of sense and motion; the mouth of the
+womb is closed up, and feels hard when touched with the finger.
+When the paroxysm or the fit is over, she opens her eyes, and as
+she feels an oppression of the stomach, she tries to vomit. And
+lest any one should be deceived into taking one disease for
+another, I will show how it may be distinguished from those
+diseases which most resemble it.</p>
+<p>It differs from apoplexy, as it comes without the patient crying
+out; in hysterical fits also the sense of feeling is not altogether
+destroyed and lost, as it is in apoplexy; and it differs from
+epilepsy, as the eyes are not distorted, and there is spongy froth
+from the mouth. That convulsive motion also, which is frequently
+accompanied by symptoms of suffocation, is not universal, as it is
+in epilepsy, but there is some convulsion, but that without any
+violent agitation. In syncope both breathing and the pulse fail,
+the face grows pale, and the woman faints suddenly; but in
+hysterical <!-- Page 133 --><a name='Page_133' id="Page_133"></a>
+attacks there are usually both breathing and pulse, though these
+are indistinct; the face is red and she has a forewarning of the
+approaching fit. It cannot, however, be denied that syncope may
+accompany this feeling of suffocation. Lastly, it can be
+distinguished from lethargy by the pulse, which is rapid in the
+former, but weak in the latter.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CURE.</h3>
+<p>In the cure of this affection, two things must be taken care
+of:&mdash;<i>In the first place</i>, nature must be stimulated to
+expel these hurtful humours which obscure the senses, so that the
+woman may be brought back from that sleepy fit. <i>Secondly</i>,
+during the intervals of the attack, proper remedies must be
+employed, in order to remove the cause.</p>
+<p>To stimulate nature, apply cupping-glasses to the hips and
+navel: apply ligatures to the thighs, rub the extremities with
+salt, mustard and vinegar, and shout and make a great noise in her
+ears. Hold asafoetida to the nose, or sacopenium steeped in
+vinegar; make her sneeze by blowing castor-powder, white pepper and
+hellebore up her nose; hold burnt feathers, hair, leather, or
+anything else with a strong, <!-- Page 134 --><a name='Page_134'
+id="Page_134"></a> stinking smell under her nose, for bad odours
+are unpleasant to nature, and the animal spirits so strive against
+them, that the natural heat is restored by their means. The brain
+is sometimes so oppressed, that it becomes necessary to burn the
+outer skin of the head with hot oil, or with a hot iron, and strong
+injections and suppositories are useful. Take a handful each of
+sage, calamint, horehound, feverfew, marjoram, betony and hyssop;
+half an ounce of aniseed; two drachma each of coloquintida, white
+hellebore and salgem; boil these in two quarts of water till
+reduced to half; add two ounces of castor oil and two drachms of
+hiera piera and make an injection of it. Or take two ounces of
+boiled honey, half a scruple of spurge, four grains of coloquint,
+two grains of hellebore and drachm of salt; make a suppository.
+Hippocrates mentions a hysterical woman who could only be relieved
+of the paroxysms by pouring cold water on her: yet this is a
+strange cure, and should only be administered in the heat of
+summer, when the sun is in the tropic of Cancer.</p>
+<p>If it be caused by the retention and corruption of the seed, let
+the mid-wife take oil of lilies, marjoram and bay leaves, and
+dissolve two grains of civet in them, and the same quantity of
+musk, and at the moment of the <!-- Page 135 --><a name='Page_135'
+id="Page_135"></a> paroxysm let her dip her finger into the mixture
+and put it into the neck of the womb, and tickle and rub it with
+it.</p>
+<p>When the fit is over, proceed to remove the cause. If it arises
+from suppression of the menses, look in <a href="#Page_107">Chapter
+XI, p. 102</a>, for the cure. If it arises from the retention of
+the seed, a good husband will administer the cure, but those who
+cannot honourably obtain that remedy, must use such means as will
+dry up and diminish the seed, as diaciminum, diacalaminthes, etc.
+The seed of the agnus castus is highly valued as a draught, whether
+taken inwardly, applied outwardly or used as a suffumigation. It
+was held in high esteem by the Athenian women, for by its means
+they remained as pure vessels and preserved their chastity, by only
+strewing it on the bed on which they lay, and hence the name of
+<i>agnus castus</i>, which was given to it, as denoting its
+effects. Make an issue on the inside of each leg, four inches below
+the knee, and then make lozenges of two scruples of agric, half a
+scruple each of wild carrot seed and ligne aloes; three drachms of
+washed turpentine, and make a bolus with a conserve of flowers.
+Eight drachms of castor taken in white wine are very useful in this
+case, or you may make pills of it with dog's tooth, and take them
+on going to bed. <!-- Page 136 --><a name='Page_136' id=
+"Page_136"></a> Take an ounce of white briony root dried and cut up
+like carrots, put it into a little wine and place it on the fire,
+and drink when warm. Take one scruple each of myrrh, castor and
+asafoetida; four grains each of saffron and rue-seed, and make
+eight pills and take two every night on going to bed.</p>
+<p>Galen, from his own experience, recommends powdered agaric, of
+which he frequently gave one scruple in white wine. Put a head of
+bruised garlic on the navel at bed time, and fasten it with a
+swathing band. Make a girdle for the waist of galbanum, and also a
+plaster for the stomach, and put civet and musk on one part of it,
+which must be applied to the navel. Take two drachms each of pulvis
+benedict, and of troches of agaric, a sufficient quantity of
+mithridate, and make two pessaries, and that will purge the matrix
+of wind and phlegm; foment the private parts with salad oil in
+which some feverfew and camomiles have been boiled. Take a handful
+of roseleaves and two scruples of cloves, sew them in a little
+cloth and boil them for ten minutes in malmsey; then apply them, as
+hot as they can be borne, to the mouth of the womb, but do not let
+the smell go up her nose. A dry diet must still be adhered to and
+the moderate use of Venus is advisable. Let her eat aniseed
+biscuits <!-- Page 137 --><a name='Page_137' id="Page_137"></a>
+instead of bread, and roast meat instead of boiled.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_VII' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_VII"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Descending or Falling of the Womb.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The descent of the womb is caused by a relaxation of the
+ligatures, whereby the matrix is carried backward, and in some
+women it protrudes to the size of an egg, and there are two kinds
+of this, distinguished by a descending and a precipitation. The
+descending of the womb is, when it sinks down to the entrance of
+the private parts, and appears either very little or not at all, to
+the eye. Its precipitation is when it is turned inside out like a
+purse, and hangs out between the thighs, like a cupping glass.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CAUSE.</h3>
+<p>This is either external or internal. The external cause is
+difficult childbirth, violent pulling away, or inexperience in
+drawing away the child, violent coughing, sneezing, falls,
+<!-- Page 138 --><a name='Page_138' id="Page_138"></a> blows, and
+carrying heavy burdens. The internal cause, is generally the flow
+of too much moisture into these parts, which hinders the operation
+of the womb, whereby the ligaments by which the womb is supported
+are relaxed. The particular cause, however, lies in the retention
+of the <i>semen</i>, or in the suppression of the monthly
+courses.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SIGNS.</h3>
+<p>The principal gut and the bladder are often so crushed, that the
+passage of both evacuations is hindered. If the urine flows out
+white and thick, and the midriff is interfered with, the loins
+suffer, the private parts are in pain, and the womb descends to
+them, or else comes clean out.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>PROGNOSTICS.</h3>
+<p>If an old woman is thus affected, the cure is very difficult,
+because it weakens the womb, and therefore, though it may be put
+back into its proper place, yet it is apt to get displaced again,
+by a very slight amount of illness. And also with younger women, if
+this disease is inveterate, and if it is caused by putrefaction of
+the nerves, it is incurable.</p>
+<br />
+<!-- Page 139 --><a name='Page_139' id="Page_139"></a>
+<h3>CURE.</h3>
+<p>The womb, being placed by nature between the straight gut and
+the bladder, ought not to be put back again until the powers of
+both are excited. Now that nature is relieved of her burden, let
+the woman be laid on her back so that her legs may be higher than
+her head; let her feet be drawn up towards her private parts, and
+her knees spread open. Then apply oil of sweet almonds and lilies,
+or a decoction of mallows, beet, fenugreek and linseed, to the
+swelling; when the inflammation is reduced, let the midwife rub her
+hand with oil of mastic, and restore the womb to its proper place.
+When the matrix is up, the patient's position must be changed. Her
+legs must be put out quite straight and laid together, and apply
+six cupping glasses to her breast and navel. Boil feverfew,
+mugwort, red rose leaves and comfrey in red wine; make a
+suffumigation for the matrix, and apply sweet scents to her nose.
+When she comes out of her bath, give her an ounce of syrup of
+feverfew with a drachm of dog's tooth (<i>mithridate</i>). Take
+three drachms each of laudanum and mastic, and make a plaster for
+the navel of it, and then make pessaries of asafoetida, saffron,
+comfrey, and mastic, adding a little castor oil.&mdash;Parius
+<!-- Page 140 --><a name='Page_140' id="Page_140"></a> in such
+cases makes his pessaries only of cork, shaped like a small egg; he
+covered them with wax and mastic dissolved together, and fastening
+them to a thread, he put them into the womb.</p>
+<p>The immediate danger being now removed and the matrix returned
+to its natural place the remote cause must be got rid of. If she be
+of full habit of body open a vein, after preparing her with syrup
+of betony, calamint, hyssop and feverfew. Give a purge, and if the
+stomach be oppressed with any crude matter relieve it by emetics
+and by sudorifics of lignum sanctum and sassafras taken twenty days
+consecutively, which dry up the superfluous moisture, and
+consequently suppress the cause of the disease.</p>
+<p>The air should be hot and dry, and her diet hot and attenuating.
+Let her abstain from dancing, jumping, sneezing, as well as from
+all mental and bodily emotions, eat sparingly, not drink much, and
+be moderate in her sleep.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_VIII' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_VIII"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 141 --><a name='Page_141' id="Page_141"></a> CHAPTER
+VIII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Inflammation of the Womb</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The phlegmon, or inflammation of the matrix, is a humour which
+affects the whole womb, and is accompanied by unnatural heat, by
+obstruction and by an accumulation of corrupt blood.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CAUSE.</h3>
+<p>The cause of this affection is suppression of the courses,
+fullness of body, the immoderate use of sexual intercourse,
+frequent handling the genitals, difficult child-birth, violent
+motions of the body, falls, blows, to which may be added, the use
+of strong pessaries, whereby the womb is frequently inflamed,
+cupping glasses, also, fastened to the <i>pubis</i> and
+<i>hypogastrium</i>, draw the humours of the womb.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SIGNS.</h3>
+<p>The signs are pains in the lower parts of the body and head,
+humours, sickness, coldness in the knees, throbbing in the neck,
+palpitation of the heart. Often, also, there is shortness of breath
+because of the heart which is close to the midriff, and the breasts
+sympathising <!-- Page 142 --><a name='Page_142' id="Page_142"></a>
+with the swollen and painful womb. Besides this, if the front of
+the matrix be inflamed, the privates suffer, and the urine is
+suppressed, or only flows with difficulty. If the hinder part be
+inflamed, the loins and back suffer, and the bowels are very
+costive; if the right side be inflamed, the right hip suffers, and
+the right leg is heavy and moves slowly, so that at times she seems
+almost lame. If, however, the left side of the womb be inflamed,
+then the left hip suffers and the left leg is weaker than the
+right. If the neck of the womb is affected, by putting her finger
+in, the midwife feels that its mouth is contracted and closed up,
+and that it is hard round it.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CURE.</h3>
+<p>In the cure, first of all, let the humours which flow to the
+womb be expelled. To effect this, after the bowels have been
+loosened by cooling clysters bleeding will be necessary. Therefore,
+open a vein in the arm, if she is not with child; the day after
+strike the saphena in both feet, fasten ligatures and cupping
+glasses to the arm, and rub the upper part. Purge gently with
+cassia, rhubarb, senna and myrobalan. Take one drachm of senna, a
+scruple of aniseed, myrobalan, half an ounce,
+<!-- Page 143 --><a name='Page_143' id="Page_143"></a> with a
+sufficient quantity of barley water. Make a decoction and dissolve
+syrup of succory in it, and two ounces of rhubarb; pound half an
+ounce of cassia with a few drops of oil of aniseed and make a
+draught. At the commencement of the disease, anoint the private
+parts and loins with oil of roses and quinces: make plasters of
+plantain, linseed, barley meal, melilot, fenugreek, white of eggs,
+and if the pain be intense, a little laudanum; foment the genitals
+with a decoction of poppy-heads, purslace, knot-grass and
+water-lilies. Make injections of goat's milk, rose water, clarified
+whey and honey of roses. When the disease is on a decline, use
+injections of sage, linseed, mugwort, pennyroyal, horehound,
+fenugreek, and anoint the lower parts of the stomach with oil of
+camomiles and violets.</p>
+<p>Take four ounces each of lily and mallow roots, a handful of
+dog's mercury, a handful and a half each of mugwort, feverfew,
+camomile flowers and melilot, bruise the herbs and roots, and boil
+them in a sufficient quantity of milk; then add two ounces each of
+fresh butter, oil of camomiles and lilies, with a sufficient
+quantity of bran, make two plasters, and apply one before and the
+other behind.</p>
+<p>If the tumour cannot be removed, but seems inclined to
+suppurate, take three drachms <!-- Page 144 --><a name='Page_144'
+id="Page_144"></a> each of fenugreek, mallow roots, boiled figs,
+linseed, barley meal, dove's dung and turpentine; half a drachm of
+deer's suet, half a scruple of opium and make a plaster of wax.</p>
+<p>Take bay leaves, sage, hyssop, camomiles, and mugwort, and make
+an infusion in water.</p>
+<p>Take half a handful of wormwood and betony and half a pint each
+of white wine and milk, boil them until reduced to half; then take
+four ounces of this decoction and make an injection, but you must
+be careful that the humours are not brought down into the womb.
+Take three drachms each of roast figs, and bruised dog's mercury;
+three drachms each of turpentine and duck's grease, and two grains
+of opium; make a pessary with wax.</p>
+<p>The room must be kept cool, and all motions of the body,
+especially of the lower parts, must be prohibited. Wakefulness is
+to be recommended, for humours are carried inward by sleep, and
+thus inflammation is increased. Eat sparingly, and drink only
+barley water or clarified whey, and eat chickens and chicken broth,
+boiled with endive, succory, sorrel, bugloss and mallows.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_IX' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_IX"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 145 --><a name='Page_145' id="Page_145"></a> CHAPTER
+IX</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Scirrhous Tumours, or Hardness of the Womb</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>A <i>scirrhus</i>, or a hard unnatural swelling of the matrix is
+generally produced by neglected, or imperfectly cured phlegm,
+which, insensibly, hinders the functions of the womb, and
+predisposes the whole body to listlessness.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CAUSE.</h3>
+<p>One cause of this disease may be ascribed to want of judgment on
+the part of the physician, as many empirics when attending to
+inflammation of the womb, chill the humour so much that it can
+neither pass backward nor forward, and hence, the matter being
+condensed, turns into a hard, stony substance. Other causes may be
+suppression of the menses, retention of the <i>Lochein</i>,
+commonly called the after purging; eating decayed meat, as in the
+disordered longing after the <i>pleia</i> to which pregnant women
+are often subject. It may, however, also proceed from obstructions
+and ulcers in the matrix or from some evil affections of the
+stomach or spleen.</p>
+<p>If the bottom of the womb be affected, she feels, as it were, a
+heavy burden representing <!-- Page 146 --><a name='Page_146' id=
+"Page_146"></a> a mole,<a name='FNanchor_7_7' id=
+"FNanchor_7_7"></a> <a href='#Footnote_7_7'><sup>[7]</sup></a> yet
+differing from it, in that the breasts are attenuated, and the
+whole body grows less. If the neck of the womb be affected, no
+outward humours will appear; its mouth is retracted and feels hard
+to the touch, nor can the woman have sexual intercourse without
+great pain.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>PROGNOSTICS.</h3>
+<p>Confirmed scirrhus is incurable, and will turn to cancer or
+incurable dropsy, and when it ends in cancer it proves fatal,
+because as the innate heat of these parts is almost smothered, it
+can hardly be restored again.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CURE.</h3>
+<p>Where there is repletion, bleeding is advisable, therefore open
+a vein in one arm and in both feet, more especially if the menses
+are suppressed.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 147 --><a name='Page_147' id="Page_147"></a> Treat the
+humours with syrup of borage, succory made with a poultice, and
+then take the following pills, according to the patient's
+strength.</p>
+<p>Hiera piera six drachms, two and a half drachms each of black
+hellebore and polypody; a drachm and a half each of agaric, lapis
+lazuli, sal Indiae, coloquintida, mix them and make two pills.
+After purging, mollify the hardness as follows:&mdash;the privy
+parts and the neck of the womb with an ointment of decalthea and
+agrippa; or take two drachms each of opopanax, bdellium, ammoniac
+and myrrh, and half a drachm of saffron; dissolve the gum in oil of
+lilies and sweet almond and make an ointment with wax and
+turpentine. Apply diacatholicon ferellia below the navel, and make
+infusions of figs, mugwort, mallows, pennyroyal, althea, fennel
+roots, melilot, fenugreek and the four mollifying herbs, with oil
+of dill, camomiles and lilies dissolved in it. Take three drachms
+of gum bdellium, put the stone pyrites on the coals, and let her
+take the fumes into her womb. Foment the privy parts with a
+decoction of the roots and leaves of dane wort. Take a drachm each
+of gum galbanum and opopanax, half an ounce each of juice of dane
+wort and mucilage of fenugreek, an ounce of calve's marrow, and a
+sufficient quantity of <!-- Page 148 --><a name='Page_148' id=
+"Page_148"></a> wax, and make a pessary. Or make a pessary of lead
+only, dip it in the above mentioned things, and put it up.</p>
+<p>The atmosphere must be kept temperate, and gross and salt meats
+such as pork, bull beef, fish and old cheese, must be
+prohibited.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+<a name='Footnote_7_7' id="Footnote_7_7"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_7_7'>[7]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p><i>Mole</i>: "A somewhat shapeless, compact fleshy mass
+occurring in the uterus, due to the retention and continued life of
+the whole or a part of the foetal envelopes, after the death of the
+foetus (a <i>maternal or true mole</i>); or being some other body
+liable to be mistaken for this, or perhaps a polypus or false
+mole." (<i>Whitney's Century Dictionary</i>.)</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_X' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_X"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Dropsy of the Womb</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Uterine dropsy is an unnatural swelling, caused by the
+collection of wind or phlegm in the cavity, membranes or substance
+of the womb, on account of the want of innate heat and of
+sufficient alimentation, and so it turns into an excrescence. The
+causes are, too much cold and moisture of the milt and liver,
+immoderate drinking, eating insufficiently cooked meat, all of
+which by causing repletion, overpower the natural heat. It may
+likewise be caused by undue menstruation, or by any other
+immoderate evacuation. To these may be added abortions,
+subcutaneous inflammations and a hardened swelling of the womb.</p>
+<br />
+<!-- Page 149 --><a name='Page_149' id="Page_149"></a>
+<h3>SIGNS.</h3>
+<p>The signs of this affection are as follows:&mdash;The lower
+parts of the stomach, with the genitals, are swollen and painful;
+the feet swell, the natural colour of the face is lost, the
+appetite becomes depraved, and there is a consequent heaviness of
+the whole body. If the woman turns over in bed a noise like flowing
+water is heard, and sometimes water is discharged from the womb. If
+the swelling is caused by wind and the stomach feels hot, it sounds
+like a drum; the bowels rumble, and the wind escapes through the
+neck of the womb with a murmuring noise. This affection may be
+distinguished from true conception in many ways, as will be shown
+in the chapter on <i>conception</i>. It is distinguished from
+common dropsy, by the lower parts of the stomach being most
+swollen. Again, it does not appear so injurious in this
+blood-producing capability, nor is the urine so pale, nor the face
+so altered. The upper parts are also not so reduced, as in usual
+dropsy.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>PROGNOSTICS.</h3>
+<p>This affection foretells the ruin of the natural functions, by
+that peculiar sympathy it has with the liver, and that, therefore,
+<i>kathydria</i>, or general dropsy will follow.</p>
+<br />
+<!-- Page 150 --><a name='Page_150' id="Page_150"></a>
+<h3>CURE.</h3>
+<p>In the cure of this disease, imitate the practice of
+Hippocrates, and first mitigate the pain with fomentations of
+melilot, dog's mercury, mallows, linseed, camomiles and althoea.
+Then let the womb be prepared with syrup of stoebis, hyssop,
+calamint, mugwort, with distilled water, a decoction of elder,
+marjoram, sage, origan, spearage, pennyroyal, and betony. Purge
+with senna, agaric, rhubarb, and claterium. Take spicierum hier, a
+scruple each of rhubarb, agaric lozenges, and make into pills with
+iris juice.</p>
+<p>When diseases arise from moistness, purge with pills, and in
+those affections which are caused by emptiness or dryness, purge by
+means of a draught. Apply cupping glasses to the stomach and also
+to the navel, especially if the swelling be flatulent. Put a seton
+on to the inside of each leg, the width of a hand below the knee.
+Take two drachms each of sparganium, diambrae, diamolet,
+diacaliminti, diacinamoni, myrrh lozenges, and a pound of sugar;
+make these into lozenges with betony water, and take them two hours
+before meals. Apply a little bag of camomiles, cummin and melilot
+boiled in oil of rue, to the bottom of the stomach as hot as it can
+be borne; anoint the stomach and the <!-- Page 151 --><a name=
+'Page_151' id="Page_151"></a> privates with unguent agripp, and
+unguent aragon. Mix iris oil with it, and cover the lower part of
+the stomach with a plaster of bay berries, or a cataplasm made of
+cummin, camomiles, briony root, adding cows' and goats' dung.</p>
+<p>Our modern medical writers ascribe great virtues to
+tobacco-water, injected into the womb by means of a clyster. Take a
+handful each of balm of southernwood, origanum, wormwood, calamint,
+bay berries and marjoram, and four drachms of juniper berries; make
+a decoction of these in water, and use this for fomentations and
+infusions. Make pessaries of storax, aloes, with the roots of
+dictam, aristolochia and gentian, but instead of this you may use
+the pessary prescribed at the end of Chapter XVII. Let her take
+aromatic electuary, disatyrion and candied eringo roots, every
+morning.</p>
+<p>The air must be hot and dry, moderate exercise is to be taken
+and too much sleep prohibited. She may eat the flesh of partridges,
+larks, grouse, hares, rabbits, etc., and let her drink diluted
+urine.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XI' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XI"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 152 --><a name='Page_152' id="Page_152"></a> CHAPTER
+XI</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Moles<a name='FNanchor_8_8' id="FNanchor_8_8"></a>
+<a href='#Footnote_8_8'><sup>[8]</sup></a> and False
+Conceptions</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>This disease may be defined as an inarticulate shapeless piece
+of flesh, begotten in the womb as if it were true conception. In
+this definition we must note two things: (1) because a mole is said
+to be inarticulate or jointless, and without shape, it differs from
+monstrosities which are both <i>formata</i> and <i>articulata</i>;
+(2) it is said to be, as it were a true conception, which makes a
+difference between a true conception, and a mole, and this
+difference holds good in three ways. First, in its genus, because a
+mole cannot be said to be an animal: secondly, in the species,
+because it has not a human figure and has not the character of a
+man; thirdly, in the individual, for it has no affinity to the
+parent, either in the whole body, or in any particular part of
+it.</p>
+<br />
+<!-- Page 153 --><a name='Page_153' id="Page_153"></a>
+<h3>CAUSE.</h3>
+<p>There is a great difference of opinion amongst learned writers
+as to the cause of this affection. Some think, that if the woman's
+seed goes into the womb, and not the man's, that the mole is
+produced thereby. Others declare that it springs from the
+menstruous blood, but if these two things were granted, then
+virgins, by having their courses or through nocturnal pollutions,
+might be liable to the same things, which none have ever been yet.
+The true cause of this fleshy mole is due both to the man and from
+the menstruous blood in the woman both mixing together in the
+cavity of the womb. Nature finding herself weak there (and yet
+wishing to propagate her species), labours to bring forth a
+defective conception rather than nothing and instead of a living
+creature produces a lump of flesh.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SIGNS.</h3>
+<p>The signs of a mole are these. The <i>menses</i> are suppressed,
+the appetite becomes depraved, the breasts swell and the stomach
+becomes inflated and hard. So far the symptoms in a pregnant woman
+and in one that has a mole are the same, but now this is how they
+differ. The <!-- Page 154 --><a name='Page_154' id="Page_154"></a>
+first sign of difference is in the movements of a mole. It may be
+felt moving in the womb before the third month, whereas an infant
+cannot be so felt; yet this motion cannot proceed from any
+intelligent power in the mole, but from the capabilities of the
+womb, and of the seminal vigour, distributed through the substance
+of the mole, for it does not live an animal, but a vegetable life,
+like a plant. <i>Secondly</i>, in a mole the stomach swells
+suddenly, but in true conception it is first contracted, and then
+rises by degrees. <i>Thirdly</i>, if the stomach is pressed with
+the hand, the mole gives way, and returns to its former position as
+soon as the hand is removed. But a child in the womb does not move
+immediately though pressed with the hand, and when the hand is
+removed it returns slowly or not at all. <i>Lastly</i>, no child
+continues in the womb more than eleven months, but a mole continues
+for four or five years, more or less, sometimes according as it is
+fastened to the matrix; and I have known a mole pass away in four
+or five months. If, however, it remains until the eleventh month,
+the woman's legs grow weak and the whole body wastes away, but the
+stomach still increases, which makes some women think that they are
+dropsical, though there is no reason for it, for in dropsy the legs
+swell and grow big, but in a mole they wither and fall away.</p>
+<br />
+<!-- Page 155 --><a name='Page_155' id="Page_155"></a>
+<h3>CURE.</h3>
+<p>In the school of Hippocrates we are taught that bleeding causes
+abortion, by taking all the nourishment which should preserve the
+life of the embryo. In order, therefore, that this faulty
+conception may be deprived of that nourishing sap by which it
+lives, open the liver vein and saphena in both feet, apply cupping
+glasses to the loins and sides of the stomach, and when that has
+been done, let the uterine parts be first softened, and then the
+expulsive powers be stimulated to get rid of the burden.</p>
+<p>In order to relax the ligatures of the mole, take three handfuls
+of mallows with their roots, two handfuls each of camomiles,
+melilot, pellitory of the wall, violet leaves, dog's mercury,
+fennel roots, parsley, and one pound each of linseed and fenugreek;
+boil them in oil and let the patient sit in it up to her navel.
+When she comes out of her bath, she should anoint her private parts
+and loins with the following ointment:&mdash;"Take one ounce each
+of oil of camomiles, lilies and sweet almonds: half an ounce each
+of fresh butter, laudanum and ammoniac, and make an ointment with
+oil of lilies. Or, instead of this, you may use unguentum agrippae
+or dialthea. Take a handful of dog's mercury and althea roots; half
+a handful <!-- Page 156 --><a name='Page_156' id="Page_156"></a> of
+flos brochae ursini; six ounces of linseed and barley meal. Boil
+all these together in honey and water and make a plaster, and make
+pessaries of gum galbanum, bdellium, ammoniac, figs, pig's fat and
+honey.</p>
+<p>After the ligaments of the mole are loosened, let the expulsive
+powers be stimulated to expel the mole, and for doing this, all
+those drugs may be used which are adapted to bring on the courses.
+Take one ounce of myrrh lozenges, half an ounce each of castor,
+astrolachia, gentian and dittany and make them into a powder, and
+take one drachm in four ounces of mugwort water. Take calamint,
+pennyroyal, betony, hyssop, sage, horehound, valerian, madder and
+savine; make a decoction in water and take three ounces of it, with
+one and a half ounces of feverfew. Take three scruples each of
+mugwort, myrrh, gentian and pill. coch.; a drachm each of rue,
+pennyroyal and opopanax, and the same of asafoetida, cinnamon,
+juniper-berries and borage, and make into pills with savine juice,
+to be taken every morning. Make an infusion of hyssop, bay leaves,
+bay berries, calamint, camomiles, mugwort and savine. Take two
+scruples each of sacopenium, mugwort, savine, cloves, nutmeg, bay
+berries; one drachm of galbanum; one scruple each of hiera piera
+and black hellebore, and make a pessary with turpentine.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 157 --><a name='Page_157' id="Page_157"></a> But if
+these medicaments are not procurable, then the mole must be pulled
+out by means of an instrument called the <i>pes
+gryphis</i>,<a name='FNanchor_9_9' id="FNanchor_9_9"></a> <a href=
+'#Footnote_9_9'><sup>[9]</sup></a> which may be done without much
+danger if it be performed by a skilful surgeon. After she has been
+delivered of the mole (because the woman will have lost much blood
+already), let the flow of blood be stopped as soon as possible.</p>
+<p>Apply cupping glasses to the shoulders and ligatures to the
+arms, and if this be not effective, open the liver vein in the
+arm.</p>
+<p>The atmosphere of the room must be kept tolerably dry and warm,
+and she must be put on a dry diet, to soothe the system; she must,
+however, drink white wine.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<!-- Page 158 --><a name='Page_158' id="Page_158"></a>
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+<a name='Footnote_8_8' id="Footnote_8_8"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_8_8'>[8]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p><i>Mole</i>: "A somewhat shapeless, compact fleshy mass
+occurring in the uterus, due to the retention and continued life of
+the whole or a part of the foetal envelopes, after the death of the
+foetus (<i>a maternal or true mole</i>); or being some other body
+liable to be mistaken for this, or perhaps a polypus or false
+mole." (<i>Whitney's Century Dictionary</i>.)</p>
+</div>
+<a name='Footnote_9_9' id="Footnote_9_9"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_9_9'>[9]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p><i>Griffin's claw</i>, a peculiar hooked instrument.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XII' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XII"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Conception and its Signs, and How a Woman may know whether
+it be Male or Female</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Ignorance often makes women the murderesses of the fruit of
+their own body, for many, having conceived and finding themselves
+out of order, and not rightly knowing the cause, go to the shop of
+their own conceit and take whatever they think fit, or else (as the
+custom is) they send to the doctor for a remedy, and he, not
+perceiving the cause of their trouble, for nothing can be diagnosed
+accurately by the urine, prescribes what he thinks best; perhaps
+some diuretic or cathartic, which destroy the embryo. Therefore
+Hippocrates says, it is necessary that women should be instructed
+in the signs of conception, so that the parent as well as the child
+may be saved from danger. I shall, therefore, lay down some rules,
+by which every woman may know whether she is pregnant or not, and
+the signs will be taken from the woman, from her urine, from the
+child and from experiments.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SIGNS.</h3>
+<p>The first day after conception, she feels a slight quivering and
+chilliness throughout her <!-- Page 159 --><a name='Page_159' id=
+"Page_159"></a> body; there is a tickling of the womb and a little
+pain in the lower parts of her stomach. Ten or twelve days after
+she feels giddy and her eyes dim and with circles round them; the
+breasts swell and grow hard, with some pain and pricking in them,
+whilst the stomach rises and sinks again by degrees, and there is a
+hardness about the navel. The nipples grow red, the heart beats
+unusually strongly, the natural appetite abates, and the woman has
+a craving after strange food. The neck of the womb is contracted,
+so that it can scarcely be felt when the finger is put in. And the
+following is an infallible sign; she is alternately in high spirits
+and melancholy; the monthly courses cease without any apparent
+cause, the evacuations from the bowels are retained unusually long,
+by the womb pressing on the large gut, and her desire for sexual
+intercourse is diminished. The surest sign is taken from the
+infant, which begins to move in the womb in the third or fourth
+month, and not in the manner of a mole, mentioned above, from side
+to side like a stone, but gently, as may be perceived by applying
+the hand cold upon the stomach.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SIGNS TAKEN FROM THE URINE.</h3>
+<p>The best writers affirm that the water of a pregnant woman is
+white and has little specks in <!-- Page 160 --><a name='Page_160'
+id="Page_160"></a> it, like those in a sunbeam, ascending and
+descending in it, of an opal colour, and when the sediment is
+disturbed by shaking the urine, it looks like carded wool. In the
+middle of gestation it turns yellow, then red and lastly black,
+with a red film. At night on going to bed, let her drink water and
+honey, and if afterwards she feels a beating pain in her stomach
+and about the navel, she has conceived. Or let her take the juice
+of cardius, and if she brings it up again, that is a sign of
+conception. Throw a clean needle into the woman's urine, put it
+into a basin and let it stand all night. If it is covered with red
+spots in the morning, she has conceived, but if it has turned black
+and rusty, she has not.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SIGNS TAKEN FROM THE SEX, TO SHOW WHETHER IT BE A MALE OR
+FEMALE.</h3>
+<p>If it is a male, the right breast swells first, the right eye is
+brighter than the left, the face is high-coloured, because the
+colour is such as the blood is, and as the male is conceived of
+purer blood and of more perfect seed than the female, red specks in
+the urine, and making a sediment, show that a male has been
+conceived, but if they are white, a female. Put the urine of the
+woman into a glass bottle, let it stand tightly stoppered for two
+days, then strain it through a fine cloth,
+<!-- Page 161 --><a name='Page_161' id="Page_161"></a> and you will
+find little animals in it. If they are red, it is a male, but if
+white, it is a female.</p>
+<p>The belly is rounder and lies higher with a boy than with a
+girl, and the right breast is harder and plumper than the left, and
+the right nipple redder, and the woman's colour is clearer than
+when she has conceived a girl.</p>
+<p>To conclude, the most certain sign to give credit to, is the
+motion of the child, for the male moves in the third month, and the
+female not until the fourth.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XIII' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XIII"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Untimely Births</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>When the fruit of the womb comes forth before the seventh month
+(that is, before it comes to maturity), it is said to be abortive;
+and, in effect, the children prove abortive, that is, do not live,
+that are born in the eighth month. Why children born in the seventh
+or ninth month should live, and not those born in the eighth, may
+seem strange, and yet it is true. The cause of it is ascribed by
+some to the planet <!-- Page 162 --><a name='Page_162' id=
+"Page_162"></a> under which the child is born; for every month,
+from conception to birth, is governed by its own planet, and in the
+eighth month Saturn predominates, which is dry and cold; and
+coldness, being an utter enemy to life, destroys the natural
+constitution of the child. Hippocrates gives a better reason,
+viz.:&mdash;The infant, being every way perfect and complete in the
+seventh month, wants more air and nourishment than it had before,
+and because it cannot obtain this, it tries for a passage out. But
+if it have not sufficient strength to break the membranes and to
+come out as ordained by nature, it will continue in the womb until
+the ninth month, so that by that time it may be again strengthened.
+But if it returns to the attempt in the eighth month and be born,
+it cannot live, because the day of its birth is either past or is
+to come. For in the eighth month Avicunus says, it is weak and
+infirm, and therefore on being brought into the cold air, its
+vitality must be destroyed.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CURE.</h3>
+<p>Untimely births may be caused by cold, for as it causes the
+fruit of the tree to wither and fall before it is ripe, so it nips
+the fruit of the womb before it comes to perfection, or makes it
+abortive;&mdash;sometimes by humidity, which weakens
+<!-- Page 163 --><a name='Page_163' id="Page_163"></a> its power,
+so that the fruit cannot be retained until the proper time. It may
+be caused by dryness or emptiness, which rob the child of its
+nourishment, or by an alvine discharge, by bleeding or some other
+evacuation, by inflammation of the womb, and other severe disease.
+Sometimes it is caused by joy, anger, laughter and especially by
+fear, for then the heat forsakes the womb, and goes to the heart,
+and so the cold sinks into the womb, whereby the ligaments are
+relaxed, and so abortion follows. On this account, Plato
+recommended that the woman should avoid all temptations to
+excessive joy and pleasure, as well as all occasions for fear and
+grief. Abortion may also be caused by the pollution of the air by
+filthy odours, and especially by the smell of the smouldering wick
+of a candle, and also by falls, blows, violent exercise, jumping,
+dancing, etc.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SIGNS.</h3>
+<p>Signs of coming abortion are a falling away of the breast, with
+a flow of watery milk, pains in the womb, heaviness in the head,
+unusual weariness in the hips and thighs, and a flowing of the
+courses. Signs denoting that the fruit is dead in the womb are
+sunken eyes, pains in the head, frights, paleness of the face and
+lips, gnawing at the stomach, no movements of the infant; coldness
+<!-- Page 164 --><a name='Page_164' id="Page_164"></a> and
+looseness of the mouth of the womb. The stomach falls down, whilst
+watery and bloody discharges come from the womb.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XIV' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XIV"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Directions for Pregnant Women</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The prevention of untimely births consists in removing the
+aforementioned causes, which must be effected both before and after
+conception.</p>
+<p>Before conception, if the body be too hot, dry or moist, employ
+such treatment as to counteract the symptoms; if the blood be
+vitiated purify it, if plethoric, open the liver vein; if gross,
+reduce it; if too thin strengthen and nourish it. All the diseases
+of the womb must be removed as I have shown.</p>
+<p>After conception, let the atmosphere be kept temperate, do not
+sleep too much, avoid late hours, too much bodily exercise, mental
+excitement, loud noises and bad smells, and sweet smells must also
+be avoided by those who are hysterical. Refrain from all things
+that may provoke either urine or menstruation, also salt,
+<!-- Page 165 --><a name='Page_165' id="Page_165"></a> sour, and
+windy food, and keep to a moderate diet.</p>
+<p>If the bowels are confined, relieve the stomach with injections
+made of a decoction of mallows and violets, with sugar and salad
+oil; or make a broth with borage, buglos, beetroot, and mallows,
+and add a little manna to it. If, on the other hand, she be
+troubled with looseness of the bowels, do not check it with medical
+advice, for all the uterine fluxes have some bad qualities in them,
+which must be evacuated before the discharge is stopped.</p>
+<p>A cough is another thing to which pregnant women are frequently
+liable, and which causes them to run great danger of miscarrying,
+by the shock and continual drain upon the vein. To prevent this
+shave off the hair from the coronal commissures, and apply the
+following plaster to the place.</p>
+<p>Take half an ounce of resin, a drachm of laudanum, a drachm each
+of citron peel, lignaloes and galbanum, with a sufficient quantity
+of liquid and dry styrax. Dissolve the gum in vinegar and make a
+plaster, and at night let her inhale the fumes of these lozenges,
+thrown upon bright coals. Take also a drachm and a half each of
+frankincense, styrax powder and red roses: eight drachms of
+sandrich, a drachm each of mastic, benjamin and amber; make into
+lozenges <!-- Page 166 --><a name='Page_166' id="Page_166"></a>
+with turpentine, and apply a cautery to the nape of the neck. And
+every night let her take the following pills:&mdash;Half an ounce
+each of hypocistides, terrae sigilatae and fine bole; two drachms
+each of bistort, alcatia, styrax and calamint, and one drachm of
+cloves, and make into pills with syrup of myrtles.</p>
+<p>In pregnant women, a corrupt matter is generated which, flowing
+to the ventricle, spoils the appetite and causes sickness. As the
+stomach is weak, and cannot digest this matter, it sometimes sends
+it to the bowels which causes a flux of the stomach, which greatly
+adds to the weakness of the womb. To prevent all these dangers the
+stomach must be strengthened by the following means:&mdash;Take one
+drachm each of lignaloes and nutmeg; a scruple each of mace,
+cloves, mastic, laudanum; an ounce of oil of spikenard; two grains
+of musk, half an ounce each of oil of mastic, quinces and wormwood,
+and make into an ointment for the stomach, to be applied before
+meals. Instead of this, however, you may use cerocum stomachile
+Galeni. Take half an ounce each of conserve of borage, buglos and
+atthos; two drachms each of confection of hyacinths, candied lemon
+peel, specierum, diamarg, pulo. de genunis: two scruples each of
+nutmeg and diambra; two drachma each of peony roots and diacoratum,
+and make <!-- Page 167 --><a name='Page_167' id="Page_167"></a>
+into an electuary with syrup of roses, which she must take twice a
+day before meals. Another affection which troubles a pregnant woman
+is swelling of the legs, which happens during the first three
+months, by the superfluous humours descending from the stomach and
+liver. To cure this, take two drachms of oil of roses, and one
+drachm each of salt and vinegar; shake them together until the salt
+is dissolved, and anoint the legs with it hot, rubbing it well in
+with the hand. It may be done without danger during the fourth,
+fifth and sixth months of pregnancy; for a child in the womb is
+compared to an apple on the tree. For the first three months it is
+a weak and tender subject, like the apple, to fall away; but
+afterwards, when the membranes become strengthened, the fruit
+remains firmly fastened to the womb, and not subject to mischances,
+and so it remains, until the seventh month, until when it is near
+the time, the ligaments are again relaxed (like the apple that is
+almost ripe).</p>
+<p>They grow looser every day, until the appointed time for
+delivery; if, therefore, the body is in real need of purging, the
+woman may do it without danger in the fourth, fifth or sixth month,
+but neither before nor after that unless in the case of some
+violent illness, in which it is possible that both mother and child
+may perish. <!-- Page 168 --><a name='Page_168' id="Page_168"></a>
+Apply plasters and ointments to the loins in order to strengthen
+the fruit in the womb. Take one drachm each of gum Arabic,
+galangale, bistort, hypocistid and storax, a drachm and a half each
+of fine bole, nutmeg, mastic, balaust, dragon's blood and myrtle
+berries, and a sufficient quantity of wax and turpentine and make
+into a plaster. Apply it to the loins in the winter, and remove it
+every twenty-four hours, lest the loins should become overheated by
+it. In the interim, anoint the private parts and loins with
+<i>countess' balsam</i> but if it be summer time and the loins hot,
+the following plaster will be more suitable. Take a pound of red
+roses, two drachms each of mastic and red Sanders, one drachm each
+of bole ammoniac and red coral, two drachms and a half each of
+pomegranate seed and prepared coriander seed, two scruples of
+barberries, one ounce each of oil of mastic and of quinces, and
+plantain-juice.</p>
+<p>Anoint the loins also with sandalwood ointment, and once a week
+wash them with two parts of rose-water and one of white wine mixed
+together and warmed at the fire. This will assuage the heat of the
+loins, get rid of the oil of the plaster from the pores of the
+skin, and cause the fresh ointment or plaster to penetrate more
+easily, and to strengthen the womb. Some think that a load-stone
+laid upon the navel, keeps <!-- Page 169 --><a name='Page_169' id=
+"Page_169"></a> a woman from abortion. The same thing is also
+stated of the stone called <i>aetites</i> or eagle-stone, if it is
+hung round the neck. Samian stone has the same virtue.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XV' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XV"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Directions for Women when they are taken in Labour, to ensure
+their safe Delivery, and Directions for Midwives</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Having thus given the necessary directions to pregnant women,
+how to manage their health during their pregnancy, I will now add
+what is necessary for them to do, in order that they may be safely
+delivered.</p>
+<p>When the time of birth draws near, the woman must be sure to
+send for a skilful midwife, and that rather too soon than too late.
+She must have a pallet bed ready to place it near the fire, so that
+the midwife and those who are to help her, may be able to pass
+round it, and give assistance on either side, as may be required. A
+change of linen must be in readiness, and a small stool to rest her
+feet against, as she will have <!-- Page 170 --><a name='Page_170'
+id="Page_170"></a> more power when her legs are bent, than when
+they are straight.</p>
+<p>When everything is thus ready, and when the woman feels the
+pains coming on, if the weather be not cold, she should walk about
+the room, rest on the bed occasionally, waiting for the breaking of
+the waters, which is a fluid contained in one of the outward
+membranes, and which flows out thence, when the membrane is broken
+by the struggles of the child. There is no special time for this
+discharge, though it generally takes place about two hours before
+the birth. Movements will also cause the womb to open and dilate,
+and when lying long in bed will be uncomfortable. If she be very
+weak she may take some mild cordial to give her strength, if her
+pain will permit her; and if the labour be tedious, she may be
+revived with chicken or mutton broth, or she may take a poached
+egg; but she must be very careful not to eat to excess.</p>
+<p>There are many postures in which women are delivered; some
+sitting in a chair, supported by others, or resting on the bed;
+some again upon their knees and resting on their arms; but the
+safest and most commodious way, is in the bed, and then the midwife
+ought to observe the following rules:&mdash;Let her lay the woman
+upon her back, with her head a little raised by means of a pillow,
+with similar supports for her loins and <!-- Page 171 --><a name=
+'Page_171' id="Page_171"></a> buttocks, which latter should also be
+raised, for if she lies low, she cannot be delivered so easily.
+Then let her keep her knees and thighs as far apart as she can, her
+legs bent inward towards each other, and her buttocks, the soles of
+her feet and her heels being placed upon a small rest, placed for
+the purpose, so that she may be able to strain the stronger. In
+case her back should be very weak, a swathing band should be placed
+under it, the band being doubled four times and about four inches
+broad. This must be held by two persons who must raise her up a
+little every time her pains come on, with steady hands and in even
+time, but if they be not exact in their movements, they had better
+leave her alone. At the same time two women must hold her shoulders
+so that she may strain out the foetus more easily; and to
+facilitate this let one stroke or press the upper part of her
+stomach gently and by degrees. The woman herself must not be
+nervous or downhearted, but courageous, and forcing herself by
+straining and holding her breath.</p>
+<p>When delivery is near, the midwife must wait patiently until the
+child's head, or some limb, bursts the membranes, for if the
+midwife through ignorance, or through haste to go to some other
+woman, as some have done, tears the membrane with her nails, she
+endangers both the woman <!-- Page 172 --><a name='Page_172' id=
+"Page_172"></a> and the child; for by lying dry and lacking that
+slipperiness which should make it easy, it comes forth with severe
+pains.</p>
+<p>When the head appears, the midwife must hold it gently between
+her hands, and draw the child, whenever the woman's pains are upon
+her, but at no other times; slipping her forefingers under its
+armpits by degrees, and not using a rough hand in drawing it out,
+lest the tender infant might become deformed by such means. As soon
+as the child is taken out, which is usually with its face
+downwards,&mdash;it should be laid upon its back, that it may
+receive external respiration more freely; then cut the navel string
+about three inches from the body, tying the end which adheres to it
+with a silk string, as closely as you can; then cover the child's
+head and stomach well, allowing nothing to touch its face.</p>
+<p>When the child has been thus brought forth, if it be healthy lay
+it aside, and let the midwife attend to the patient by drawing out
+the afterbirth; and this she may do by wagging and stirring it up
+and down, and afterwards drawing it out gently. And if the work be
+difficult, let the woman hold salt in her hands, close them tightly
+and breathe hard into them, and by that she will know whether the
+membranes are broken or not. It may also be known by making her
+strain or vomit; by putting her fingers down her throat,
+<!-- Page 173 --><a name='Page_173' id="Page_173"></a> or by
+straining or moving her lower parts, but let all be done
+immediately. If this should fail, let her take a draught of elder
+water, or the yolk of a new laid egg, and smell a piece of
+asafoetida, especially if she is troubled with a windy colic. If
+she happen to take cold, it is a great obstruction to the
+afterbirth; in such cases the midwife ought to chafe the woman's
+stomach gently, so as to break, not only the wind, but also to
+force the secundine to come down. But if these should prove
+ineffectual, the midwife must insert her hand into the orifice of
+the womb and draw it out gently.</p>
+<p>Having thus discussed common births, or such as are generally
+easy, I shall now give directions in cases of extremity.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XVI' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XVI"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>What ought to be done in cases of extremity, especially in
+women who, in labour, are attacked by a flux of blood, convulsions
+and fits of wind.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>If the woman's labour be hard and difficult, greater care must
+be taken than at other times. <!-- Page 174 --><a name='Page_174'
+id="Page_174"></a> And, first of all, the situation of the womb and
+her position in lying must be across the bed, and she must be held
+by strong persons to prevent her from slipping down or moving
+during the surgeon's operations. Her thighs must be put as far
+apart as possible, and held so, whilst her head must rest upon a
+bolster, and her loins be supported in the same manner. After her
+rump and buttocks have been raised, be careful to cover her
+stomach, belly and thighs with warm clothes, to keep them from the
+cold.</p>
+<p>When the woman is in this position, let the operator put up his
+or her hand, if the neck of the womb be dilated, and remove the
+coagulated blood that obstructs the passage of the birth; and by
+degrees make way gently, let him remove the infant tenderly, having
+first anointed his hand with butter or some harmless salve. And if
+the waters have not come down, they may then be let out without
+difficulty. Then, if the infant should attempt to come out head
+foremost, or crosswise, he should turn it gently, to find the feet.
+Having done this, let him draw out one and fasten it with ribbon
+and then put it up again, and by degrees find the other, bringing
+them as close together and as even as possible, and between whiles
+let the woman breathe, and she should be urged to strain so as to
+help nature in the birth, that it may be brought forth. And
+<!-- Page 175 --><a name='Page_175' id="Page_175"></a> to do this
+more easily, and that the hold may be surer, wrap a linen cloth
+round the child's thighs, taking care to bring it into the hand
+face downwards.</p>
+<p>In case of flux of blood, if the neck of the womb be open, it
+must be considered whether the infant or the <i>secundine</i>,
+generally called the afterbirth, comes first, and as the latter
+happens to do so occasionally, it stops the mouth of the womb and
+hinders the birth, and endangers both the woman's and the child's
+life. In this case the afterbirth must be removed by a quick turn.
+They have deceived many people, who, feeling their softness, have
+supposed that the womb was not dilated, and by that means the woman
+and child, or at least the latter, have been lost. When the
+afterbirth has been removed, the child must be sought for and drawn
+out, as directed above; and if the woman or the child die in such a
+case, the midwife or the surgeon are blameless because they have
+used their best endeavours.</p>
+<p>If it appears upon examination that the afterbirth comes first,
+let the woman be delivered as quickly as possible, because a great
+flow of blood will follow, for the veins are opened, and on this
+account two things have to be considered.</p>
+<p><i>First</i>:&mdash;The manner in which the afterbirth advances,
+whether it be much or little. If the former, and the head of the
+child appears first, <!-- Page 176 --><a name='Page_176' id=
+"Page_176"></a> it may be guided and directed towards the neck of
+the womb, as in the case of natural birth, but if there appears any
+difficulty in the delivery, the best way is to look for the feet,
+and draw it out by them; but if the latter, the afterbirth may be
+put back with a gentle hand, and the child taken out first. But if
+the afterbirth has come so far forward that it cannot be put back,
+and the child follows it closely, then the afterbirth must be
+removed very carefully, and as quickly as may be, and laid aside
+without cutting the entrail that is fastened to it; for you may be
+guided to the infant by it, which must be drawn out by the feet,
+whether it be alive or dead, as quickly as possible; though this is
+not to be done except in cases of great necessity, for in other
+cases the afterbirth ought to come last.</p>
+<p>In drawing out a dead child, these directions should be
+carefully followed by the surgeon, viz.&mdash;If the child be found
+to be dead, its head appearing first, the delivery will be more
+difficult; for it is an evident sign that the woman's strength is
+beginning to fail her, that, as the child is dead and has no
+natural power, it cannot be assisting in its own delivery in any
+way. Therefore the most certain and the safest way for the surgeon
+is, to put up his left hand, sliding it into the neck of the womb,
+and into the lower part of it towards the feet, as hollow in the
+palm <!-- Page 177 --><a name='Page_177' id="Page_177"></a> as he
+can, and then between the head of the infant and the neck of the
+womb. Then, having a forceps in the right hand, slip it up above
+the left hand, between the head of the child and the flat of the
+hand, fixing it in the bars of the temple near the eye. As these
+cannot be got at easily in the occipital bone, be careful still to
+keep the hand in its place, and gently move the head with it, and
+so with the right hand and the forceps draw the child forward, and
+urge the woman to exert all her strength, and continue drawing
+whenever her pains come on. When the head is drawn out, he must
+immediately slip his hand under the child's armpits, and take it
+quite out, and give the woman a piece of toasted white bread, in a
+quarter of a pint of Hippocras wine.</p>
+<p>If the former application fails let the woman take the following
+potion hot when she is in bed, and remain quiet until she begins to
+feel it operating.</p>
+<p>Take seven blue figs, cut them into pieces and add five grains
+each of fenugreek, motherwort and rue seed, with six ounces each of
+water of pennyroyal and motherwort; reduce it to half the quantity
+by boiling and after straining add one drachm of troches of myrrh
+and three grains of saffron; sweeten the liquor with loaf sugar,
+and spice it with cinnamon.&mdash;After having rested on this, let
+her strain again as much as <!-- Page 178 --><a name='Page_178' id=
+"Page_178"></a> possible, and if she be not successful, make a
+fumigation of half a drachm each of castor, opopanax, sulphur and
+asafoetida, pounding them into a powder and wetting the juice of
+rue, so that the smoke or fumes may go only into the matrix and no
+further.</p>
+<p>If this have not the desired effect, then the following plaster
+should be applied:&mdash;Take an ounce and a half of balganum, two
+drachms of colocynth, half an ounce each of the juice of motherwort
+and of rue, and seven ounces of virgin bees' wax: pound and melt
+them together, spreading them on a cere-cloth so that they may
+spread from the navel to the os pubis and extending to the flanks,
+at the same time making a pessary of wood, enclosing it in a silk
+bag, and dipping it in a decoction of one drachm each of sound
+birthwort, savin colocinthis, stavescare and black hellebore, with
+a small sprig or two of rue.</p>
+<p>But if these things have not the desired effect, and the woman's
+danger increases, let the surgeon use his instruments to dilate and
+widen the womb, for which purpose the woman must be placed on a
+chair, so that she may turn her buttocks as far from its back as
+possible, at the same time drawing up her legs as close as she can
+and spreading her thighs open as wide as possible; or if she is
+very weak it may be better to lay <!-- Page 179 --><a name=
+'Page_179' id="Page_179"></a> her on the bed with her head
+downwards, her buttocks raised and both legs drawn up. Then the
+surgeon may dilate the womb with his speculum matrices and draw out
+the child and the afterbirth together, if it be possible, and when
+this is done, the womb must be well washed and anointed, and the
+woman put back to bed and comforted with spices and cordials. This
+course must be adopted in the case of dead children and moles,
+afterbirths and false births, which will not come out of
+themselves, at the proper time. If the aforementioned instrument
+will not widen the womb sufficiently, then other instruments, such
+as the drake's bill, or long pincers, ought to be used.</p>
+<p>If any inflammation, swelling or congealed blood happens to be
+contracted in the womb under the film of these tumours, either
+before or after the birth, let the midwife lance it with a penknife
+or any suitable instrument, and squeeze out the matter, healing it
+with a pessary dipped in oil of red roses.</p>
+<p>If the child happens at any time to be swollen through cold or
+violence, or has contracted a watery humour, if it is alive, such
+means must be used as are least injurious to the child or mother;
+but if it be dead, the humours must be let out by incisions, to
+facilitate the birth.</p>
+<p>If, as often happens, the child is presented
+<!-- Page 180 --><a name='Page_180' id="Page_180"></a> feet
+foremost, with the hands spreading out from the hips, the midwife
+must in such a case be provided with the necessary ointments to rub
+and anoint the child with, to help it coming forth, lest it should
+turn into the womb again, holding both the infant's arms close to
+the hips at the same time, that it may come out in this manner; but
+if it proves too big, the womb must be well anointed. The woman
+should also take a sneezing powder, to make her strain; the
+attendant may also stroke her stomach gently to make the birth
+descend, and to keep it from returning.</p>
+<p>It happens occasionally, that the child presenting itself with
+the feet first, has its arms extended above its head; but the
+midwife must not receive it so, but put it back into the womb,
+unless the passage be extraordinarily wide, and then she must
+anoint both the child and the womb, and it is not safe to draw it
+out, which must, therefore, be done in this manner.&mdash;The woman
+must lie on her back with her head low and her buttocks raised; and
+then the midwife must compress the stomach and the womb with a
+gentle hand, and by that means put the child back, taking care to
+turn the child's face towards the mother's back, raising up its
+thighs and buttocks towards the navel, so that the birth may be
+more natural.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 181 --><a name='Page_181' id="Page_181"></a> If the
+child happens to come out with one foot, with the arm extended
+along the side and the other foot turned backwards; then the woman
+must be immediately put to bed and laid in the above-described
+position; when the midwife must immediately put back the foot which
+appears so, and the woman must rock herself from side to side,
+until she finds that the child has turned, but she must not alter
+her position nor turn upon her face. After this she may expect her
+pains and must have great assistance and cordials so as to revive
+and support her spirits.</p>
+<p>At other times it happens that the child lies across in the
+womb, and falls upon its side; in this case the woman must not be
+urged in her labour; therefore, the midwife when she finds it so,
+must use great diligence to reduce it to its right form, or at
+least to such a form in the womb as may make the delivery possible
+and most easy by moving the buttocks and guiding the head to the
+passage; and if she be successful in this, let the woman rock
+herself to and fro, and wait with patience till it alters its way
+of lying.</p>
+<p>Sometimes the child hastens simply by expanding its legs and
+arms; in which, as in the former case, the woman must rock herself,
+but not with violence, until she finds those parts fall to their
+proper station; or it may be done <!-- Page 182 --><a name=
+'Page_182' id="Page_182"></a> by a gentle compression of the womb;
+but if neither of them avail, the midwife must close the legs of
+the infant with her hand, and if she can get there, do the like by
+the arms, and so draw it forth; but if it can be reduced of itself
+to the posture of a proper birth it is better.</p>
+<p>If the infant comes forward, both knees forward, and the hands
+hanging down upon the thighs, then the midwife must put both knees
+upward, till the feet appear; taking hold of which with her left
+hand let her keep her right hand on the side of the child, and in
+that posture endeavour to bring it forth. But if she cannot do
+this, then also the woman must rock herself until the child is in a
+more convenient posture for delivery.</p>
+<p>Sometimes it happens that the child presses forward with one arm
+extended on its thighs, and the other raised over its head, and the
+feet stretched out at length in the womb. In such case, the midwife
+must not attempt to receive the child in that posture, but must lay
+the woman on the bed in the manner aforesaid, making a soft and
+gentle compression on her belly, oblige the child to retire; which
+if it does not, then must the midwife thrust it back by the
+shoulder, and bring the arm that was stretched above the head to
+its right station; for there is most danger in these extremities;
+and, therefore, the <!-- Page 183 --><a name='Page_183' id=
+"Page_183"></a> midwife must anoint her hands and the womb of the
+woman with sweet butter, or a proper pomatum, and thrust her hand
+as near as she can to the arm of the infant, and bring it to the
+side. But if this cannot be done, let the woman be laid on the bed
+to rest a while; in which time, perhaps, the child may be reduced
+to a better posture; which the midwife finding, she must draw
+tenderly the arms close to the hips and so receive it.</p>
+<p>If an infant come with its buttocks foremost, and almost double,
+then the midwife must anoint her hand and thrust it up, and gently
+heaving up the buttocks and back, strive to turn the head to the
+passage, but not too hastily, lest the infant's retiring should
+shape it worse: and therefore, if it cannot be turned with the
+hand, the woman must rock herself on the bed, taking such
+comfortable things as may support her spirits, till she perceives
+the child to turn.</p>
+<p>If the child's neck be bowed, and it comes forward with its
+shoulders, as it sometimes doth, with the hands and feet stretched
+upwards, the midwife must gently move the shoulders, that she may
+direct the head to the passage; and the better to effect it, the
+woman must rock herself as aforesaid.</p>
+<p>These and other like methods are to be observed in case a woman
+hath twins, or three <!-- Page 184 --><a name='Page_184' id=
+"Page_184"></a> children at a birth, which sometimes happens: for
+as the single birth hath but one natural and many unnatural forms,
+even so it may be in a double and treble birth.</p>
+<p>Wherefore, in all such cases the midwife must take care to
+receive the first which is nearest the passage; but not letting the
+other go, lest by retiring it should change the form; and when one
+is born, she must be speedy in bringing forth the other. And this
+birth, if it be in the natural way, is more easy, because the
+children are commonly less than those of single birth, and so
+require a less passage. But if this birth come unnaturally, it is
+far more dangerous than the other.</p>
+<p>In the birth of twins, let the midwife be very careful that the
+secundine be naturally brought forth, lest the womb, being
+delivered of its burden, fall, and so the secundine continue longer
+there than is consistent with the woman's safety.</p>
+<p>But if one of the twins happens to come with the head, and the
+other with the feet foremost, then let the midwife deliver the
+natural birth first; and if she cannot turn the other, draw it out
+in the posture in which it presses forward; but if that with its
+feet downward be foremost, she may deliver that first, turning the
+other aside. But in this case the midwife must carefully see that
+it be not a monstrous birth, instead <!-- Page 185 --><a name=
+'Page_185' id="Page_185"></a> of twins, a body with two heads, or
+two bodies joined together, which she may soon know if both the
+heads come foremost, by putting up her hand between them as high as
+she can; and then, if she finds they are twins she may gently put
+one of them aside to make way for the other, taking the first which
+is most advanced, leaving the other so that it do not change its
+position. And for the safety of the other child, as soon as it
+comes forth out of the womb, the midwife must tie the navel-string,
+as has before been directed, and also bind, with a large, long
+fillet, that part of the navel which is fastened to the secundine,
+the more readily to find it.</p>
+<p>The second infant being born, let the midwife carefully examine
+whether there be not two secundines, for sometimes it falls out,
+that by the shortness of the ligaments it retires back to the
+prejudice of the woman. Wherefore, lest the womb should close, it
+is most expedient to hasten them forth with all convenient
+speed.</p>
+<p>If two infants are joined together by the body, as sometimes it
+monstrously falls out, then, though the head should come foremost,
+yet it is proper, if possible, to turn them and draw them forth by
+the feet, observing, when they come to the hips, to draw them out
+as soon as may be. And here great care ought to be used in
+anointing and widening the passage. But these sort of
+<!-- Page 186 --><a name='Page_186' id="Page_186"></a> births
+rarely happening, I need to say the less of them, and, therefore,
+shall show how women should be ordered after delivery.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XVII' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XVII"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>How child-bearing Women ought to be ordered after
+Delivery</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>If a woman has had very hard labour, it is necessary that she
+should be wrapped up in a sheep's skin, taken off before it is
+cold, applying the fleshy side to her veins and belly, or, for want
+of this, the skin of a hare or coney, flayed off as soon as killed,
+may be applied to the same parts, and in so doing, a dilation being
+made in the birth, and the melancholy blood being expelled in these
+parts, continue these for an hour or two.</p>
+<p>Let the woman afterwards be swathed with fine linen cloth, about
+a quarter of a yard in breadth, chafing the belly before it is
+swathed, with oil of St. John's wort; after that raise up the
+matrix with a linen cloth, many times folded: then with a linen
+pillar or quilt, cover the flanks, and place the swathe somewhat
+above the <!-- Page 187 --><a name='Page_187' id="Page_187"></a>
+haunches, winding it pretty stiff, applying at the same time a
+linen cloth to her nipples; do not immediately use the remedies to
+keep back the milk, by reason the body, at such a time, is out of
+frame; for there is neither vein nor artery which does not strongly
+beat; and remedies to drive back the milk, being of a dissolving
+nature, it is improper to apply them to the breasts during such
+disorder, lest by doing so, evil humours be contracted in the
+breast. Wherefore, twelve hours at least ought to be allowed for
+the circulation and settlement of the blood, and what was cast on
+the lungs by the vehement agitation during labour, to retire to its
+proper receptacles.</p>
+<p>Some time after delivery, you may take a restrictive of the
+yolks of two eggs, and a quarter of a pint of white wine, oil of
+St. John's wort, oil of roses, plantain and roses water, of each an
+ounce, mix them together, fold a linen cloth and apply it to the
+breast, and the pains of those parts will be greatly eased.</p>
+<p>She must by no means sleep directly after delivery; but about
+four hours after, she may take broth, caudle or such liquid
+victuals as are nourishing; and if she be disposed to sleep it may
+be very safely permitted. And this is as much, in the case of a
+natural birth, as ought immediately to be done.</p>
+<p>But in case of an extremity or an unnatural
+<!-- Page 188 --><a name='Page_188' id="Page_188"></a> birth, the
+following rules ought to be observed:&mdash;</p>
+<p>In the first place, let the-woman keep a temperate diet, by no
+means overcharging herself after such an extraordinary evacuation,
+not being ruled by giving credit to unskilful nurses, who admonish
+them to feed heartily, the better to repair the loss of blood. For
+that blood is not for the most part pure, but such as has been
+retained in the vessels or membrane better voided, for the health
+of the woman, than kept, unless there happen an extraordinary flux
+of the blood. For if her nourishment be too much, which curding,
+very often turns to imposthumes.</p>
+<p>Therefore, it is requisite, for the first five days especially,
+that she take moderately panado broth, poached eggs, jelly of
+chickens or calves' feet or fresh barley broth; every day
+increasing the quantity a little.</p>
+<p>And if she intend to be a nurse to the child, she may take
+something more than ordinary, to increase the milk by degrees,
+which must be of no continuance, but drawn off by the child or
+otherwise. In this case likewise, observe to let her have coriander
+or fennel seeds boiled in barley broth; but by all means, for the
+time specified, let her abstain from meat. If no fever trouble her,
+she may drink now and then a small quantity of pure white wine or
+of claret, as also syrup of maidenhead or any other syrup that is
+<!-- Page 189 --><a name='Page_189' id="Page_189"></a> of an
+astringent quality, taken in a little water well boiled.</p>
+<p>After the fear of fever or contraction of humour in the breast
+is over, she may be nourished more plentifully with the broth of
+capons, pullets, pigeons, mutton, veal, etc., which must not be
+until after eight days from the time of delivery; at which time the
+womb, unless some accident binds, has purged itself. It will then
+likewise be expedient to give cold meats, but let it be sparingly,
+so that she may the better gather strength. And let her, during the
+time, rest quietly and free from disturbance, not sleeping in the
+day time, if she can avoid it.</p>
+<p>Take of both mallows and pellitory of the wall a handful;
+camomile and melilot flowers, of each a handful; aniseed and fennel
+of each two ounces; boil them in a decoction of sheep's head and
+take of this three quarts, dissolving in it common honey, coarse
+sugar and fresh butter and administer it clysterwise; but if it
+does not penetrate well take an ounce of catholicon.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XVIII' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Acute Pains after Delivery</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>These pains frequently afflict the woman no less than the pain
+of her labour, and are, by the <!-- Page 190 --><a name='Page_190'
+id="Page_190"></a> more ignorant, many times taken the one for the
+other; and sometimes they happen both at the same instant; which is
+occasioned by a raw, crude and watery matter in the stomach,
+contracted through ill digestion; and while such pains continue,
+the woman's travail is retarded.</p>
+<p>Therefore, to expel fits of the cholic, take two ounces of oil
+of sweet almonds, and an ounce of cinnamon water, with three or
+four drops of syrup of ginger; then let the woman drink it off.</p>
+<p>If this does not abate the pain, make a clyster of camomile,
+balm-leaves, oil of olives and new milk, boiling the former in the
+latter. Administer it as is usual in such cases. And then,
+fomentation proper for dispelling the wind will not be amiss.</p>
+<p>If the pain produces a griping in the guts after delivery, then
+take of the root of great comfrey, one drachm, nutmeg and peach
+kernels, of each two scruples, yellow amber, eight drachms,
+ambergris, one scruple; bruise them together, and give them to the
+woman as she is laid down, in two or three spoonfuls of white wine;
+but if she be feverish, then let it be in as much warm broth.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='FAMILY_PHYSICIAN' id="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN"></a>
+<h1><!-- Page 191 --><a name='Page_191' id="Page_191"></a>
+THE<br />
+FAMILY PHYSICIAN</h1>
+<hr class="short" />
+<h2>BEING<br />
+CHOICE AND APPROVED<br />
+REMEDIES<br />
+FOR SEVERAL DISEASES<br />
+INCIDENTAL TO HUMAN BODIES</h2>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_the_Apoplexy" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_the_Apoplexy"></a>
+<h3><i>For the Apoplexy</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take man's skull prepared, and powder of male peony, of each an
+ounce and a half, contrayerva, bastard dittany, angelica, zedvary,
+of each two drachms, mix and make a powder, add thereto
+<!-- Page 192 --><a name='Page_192' id="Page_192"></a> two ounces
+of candied orange and lemon peel, beat all together to a powder,
+whereof you may take half a drachm or a drachm.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_A_Powder_for_the_Epilepsy" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_A_Powder_for_the_Epilepsy"></a>
+<h3><i>A Powder for the Epilepsy or Falling Sickness</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take of opopanax, crude antimony, castor, dragon's blood, peony
+seeds, of each an equal quantity; make a subtle powder; the dose,
+half a drachm of black cherry water. Before you take it, the
+stomach must be prepared with some proper vomit, as that of
+Mynficht's emetic tartar, from four grains to six; if for children,
+salts of vitrol, from a scruple to half a drachm.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_a_Headache" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_a_Headache"></a>
+<h3><i>For a Headache of Long Standing</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take the juice or powder in distilled water of hog lice and
+continue it.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_Spitting_of_Blood" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_Spitting_of_Blood"></a>
+<h3><i>For Spitting of Blood</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take conserve of comfrey and of hips, of each an ounce and a
+half; conserve of red roses, three ounces; dragon's blood, a
+drachm; spices of hyacinths, two scruples; red coral, a drachm; mix
+and with syrup of poppies make a soft electuary. Take the quantity
+of a walnut, night and morning.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_a_Looseness" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_a_Looseness"></a>
+<h3><i>For a Looseness</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take Venice treacle and diascordium, of each
+<!-- Page 193 --><a name='Page_193' id="Page_193"></a> half a
+drachm, in warm ale or water gruel, or what you like best, at
+night, going to bed.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_the_Bloody_Flux" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_the_Bloody_Flux"></a>
+<h3><i>For the Bloody Flux</i>.</h3>
+<p>First take a drachm of powder of rhubarb in a sufficient
+quantity of conserve of red roses, in the morning early; then at
+night, take of tornified or roasted rhubarb, half a drachm;
+diascordium, a drachm and a half; liquid laudanum cyclomated, a
+scruple: mix and make into a bolus.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_an_Inflammation" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_an_Inflammation"></a>
+<h3><i>For an Inflammation of the Lungs</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take of cherious water, ten ounces; water of red poppies, three
+ounces; syrup of poppies, an ounce; pearl prepared, a drachm; make
+julep, and take six spoonfuls every fourth hour.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_An_Ointment_for_the_Pleurisy" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_An_Ointment_for_the_Pleurisy"></a>
+<h3><i>An Ointment for the Pleurisy</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take oil of violets or sweet almonds, an ounce of each, with wax
+and a little saffron, make an ointment, warm it and bathe it upon
+the parts affected.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_An_Ointment_for_the_Itch" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_An_Ointment_for_the_Itch"></a>
+<h3><i>An Ointment for the Itch</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take sulphur vive in powder, half an ounce, oil of tartar per
+deliquim, a sufficient quantity, ointment of roses, four ounces;
+make a liniment, <!-- Page 194 --><a name='Page_194' id=
+"Page_194"></a> to which add a scruple of rhodium to aromatize, and
+rub the parts affected with it.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_Running_Scab" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_Running_Scab"></a>
+<h3><i>For Running Scab</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take two pounds of tar, incorporate it into a thick mass with
+well-sifted ashes; boil the mass in fountain-water, adding leaves
+of ground-ivy, white horehound, fumitory roots, sharp-pointed dock
+and of flocan pan, of each four handfuls; make a bath to be used
+with care of taking cold.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_Worms_in_Children" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_Worms_in_Children"></a>
+<h3><i>For Worms in Children</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take wormseed, half a drachm, flour of sulphur, a drachm; mix
+and make a powder. Give as much as will lie on a silver threepence,
+night and morning, in grocer's treacle or honey, or to grown up
+people, you may add a sufficient quantity of aloe rosatum and so
+make them up into pills; three or four may be taken every
+morning.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_Fevers_in_Children" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_Fevers_in_Children"></a>
+<h3><i>For Fevers in Children</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take crab-eyes, a drachm, cream of tartar, half a drachm; white
+sugar-candy finely powdered, weight of both; mix all well together
+and give as much as will lie on a silver threepence, in a spoonful
+of barley-water or sack whey.</p>
+<br />
+<!-- Page 195 --><a name='Page_195' id="Page_195"></a> <a name=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_A_Quieting_Night_Draught" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_A_Quieting_Night_Draught"></a>
+<h3><i>A Quieting Night-Draught, when the Cough is
+Violent</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take water of green wheat, six ounces, syrup diascordium, three
+ounces, take two or three spoonfuls going to bed every night or
+every other night.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_An_Electuary_for_the_Dropsy" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_An_Electuary_for_the_Dropsy"></a>
+<h3><i>An Electuary for the Dropsy</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take best rhubarb, one drachm, gum lac, prepared, two drachms,
+zyloaloes, cinnamon, long birthwort, half an ounce each, best
+English saffron, half a scruple; with syrup of chicory and rhubarb
+make an electuary. Take the quantity of a nutmeg or small walnut
+every morning fasting.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_a_Tympany_Dropsy" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_a_Tympany_Dropsy"></a>
+<h3><i>For a Tympany Dropsy</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take roots of chervil and candied eringo roots, half an ounce of
+each, roots of butcher-broom, two ounces, grass-roots, three
+ounces, shavings of ivory and hartshorn, two drachms and a half
+each; boil them in two or three pounds of spring water. Whilst the
+strained liquor is hot, pour it upon the leaves of watercresses and
+goose-grass bruised, of each a handful, adding a pint of Rhenish
+wine. Make a close infusion for two hours, then strain out the
+liquor again, and add to it three ounces of magirtral water and
+<!-- Page 196 --><a name='Page_196' id="Page_196"></a> earth worms
+and an ounce and a half of the syrup of the five opening roots.
+Make an apozen, whereof take four ounces twice a day.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_an_Inward_Bleeding" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_an_Inward_Bleeding"></a>
+<h3><i>For an Inward Bleeding</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take leaves of plantain and stinging nettles, of each three
+handfuls, bruise them well and pour on them six ounces of plantain
+water, afterwards make a strong expression and drink the whole off.
+<i>Probatum est</i>.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='GENERAL_OBSERVATIONS' id="GENERAL_OBSERVATIONS"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 197 --><a name='Page_197' id="Page_197"></a> GENERAL
+OBSERVATIONS</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Worthy of Notice</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<h3>WHEN YOU FIND</h3>
+<p>A red man to be faithful, a tall man to be wise, a fat man to be
+swift of foot, a lean man to be a fool, a handsome man not to be
+proud, a poor man not to be envious, a knave to be no liar, an
+upright man not too bold and hearty to his own loss, one that
+drawls when he speaks not to be crafty and circumventing, one that
+winks on another with his eyes not to be false and deceitful, a
+sailor and hangman to be pitiful, a poor man to build churches, a
+quack doctor to have a good conscience, a bailiff not to be a
+merciless villain, an hostess not to over-reckon you, and an usurer
+to be charitable&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+<h3>THEN SAY,</h3>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Ye have found a prodigy</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p>Men acting contrary to the common course of nature.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE' id="EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE"></a>
+<!-- Page 198 --><a name='Page_198' id="Page_198"></a>
+<h1>PART II</h1>
+<hr class="short" />
+<h1>THE<br />
+EXPERIENCED MIDWIFE</h1>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_INTRODUCTION' id=
+"EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_INTRODUCTION"></a>
+<h2>INTRODUCTION.</h2>
+<br />
+<p>I have given this Part the title of The Experienced Midwife,
+because it is chiefly designed for those who profess Midwifery, and
+contains whatever is necessary for them to know in the practice
+thereof; and also, because it is the result of many years'
+experience, and that in the <!-- Page 199 --><a name='Page_199' id=
+"Page_199"></a> most difficult cases, and is, therefore, the more
+to be depended upon.</p>
+<p>A midwife is the most necessary and honourable office, being
+indeed a helper of nature; which therefore makes it necessary for
+her to be well acquainted with all the operations of nature in the
+work of generation, and instruments with which she works. For she
+that knows not the operations of nature, nor with what tool she
+works, must needs be at a loss how to assist therein. And seeing
+the instruments of operation, both in men and women, are those
+things by which mankind is produced, it is very necessary that all
+midwives should be well acquainted with them, that they may better
+understand their business, and assist nature, as there shall be
+occasion.</p>
+<p>The first thing then necessary as introductory to this treatise,
+is an anatomical description of the several parts of generation
+both in men and women; but as in the former part of this work I
+have treated at large upon these subjects, being desirous to avoid
+tautology, I shall not here repeat anything of what was then said,
+but refer the reader thereto, as a necessary introduction to what
+follows. And though I shall be necessitated to speak plainly so
+that I may be understood, yet I shall do it with that modesty that
+none shall have need to blush unless it be
+<!-- Page 200 --><a name='Page_200' id="Page_200"></a> from
+something in themselves, rather than from what they shall find
+here; having the motto of the royal garter for my defence, which
+is:&mdash;"Honi soit qui mal y pense,"&mdash;"Evil be to him that
+evil thinks."</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='A_GUIDE_TO_CHILDBEARING_WOMEN' id=
+"A_GUIDE_TO_CHILDBEARING_WOMEN"></a>
+<h1><!-- Page 201 --><a name='Page_201' id="Page_201"></a> A<br />
+GUIDE TO CHILDBEARING<br />
+WOMEN</h1>
+<hr class="long" />
+<h2>BOOK I</h2>
+<br />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_I' id=
+"EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_I"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>Of the Womb</i>.</h3>
+<p>In this chapter I am to treat of the womb, which the Latins call
+<i>matrix</i>. Its parts are two; the mouth of the womb and the
+bottom of it. The mouth is an orifice at the entrance into it,
+which may be dilated and shut together like a purse; for though in
+the act of copulation it is big enough to receive the glans of the
+yard, yet after conception, it is so close and shut, that it will
+not admit the point of a bodkin to enter; and yet again, at the
+time of a woman's delivery, it is opened to such an extraordinary
+degree, that the child passeth through it into the world;
+<!-- Page 202 --><a name='Page_202' id="Page_202"></a> at which
+time this orifice wholly disappears, and the womb seems to have but
+one great cavity from the bottom to the entrance of the neck. When
+a woman is not with child, it is a little oblong, and of substance
+very thick and close; but when she is with child it is shortened,
+and its thickness diminished proportionably to its distension; and
+therefore it is a mistake of anatomists who affirm, that its
+substance waxeth thicker a little before a woman's labour; for any
+one's reason will inform him, that the more distended it is, the
+thinner it must be; and the nearer a woman is to the time of her
+delivery the shorter her womb must be extended. As to the action by
+which this inward orifice of the womb is opened and shut, it is
+purely natural; for were it otherwise, there could not be so many
+bastards begotten as there are, nor would any married women have so
+many children. Were it in their own power they would hinder
+conception, though they would be willing enough to use copulation;
+for nature has attended that action with so pleasing and delightful
+sensations, that they are willing to indulge themselves in the use
+thereof notwithstanding the pains they afterwards endure, and the
+hazard of their lives that often follows it. And this comes to
+pass, not so much from an inordinate lust in woman, as that the
+great Director of Nature, for the <!-- Page 203 --><a name=
+'Page_203' id="Page_203"></a> increase and multiplication of
+mankind, and even all other species in the elementary world, hath
+placed such a magnetic virtue in the womb, that it draws the seed
+to it, as the loadstone draws iron.</p>
+<p>The Author of Nature has placed the womb in the belly, that the
+heat might always be maintained by the warmth of the parts
+surrounding it; it is, therefore, seated in the middle of the
+hypogastrium (or lower parts of the belly between the bladder and
+the belly, or right gut) by which also it is defended from any hurt
+through the hardness of the bones, and it is placed in the lower
+part of the belly for the convenience of copulation, and of a birth
+being thrust out at full time.</p>
+<p>It is of a figure almost round, inclining somewhat to an oblong,
+in part resembling a pear; for being broad at the bottom, it
+gradually terminates in the point of the orifice which is
+narrow.</p>
+<p>The length, breadth and thickness of the womb differ according
+to the age and disposition of the body. For in virgins not ripe it
+is very small in all its dimensions, but in women whose terms flow
+in great quantities, and such as frequently use copulation, it is
+much larger, and if they have had children, it is larger in them
+than in such as have had none; but in women of a good stature and
+well shaped, it is (as I have <!-- Page 204 --><a name='Page_204'
+id="Page_204"></a> said before), from the entry of the privy parts
+to the bottom of the womb usually about eight inches; but the
+length of the body of the womb alone, does not exceed three; the
+breadth thereof is near about the same, and of the thickness of the
+little finger, when the womb is not pregnant, but when the woman is
+with child, it becomes of a prodigious greatness, and the nearer
+she is to delivery, the more the womb is extended.</p>
+<p>It is not without reason then, that nature (or the God of
+Nature) has made the womb of a membranous substance; for thereby it
+does the easier open to conceive, is gradually dilated by the
+growth of the foetus or young one, and is afterwards contracted or
+closed again, to thrust forth both it and the after-burden, and
+then to retire to its primitive seat. Hence also it is enabled to
+expel any noxious humours, which may sometimes happen to be
+contained within it.</p>
+<p>Before I have done with the womb, which is the field of
+generation, and ought, therefore, to be the more particularly taken
+care of (for as the seeds of plants can produce no plants, nor
+sprig unless grown in ground proper to excite and awaken their
+vegetative virtue so likewise the seed of man, though potentially
+containing all the parts of the child, would never produce so
+<!-- Page 205 --><a name='Page_205' id="Page_205"></a> admissible
+an effect, if it were not cast into that fruitful field of nature,
+the womb) I shall proceed to a more particular description of its
+parts, and the uses for which nature has designed them.</p>
+<p>The womb, then, is composed of various similar parts, that is of
+membranes, veins, arteries and nerves. Its membranes are two and
+they compose the principal parts of the body, the outermost of
+which ariseth from the peritoneum or caul, and is very thin,
+without it is smooth, but within equal, that it may the better
+cleave to the womb, as it is fleshier and thicker than anything
+else we meet with within the body, when the woman is not pregnant,
+and is interwoven with all sorts of fibres or small strings that it
+may the better suffer the extension of the child, and the water
+caused during pregnancy, and also that it may the easier close
+again after delivery.</p>
+<p>The veins and arteries proceed both from the hypogastric and the
+spermatic vessels, of which I shall speak by and by; all these are
+inserted and terminated in the proper membranes of the womb. The
+arteries supply it with food and nourishment, which being brought
+together in too great a quantity, sweats through the substance of
+it, and distils as it were a dew at the bottom of the cavity; from
+thence proceed <!-- Page 206 --><a name='Page_206' id=
+"Page_206"></a> the terms in ripe virgins, and the blood which
+nourisheth the embryo in breeding women. The branches which issue
+from the spermatic vessels, are inserted on each side of the bottom
+of the womb, and are much less than those which proceed from the
+hypogastrics, those being greater and bedewing the whole substance
+of it. There are some other small vessels, which arising the one
+from the other are conducted to the internal orifice, and by these,
+those that are pregnant purge away the superfluity of the terms
+when they happen to have more than is used in the nourishment of
+the infant: by which means nature has taken so much care of the
+womb, that during pregnancy it shall not be obliged to open itself
+for passing away those excrementitious humours, which, should it be
+forced to do, might often endanger abortion.</p>
+<p>As touching the nerves, they proceed from the brain, which
+furnishes all the inner parts of the lower belly in them, which is
+the true reason it hath so great a sympathy with the stomach, which
+is likewise very considerably furnished from the same part; so that
+the womb cannot be afflicted with any pain, but that the stomach is
+immediately sensible thereof, which is the cause of those loathings
+or frequent vomitings which happen to it.</p>
+<p>But beside all these parts which compose the
+<!-- Page 207 --><a name='Page_207' id="Page_207"></a> womb, it has
+yet four ligaments, whose office it is, to keep it firm in its
+place, and prevent its constant agitation, by the continual motion
+of the intestines which surround it, two of which are above and two
+below. Those above are called the broad ligaments, because of their
+broad and membranous figure, and are nothing else but the
+production of the peritoneum which growing out of the sides of the
+loins towards the veins come to be inserted in the sides of the
+bottom of the womb, to hinder the body from bearing too much on the
+neck, and so from suffering a precipitation as will sometimes
+happen when the ligaments are too much relaxed; and do also contain
+the testicles, and as well, safely conduct the different vessels,
+as the ejaculatories, to the womb. The lowermost are called round
+ligaments, taking their origin from the side of the womb near the
+horn, from whence they pass the groin, together with the production
+of the peritoneum, which accompanies them through the rings of the
+oblique and transverse muscles of the belly, by which they divide
+themselves into many little branches resembling the foot of a
+goose, of which some are inserted into the os pubis, the rest are
+lost and confounded with the membranes which women and children
+feel in their thighs. These two ligaments are long, round and
+nervous, and <!-- Page 208 --><a name='Page_208' id="Page_208"></a>
+pretty big in their beginning near the matrix, hollow in their
+rise, and all along the os pubis, where they are a little smaller
+and become flat, the better to be inserted in the manner aforesaid.
+It is by their means the womb is hindered from rising too high.
+Now, although the womb is held in its natural situation by means of
+these four ligaments, it has liberty enough to extend itself when
+pregnant, because they are very loose, and so easily yield to its
+distension. But besides these ligaments, which keep the womb, as it
+were, in a poise, yet it is fastened for greater security by its
+neck, both to the bladder and rectum, between which it is situated.
+Whence it comes to pass, that if at any time the womb be inflamed,
+it communicates the inflammation to the neighbouring part.</p>
+<p>Its use or proper action in the work of generation, is to
+receive and retain the seed, and deduce from it power and action by
+its heat, for the generation of the infant; and it is, therefore,
+absolutely necessary for the conservation of the species. It also
+seems by accident to receive and expel the impurities of the whole
+body, as when women have abundance of whites, and to purge away,
+from time to time, the superfluity of the blood, as when a woman is
+not with child.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><!-- Page 209 --><a name='Page_209' id="Page_209"></a> SECT.
+II.&mdash;<i>Of the difference between the ancient and modern
+Physicians, touching the woman's contributing seed for the
+Formation of the Child</i>.</h3>
+<p>Our modern anatomists and physicians are of different sentiments
+from the ancients touching the woman's contributing seed for the
+formation of the child, as well as the man; the ancients strongly
+affirming it, but our modern authors being generally of another
+judgment. I will not make myself a party to this controversy, but
+set down impartially, yet briefly, the arguments on each side, and
+leave the judicious reader to judge for himself.</p>
+<p>Though it is apparent, say the ancients, that the seed of man is
+the principal efficient and beginning of action, motion and
+generation, yet the woman affords seed, and contributes to the
+procreation of the child, it is evident from hence, that the woman
+had seminal vessels, which had been given her in vain if she wanted
+seminal excretions; but since nature forms nothing in vain, it must
+be granted that they were formed for the use of the seed and
+procreation, and fixed in their proper places, to operate and
+contribute virtue and efficiency to the seed; and this, say they,
+is further proved from hence, that if women at years of maturity
+<!-- Page 210 --><a name='Page_210' id="Page_210"></a> use not
+copulation to eject their seed, they often fall into strange
+diseases, as appears by young women and virgins, and also it
+appears that, women are never better pleased than when they are
+often satisfied this way, which argues, that the pleasure and
+delight, say they, is double in women to what it is in men, for as
+the delight of men in copulation consists chiefly in the emission
+of the seed, so women are delighted, both in the emission of their
+own and the reception of the man's.</p>
+<p>But against this, all our modern authors affirm that the
+ancients are very erroneous, inasmuch as the testicles in women do
+not afford seed, but are two eggs, like those of a fowl or other
+creatures; neither have they any such offices as in men, but are
+indeed an ovarium, or receptacle for eggs, wherein these eggs are
+nourished, by the sanguinary vessels dispersed through them; and
+from hence one or more, as they are fecundated by the man's seed,
+are conveyed into the womb by the oviducts. And the truth of this,
+say they, is so plain, that if you boil them, the liquor shall have
+the same taste, colour and consistency with the taste of bird's
+eggs. And if it be objected that they have no shells, the answer is
+easy; for the eggs of fowls while they are in the ovary, nay, after
+they have fallen into the uterus, have no shell: and though they
+have <!-- Page 211 --><a name='Page_211' id="Page_211"></a> one
+when they are laid, yet it is no more than a fence which nature has
+provided for them against outward injuries, they being hatched
+without the body, but those of women being hatched within the body
+have no need of any other fence than the womb to secure them.</p>
+<p>They also further say, that there are in the generation of the
+foetus, or young ones, two principles, <i>active</i> and
+<i>passive</i>; the <i>active</i> is the man's seed elaborated in
+the testicles out of the arterial blood and animal spirits; the
+<i>passive</i> principle is the ovum or egg, impregnated by the
+man's seed; for to say that women have true seed, say they, is
+erroneous. But the manner of conception is this; the most
+spirituous part of the man's seed, in the act of copulation,
+reaching up to the ovarium or testicles of the woman (which
+contains divers eggs, sometimes fewer) impregnates one of them;
+which, being conveyed by the oviducts to the bottom of the womb,
+presently begins to swell bigger and bigger, and drinks in the
+moisture that is so plentifully sent hither, after the same manner
+that the seed in the ground suck the fertile moisture thereof, to
+make them sprout.</p>
+<p>But, notwithstanding what is here urged by modern anatomists,
+there are some late writers of the opinion of the ancients, viz.,
+that women both have, and emit seed in the act of copulation;
+<!-- Page 212 --><a name='Page_212' id="Page_212"></a> and even
+women themselves take it ill to be thought merely passive in the
+act wherein they make such vigorous exertions; and positively
+affirm, that they are sensible of the emission of their seed in
+that action, and that in it a great part of the delight which they
+take in that act, consists. I shall not, therefore, go about to
+take away any of their happiness from them, but leave them in
+possession of their imaginary felicity.</p>
+<p>Having thus laid the foundation of this work, I will now proceed
+to speak of conception, and of those things which are necessary to
+be observed by women from the time of their conception, to the time
+of their delivery.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_II' id=
+"EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_II"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Conception; what it is; how women are to order themselves
+after Conception.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>What Conception is, and the qualifications
+requisite thereto.</i></h3>
+<p>Conception is nothing but an action of the womb, by which the
+prolific seed is received and <!-- Page 213 --><a name='Page_213'
+id="Page_213"></a> retained, that an infant may be engendered and
+formed out of it. There are two sorts of conception: the one
+according to nature, which is followed by the generation of the
+infant in the womb; the other false and wholly against nature, in
+which the seed changes into water, and produces only false
+conceptions, moles, or other strange matter. Now, there are three
+things principally necessary in order to a true conception, so that
+generation may follow, viz., without diversity of sex there can be
+no conception; for, though some will have a woman to be an animal
+that can engender of herself, it is a great mistake; there can be
+no conception without a man discharge his seed into the womb. What
+they allege of pullets laying eggs without a cock's treading them
+is nothing to the purpose, for those eggs should they be set under
+a hen, will never become chickens because they never received any
+prolific virtue from the male, which is absolutely necessary to
+this purpose, and is sufficient to convince us, that diversity of
+the sex is necessary even to those animals, as well as to the
+generation of man. But diversity of sex, though it be necessary to
+conception, yet it will not do alone; there must also be a
+congression of the different sexes; for diversity of sex would
+profit little if copulation did not follow. I confess I have heard
+of subtle women, <!-- Page 214 --><a name='Page_214' id=
+"Page_214"></a> who, to cover their sin and shame, have endeavoured
+to persuade some peasants that they were never touched by man to
+get them with child; and that one in particular pretended to
+conceive by going into a bath where a man had washed himself a
+little before and spent his seed in it, which was drawn and sucked
+into her womb, as she pretended. But such stories as these are only
+for such who know no better. Now that these different sexes should
+be obliged to come to the touch, which we call copulation or
+coition, besides the natural desire of begetting their like, which
+stirs up men and women to it, the parts appointed for generation
+are endowed by nature with a delightful and mutual itch, which
+begets in them a desire to the action; without which, it would not
+be very easy for a man, born for the contemplation of divine
+mysteries, to join himself, by the way of coition, to a woman, in
+regard to the uncleanness of the part and the action. And, on the
+other side, if the woman did but think of those pains and
+inconveniences to which they are subject by their great bellies,
+and those hazards of life itself, besides the unavoidable pains
+that attend their delivery, it is reasonable to believe they would
+be affrighted from it. But neither sex makes these reflections till
+after the action is over, considering nothing beforehand but the
+pleasure <!-- Page 215 --><a name='Page_215' id="Page_215"></a> of
+the enjoyment, so that it is from this voluptuous itch that nature
+obliges both sexes to this congression. Upon which the third thing
+followeth of course, viz., the emission of seed into the womb in
+the act of copulation. For the woman having received this prolific
+seed into her womb, and retained it there, the womb thereupon
+becomes depressed, and embraces the seed so closely, that being
+closed the point of a needle cannot enter into it without violence.
+And now the woman may be said to have conceived, having reduced by
+her heat from power into action, the several faculties which are
+contained in the seed, making use of the spirits with which the
+seed abounds, and which are the instruments which begin to trace
+out the first lineaments of the parts, and which afterwards, by
+making use of the menstruous blood flowing to it, give it, in time,
+growth and final perfection. And thus much shall suffice to explain
+what conception is. I shall next proceed to show</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. II.&mdash;<i>How a Woman ought to order herself after
+Conception</i>.</h3>
+<p>My design in this treatise being brevity, I shall bring forward
+a little of what the learned have said of the causes of twins, and
+whether <!-- Page 216 --><a name='Page_216' id="Page_216"></a>
+there be any such things as superfoetations, or a second conception
+in a woman (which is yet common enough), and as to twins, I shall
+have occasion to speak of them when I come to show you how the
+midwife ought to proceed in the delivery of the women that are
+pregnant with them. But having already spoken of conception, I
+think it now necessary to show how such as have conceived ought to
+order themselves during their pregnancy, that they may avoid those
+inconveniences, which often endanger the life of the child and many
+times their own.</p>
+<p>A woman, after conception, during the time of her being with
+child, ought to be looked upon as indisposed or sick, though in
+good health; for child bearing is a kind of nine months' sickness,
+being all that time in expectation of many inconveniences which
+such a condition usually causes to those that are not well governed
+during that time; and therefore, ought to resemble a good pilot,
+who, when sailing on a rough sea and full of rocks, avoids and
+shuns the danger, if he steers with prudence, but if not, it is a
+thousand to one but he suffers shipwreck. In like manner, a woman
+with child is often in danger of miscarrying and losing her life,
+if she is not very careful to prevent those accidents to which she
+is subject all the time of her pregnancy. All which time her care
+must be double, first of herself, <!-- Page 217 --><a name=
+'Page_217' id="Page_217"></a> and secondly of the child she goes
+with for otherwise, a single error may produce a double mischief;
+for if she receives a prejudice, the child also suffers with her.
+Let a woman, therefore, after conception, observe a good diet,
+suitable to her temperament, custom, condition and quality; and if
+she can, let the air where she ordinarily dwells be clear and well
+tempered, and free from extremes, either of heat or cold; for being
+too hot, it dissipateth the spirits too much and causes many
+weaknesses; and by being too cold and foggy, it may bring down
+rheums and distillations on the lungs, and so cause her to cough,
+which, by its impetuous motion, forcing downwards, may make her
+miscarry. She ought alway to avoid all nauseous and ill smells; for
+sometimes the stench of a candle, not well put out, may cause her
+to come before time; and I have known the smell of charcoal to have
+the same effect. Let her also avoid smelling of rue, mint,
+pennyroyal, castor, brimstone, etc.</p>
+<p>But, with respect to their diet, women with child have generally
+so great loathings and so many different longings, that it is very
+difficult to prescribe an exact diet for them. Only this I think
+advisable, that they may use those meats and drinks which are to
+them most desirable, though, perhaps, not in themselves so
+wholesome <!-- Page 218 --><a name='Page_218' id="Page_218"></a> as
+some others, and, it may be not so pleasant; but this liberty must
+be made use of with this caution, that what they desire be not in
+itself unwholesome; and also that in everything they take care of
+excess. But, if a child-bearing woman finds herself not troubled
+with such longings as we have spoken of, let her take simple food,
+and in such quantity as may be sufficient for herself and the
+child, which her appetite may in a great measure regulate; for it
+is alike hurtful to her to fast too long as to eat too much; and
+therefore, rather let her eat a little and often; especially let
+her avoid eating too much at night, because the stomach being too
+much filled, compresseth the diaphragm, and thereby causeth
+difficulty of breathing. Let her meat be easy of digestion, such as
+the tenderest parts of beef, mutton, veal, fowls, pullets, capons,
+pigeons and partridges, either boiled or roasted, as she likes
+best, new laid eggs are also very good for her; and let her put
+into her broth those herbs that purify it, as sorrel, lettuce,
+succory and borage; for they will purge and purify the blood. Let
+her avoid whatever is hot seasoned, especially pies and baked
+meats, which being of hot digestion, overcharge the stomach. If she
+desire fish let it be fresh, and such as is taken out of rivers and
+running streams. Let her eat quinces and marmalade, to strengthen
+<!-- Page 219 --><a name='Page_219' id="Page_219"></a> her child:
+for which purpose sweet almonds, honey, sweet apples, and full ripe
+grapes, are also good. Let her abstain from all salt, sour, bitter
+and salt things, and all things that tend to provoke the
+terms&mdash;such as garlic, onions, mustard, fennel, pepper and all
+spices except cinnamon, which in the last three months is good for
+her. If at first her diet be sparing, as she increases in bigness,
+let her diet be increased, for she ought to consider that she has a
+child as well as herself to nourish. Let her be moderate in her
+drinking; and if she drinks wine, let it be rather claret than
+white (for it will breed good blood, help the digestion, and
+comfort the stomach, which is weakly during pregnancy); but white
+wine being diuretic, or that which provokes urine, ought to be
+avoided. Let her be careful not to take too much exercise, and let
+her avoid dancing, riding in a coach, or whatever else puts the
+body into violent motion, especially in the first month. But to be
+more particular, I shall here set down rules proper for every month
+for the child-bearing woman to order herself, from the time she
+first conceived, to the time of her delivery.</p>
+<h4><i>Rules for the First Two Months</i>.</h4>
+<p>As soon as a woman knows, or has reason to believe, that she has
+conceived, she ought to <!-- Page 220 --><a name='Page_220' id=
+"Page_220"></a> abstain from all violent motions and exercise;
+whether she walks afoot, or rides on horseback or in a coach, it
+ought to be very gently. Let her also abstain from Venery (for
+which, after conception, she has usually no great inclination),
+lest there be a mole or superfoetation, which is the adding of one
+embryo to another. Let her beware not to lift her arms too high,
+nor carry great burdens, nor repose herself on hard and uneasy
+seats. Let her use moderately good, juicy meat and easy of
+digestion, and let her wines be neither too strong nor too sharp,
+but a little mingled with water; or if she be very abstemious, she
+may use water wherein cinnamon has been boiled. Let her avoid
+fastings, thirst, watchings, mourning, sadness, anger, and all
+other perturbations of the mind. Let no one present any strange or
+unwholesome thing to her, nor so much as name it, lest she should
+desire it and not be able to get it, and so either cause her to
+miscarry, or the child to have some deformity on that account. Let
+her belly be kept loose with prunes, raisins or manna in her broth,
+and let her use the following electuary, to strengthen the womb and
+the child&mdash;</p>
+<p>"Take conserve of borage, buglos and roses, each two ounces; an
+ounce of balm; an ounce each of citron peel and shreds, candied
+mirobalans, an ounce each; extract of wood aloes
+<!-- Page 221 --><a name='Page_221' id="Page_221"></a> a scruple;
+prepared pearl, half a drachm; red coral and ivory, of each a
+drachm; precious stones each a scruple; candied nutmegs, two
+drachms, and with syrup of apples and quinces make an
+electuary."</p>
+<h4><i>Let her observe the following rules</i>.</h4>
+<p>"Take pearls prepared, a drachm; red coral and ivory prepared,
+each half a drachm, precious stones, each a scruple; yellow citron
+peel, mace, cinnamon, cloves, each half a drachm; saffron, a
+scruple; wood aloes, half a scruple; ambergris, six drachms; and
+with six ounces of sugar dissolved in rosewater make rolls." Let
+her also apply strengtheners of nutmeg, mace and mastich made up in
+bags, to the navel, or a toast dipped in malmsey, or sprinkled with
+powdered mint. If she happens to desire clay, chalk, or coals (as
+many women with child do), give her beans boiled with sugar, and if
+she happens to long for anything that she cannot obtain, let her
+presently drink a large draught of pure cold water.</p>
+<h4><i>Rules for the Third Month</i>.</h4>
+<p>In this month and the next, be sure to keep from bleeding; for
+though it may be safe and <!-- Page 222 --><a name='Page_222' id=
+"Page_222"></a> proper at other times, yet it will not be so at the
+end of the fourth month; and yet if blood abound, or some
+incidental disease happens which requires evacuation, you may use a
+cupping glass, with scarification, and a little blood may be drawn
+from the shoulders and arms, especially if she has been accustomed
+to bleed. Let her also take care of lacing herself too straitly,
+but give herself more liberty than she used to do; for inclosing
+her belly in too strait a mould, she hinders the infant from taking
+its free growth, and often makes it come before its time.</p>
+<h4><i>Rules for the Fourth Month</i>.</h4>
+<p>In this month also you ought to keep the child-bearing woman
+from bleeding, unless in extraordinary cases, but when the month is
+passed, blood-letting and physic may be permitted, if it be gentle
+and mild, and perhaps it may be necessary to prevent abortion. In
+this month she may purge, in an acute disease, but purging may only
+be used from the beginning of this month to the end of the sixth;
+but let her take care that in purging she use no vehement medicine,
+nor any bitter, as aloes, which is disagreeable and hurtful to the
+child, and opens the mouth of the vessels; neither let her use
+coloquintida, scammony nor turbith; she <!-- Page 223 --><a name=
+'Page_223' id="Page_223"></a> may use cassia, manna, rhubarb,
+agaric and senna but dyacidodium purgans is best, with a little of
+the electuary of the juice of roses.</p>
+<h4><i>Rules for the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Months</i>.</h4>
+<p>In these months, child-bearing women are troubled with coughs,
+colds, heart-beating, fainting, watching, pains in the loins and
+hips, and bleeding. The cough is from a sharp vapour that comes to
+the jaws and rough artery from the terms, or the thin part of that
+blood got less into the reins of the breast; this endangers
+abortion, and strength fails from watching: therefore, purge the
+humours that come to the breast, with rhubarb and agaric, and
+strengthen the head as in a catarrh, and give sweet lenitives as in
+a cough. Palpitation and faintness arises from vapours that go to
+it by the arteries, or from blood that abounds and cannot get out
+of the womb, but ascends and oppresses the heart; and in this case
+cordials should be used both inwardly and outwardly. Watching, is
+from sharp dry vapours that trouble the animal spirits, and in this
+case use frictions, and let the woman wash her feet at bed-time,
+and let her take syrup of poppies, dried roses, emulsions of sweet
+almonds, and white poppy seed. If she be troubled with pains in her
+loins and hips, as <!-- Page 224 --><a name='Page_224' id=
+"Page_224"></a> in those months she is subject to be, from the
+weight of her child as it grows big and heavy, and so stretches the
+ligaments of the womb and part adjacent, let her hold it up with
+swathing bands about her neck. About this time also the woman often
+happens to have a flux of blood, either at the nose, womb or
+haemorrhoids, from plenty of blood, or from the weakness of the
+child that takes it not in, or else from evil humour in the blood,
+that stirs up nature and sends it forth. And sometimes it happens
+that the vessels of the womb may be broken, either by some violent
+motion, fall, cough or trouble of the mind (for any of these will
+work that effect), and this is so dangerous, that in such a case
+the child cannot be well, but if it be from blood only, the danger
+is less, provided it flows by the veins of the neck of the womb,
+for then it prevents plethora and takes not away the nourishment of
+the child; but if it proceeds from the weakness of the child, that
+draws it not in, abortion of the child often follows, or hard
+travail, or else she goes beyond her time. But if it flows from the
+inward veins of the womb, there is more danger by the openness of
+the womb, if it come from evil blood; the danger is alike from
+cacochymy, which is like to fall upon both. If it arises from
+plethora, open a vein, but with great caution, and use astringents,
+of <!-- Page 225 --><a name='Page_225' id="Page_225"></a> which the
+following will do well:&mdash;Take prepared pearls, a scruple; red
+coral, two scruples; mace, nutmeg, each a drachm; cinnamon, half a
+drachm; make a powder, or with white sugar make rolls. Or give this
+powder in broth:&mdash;"Take red coral, a drachm; half a drachm
+precious stones; red sander, half a drachm; bole, a drachm; scaled
+earth and tormental roots, each two scruples, with sugar of roses
+and Manus Christi; with pearl, five drachms; make a powder." You
+may also strengthen the child at the navel, and if there be a
+cacochymy, alter the humours, and if you can do it safely,
+evacuate; you may likewise use amulets on her hands and about her
+neck. In a flux of haemorrhoids, wear off the pain, and let her
+drink hot wine with a toasted nutmeg. In these months the belly is
+also subject to be bound, but if it be without any apparent
+disease, the broth of a chicken or veal, sodden with oil, or with
+the decoction of mallows or marsh-mallows, mercury or linseed, put
+up in a clyster, will not be amiss, but in less quantity than is
+given in other cases:&mdash;viz. of the decoction, five ounces, of
+common oil, three ounces, of sugar, two ounces, and of cassia
+fistula, one ounce. But if she will not take a clyster, one or two
+yolks of new laid eggs, or a little peas-pottage warm, a little
+salt and sugar, and supped a little before meat,
+<!-- Page 226 --><a name='Page_226' id="Page_226"></a> will be very
+convenient. But if her belly be distended and stretched with wind a
+little fennel seed and aniseed reduced to a powder and mixed with
+honey and sugar made after the manner of an electuary, will be very
+well Also, if thighs and feet swell let them be anointed with
+erphodrinum (which is a liquid medicine) made with vinegar and
+rose-water, mingled with salt.</p>
+<h4><i>Rules for the Eighth Month</i>.</h4>
+<p>The eighth month is commonly called the most dangerous;
+therefore the greatest care and caution ought to be used, the diet
+better in quality, but no more, nor indeed, so much in quantity as
+before, but as she must abate her diet, she must increase her
+exercise; and because then women with child, by reason that sharp
+humours alter the belly, are accustomed to weaken their spirits and
+strength, they may well take before meat, an electuary of
+diarrhoden, or aromaticum rosatum or diamagarton; and sometimes
+they may lick a little honey. As they will loathe, nauseate their
+meat, they may take green ginger, candied with sugar, and the rinds
+of citron and oranges candied; and let them often use honey for
+strengthening the infant. When she is not very far from her labour,
+let her eat every day seven roasted <!-- Page 227 --><a name=
+'Page_227' id="Page_227"></a> figs before her meat, and sometimes
+let her lick a little honey. But let her beware of salt and
+powdered meat, for it is neither good for her nor the child.</p>
+<h4><i>Rules for the Ninth Month</i>.</h4>
+<p>In the ninth month let her have a care of lifting any great
+weight, but let her move a little more, to dilate the parts, and
+stir up natural heat. Let her take heed of stooping, and neither
+sit too much nor lie on her sides, neither ought she to bend
+herself much enfolded in the umbilical ligaments, by which means it
+often perisheth. Let her walk and stir often, and let her exercise
+be, rather to go upwards than downwards. Let her diet, now
+especially, be light and easy of digestion and damask prunes with
+sugar, or figs with raisins, before meat, as also the yolks of
+eggs, flesh and broth of chickens, birds, partridges and pheasants;
+astringent and roasted meats, with rice, hard eggs, millet and such
+like other things are proper. Baths of sweet water, with emollient
+herbs, ought to be used by her this month with some intermission,
+and after the baths let her belly be anointed with oil of sweet
+roses and of violets; but for her privy parts, it is better to
+anoint them with the fat of hens, geese or ducks, or
+<!-- Page 228 --><a name='Page_228' id="Page_228"></a> with oil of
+lilies, and the decoction of linseed and fenugreek, boiled with oil
+of linseed and marshmallows, or with the following
+liniment:&mdash;</p>
+<p>Take mallows and marshmallows, cut and shred, of each one ounce;
+of linseed, one ounce; let them be boiled from twenty ounces of
+water to ten; then let her take three ounces of the boiled broth,
+of oil of almonds and oil of flower-de-luce, of each one ounce; of
+deer's suet, three ounces. Let her bathe with this, and anoint
+herself with it, warm.</p>
+<p>If for fourteen days before the birth, she do every morning and
+evening bathe and moisten her belly with muscadine and lavender
+water, the child will be much strengthened thereby. And if every
+day she eat toasted bread, it will hinder anything from growing to
+the child. Her privy parts must be gently stroked down with this
+fomentation.</p>
+<p>"Take three ounces of linseed, and one handful each of mallows
+and marshmallows sliced, then let them be put into a bag and
+immediately boiled." Let the woman with child, every morning and
+evening, take the vapour of this decoction in a hollow stool,
+taking great heed that no wind or air come to her in-parts, and
+then let her wipe the part so anointed with a linen cloth, and she
+may anoint the belly and groins as at first.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 229 --><a name='Page_229' id="Page_229"></a> When she
+has come so near to her time, as to be ten or fourteen days
+thereof, if she begins to feel any more than ordinary pain let her
+use every day the following:&mdash;"Take mallows and marshmallows,
+of each a handful; camomiles, hard mercury, maidenhair, of each a
+handful; of linseed, four ounces; let them be boiled in a
+sufficient quantity of water as to make a bath therewith." But let
+her not sit too hot upon the seat, nor higher than a little above
+her navel; nor let her sit upon it longer than about half an hour,
+lest her strength languish and decay, for it is better to use it
+often than to stay too long in it.</p>
+<p>And thus have I shown how a child-bearing woman ought to govern
+herself each month during her pregnancy. How she must order herself
+at her delivery, shall be shown in another chapter, after I have
+first shown the intended midwife how the child is first formed in
+the womb, and the manner of its decumbiture there.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_III' id=
+"EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_III"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 230 --><a name='Page_230' id="Page_230"></a> CHAPTER
+III</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Parts proper to a Child in the womb; How it is formed
+there, and the manner of its Situation therein.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>In the last chapter I treated of conception, showed what it was,
+how accomplished and its signs, and how she who has conceived ought
+to order herself during the time of her pregnancy. Now, before I
+come to speak of her delivery, it is necessary that the midwife be
+first made acquainted with the parts proper to a child in the womb,
+and also that she be shown how it is formed, and the manner of its
+situation and decumbiture there; which are so necessary to her,
+that without the knowledge thereof, no one can tell how to deliver
+a woman as she ought. This, therefore, shall be the work of this
+chapter. I shall begin with the first of these.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>Of the Parts proper to a Child in the
+Womb</i>.</h3>
+<p>In this section, I must first tell you what I mean by the parts
+proper to a child in the womb; and they are only those that either
+help or nourish it; and whilst it is lodged in that dark repository
+of nature, and that help to clothe and defend it there and are cast
+away, as of no <!-- Page 231 --><a name='Page_231' id=
+"Page_231"></a> more use, after it is born, and these are two,
+viz., the umbilicars, or navel vessels, and the secundinum. By the
+first it is nourished, and by the second clothed and defended from
+wrong. Of each of these I shall speak distinctly; and first,</p>
+<h4><i>Of the Umbilicars, or Navel Vessels</i>.</h4>
+<p>These are four in number, viz.:&mdash;one vein, two arteries,
+and the vessel which is called the urachos.</p>
+<p>(1) The vein is that on which the infant is nourished, from the
+time of its conception till the time of its delivery; till being
+brought into the light of the world, it has the same way of
+concocting the food we have. This vein ariseth from the liver of
+the child, and is divided into two parts when it has passed the
+navel; and these two are divided and subdivided, the branches being
+upheld by the skin called <i>chorion</i> (of which I speak by and
+by), and are joined to the veins of the mother's womb, from whence
+they have their blood for the nourishment of the child.</p>
+<p>(2) The arteries are two on each side which proceed from the
+back branches of the great artery of the mother, and the vital
+blood is carried by those to the child being ready concocted by the
+mother.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 232 --><a name='Page_232' id="Page_232"></a> (3) A
+nervous or sinewy production is led from the bottom of the bladder
+of the infant to the navel, and this is called <i>urachos</i>, and
+its use is, to convey the urine of the infant from the bladder to
+the alantois. Anatomists do very much vary in their opinion
+concerning this, some denying any such thing to be in the delivery
+of the woman, and others on the contrary affirming it; but
+experience has testified there is such a thing, for Bartholomew
+Carbrolius, the ordinary doctor of anatomy to the College of
+Physicians at Montpellier in France, records the history of a maid,
+whose water being a long time stopped, at last issued out through
+the navel. And Johannes Fernelius speaks of the same thing that
+happened to a man of thirty years of age, who having a stoppage at
+the neck of the bladder, his urine issued out of his navel for many
+months together, and that without any prejudice at all to his
+health, which he ascribes to the ill lying of his navel, whereby
+the urachos was not well dried. And Volchier Coitas quotes such
+another instance in a maid of thirty-four at Nuremburg in Germany.
+These instances, though they happen but seldom, are sufficient to
+prove that there is such a thing as anurachos in men.</p>
+<p>These four vessels before mentioned, viz., one vein, two
+arteries and the urachos, join near <!-- Page 233 --><a name=
+'Page_233' id="Page_233"></a> the navel, and are united by a skin
+which they have from the chorion and so become like a gut or rope,
+and are altogether void of sensibility, and this is that which
+women call the navel-string. The vessels are thus joined together,
+that so they may neither be broken, severed nor entangled; and when
+the infant is born are of no use save only to make up the ligament
+which stops the hole of the navel and for some other physical use,
+etc.</p>
+<h4><i>Of the Secundine or After-birth.</i></h4>
+<p>Setting aside the name given to this by the Greeks and Latins,
+it is called in English by the name of secundine, after-birth or
+after-burden; which are held to be four in number.</p>
+<p>(1) The <i>first</i> is called placenta, because it resembles
+the form of a cake, and is knit both to the navel and chorion, and
+makes up the greatest part of the secundine or after-birth. The
+flesh of it is like that of the melt or spleen, soft, red and
+tending something to blackness, and hath many small veins and
+arteries in it: and certainly the chief use of it is, for
+containing the child in the womb.</p>
+<p>(2) The <i>second</i> is the chorion. This skin and that called
+the amnios, involve the child round, both above and underneath, and
+on both <!-- Page 234 --><a name='Page_234' id="Page_234"></a>
+sides, which the alantois does not. This skin is that which is most
+commonly called the secundine, as it is thick and white garnished
+with many small veins and arteries, ending in the placenta before
+named, being very light and slippery. Its use is, not only to cover
+the child round about, but also to receive, and safely bind up the
+roots of the veins and arteries or navel vessels before
+described.</p>
+<p>(3) The <i>third</i> thing which makes up the secundine in the
+alantois, of which there is a great dispute amongst anatomists.
+Some say there is such a thing, and others that there is not. Those
+who will have it to be a membrane, say it is white, soft and
+exceedingly thin, and just under the placenta, where it is knit to
+the urachos, from which it receives the urine; and its office is to
+keep it separate from the sweat, that the saltness of it may not
+offend the tender skin of the child.</p>
+<p>(4) The <i>fourth</i>, and last covering of the child is called
+amnios; and it is white, soft and transparent, being nourished by
+some very small veins and arteries. Its use is, not only to enwrap
+the child, but also to retain the sweat of the child.</p>
+<p>Having thus described the parts proper to a child in the womb, I
+will next proceed to speak of the formation of the child therein,
+as soon <!-- Page 235 --><a name='Page_235' id="Page_235"></a> as I
+have explained the hard terms of the section, that those for whose
+help it is designed, may understand what they read. A <i>vein</i>
+is that which receives blood from the liver, and distributes in
+several branches to all parts of the body. <i>Nerve</i> is the same
+with <i>sinew</i>, and is that by which the brain adds sense and
+motion to the body. <i>Placenta</i>, properly signifies
+<i>sugar</i> cake; but in this section it is used to signify a
+spongy piece of flesh resembling a cake, full of veins and
+arteries, and is made to receive a mother's blood appointed for the
+infant's nourishment in the womb. The <i>chorion</i> is an outward
+skin which compasseth the child in the womb. The <i>amnios</i> is
+the inner skin which compasseth the child in the womb. The
+<i>alantois</i> is the skin that holds the urine of the child
+during the time that it abides in the womb. The <i>urachos</i> is
+the vessel that conveys the urine from the child in the womb to the
+<i>alantois</i>. I now proceed to</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. II.&mdash;<i>Of the Formation of the Child in the
+Womb.</i></h3>
+<p>To speak of the formation of the child in the womb, we must
+begin where nature begins, and, that is at the act of coition, in
+which the womb having received the generative seed (without which
+there can be no conception), the womb immediately shuts up itself
+so close that the <!-- Page 236 --><a name='Page_236' id=
+"Page_236"></a> point of a needle cannot enter the inward orifice;
+and this it does, partly to hinder the issuing out of the seed
+again, and partly to cherish it by an inward heat, the better to
+provoke it to action; which is one reason why women's bellies are
+so lank at their first conception. The woman having thus conceived,
+the first thing which is operative in conception is the spirit
+whereof the seed is full, which, nature quickening by the heat of
+the womb, stirs up the action. The internal spirits, therefore,
+separate the parts that are less pure, which are thick, cold and
+clammy, from those that are more pure and noble. The less pure are
+cast to the outside, and with these seed is circled round and the
+membrane made, in which that seed that is most pure is wrapped
+round and kept close together, that it may be defended from cold
+and other accidents, and operate the better.</p>
+<p>The first thing that is formed is the amnios; the next the
+chorion; and they enwrap the seed round like a curtain. Soon after
+this (for the seed thus shut up in the woman lies not idle), the
+navel vein is bred, which pierceth those skins, being yet very
+tender, and carries a drop of blood from the veins of the mother's
+womb to the seed; from which drop the vena cava, or chief vein,
+proceeds, from which all the rest of the veins which nourish the
+body spring; and <!-- Page 237 --><a name='Page_237' id=
+"Page_237"></a> now the seed hath something to nourish it, whilst
+it performs the rest of nature's work, and also blood administered
+to every part of it, to form flesh.</p>
+<p>This vein being formed, the navel arteries are soon after
+formed; then the great artery, of which all the others are but
+branches; and then the heart, for the liver furnisheth the arteries
+with blood to form the heart, the arteries being made of seed, but
+the heart and the flesh, of blood. After this the brain is formed,
+and then the nerves to give sense and motion to the infant.
+Afterwards the bones and flesh are formed; and of the bones, first
+of all, the vertebrae or chine bones, and then the skull, etc. As
+to the time in which this curious part of nature's workmanship is
+formed, having already in Chapter II of the former part of this
+work spoken at large upon this point, and also of the nourishment
+of the child in the womb, I shall here only refer the reader
+thereto, and proceed to show the manner in which the child lies in
+the womb.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. III.&mdash;<i>Of the manner of the Child's lying in the
+Womb</i>.</h3>
+<p>This is a thing so essential for a midwife to know, that she can
+be no midwife who is ignorant <!-- Page 238 --><a name='Page_238'
+id="Page_238"></a> of it; and yet even about this authors extremely
+differ; for there are not two in ten that agree what is the form
+that the child lies in the womb, or in what fashion it lies there;
+and yet this may arise in a great measure from the different times
+of the women's pregnancy; for near the time of its deliverance out
+of those winding chambers of nature it oftentimes changes the form
+in which it lay before, for another.</p>
+<p>I will now show the several situations of the child in the
+mother's womb, according to the different times of pregnancy, by
+which those that are contrary to nature, and are the chief cause of
+ill labours, will be more easily conceived by the understanding
+midwife. It ought, therefore, in the first place to be observed,
+that the infant, as well male as female, is generally situated in
+the midst of the womb; for though sometimes, to appearance a
+woman's belly seems higher on one side than the other, yet it is so
+with respect to the belly only, and not to her womb, in the midst
+of which it is always placed.</p>
+<p>But, in the second place, a woman's great belly makes different
+figures, according to the different times of pregnancy; for when
+she is young with child, the embryo is always found of a round
+figure, a little long, a little oblong, having the spine moderately
+turned inwards, and the thighs folded, and a little raised, to
+<!-- Page 239 --><a name='Page_239' id="Page_239"></a> which the
+legs are so raised, that the heels touch the buttocks; the arms are
+bending, and the hands placed upon the knees, towards which part of
+the body, the head is turned downwards towards the inward orifice
+of the womb, tumbling as it were over its head so that then the
+feet are uppermost, and the face towards the mother's great gut;
+and this turning of the infant in this manner, with its head
+downwards, towards the latter end of a woman's reckoning, is so
+ordered by nature, that it may be thereby the better disposed of
+its passage into the world at the time of its mother's labour,
+which is not then far off (and indeed some children turn not at all
+until the very time of birth); for in this posture all its joints
+are most easily extended in coming forth; for by this means its
+arms and legs cannot hinder its birth, because they cannot be bent
+against the inner orifice of the womb and the rest of the body,
+being very supple, passeth without any difficulty after the head,
+which is hard and big; being passed the head is inclined forward,
+so that the chin toucheth the breast, in which posture, it
+resembles one sitting to ease nature, and stooping down with the
+head to see what comes from him. The spine of the back is at that
+time placed towards the mother's, the head uppermost, the face
+downwards; and proportionately to its growth, it extends its
+<!-- Page 240 --><a name='Page_240' id="Page_240"></a> members by
+little and little, which were exactly folded in the first month. In
+this posture it usually keeps until the seventh or eighth month,
+and then by a natural propensity and disposition of the upper
+first. It is true there are divers children, that lie in the womb
+in another posture, and come to birth with their feet downwards,
+especially if there be twins; for then, by their different motions
+they do so disturb one another, that they seldom come both in the
+same posture at the time of labour, but one will come with the
+head, and another with the feet, or perhaps lie across; but
+sometimes neither of them will come right. But, however the child
+may be situated in the womb, or in whatever posture it presents
+itself at the time of birth, if it be not with its head forwards,
+as I have before described, it is always against nature, and the
+delivery will occasion the more pain and danger, and require
+greater care and skill from the midwife, than when the labour is
+more natural.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_IV' id=
+"EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_IV"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 241 --><a name='Page_241' id="Page_241"></a> CHAPTER
+IV</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>A Guide for Women in Travail, showing what is to be done when
+they fall in Labour, in order to their Delivery</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The end of all that we have been treating of is, the bringing
+forth of a child into the world with safety both to the mother and
+the infant, as the whole time of a woman's pregnancy may be termed
+a kind of labour; for, from the time of the conception to the time
+of her delivery, she labours under many difficulties, is subject to
+many distempers, and in continual danger, from one affection or
+other, till the time of birth comes; and when that comes, the
+greatest labour and travail come along with it, insomuch that then
+all the other labours are forgotten, and that only is called the
+time of her labours, and to deliver her safely is the principal
+business of the midwife; and to assist therein, shall be the chief
+design of this chapter. The time of the child's being ready for its
+birth, when nature endeavours to cast it forth, is that which is
+properly the time of a woman's labour; nature then labouring to be
+eased of its burden. And since many child-bearing women,
+(especially the first child) are often mistaken in their reckoning
+and so, when they draw near their time <!-- Page 242 --><a name=
+'Page_242' id="Page_242"></a> take every pain they meet with for
+their labour, which often proves prejudicial and troublesome to
+them, when it is not so, I will in the first section of this
+chapter, set down some signs, by which a woman may know when the
+true time of her labour is come.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>The Signs of the true Time of a Woman's
+Labour</i>.</h3>
+<p>When women with child, especially of their first, perceive any
+extraordinary pains in the belly, they immediately send for their
+midwife, as taking it for their labour; and then if the midwife be
+not a skilful and experienced woman, to know the time of labour,
+but takes it for granted without further inquiry (for some such
+there are), and so goes about to put her into labour before nature
+is prepared for it, she may endanger the life of both mother and
+child, by breaking the amnios and chorion. These pains, which are
+often mistaken for labour, are removed by warm clothes laid to the
+belly, and the application of a clyster or two, by which those
+pains which precede a true labour, are rather furthered than
+hindered. There are also other pains incident to a woman in that
+condition from the flux of the belly, which are easily known by the
+frequent stools that follow them.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 243 --><a name='Page_243' id="Page_243"></a> The
+signs, therefore, of labour, some few days before, are that the
+woman's belly, which before lay high, sinks down, and hinders her
+from walking so easily as she used to do; also there flow from the
+womb slimy humours, which nature has appointed to moisten and
+smooth the passage that its inward orifice may be the more easily
+dilated when there is occasion; which beginning to open at this
+time, suffers that slime to flow away, which proceeds from the
+Glandules called <i>prostata</i>. These are signs preceding the
+labour; but when she is presently falling into labour, the signs
+are, great pains about the region of the reins and loins, which
+coming and retreating by intervals, are answered in the bottom of
+the belly by congruous throes, and sometimes the face is red and
+inflamed, the blood being much heated by the endeavours a woman
+makes to bring forth her child; and likewise, because during these
+strong throes her respiration is intercepted, which causes the
+blood to have recourse to her face; also her privy parts are
+swelled by the infant's head lying in the birth, which, by often
+thrusting, causes those parts to descend outwards. She is much
+subject to vomiting, which is a good sign of good labour and speedy
+delivery, though by ignorant people thought otherwise; for good
+pains are thereby excited and redoubled; which
+<!-- Page 244 --><a name='Page_244' id="Page_244"></a> vomiting is
+excited by the sympathy there is between the womb and the stomach.
+Also, when the birth is near, women are troubled with a trembling
+in the thighs and legs, not with cold, like the beginning of an
+ague fit, but with the heat of the whole body, though it must be
+granted, this does not happen always. Also, if the humours which
+then flow from the womb are discoloured with the blood, which the
+midwives call <i>shows</i>, it is an infallible mark of the birth
+being near. And if then the midwife puts up her fingers into the
+neck of the womb, she will find the inner orifice dilated; at the
+opening of which the membranes of the infant, containing the
+waters, present themselves and are strongly forced down with each
+pain she hath; at which time one may perceive them sometimes to
+resist, and then again press forward the finger, being more or less
+hard and extended, according as the pains are stronger or weaker.
+These membranes, with the waters in them, when they are before the
+head of the child, midwives call <i>the gathering of the
+waters</i>, resemble to the touch of the fingers those eggs which
+have no shell, but are covered only with a simple membrane. After
+this, the pains still redoubling the membranes are broken by a
+strong impulsation of these waters, which flow away, and then the
+head of the infant is presently <!-- Page 245 --><a name='Page_245'
+id="Page_245"></a> felt naked, and presents itself at the inward
+orifice of the womb. When these waters come thus away, then the
+midwife may be assured the birth is very near, this being the most
+certain sign that can be; for the <i>amnios alantois</i>, which
+contained these waters, being broken by the pressing forward of the
+birth, the child is no better able to subsist long in the womb
+afterwards than a naked man in a heap of snow. Now, these waters,
+if the child comes presently after them, facilitate the labour by
+making the passage slippery; and therefore, let no midwife (as some
+have foolishly done) endeavour to force away the water, for nature
+knows best when the true time of birth is, and therefore retains
+the waters till that time. But if by accident the water breaks away
+too long before the birth, then such things as will hasten it, may
+be safely administered, and what these are, I will show in another
+section.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. II.&mdash;<i>How a Woman ought to be ordered when the
+time of her labour is come</i>.</h3>
+<p>When it is known that the true time of her labour is come by the
+signs laid down in the foregoing, of which those most to be relied
+upon are pains and strong throes in the belly, forcing downwards
+towards the womb, and a dilation <!-- Page 246 --><a name=
+'Page_246' id="Page_246"></a> of the inward orifice, which may be
+perceived by touching it with the finger, and the gathering of the
+waters before the head of the child, and thrusting down the
+membranes which contain them; through which, between the pains, one
+may in some manner with the finger discover the part which presents
+itself (as we have said before), especially if it be the head of
+the child, by its roundness and hardness; I say, if these things
+concur and are evident, the midwife may be sure it is the time of
+the woman's labour, and care must be taken to get all those things
+that are necessary to comfort her at that time. And the better to
+help her, be sure to see that she is not tightly laced; you must
+also give her one strong clyster or more, if there be occasion,
+provided it be done at the beginning, and before the child be too
+forward, for it will be difficult for her to receive them
+afterwards. The benefit accruing therefrom will be, that they
+excite the gut to discharge itself of its excrements, so that the
+rectum being emptied there may be the more space for the dilation
+of the passage; likewise to cause the pains to bear the more
+downward, through the endeavours she makes when she is at stool,
+and in the meantime, all other necessary things for her labour
+should be put in order, both for the mother and the child. To this
+end, some get a midwife's; but a pallet bed, girded,
+<!-- Page 247 --><a name='Page_247' id="Page_247"></a> is much the
+best way, placed near the fire, if the season so require, which
+pallet ought to be so placed, that there may be easy access to it
+on every side, that the woman may be the more easily assisted, as
+there is occasion.</p>
+<p>If the woman abounds with blood, to bleed her a little more may
+not be improper, for thereby she will both breathe the better, and
+have her breasts more at liberty, and likewise more strength to
+bear down her pains; and this may be done without danger because
+the child being about ready to be born, has no more need of the
+mother's blood for its nourishment; besides, this evacuation does
+many times prevent her having a fever after delivery. Also, before
+her delivery, if her strength will permit, let her walk up and down
+her chamber; and that she may have strength so to do, it will be
+necessary to give her good strengthening things, such as jelly,
+broth, new laid eggs, or some spoonfuls of burnt wine; and let her
+by all means hold out her pains, bearing them down as much as she
+can, at the time when they take her; and let the midwife from time
+to time touch the inward orifice with her finger, to know whether
+the waters are ready to break and whether the birth will follow
+soon after. Let her also anoint the woman's privities with
+emollient oil, hog's grease, and fresh butter, if she find they are
+hard to be <!-- Page 248 --><a name='Page_248' id="Page_248"></a>
+dilated. Let the midwife, likewise, all the time be near the
+labouring woman, and diligently observe her gestures, complaints,
+and pains, for by this she may guess pretty well how far her labour
+advanceth, because when she changeth her ordinary groans into loud
+cries, it is a sign that the child is near the birth; for at the
+time her pains are greater and more frequent. Let the woman
+likewise, by intervals, rest herself upon the bed to regain her
+strength, but not too long, especially if she be little, short and
+thick, for such women have always worse labour if they lie long on
+their beds in their travail. It is better, therefore, that she walk
+about her chamber as long as she can, the woman supporting her
+under the arms, if it be necessary; for by this means, the weight
+of the child causes the inward orifices of the womb to dilate the
+sooner than in bed, and if her pains be stronger and more frequent,
+her labour will not be near so long. Let not the labouring woman be
+concerned at those qualms and vomitings which, perhaps, she may
+find come upon her, for they will be much for her advantage in the
+issue, however uneasy she may be for a time, as they further her
+pains and throes by provoking downward.</p>
+<p>When the waters of the child are ready and gathered (which may
+be perceived through the <!-- Page 249 --><a name='Page_249' id=
+"Page_249"></a> membranes presenting themselves to the orifice) to
+the bigness of the whole dilatation, the midwife ought to let them
+break of themselves, and not, like some hasty midwives, who being
+impatient of the woman's long labour, break them, intending thereby
+to hasten their business, when instead thereof, they retard it; for
+by the too hasty breaking of these waters (which nature designed to
+make the child slip more easy), the passage remains dry by which
+means the pains and throes of the labouring woman are less
+efficacious to bring forth the infant than they would otherwise
+have been. It is, therefore, much the better way to let the waters
+break of themselves; after which the midwife may with ease feel the
+child by that part which first presents, and thereby discern
+whether it comes right, that is, with the head foremost, for that
+is the proper and most natural way of the birth. If the head comes
+right, she will find it big, round, hard and equal; but if it be
+any other part, she will find it rugged, unequal, soft and hard,
+according to the nature of the part it is. And this being the true
+time when a woman ought to be delivered, if nature be not wanting
+to perform its office, therefore, when the midwife finds the birth
+thus coming forward let her hasten to assist and deliver it, for it
+ordinarily happens soon after, if it be natural.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 250 --><a name='Page_250' id="Page_250"></a> But if it
+happens, as it sometimes may, that the waters break away too long
+before the birth, in such a case, those things which hasten nature
+may safely be administered. For which purpose make use of
+pennyroyal, dittany, juniper berries, red coral, betony and
+feverfew, boiled in white wine, and give a drachm of it, or it
+would be much better to take the juice of it when it is in its
+prime, which is in May, and having clarified it, make it into a
+syrup with double its weight of sugar, and keep it all the year, to
+use when occasion calls for it; mugwort used in the same manner is
+also good in this case; also a drachm of cinnamon powder given
+inwardly profits much in this case; and so does tansey broiled and
+applied to the privities; or an oil of it, so, made and used, as
+you were taught before. The stone <i>aetites</i> held to the
+privities, is of extraordinary virtue, and instantly draws away,
+both child and after-burden; but great care must be taken to remove
+it presently, or it will draw forth womb and all; for such is the
+magnetic virtue of this stone that both child and womb follow it as
+readily as iron doth the load-stone or the load-stone the north
+star.</p>
+<p>There are many things that physicians affirm are good in this
+case; among which are an ass's or horse's hoof, hung near the
+privities; a piece of red coral hung near the said place. A
+load-stone <!-- Page 251 --><a name='Page_251' id="Page_251"></a>
+helps very much, held in the woman's left hand; or the skin cut off
+a snake, girt about the middle, next to the skin. These things are
+mentioned by Mizaldus, but setting those things aside, as not so
+certain, notwithstanding Mizaldus quotes them, the following
+prescriptions are very good to speedy deliverance to women in
+travail.</p>
+<p>(1) A decoction of white wine made in savory, and drank.</p>
+<p>(2) Take wild tansey, or silver weed, bruise it, and apply to
+the woman's nostrils.</p>
+<p>(3) Take date stones, and beat them to powder, and let her take
+half a drachm of them in white wine at a time.</p>
+<p>(4) Take parsley and bruise it and press out the juice, and dip
+a linen cloth in it, and put it so dipped into the mouth of the
+womb; it will presently cause the child to come away, though it be
+dead, and it will bring away the after-burden. Also the juice of
+the parsley is a thing of so great virtue (especially stone
+parsley) that being drank by a woman with child, it cleanseth not
+only the womb, but also the child in the womb, of all gross
+humours.</p>
+<p>(5) A scruple of castorum in powder, in any convenient liquor,
+is very good to be taken in such a case, and so also is two or
+three drops of castorum in any convenient liquor; or eight or
+<!-- Page 252 --><a name='Page_252' id="Page_252"></a> nine drops
+of spirits of myrrh given in any convenient liquor, gives speedy
+deliverance.</p>
+<p>(6) Give a woman in such a case another woman's milk to drink;
+it will cause speedy delivery, and almost without pain.</p>
+<p>(7) The juice of leeks, being drunk with warm water, highly
+operates to cause speedy delivery.</p>
+<p>(8) Take peony seeds and beat them into a powder, and mix the
+powder with oil, with which oil anoint the privities of the woman
+and child; it will give her deliverance speedily, and with less
+pain than can be imagined.</p>
+<p>(9) Take a swallow's nest and dissolve it in water, strain it,
+and drink it warm, it gives delivery with great speed and much
+ease.</p>
+<p>Note this also in general, that all that move the terms are good
+for making the delivery easy, such as myrrh, white amber in white
+wine, or lily water, two scruples or a drachm; or cassia lignea,
+dittany, each a drachm; cinnamon, half a drachm, saffron, a
+scruple; give a drachm, or take borax mineral, a drachm, and give
+it in sack; or take cassia lignea, a drachm; dittany, amber, of
+each a drachm; cinnamon, borax, of each a drachm and a half;
+saffron, a scruple, and give her half a drachm; or give her some
+drops of oil of hazel in convenient liquor; or two or three drops
+of oil of cinnamon in vervain <!-- Page 253 --><a name='Page_253'
+id="Page_253"></a> water. Some prepare the secundine
+thus:&mdash;Take the navel-string and dry it in an oven, take two
+drachms of the powder, cinnamon a drachm, saffron half a scruple,
+with the juice of savin make trochisks; give two drachms; or wash
+the secundine in wine and bake it in a pot; then wash it in endive
+water and wine, take half a drachm of it; long pepper, galangal, of
+each half a drachm; plantain and endive seed, of each half a
+drachm; lavender seed, four scruples; make a powder, or take
+laudanum, two drachms; storax, calamite, benzoin, of each half a
+drachm; musk, ambergris each six grains, make a powder or trochisks
+for a fume. Or use pessaries to provoke the birth; take galbanum
+dissolved in vinegar, an ounce; myrrh, two drachms, with oil of oat
+make a pessary.</p>
+<h4><i>An Ointment For the Navel</i>.</h4>
+<p>Take oil of keir, two ounces, juice of savine an ounce, of leeks
+and mercury, each half an ounce; boil them to the consumption of
+the juice; add galbanum dissolved in vinegar, half an ounce, myrrh,
+two drachms, storax liquid a drachm, round bitwort, sowbread,
+cinnamon, saffron, a drachm, with wax make an ointment and apply
+it.</p>
+<p>If the birth be retarded through the weakness
+<!-- Page 254 --><a name='Page_254' id="Page_254"></a> of the
+mother, refresh her by applying wine and soap to the nose, confect.
+alkermas. diamarg.</p>
+<p>These things may be applied to help nature in her delivery when
+the child comes to the birth the right way, and yet the birth be
+retarded; but if she finds the child comes the wrong way, and that
+she is not able to deliver the woman as she ought to be, by helping
+nature, and saving both mother and child (for it is not enough to
+lay a woman if it might be done any other way with more safety and
+ease, and less hazard to woman and child), then let her send
+speedily for the better and more able to help; and not as I once
+knew a midwife do, who, when a woman she was to deliver had hard
+labour, rather than a man-midwife should be sent for, undertook to
+deliver the woman herself (though told it was a man's business),
+and in her attempting it, brought away the child, but left the head
+in the mother's womb; and had not a man midwife been presently sent
+for, the mother had lost her life as well as the child; such
+persons may rather be termed butchers than midwives. But supposing
+the woman's labour to be natural, I will next show what the midwife
+ought to do, in order of her delivery.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_V' id=
+"EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_V"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 255 --><a name='Page_255' id="Page_255"></a> CHAPTER
+V</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Natural Labour; What it is and what the Midwife is to do
+in such Labour</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>What Natural Labour is</i>.</h3>
+<p>There are four things which denominate a woman's natural labour;
+the first is, that it be at the full time, for if a woman comes
+before her time, it cannot be termed natural labour, neither will
+it be so easy as though she had completed her nine months. The
+second thing is, that it be speedy, and without any ill accident;
+for when the time of her birth come, nature is not dilatory in the
+bringing it forth, without some ill accident intervene, which
+renders it unnatural.</p>
+<p>The third is, that the child be alive; for all will grant, that
+the being delivered of a dead child is very unnatural. The fourth
+is, that the child come right, for if the position of the child in
+the womb be contrary to that which is natural, the event will prove
+it so, by making that which should be a time of life, the death
+both of the mother and the child.</p>
+<p>Having thus told you what I mean by natural labour, I shall next
+show how the midwife is to proceed therein, in order to the woman's
+delivery. <!-- Page 256 --><a name='Page_256' id="Page_256"></a>
+When all the foregoing requisites concur, and after the waters be
+broken of themselves, let there rather a quilt be laid upon the
+pallet bedstead than a feather bed, having there-on linen and
+cloths in many folds, with such other things as are necessary, and
+that may be changed according to the exigency requiring it, so that
+the woman may not be incommoded with the blood, waters and other
+filth which are voided in labour. The bed ought to be ordered, that
+the woman being ready to be delivered, should lie on her back upon
+it, having her body in a convenient posture; this is, her head and
+breast a little raised, so that she may be between lying and
+sitting, for being so placed, she is best capable of breathing,
+and, likewise, will have more strength to bear her pains than if
+she lay otherwise, or sunk down in her bed. Being so placed, she
+must spread her thighs abroad, folding her legs a little towards
+her buttocks, somewhat raised by a little pillow underneath, to the
+end that her rumps should have more liberty to retire back; and let
+her feet be stayed against some firm thing; besides this, let her
+take firm hold of some of the good women attending her, with her
+hands, that she may the better stay herself during her pains. She
+being thus placed at her bed, having her midwife at hand, the
+better to assist as nature may require, let her take
+<!-- Page 257 --><a name='Page_257' id="Page_257"></a> courage, and
+help her pains as best she can, bearing them down when they take
+her, which she must do by holding her breath, and forcing them as
+much as possible, in like manner as when she goes to stool, for by
+such straining, the diaphragm, or midriff, being strongly thrust
+downward, necessarily forces down the womb and the child in it. In
+the meantime, let the midwife endeavour to comfort her all she can,
+exhorting her to bear her labour courageously, telling her it will
+be quickly over, and that there is no fear but that she will have a
+speedy delivery. Let the midwife also, having no rings on her
+fingers, anoint them with oil of fresh butter, and therewith dilate
+gently the inward orifice of the womb putting her finger ends into
+the entry thereof, and then stretch them one from the other, when
+her pains take her; by this means endeavouring to help forward the
+child, and thrusting by little and little, the sides of the orifice
+towards the hinder part of the child's head, anointing it with
+fresh butter if it be necessary.</p>
+<p>When the head of the infant is a little advanced into the inward
+orifice, the midwife's phrase is:&mdash;"It is crowned"; because it
+girds and surrounds it just as a crown; but when it is so far that
+the extremities begin to appear without the privy parts, then they
+say, "The infant <!-- Page 258 --><a name='Page_258' id=
+"Page_258"></a> is in the passage"; and at this time the woman
+feels herself as if it were scratched, or pricked with pins, and is
+ready to imagine that the midwife hurts her, when it is occasioned
+by the violent distension of those parts and the laceration which
+sometimes the bigness of the child's head causeth there. When
+things are in this posture, let the midwife seat herself
+conveniently to receive the child, which will come quickly, and
+with her finger ends (which she must be sure to keep close pared)
+let her endeavour to thrust the crowning of the womb (of which I
+have spoken before), back over the head of the child, and as soon
+as it is advanced as far as the ears, or thereabouts, let her take
+hold of the two sides with her two hands, that when a good pain
+comes she may quickly draw forth the child, taking care that the
+navel-string be not entangled about the neck or any part, as
+sometimes it is, lest thereby the after-burden be pulled with
+violence, and perhaps the womb also, to which it is fastened, and
+so either cause her to flood or else break the strings, both which
+are of bad consequence to the woman, whose delivery may thereby be
+rendered the more difficult. It must also be carefully observed
+that the head be not drawn forth straight, but shaking it a little
+from one side to the other, that the shoulders may sooner and
+easier take <!-- Page 259 --><a name='Page_259' id="Page_259"></a>
+their places immediately after it is past, without losing time,
+lest the head being past, the child be stopped there by the
+largeness of the shoulders, and so come in danger of being
+suffocated and strangled in the passage, as it sometimes happens,
+for the want of care therein. But as soon as the head is born, if
+there be need, she may slide her fingers under the armpits, and the
+rest of the body will follow without any difficulty.</p>
+<p>As soon as the midwife hath in this manner drawn forth the
+child, let her put it on one side, lest the blood and water which
+follows immediately, should do it any injury by running into its
+mouth and nose, as they would do, if it lay on its back; and so
+endanger the choking of it. The child being thus born, the next
+thing requisite is, to bring away the after-burden, but before that
+let the midwife be very careful to examine whether there be more
+children in the womb; for sometimes a woman may have twins that
+expected it not; which the midwife may easily know by the
+continuance of the pains after the child is born, and the bigness
+of the mother's belly. But the midwife may be sure of it, if she
+puts her hand up to the entry of the womb, and finds there another
+watery gathering, and the child in it presenting to the passage,
+and if she find it so, she must have a <!-- Page 260 --><a name=
+'Page_260' id="Page_260"></a> care of going to fetch the
+after-birth, till the woman be delivered of all the children she is
+pregnant with. Wherefore the first string must be cut, being first
+tied with a thread three or four times double, and fasten the other
+end with string to the woman's thighs, to prevent the inconvenience
+it may cause by hanging between the thighs; and then removing the
+child already born, she must take care to deliver her of the rest,
+observing all the circumstances as with the first; after which, it
+will be necessary to fetch away the after-birth, or births. But of
+that I shall treat in another section, and first show what is to be
+done to the new-born infant.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. II.&mdash;<i>Of the Cutting of the Child's Navel
+String.</i></h3>
+<p>Though this is accounted by many but as a trifle, yet great care
+is to be taken about it, and it shows none of the least art and
+skill of a midwife to do it as it should be; and that it may be so
+done, the midwife should observe: (1) The time. (2) The place. (3)
+The manner. (4) The event.</p>
+<p>(1) The time is, as soon as ever the infant comes out of the
+womb, whether it brings part <!-- Page 261 --><a name='Page_261'
+id="Page_261"></a> of the after-burden with it or not; for
+sometimes the child brings into the world a piece of the amnios
+upon its head, and is what mid wives call the <i>caul</i>, and
+ignorantly attribute some extraordinary virtue to the child so
+born; but this opinion is only the effect of their ignorance; for
+when a child is born with such a crown (as some call it) upon its
+brows, it generally betokens weakness and denotes a short life. But
+to proceed to the matter in hand. As soon as the child comes into
+the world, it should be considered whether it is weak or strong;
+and if it be weak, let the midwife gently put back part of the
+natural and vital blood into the body of the child by its navel;
+for that recruits a weak child (the vital and natural spirits being
+communicated by the mother to the child by its navel-string), but
+if the child be strong, the operation is needless. Only let me
+advise you, that many children that are born seemingly dead, may
+soon be brought to life again, if you squeeze six or seven drops of
+blood out of that part of the navel-string which is cut off, and
+give it to the child inwardly.</p>
+<p>(2) As to the place in which it should be cut, that is, whether
+it should be cut long or short, it is that which authors can
+scarcely agree in, and which many midwives quarrel about; some
+prescribing it to be cut at four <!-- Page 262 --><a name=
+'Page_262' id="Page_262"></a> fingers' breadth, which is, at best,
+but an uncertain rule, unless all fingers were of one size. It is a
+received opinion, that the parts adapted to the generation are
+contracted and dilated according to the cutting of the
+navel-string, and this is the reason why midwives are generally so
+kind to their own sex, that they leave a longer part of the
+navel-string of a male than female, because they would have the
+males well provided for the encounters of Venus; and the reason
+they give, why they cut that of the female shorter is, because they
+believe it makes them more acceptable to their husbands. Mizaldus
+was not altogether of the opinion of these midwives, and he,
+therefore, ordered the navel string to be cut long both in male and
+female children; for which he gives the following reason, that the
+instrument of generation follows the proportion of it; and
+therefore, if it be cut too short in a female, it will be a
+hindrance to her having children. I will not go about to contradict
+the opinions of Mizaldus; these, experience has made
+good:&mdash;That one is, that if the navel-string of a child, after
+it be cut, be suffered to touch the ground, the child will never
+hold its water, either sleeping or waking, but will be subjected to
+an involuntary making of water all its lifetime. The other is, that
+a piece of a child's navel-string carried about one, so
+<!-- Page 263 --><a name='Page_263' id="Page_263"></a> that it
+touch his skin, defends him that wears it from the falling sickness
+and convulsions.</p>
+<p>(3) As to the manner it must be cut, let the midwife take a
+brown thread, four or five times double, of an ell long, or
+thereabouts, tied with a single knot at each of the ends, to
+prevent their entangling; and with this thread so accommodated
+(which the woman must have in readiness before the woman's labour,
+as also a good pair of scissors, that no time may be lost) let her
+tie the string within an inch of the belly with a double knot, and
+turning about the end of the thread, let her tie two more on the
+other side of the string, reiterating it again, if it be necessary;
+then let her cut off the navel-string another inch below the
+ligatures, towards the after-birth, so that there only remains but
+two inches of the string, in the midst of which will be the knot we
+speak of, which must be so close knit, as not to suffer a drop of
+blood to squeeze out of the vessels, but care must be taken, not to
+knit it so strait, as to out it in two, and therefore the thread
+must be pretty thick and pretty strait cut, it being better too
+strait than too loose; for some children have miserably lost their
+lives, with all their blood, before it was discovered, because the
+navel-string was not well tied, therefore great care must be taken
+that no blood squeeze through; for if there do,
+<!-- Page 264 --><a name='Page_264' id="Page_264"></a> a new knot
+must be made with the rest of the string. You need not fear to bind
+the navel-string very hard because it is void of sense, and that
+part which you leave, falls off in a very few days, sometimes in
+six or seven, or sooner, but never tarries longer than eight or
+nine. When you have thus cut the navel-string, then take care the
+piece that falls off touch not the ground, for the reason I told
+you Mizaldus gave, which experience has justified.</p>
+<p>(4) The last thing I mentioned, was the event or consequence, or
+what follows cutting the navel-string. As soon as it is cut, apply
+a little cotton or lint to the place to keep it warm, lest the cold
+enter into the body of the child, which it most certainly will do,
+if you have not bound it hard enough. If the lint or cotton you
+apply to it, be dipped in oil of roses, it will be the better, and
+then put another small rag three or four times double upon the
+belly; upon the top of all, put another small bolster, and then
+swathe it with a linen swathe, four fingers broad, to keep it
+steady, lest by moving too much, or from being continually stirred
+from side to side, it comes to fall off before the navel-string,
+which you left remaining, is fallen off.</p>
+<p>It is the usual custom of midwives to put a piece of burnt rag
+to it, which we commonly call tinder; but I would rather advise
+them to put <!-- Page 265 --><a name='Page_265' id="Page_265"></a>
+a little ammoniac to it, because of its drying qualities.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. III.&mdash;<i>How to bring away the
+After-burden.</i></h3>
+<p>A woman cannot be said to be fairly delivered, though the child
+be born, till the after-burden be also taken from her; herein
+differing from most animals, who, when they have brought forth
+their young, cast forth nothing else but some water, and the
+membranes which contained them. But women have an after-labour,
+which sometimes proves more dangerous than the first; and how to
+bring it safely away without prejudice to her, shall be my business
+to show in this section.</p>
+<p>As soon as the child is born, before the midwife either ties or
+cuts the navel-string, lest the womb should close, let her take the
+string and wind it once or twice about one or two fingers on her
+left hand joined together, the better to hold it, with which she
+may draw it moderately, and with the right hand, she may only take
+a single hold of it, above the left, near the privities, drawing
+likewise with that very gently, resting the while the forefinger of
+the same hand, extended and stretched forth along the string
+towards the entrance of the vagina, always observing, for the
+greater facility, to draw <!-- Page 266 --><a name='Page_266' id=
+"Page_266"></a> it from the side where the burden cleaves least;
+for in so doing, the rest will separate the better; and special
+care must be taken that it be not drawn forth with too much
+violence, lest by breaking the string near the burden, the midwife
+be obliged to put the whole hand into the womb to deliver the
+woman; and she need to be a very skilful person that undertakes it,
+lest the womb, to which the burden is sometimes very strongly
+fastened, be drawn away with it, as has sometimes happened. It is,
+therefore, best to use such remedies as may assist nature. And here
+take notice, that what brings away the birth, will also bring away
+the after-birth. And therefore, for effecting this work, I will lay
+down the following rules.</p>
+<p>(1) Use the same means of bringing away the after-birth, that
+you made use of to bring away the birth; for the same care and
+circumspection are needful now that there were then.</p>
+<p>(2) Considering that the labouring woman cannot but be much
+spent by what she has already undergone in bringing forth the
+infant, be therefore sure to give her something to comfort her. And
+in this case good jelly broths, also a little wine and toast in it,
+and other comforting things, will be necessary.</p>
+<p>(3) A little hellebore in powder, to make her sneeze, is in this
+case very proper.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 267 --><a name='Page_267' id="Page_267"></a> (4)
+Tansey, and the stone aetites, applied as before directed, are also
+of good use in this case.</p>
+<p>(5) If you take the herb vervain, and either boil it in wine, or
+a syrup with the juice of it, which you may do by adding to it
+double its weight of sugar (having clarified the juice before you
+boil it), a spoonful of that given to the woman is very efficacious
+to bring away the secundine; and feverfew and mugwort have the same
+operation taken as the former.</p>
+<p>(6) Alexanders<a name='FNanchor_10_10' id="FNanchor_10_10"></a>
+<a href='#Footnote_10_10'><sup>[10]</sup></a> boiled in wine, and
+the wine drank, also sweet servile, sweet cicily, angelica roots,
+and musterwort, are excellent remedies in this case.</p>
+<p>(7) Or, if this fail, the smoke of marigolds, received up a
+woman's privities by a funnel, have been known to bring away the
+after-birth, even when the midwife let go her hold.</p>
+<p>(8) Boil mugwort in water till it be very soft, then take it
+out, and apply it in the manner of a poultice to the navel of the
+labouring woman, and it instantly brings away the birth. But
+special care must be taken to remove it as soon as they come away,
+lest by its long tarrying it should draw away the womb also.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><!-- Page 268 --><a name='Page_268' id="Page_268"></a> SECT.
+IV.&mdash;<i>Of Laborious and Difficult Labours and how the Midwife
+is to proceed therein</i>.</h3>
+<p>There are three sorts of bad labours, all painful and difficult,
+but not all properly unnatural. It will be necessary, therefore, to
+distinguish these.</p>
+<p>The <i>first</i> of these labours is that when the mother and
+child suffer very much extreme pain and difficulty, even though the
+child come right; and this is distinguishably called the laborious
+labour.</p>
+<p>The <i>second</i> is that which is difficult and differs not
+much from the former, except that, besides those extraordinary
+pains, it is generally attended with some unhappy accident, which,
+by retarding the birth, causes the difficulty; but these
+difficulties being removed, it accelerates the birth, and hastens
+the delivery.</p>
+<p>Some have asked, what is the reason that women bring forth their
+children with so much pain? I answer, the sense of feeling is
+distributed to the whole body by the nerves, and the mouth of the
+womb being so narrow, that it must of necessity be dilated at the
+time of the woman's delivery, the dilating thereof stretches the
+nerves, and from thence comes the pain. And therefore the reason
+why some women have more pain in their labour than others, proceeds
+<!-- Page 269 --><a name='Page_269' id="Page_269"></a> from their
+having the mouth of the matrix more full of nerves than others. The
+best way to remove those difficulties that occasion hard pains and
+labour, is to show first from whence they proceed. Now the
+difficulty of labour proceeds either from the mother, or child, or
+both.</p>
+<p>From the mother, by reason of the indisposition of the body, or
+from some particular part only, and chiefly the womb, as when the
+woman is weak, and the mother is not active to expel the burden, or
+from weakness, or disease, or want of spirits; or it may be from
+strong passion of the mind with which she was once possessed; she
+may also be too young, and so may have the passage too narrow; or
+too old, and then, if it be her first child, because her pains are
+too dry and hard, and cannot be easily dilated, as happens also to
+them which are too lean; likewise those who are small, short or
+deformed, as crooked women who have not breath enough to help their
+pains, and to bear them down, persons that are crooked having
+sometimes the bones of the passage not well shaped. The colic also
+hinders labour, by preventing the true pains; and all great and
+active pains, as when the woman is taken with a great and violent
+fever, a great flooding, frequent convulsions, bloody flux, or any
+other great distemper. <!-- Page 270 --><a name='Page_270' id=
+"Page_270"></a> Also, excrements retained cause great difficulty,
+and so does a stone in the bladder: or when the bladder is full of
+urine, without being able to void it, or when the woman is troubled
+with great and painful piles. It may also be from the passages,
+when the membranes are thick, the orifice too narrow, and the neck
+of the womb not sufficiently open, the passages strained and
+pressed by tumours in the adjacent parts, or when the bones are too
+firm, and will not open, which very much endangers the mother and
+the child; or when the passages are not slippery, by reason of the
+waters having broken too soon, or membranes being too thin. The
+womb may also be out of order with regard to its bad situation or
+conformation, having its neck too narrow, hard and callous, which
+may easily be so naturally, or may come by accident, being many
+times caused by a tumour, an imposthume, ulcer or superfluous
+flesh.</p>
+<p>As to hard labour occasioned by the child, it is when the child
+happens to stick to a mole, or when it is so weak it cannot break
+the membranes; or if it be too big all over, or in the head only;
+or if the natural vessels are twisted about its neck; when the
+belly is hydropsical; or when it is monstrous, having two heads, or
+joined to another child, also, when the child is dead or so weak
+that it can contribute nothing <!-- Page 271 --><a name='Page_271'
+id="Page_271"></a> to its birth; likewise when it comes wrong, or
+there are two or more. And to all these various difficulties there
+is oftentimes one more, and that is, the ignorance of the midwife,
+who for want of understanding in her business, hinders nature in
+her work instead of helping her.</p>
+<p>Having thus looked into the cause of hard labour, I will now
+show the industrious midwife how she may minister some relief to
+the labouring woman under these difficult circumstances. But it
+will require judgment and understanding in the midwife, when she
+finds a woman in difficult labour, to know the particular
+obstruction, or cause thereof, that so a suitable remedy may be
+applied; as for instance, when it happens by the mother's being too
+young and too narrow, she must be gently treated, and the passages
+anointed with oil, hog's lard, or fresh butter, to relax and dilate
+them the easier, lest there should happen a rupture of any part
+when the child is born; for sometimes the peritoneum breaks, with
+the skin from the privities to the fundament.</p>
+<p>But if the woman be in years with her first child, let her lower
+parts be anointed to mollify the inward orifice, which in such a
+case being more hard and callous, does not easily yield to the
+distention of labour, which is the true cause why such women are
+longer in labour, and also <!-- Page 272 --><a name='Page_272' id=
+"Page_272"></a> why their children, being forced against the inward
+orifice of the womb (which, as I have said, is a little callous)
+are born with great bumps and bruises on their heads.</p>
+<p>Those women who are very small and mis-shaped, should not be put
+to bed, at least until the waters are broken, but rather kept
+upright and assisted to walk about the chamber, by being supported
+under the arms; for by that means, they will breathe more freely,
+and mend their pains better than on the bed, because there they lie
+all of a heap. As for those that are very lean, and have hard
+labour from that cause, let them moisten the parts with oil and
+ointments, to make them more smooth and slippery, that the head of
+the infant, and the womb be not so compressed and bruised by the
+hardness of the mother's bones which form the passage. If the cause
+be weakness, she ought to be strengthened, the better to support
+her pains, to which end give her good jelly broths, and a little
+wine with a toast in it. If she fears her pains, let her be
+comforted, assuring her that she will not endure any more, but be
+delivered in a little time. But if her pains be slow and small, or
+none at all, they must be provoked by frequent and pretty strong
+clysters; let her walk about her chamber, so that the weight of the
+child may help them forward. If she flood <!-- Page 273 --><a name=
+'Page_273' id="Page_273"></a> or have strong convulsions she must
+then be helped by a speedy delivery; the operation I shall relate
+in this section of unnatural labours. If she be costive, let her
+use clysters, which may also help to dispel colic, at those times
+very injurious because attended with useless pains, and because
+such bear not downward, and so help not to forward the birth. If
+she find an obstruction or stoppage of the urine, by reason of the
+womb's bearing too much on the bladder, let her lift up her belly a
+little with her hands, and try if by that she receives any benefit;
+if she finds she does not, it will be necessary to introduce a
+catheter into her bladder, and thereby draw forth her urine. If the
+difficulty be from the ill posture of the woman, let her be placed
+otherwise, in a posture more suitable and convenient for her; also
+if it proceeds from indispositions of the womb, as from its oblique
+situation, etc., it must be remedied, as well as it can be, by the
+placing her body accordingly; or, if it be a vicious conformation,
+having the neck too hard, too callous, too straight, it must be
+anointed with oil and ointments, as before directed. If the
+membranes be so strong that the waters do not break in due time,
+they may be broken with the fingers, if the midwife be first well
+assured that the child is come forward into the passage, and ready
+to follow presently <!-- Page 274 --><a name='Page_274' id=
+"Page_274"></a> after; or else, by the breaking of the waters too
+soon, the child may be in danger of remaining dry a long time; to
+supply which defect, you may moisten the parts with fomentations,
+decoctions, and emollient oils; which yet is not half so well as
+when nature does her work in her own time, with the ordinary slime
+and waters. The membranes sometimes do press forth with the waters,
+three or four fingers' breadth out of the body before the child
+resembling a bladder full of water; but there is no great danger in
+breaking them, if they be not already broken; for when the case is
+so, the child is always in readiness to follow, being in the
+passage, but let the midwife be very careful not to pull it with
+her hand, lest the after-burden be thereby loosened before its
+time, for it adheres thereto very strongly. If the navel-string
+happen to come first, it must presently be put up again, and kept
+so, if possible, or otherwise, the woman must be immediately
+delivered. But if the after-burden should come first, it must not
+be put up again by any means; for the infant having no further
+occasion for it, it would be but an obstacle if it were put up; in
+this case, it must be cut off, having tied the navel-string, and
+afterwards draw forth the child with all speed that may be, lest it
+be suffocated.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><!-- Page 275 --><a name='Page_275' id="Page_275"></a> SECT.
+V.&mdash;<i>Of Women labouring of a dead Child</i>.</h3>
+<p>When the difficulty of labour arises from a dead child, it is a
+great danger to a mother and great care ought to be taken therein;
+but before anything be done, the midwife ought to be well assured
+that the child is dead indeed, which may be known by these
+signs.</p>
+<p>(1) The breast suddenly slacks, or falls flat, or bags down. (2)
+A great coldness possesses the belly of the mother, especially
+about the navel. (3) Her urine is thick, with a filthy stinking
+settling at the bottom. (4) No motion of the child can be
+perceived; for the trial whereof, let the midwife put her hand into
+warm water, and lay it upon the belly, for that, if it is alive,
+will make it stir. (5) She is very subject to dreams of dead men,
+and affrighted therewith. (6) She has extraordinary longings to eat
+such things as are contrary to nature. (7) Her breath stinks,
+though not used so to do. (8) When she turns herself in her bed,
+the child sways that way like a lump of lead.</p>
+<p>These things being carefully observed, the midwife may make a
+judgment whether the child be alive or dead, especially if the
+woman take the following prescription:&mdash;"Take half a pint of
+white wine and burn it, and add thereto half an ounce of cinnamon,
+but no other <!-- Page 276 --><a name='Page_276' id="Page_276"></a>
+spices whatever, and when she has drunk it, if her travailing pains
+come upon her, the child is certainly dead; but if not, the child
+may possibly be either weak or sick, but not dead. This will bring
+her pains upon her if it be dead, and will refresh the child and
+give her ease if it be living; for cinnamon refresheth and
+strengtheneth the child.</p>
+<p>Now, if upon trial it be found the child is dead, let the mother
+do all she can to forward the delivery, because a dead child can in
+no wise be helpful therein. It will be necessary, therefore, that
+she take some comfortable things to prevent her fainting, by reason
+of the putrid vapours arising from the dead child. And in order to
+her delivery let her take the following herbs boiled in white wine
+(or at least as many of them as you can get), viz., dittany,
+betony, pennyroyal, sage, feverfew, centaury, ivy leaves and
+berries. Let her also take sweet basil in powder, and half a drachm
+at a time in white wine; let her privities also be anointed with
+the juice of the garden tansey. Or take the tansey in the summer
+when it can most plentifully be had, and before it runs up to
+flower, and having bruised it well, boil it in oil until the juice
+of it be consumed. If you set it in the sun, after you have mixed
+it with oil, it will be more effectual. This, an industrious
+midwife, who <!-- Page 277 --><a name='Page_277' id="Page_277"></a>
+would be prepared against all events, ought to have always by her.
+As to the manner of her delivery, the same methods must be used as
+are mentioned in the section of natural labour. And here again, I
+cannot but commend the stone aetites, held near the privities,
+whose magnetic virtue renders it exceedingly necessary on this
+occasion, for it draws the child any way with the same facility
+that the load-stone draws iron.</p>
+<p>Let the midwife also make a strong decoction of hyssop with
+water, and let the woman drink it very hot, and it will in a little
+time bring away the dead child.</p>
+<p>If, as soon as she is delivered of the dead child, you are in
+doubt that part of the afterbirth is left behind in the body (for
+in such cases as these many times it rots, and comes away
+piece-meal), let her continue drinking the same decoction until her
+body be cleansed.</p>
+<p>A decoction made of herbs, muster-wort, used as you did the
+decoction of hyssop, works the effect. Let the midwife also take
+the roots of pollodum and stamp them well; warm them a little and
+bind them on the sides of her feet, and it will soon bring away the
+child either dead or alive.</p>
+<p>The following medicines also are such as stir up the expulsive
+faculty, but in this case they <!-- Page 278 --><a name='Page_278'
+id="Page_278"></a> must be stronger, because the motion of the
+child ceases.</p>
+<p>Take savine, round birthwort, trochisks of myrrh, castor,
+cinnamon and saffron, each half a drachm; make a powder, give a
+drachm.</p>
+<p>Or she may purge first, and then apply an emollient, anointing
+her about the womb with oil of lilies, sweet almonds, camomiles,
+hen and goose-grease. Also foment to get out the child, with a
+decoction of mercury, orris, wild cucumbers, saecus, broom flowers.
+Then anoint the privities and loins with ointment of sow-bread. Or,
+take coloquintida, agaric, birthwort, of each a drachm; make a
+powder, add ammoniacum dissolved in wine, ox-gall, each two
+drachms. Or make a fume with an ass's hoof burnt, or gallianum, or
+castor, and let it be taken in with a funnel.</p>
+<p>To take away pains and strengthen the parts, foment with the
+decoction of mugwort, mallows, rosemary, with wood myrtle, St.
+John's wort, each half an ounce, spermaceti two drachms, deer's
+suet, an ounce; with wax make an ointment. Or take wax six ounces,
+spermaceti an ounce; melt them, dip flux therein, and lay it all
+over her belly.</p>
+<p>If none of these things will do, the last remedy is to try
+surgery, and then the midwife ought without delay to send for an
+expert and able <!-- Page 279 --><a name='Page_279' id=
+"Page_279"></a> man-midwife, to deliver her by manual operation, of
+which I shall treat more at large in the next chapter.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+<a name='Footnote_10_10' id="Footnote_10_10"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_10_10'>[10]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p>Horse-parsley.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_VI' id=
+"EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_VI"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Unnatural Labour</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>In showing the duty of a midwife, when the child-bearing woman's
+labour is unnatural, it will be requisite to show, in the first
+place, what I mean by unnatural labour, for that women do bring
+forth in pain and sorrow is natural and common to all. Therefore,
+that which I call unnatural is, when the child comes to the birth
+in a contrary posture to that which nature ordained, and in which
+the generality of the children come into the world.</p>
+<p>The right and natural birth is when the child comes with its
+head first; and yet this is too short a definition of a natural
+birth; for if any part of the head but the crown comes first, so
+that the body follows not in a straight line, it is a wrong and
+difficult birth, even though the head comes first. Therefore, if
+the child comes with its feet first, or with the side across, it is
+<!-- Page 280 --><a name='Page_280' id="Page_280"></a> quite
+contrary to nature, or to speak more plainly, that which I call
+unnatural.</p>
+<p>Now, there are four general ways a child may come wrong. (1)
+When any of the foreparts of the body first present themselves. (2)
+When by an unhappy transposition, any of the hinder parts of the
+body first present themselves. (3) When either of the sides, or,
+(4) the feet present themselves first. To these, the different
+wrong postures that a child can present itself in, may be
+reduced.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>How to deliver a Woman of a Dead Child by
+Manual Operation</i>.</h3>
+<p>When manual operation is necessary, let the operator acquaint
+the woman of the absolute necessity there is for such an operation;
+and that, as the child has already lost its life, there is no other
+way left for the saving hers. Let him also inform her, for her
+encouragement, that he doubts not, with the divine blessing, to
+deliver her safely, and that the pains arising therefrom will not
+be so great as she fears. Then let him stir up the woman's pains by
+giving her some sharp clyster, to excite her throes to bear down,
+and bring forth the child. And if this prevails not, let him
+proceed with the manual operation.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 281 --><a name='Page_281' id="Page_281"></a> First,
+therefore, let her be placed across the bed that he may operate the
+easier; and let her lie on her back, with her hips a little higher
+than her head, or at least the body equally placed, when it is
+necessary to put back or turn the infant to give it a better
+posture. Being thus situated, she must fold her legs so as her
+heels be towards her buttocks, and her thighs spread, and so held
+by a couple of strong persons, there must be others also to support
+her under her arms, that the body may not slide down when the child
+is drawn forth; for which sometimes great strength is required. Let
+the sheets and blankets cover her thighs for decency's sake, and
+with respect to the assistants, and also to prevent her catching
+cold; the operator herein governing himself as well with respect to
+his convenience, and the facility and surety of the operation, as
+to other things. Then let him anoint the entrance to the womb with
+oil or fresh butter, if necessary, that with so more ease he may
+introduce his hand, which must also be anointed, and having by the
+signs above mentioned, received satisfaction that the child is
+dead, he must do his endeavours to fetch it away as soon as he
+possibly can. If the child offer the head first, he must gently put
+it back until he hath liberty to introduce his hand quite into the
+womb; then sliding it <!-- Page 282 --><a name='Page_282' id=
+"Page_282"></a> along, under the belly, to find the feet, let him
+draw it forth by them, being very careful to keep the head from
+being locked into the passage; and that it be not separated from
+the body; which may be effected the more easily, because the child
+being very rotten and putrefied, the operator need not be so
+mindful to keep the breast and face downwards as he is in living
+births. But if notwithstanding all these precautions, by reason of
+the child's putrefaction, the head should be separated and left
+behind in the womb, it must be drawn forth according to the
+directions which have been given in the third section of this
+chapter. But when the head, coming first, is so far advanced that
+it cannot well be put back, it is better to draw it forth so, than
+to torment the woman too much by putting it back to turn it, and
+bring it by the feet; but the head being a part round and slippery,
+it may also happen that the operator cannot take hold of it with
+his fingers by reason of its moisture, nor put them up to the side
+of it, because the passage is filled with its bigness; he must,
+therefore, take a proper instrument, and put it up as far as he can
+without violence, between the womb and the child's head (for the
+child being dead before, there can be no danger in the operation),
+and let him fasten it there, giving it hold upon one of the
+<!-- Page 283 --><a name='Page_283' id="Page_283"></a> bones of the
+skull, that it may not slide, and after it is well fixed in the
+head, he may therewith draw it forth, keeping the ends of the
+fingers of his left hand flat upon the opposite side, the better to
+help to disengage it, and by wagging it a little, to conduct it
+directly out of the passage, until the head be quite born; and
+then, taking hold of it with his hands only, the shoulders being
+drawn into the passage, and so sliding the fingers of both hands
+under the armpits, the child may be quite delivered, and then the
+after-burden fetched, to finish the operation, being careful not to
+pluck the navel-string too hard lest it break, as often happens
+when it is corrupt.</p>
+<p>If the dead child comes with the arm up to the shoulders so
+extremely swelled that the woman must suffer too great violence to
+have it put back, it is then (being first well assured the child is
+dead) best to take it off by the shoulder joints, by twisting three
+or four times about, which is very easily done by reason of the
+softness and tenderness of the body. After the arm is so separated,
+and no longer possesses the passage, the operator will have more
+room to put up his hand into the womb, to fetch the child by the
+feet and bring it away.</p>
+<p>But although the operator is sure the child is dead in the womb,
+yet he must not therefore <!-- Page 284 --><a name='Page_284' id=
+"Page_284"></a> presently use instruments because they are never to
+be used but when hands are not sufficient, and there is no other
+remedy to prevent the woman's danger, or to bring forth the child
+any other way; and the judicious operator will choose that way
+which is the least hazardous, and most safe.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. II.&mdash;<i>How a Woman must be Delivered when the
+Child's Feet come first</i>.</h3>
+<p>There is nothing more obvious to those whose business it is to
+assist labouring women, than that the several unnatural postures in
+which children present themselves at the birth are the occasions of
+most of the bad labours and ill accidents that happen to them in
+that condition.</p>
+<p>And since midwives are often obliged, because of their unnatural
+situations, to draw the children forth by the feet, I conceive it
+to be most proper first to show how a child must be brought forth
+that presents itself in that posture, because it will be a guide to
+several of the rest.</p>
+<p>I know indeed in this case it is the advice of several authors
+to change the figure, and place the head so that it may present to
+the birth, and this counsel I should be very much inclined
+<!-- Page 285 --><a name='Page_285' id="Page_285"></a> to follow,
+could they but also show how it may be done. But it will appear
+very difficult, if not impossible to be performed, if we would
+avoid the danger that by such violent agitations both the mother
+and the child must be put into, and therefore my opinion is, that
+it is better to draw forth by the feet, when it presents itself in
+that posture, than to venture a worse accident by turning it.</p>
+<p>As soon, therefore, as the waters are broken, and it is known
+that the child come thus and that the womb is open enough to admit
+the midwife's or operator's hand into it, or else by anointing the
+passage with oil or hog's grease, to endeavour to dilate it by
+degrees, using her fingers to this purpose, spreading them one from
+the other, after they are together entered, and continue to do so
+until they be sufficiently dilated, then taking care that her nails
+be well pared, no rings on her fingers and her hands well anointed
+with oil or fresh butter, and the woman placed in the manner
+directed in the former section, let her gently introduce her hand
+into the entrance of the womb, where finding the child's feet, let
+her draw it forth in the manner I shall presently direct; only let
+her first see whether it presents one foot or both, and if but one
+foot, she ought to consider whether it be the right foot or the
+left, and also in what <!-- Page 286 --><a name='Page_286' id=
+"Page_286"></a> fashion it comes; for by that means she will soon
+come to know where to find the other, which as soon as she knows
+and finds, let her draw it forth with the other; but of this she
+must be specially careful, viz., that the second be not the foot of
+another child; for if so, it may be of the utmost consequence, for
+she may sooner split both mother and child, than draw them forth.
+But this may be easily prevented if she but slide the hand up by
+the first leg and thigh to the waist, and there finding both thighs
+joined together, and descending from one and the same body. And
+this is also the best means to find the other foot, when it comes
+but with one.</p>
+<p>As soon as the midwife has found both the child's feet, she may
+draw them forth, and holding them together, may bring them little
+by little in this manner, taking afterwards hold of the arms and
+thighs, as soon as she can come at them, drawing them so till the
+hips come forth. While this is doing, let her observe to wrap the
+parts in a single cloth, so that her hands being always greasy
+slide not in the infant's body, which is very slippery, because of
+the vicious humours which are all over it; which being done, she
+may take hold under the hips, so as to draw it forth to the
+beginning of the breast; and let her on both sides with her hand
+<!-- Page 287 --><a name='Page_287' id="Page_287"></a> bring down
+the child's hand along its body, which she may easily find; and
+then let her take care that the belly and face of the child be
+downwards; for if they should be upwards, there would be the same
+danger of its being stopped by the chin, over the share-bone, and
+therefore, if it be not so she must turn it to that posture; which
+may easily be done if she takes a proper hold of the body when the
+breasts and arms are forth, in the manner we have said, and draw
+it, turning it in proportion on that side it most inclines to, till
+it be turned with the face downwards, and so, having brought it to
+the shoulders, let her lose no time, desiring the woman at the same
+time to bear down, that so drawing the head at that instant may
+take its place, and not be stopped in the passage, though the
+midwife takes all possible care to prevent it. And when this
+happens, she must endeavour to draw forth the child by the
+shoulders (taking care that she separate not the body from the
+head, as I have known it done by the midwife), discharging it by
+little and little from the bones in the passage with the fingers of
+each hand, sliding them on each side opposite the other, sometimes
+above and sometimes under, till the work be ended; endeavouring to
+dispatch it as soon as possible, lest the child be suffocated, as
+it will unavoidably be, if it remain long in
+<!-- Page 288 --><a name='Page_288' id="Page_288"></a> that
+posture; and this being well and carefully effected, she may soon
+after fetch away the after-birth, as I have before directed.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. III.&mdash;<i>How to bring away the Head of the Child,
+when separated from the Body, and left behind in the Womb</i>.</h3>
+<p>Though the utmost care be taken in bringing away the child by
+the feet, yet if it happen to be dead, it is sometimes so putrid
+and corrupt, that with the least pull the head separates from the
+body and remains alone in the womb, and cannot be brought away but
+with a manual operation and great difficulty, it being extremely
+slippery, by reason of the place where it is, and from the
+roundness of its figure, on which no hold can well be taken; and so
+very great is the difficulty in this case that sometimes two or
+three very able practitioners in midwifery have, one after the
+other, left the operation unfinished, as not able to effect it,
+after the utmost industry, skill and strength; so that the woman,
+not being able to be delivered, perished. To prevent which fatal
+accident, let the following operation be observed.</p>
+<p>When the infant's head separates from the body, and is left
+alone behind, whether owing to putrefaction or otherwise, let the
+operator <!-- Page 289 --><a name='Page_289' id="Page_289"></a>
+immediately, without any delay, while the womb is yet open, direct
+up his right hand to the mouth of the head (for no other hole can
+there be had), and having found it let him put one or two of his
+fingers into it, and the thumb under its chin; then let him draw it
+little by little, holding it by the jaws; but if that fails, as
+sometimes it will when putrefied, then let him pull off the right
+hand and slide up his left, with which he must support the head,
+and with the right hand let him take a narrow instrument called a
+<i>crochet</i>, but let it be strong and with a single branch,
+which he must guide along the inside of his hand, with the point of
+it towards it, for fear of hurting the womb; and having thus
+introduced it, let him turn it towards the head to strike either in
+an eyehole, or the hole of the ear, or behind the head, or else
+between the sutures, as he finds it most convenient and easy; and
+then draw forth the head so fastened with the said instrument,
+still helping to conduct it with his left hand; but when he hath
+brought it near the passage, being strongly fastened to the
+instrument, let him remember to draw forth his hand, that the
+passage not being filled with it, may be larger and easier, keeping
+still a finger or two on the side of the head, the better to
+disengage it.</p>
+<p>There is also another method, with more ease
+<!-- Page 290 --><a name='Page_290' id="Page_290"></a> and less
+hardship than the former; let the operator take a soft fillet or
+linen slip, of about four fingers' breadth, and the length of three
+quarters of an ell or thereabouts, taking the two ends with the
+left hand, and the middle with the right, and let him so put it up
+with his right, as that it may be beyond the head, to embrace it as
+a sling does a stone, and afterwards draw forth the fillet by the
+two ends together; it will thus be easily drawn forth, the fillet
+not hindering the least passage, because it takes up little or no
+space.</p>
+<p>When the head is fetched out of the womb care must be taken that
+not the least part of it be left behind, and likewise to cleanse
+the womb of the after-burden, if yet remaining. If the burden be
+wholly separated from the side of the womb, that ought to be first
+brought away, because it may also hinder the taking hold of the
+head. But if it still adheres to the womb, it must not be meddled
+with till the head be brought away; for if one should endeavour to
+separate it from the womb, it might then cause a flooding, which
+would be augmented by the violence of the operation, the vessels to
+which it is joined remaining for the most part open as long as the
+womb is distended, which the head causeth while it is retained in
+it, and cannot be closed until this strange body be voided, and
+<!-- Page 291 --><a name='Page_291' id="Page_291"></a> this it doth
+by contracting and compressing itself together, as has been more
+fully before explained. Besides, the after-birth remaining thus
+cleaving to the womb during the operation, prevents it from
+receiving easily either bruise or hurt.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. IV.&mdash;<i>How to deliver a Woman when the child's head
+is presented to the birth</i>.</h3>
+<p>Though some may think it a natural labour when the child's head
+come first, yet, if the child's head present not the right way,
+even that is an unnatural labour; and therefore, though the head
+comes first, yet if it be the side of the head instead of the
+crown, it is very dangerous both to the mother and the child, for
+the child's neck would be broken, if born in that manner, and by
+how much the mother's pains continue to bear the child, which is
+impossible unless the head be rightly placed, the more the passages
+are stopped. Therefore, as soon as the position of the child is
+known, the woman must be laid with all speed, lest the child should
+advance further than this vicious posture, and thereby render it
+more difficult to thrust it back, which must be done, in order to
+place the head right in the passage, as it ought to be.</p>
+<p>To this purpose, therefore, place the woman
+<!-- Page 292 --><a name='Page_292' id="Page_292"></a> so that her
+buttocks may be a little higher than her head and shoulders,
+causing her to lean a little to the opposite side to the child's
+ill posture; then let the operator slide up his hand, well anointed
+with oil, by the side of the child's head; to bring it right
+gently, with his fingers between the head and the womb; but if the
+head be so engaged that it cannot be done that way, he must then
+put up his hand to the shoulders, that by so thrusting them back a
+little into the womb, sometimes on the one side, and sometimes on
+the other, he may, little by little, give a natural position. I
+confess it would be better if the operator could put back the child
+by its shoulders with both hands, but the head takes up so much
+room, that he will find much ado to put up one, with which he must
+perform this operation, and, with the help of the finger-ends of
+the other hand put forward the child's birth as in natural
+labour.</p>
+<p>Some children present their face first, having their hands
+turned back, in which posture it is extremely difficult for a child
+to be born; and if it continues so long, the face will be swelled
+and become black and blue, so that it will at first appear
+monstrous, which is occasioned as well by the compression of it in
+that place, as by the midwife's fingers in handling it, in order to
+place it in a better posture. But this blackness
+<!-- Page 293 --><a name='Page_293' id="Page_293"></a> will wear
+away in three or four days' time, by anointing it often with oil of
+sweet almonds. To deliver the birth, the same operation must be
+used as in the former, when the child comes first with the side of
+the head; only let the midwife or operator work very gently to
+avoid as much as possible the bruising the face.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. V.&mdash;<i>How to Deliver a Woman when the Child
+presents one or both Hands together with the Head</i>.</h3>
+<p>Sometimes the infant will present some other part together with
+its head; which if it does, it is usually with one or both of its
+hands; and this hinders the birth, because the hands take up part
+of that passage which is little enough for the head alone; besides
+that, when this happens, they generally cause the head to lean on
+one side; and therefore this position may be well styled unnatural.
+When the child presents thus, the first thing to be done after it
+is perceived, must be, to prevent it from coming down more, or
+engaging further in the passage; and therefore, the operator having
+placed the woman on the bed, with her head lower than her buttocks,
+must guide and put back the infant's hand with his own as much as
+may be, or both of them, if they both come
+<!-- Page 294 --><a name='Page_294' id="Page_294"></a> down, to
+give way to the child's head; and this being done, if the head be
+on one side, it must be brought into its natural posture in the
+middle of the passage, that it may come in a straight line, and
+then proceed as directed in the foregoing section.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. VI.&mdash;<i>How a Woman ought to be delivered, when the
+Hands and Feet of the Infant come together.</i></h3>
+<p>There are none but will readily grant, that when the hands and
+feet of an infant present together, the labour must be unnatural,
+because it is impossible a child should be born in that manner. In
+this case, therefore, when the midwife guides her hand towards the
+orifice of the womb she will perceive only many fingers close
+together, and if it be not sufficiently dilated, it will be a good
+while before the hands and feet will be exactly distinguished; for
+they are sometimes so shut and pressed together, that they seem to
+be all of one and the same shape, but where the womb is open enough
+to introduce the hand into it, she will easily know which are the
+hands and which are the feet; and having taken particular notice
+thereof, let her slide up her hand and presently direct it towards
+the infant's breast, which she will find very
+<!-- Page 295 --><a name='Page_295' id="Page_295"></a> near, and
+then let her gently thrust back the body towards the bottom of the
+womb, leaving the feet in the same place where she found them. And
+then, having placed the woman in a convenient posture, that is to
+say, her buttocks a little raised above her breast (and which
+situation ought also to be observed when the child is to be put
+back into the womb), let the midwife afterwards take hold of the
+child by the feet, and draw it forth, as is directed in the second
+section.</p>
+<p>This labour, though somewhat troublesome, yet is much better
+than when the child presents only its hands; for then the child
+must be quite turned about before it can be drawn forth; but in
+this they are ready, presenting themselves, and there is little to
+do, but to lift and thrust back the upper part of the body, which
+is almost done of itself, by drawing it by the feet alone.</p>
+<p>I confess there are many authors that have written of labours,
+who would have all wrong births reduced to a natural figure, which
+is, to turn it that it may come with the head first. But those that
+have written thus, are such as never understood the practical part,
+for if they had the least experience therein, they would know that
+it is impossible; at least, if it were to be done, that violence
+must necessarily be <!-- Page 296 --><a name='Page_296' id=
+"Page_296"></a> used in doing it, that would probably be the death
+both of mother and child in the operation. I would, therefore, lay
+down as a general rule, that whenever a child presents itself wrong
+to the birth, in what posture so ever, from the shoulders to the
+feet, it is the way, and soonest done, to draw it out by the feet;
+and that it is better to search for them, if they do not present
+themselves, than to try and put them in their natural posture, and
+place the head foremost; for the great endeavours necessary to be
+used in turning the child in the womb, do so much weaken both the
+mother and the child, that there remains not afterwards strength
+enough to commit the operation to the work of nature; for, usually,
+the woman has no more throes or pains fit for labour after she has
+been so wrought upon; for which reason it would be difficult and
+tedious at best; and the child, by such an operation made very
+weak, would be in extreme danger of perishing before it could be
+born. It is, therefore, much better in these cases to bring it away
+immediately by the feet, searching for them as I have already
+directed, when they do not present themselves; by which the mother
+will be prevented a tedious labour, and the child be often brought
+alive into the world, who otherwise could hardly escape death.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><!-- Page 297 --><a name='Page_297' id="Page_297"></a> SECT.
+VII.&mdash;<i>How a Woman should be delivered that has twins, which
+present themselves in different postures</i>.</h3>
+<p>We have already spoken something of the birth of twins in the
+chapter of natural labour, for it is not an unnatural labour barely
+to have twins, provided they come in the right position to the
+birth. But when they present themselves in different postures, they
+come properly under the denomination of unnatural labours; and if
+when one child presents itself in a wrong figure, it makes the
+labour dangerous and unnatural, it must needs make it much more so
+when there are several, and render it not only more painful to the
+mother and children, but to the operator also; for they often
+trouble each other and hinder both their births. Besides which the
+womb is so filled with them, that the operator can hardly introduce
+his hand without much violence, which he must do, if they are to be
+turned or thrust back, to give them a better position.</p>
+<p>When a woman is pregnant with two children, they rarely present
+to the birth together, the one being generally more forward than
+the other; and that is the reason that but one is felt, and that
+many times the midwife knows not that there are twins until the
+first is born, <!-- Page 298 --><a name='Page_298' id=
+"Page_298"></a> and that she is going to fetch away the afterbirth.
+In the first chapter, wherein I treated of natural labour, I have
+showed how a woman should be delivered of twins, presenting
+themselves both right; and before I close the chapter of unnatural
+labour, it only remains that I show what ought to be done when they
+either both come wrong or one of them only, as for the most part it
+happens; the first generally coming right, and the second with the
+feet forward, or in some worse posture. In such a case, the birth
+of the first must be hastened as much as possible and to make way
+for the second, which is best brought away by the feet, without
+endeavouring to place it right, because it has been, as well as the
+mother, already tired and weakened by the birth of the first, and
+there would be greater danger to its death, than likelihood of its
+coming out of the womb that way.</p>
+<p>But if, when the first is born naturally, the second should
+likewise offer its head to the birth, it would then be best to
+leave nature to finish what she has so well begun, and if nature
+should be too slow in her work, some of those things mentioned in
+the fourth chapter to accelerate the birth, may be properly enough
+applied, and if, after that, the second birth should be delayed,
+let a manual operation be <!-- Page 299 --><a name='Page_299' id=
+"Page_299"></a> delayed no longer, but the woman being properly
+placed, as has been before directed, let the operator direct his
+hand gently into the womb to find the feet, and so draw forth the
+second child, which will be the more easily effected, because there
+is a way made sufficiently by the birth of the first; and if the
+waters of the second child be not broke, as it often happens, yet,
+intending to bring it by its feet, he need not scruple to break the
+membranes with his fingers; for though, when the birth of a child
+is left to the operation of nature, it is necessary that the waters
+should break of themselves, yet when the child is brought out of
+the womb by art, there is no danger in breaking them, nay, on the
+contrary it becomes necessary; for without the waters are broken,
+it will be almost impossible to turn the child.</p>
+<p>But herein principally lies the care of the operator, that he be
+not deceived, when either the hands or feet of both children offer
+themselves together to the birth; in this case he ought well to
+consider the operation, of whether they be not joined together, or
+any way monstrous, and which part belongs to one child and which to
+the other; so that they may be fetched one after the other, and not
+both together, as may be, if it were not duly considered, taking
+the right foot of one and the left of the other, and
+<!-- Page 300 --><a name='Page_300' id="Page_300"></a> so drawing
+them together, as if they both belonged to one body, because there
+is a left and a right, by which means it would be impossible to
+deliver them. But a skilful operator will easily prevent this, if,
+after having found two or three of several children presenting
+together in the passage, and taking aside two of the forwardest, a
+right and a left, and sliding his arm along the legs and thighs up
+to the wrist, if forward, or to the buttocks, if backwards, he
+finds they both belong to one body; of which being thus assured, he
+may begin to draw forth the nearest, without regarding which is the
+strongest or weakest, bigger or less, living or dead, having first
+put aside that part of the other child which offers to have the
+more way, and so dispatch the first as soon as may be, observing
+the same rules as if there were but one, that is keeping the breast
+and face downwards, with every circumstance directed in that
+section where the child comes with its feet first, and not fetch
+the burden till the second child is born. And therefore, when the
+operator hath drawn forth one child, he must separate it from the
+burden, having tied and cut the navel-string, and then fetch the
+other by the feet in the same manner, and afterwards bring away the
+after-burden with the two strings as hath been before showed. If
+the children present any other part <!-- Page 301 --><a name=
+'Page_301' id="Page_301"></a> but the feet, the operator may follow
+the same method as directed in the foregoing section, where the
+several unnatural positions are fully treated of.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_VII' id=
+"EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_VII"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Directions for Child-bearing Women in their Lying-in.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>How a Woman newly Delivered ought to be
+ordered</i>.</h3>
+<p>As soon as she is laid in her bed, let her be placed in it
+conveniently for ease and rest, which she stands in great need of
+to recover herself of the great fatigue she underwent during her
+travail, and that she may lie the more easily let her hands and
+body be a little raised, that she may breathe more freely, and
+cleanse the better, especially of that blood which then comes away,
+that so it may not clot, which being retained causeth great
+pain.</p>
+<p>Having thus placed her in bed, let her take a draught of burnt
+white wine, having a drachm <!-- Page 302 --><a name='Page_302' id=
+"Page_302"></a> of spermaceti melted therein. The best vervain is
+also singularly good for a woman in this condition, boiling it in
+what she either eats or drinks, fortifying the womb so exceedingly
+that it will do it more good in two days, than any other thing does
+in double that time, having no offensive taste. And this is no more
+than what she stands in need of; for her lower parts being greatly
+distended until the birth of the infant, it is good to endeavour
+the prevention of an inflammation there. Let there also be
+outwardly applied, all over the bottom of her belly and privities,
+the following anodyne and cataplasm:&mdash;Take two ounces of oil
+of sweet almonds, and two or three new laid eggs, yolks and whites,
+stirring them together in an earthen pipkin over hot embers till
+they come to the consistence of a poultice; which being spread upon
+a cloth, must be applied to those parts indifferently warm, having
+first taken away the closures (which were put to her presently
+after her delivery), and likewise such clots of blood as were then
+left. Let this lie on for five or six hours, and then renew it
+again when you see cause.</p>
+<p>Great care ought to be taken at first, that if her body be very
+weak, she be not kept too hot, for extremity of heat weakens nature
+and dissolves the strength; and whether she be weak
+<!-- Page 303 --><a name='Page_303' id="Page_303"></a> or strong,
+be sure that no cold air comes near her at first; for cold is an
+enemy to the spermatic parts; if it get into the womb it increases
+the after pains, causes swelling in the womb and hurts the nerves.
+As to her diet, let it be hot, and let her eat but little at a
+time. Let her avoid the light for the first three days, and longer
+if she be weak, for her labour weakens her eyes exceedingly, by a
+harmony between the womb and them. Let her also avoid great noise,
+sadness and trouble of mind.</p>
+<p>If the womb be foul, which may easily be perceived by the
+impurity of the blood (which will then easily come away in clots or
+stinking, or if you suspect any of the after-burden to be left
+behind, which may sometimes happen), make her drink a feverfew,
+mugwort, pennyroyal and mother of thyme, boiled in white wine and
+sweetened with sugar.</p>
+<p>Panado and new laid eggs are the best meat for her at first, of
+which she may eat often, but not too much at a time. And let her
+nurse use cinnamon in all her meats and drinks, for it generally
+strengthens the womb.</p>
+<p>Let her stir as little as may be until after the fifth, sixth,
+or seventh day after her delivery, if she be weak; and let her talk
+as little as possible, for that weakens her very much.</p>
+<p>If she goes not well to stool, give a clyster
+<!-- Page 304 --><a name='Page_304' id="Page_304"></a> made only of
+the decoction of mallows and a little brown sugar.</p>
+<p>When she hath lain in a week or more, let her use such things as
+close the womb, of which knot-grass and comfrey are very good, and
+to them you may add a little polypodium, for it will do her good,
+both leaves and root being bruised.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. II.&mdash;<i>How to remedy those Accidents which a
+Lying-in Woman is subject to</i>.</h3>
+<p>I. The first common and usual accident that troubles women in
+their lying-in is after-pains. They proceed from cold and wind
+contained in the bowels, with which they are easily filled after
+labour, because then they have more room to dilate than when the
+child was in the womb, by which they were compressed; and also,
+because nourishment and matter, contained as well in them as in the
+stomach, have been so confusedly agitated from side to side during
+the pains of labour, by the throes which always must compress the
+belly, that they could not be well digested, whence the wind is
+afterwards generated and, by consequence, the gripes which the
+woman feels running into her belly from side to side, according as
+the wind moves more or less, and sometimes likewise from the womb,
+<!-- Page 305 --><a name='Page_305' id="Page_305"></a> because of
+the compression and commotion which the bowels make. This being
+generally the case, let us now apply a suitable remedy.</p>
+<p>1. Boil an egg soft, and pour out the yolk of it, with which mix
+a spoonful of cinnamon water, and let her drink it; and if you mix
+in it two grains of ambergris, it will be better; and yet vervain
+taken in anything she drinks, will be as effectual as the
+other.</p>
+<p>2. Give a lying-in woman, immediately after delivery, oil of
+sweet almonds and syrup of maiden-hair mixed together. Some prefer
+oil of walnuts, provided it be made of nuts that are very good; but
+it tastes worse than the other at best. This will lenify the inside
+of the intestines by its unctuousness, and by that means bring away
+that which is contained in them more easily.</p>
+<p>3. Take and boil onions well in water, then stamp them with oil
+of cinnamon, spread them on a cloth, and apply them to the region
+of the womb.</p>
+<p>4. Let her be careful to keep her belly warm, and not to drink
+what is too cold; and if the pain prove violent, hot cloths from
+time to time must be laid on her belly, or a pancake fried in
+walnut oil may be applied to it, without swathing her belly too
+strait. And for the better evacuating the wind out of the
+intestines, give her a <!-- Page 306 --><a name='Page_306' id=
+"Page_306"></a> clyster, which may be repeated as often as
+necessity requires.</p>
+<p>5. Take bay-berries, beat them to a powder, put the powder upon
+a chafing-dish of coals, and let her receive the smoke of them up
+her privities.</p>
+<p>6. Take tar and bear's grease, of each an equal quantity, boil
+them together, and whilst it is boiling, add a little pigeon's dung
+to it. Spread some of this upon a linen cloth, and apply it to the
+veins of the back of her that is troubled with afterpains, and it
+will give her speedy ease.</p>
+<p>Lastly, let her take half a drachm of bay-berries beaten into a
+powder, in a drachm of muscadel or teat.</p>
+<p>II. Another accident to which women in child-bed are subject is
+haemorrhoids or piles, occasioned through the great straining in
+bringing the child into the world. To cure this,</p>
+<p>1. Let her be let blood in the saphoena vein.</p>
+<p>2. Let her use polypodium in her meat, and drink, bruised and
+boiled.</p>
+<p>3. Take an onion, and having made a hole in the middle, of it,
+fill it full of oil, roast it and having bruised it all together,
+apply it to the fundament.</p>
+<p>4. Take a dozen of snails without shells, if you can get them,
+or else so many shell snails, and pull them out, and having bruised
+them <!-- Page 307 --><a name='Page_307' id="Page_307"></a> with a
+little oil, apply them warm as before.</p>
+<p>5. If she go not well to stool, let her take an ounce of cassia
+fistula drawn at night, going to bed; she needs no change of diet
+after.</p>
+<p>III. Retention of the menses is another accident happening to
+women in child-bed, and which is of so dangerous a consequence,
+that, if not timely remedied, it proves mortal. When this
+happens,</p>
+<p>1. Let the woman take such medicines as strongly provoke the
+terms, such as dittany, betony, pennyroyal, feverfew, centaury,
+juniper-berries, peony roots.</p>
+<p>2. Let her take two or three spoonfuls of briony water each
+morning.</p>
+<p>3. Gentian roots beaten into a powder, and a drachm of it taken
+every morning in wine, are an extraordinary remedy.</p>
+<p>4. The roots of birthwort, either long or round, so used and
+taken as the former, are very good.</p>
+<p>5. Take twelve peony seeds, and beat them into a very fine
+powder, and let her drink them in a draught of hot cardus posset,
+and let her sweat after. And if the last medicine do not bring them
+down the first time she takes it, let her take as much more three
+hours after, and it seldom fails.</p>
+<p>IV. Overflowing of the menses is another
+<!-- Page 308 --><a name='Page_308' id="Page_308"></a> accident
+incidental to child-bed women. For which,</p>
+<p>1. Take shepherd's purse, either boiled in any convenient
+liquor, or dried and beaten into a powder, and it will be an
+admirable remedy to stop them, this being especially appropriated
+to the privities.</p>
+<p>2. The flower and leaves of brambles or either of them, being
+dried and beaten into a powder, and a drachm of them taken every
+morning in a spoonful of red wine, or in a decoction of leaves of
+the same (which, perhaps, is much better), is an admirable remedy
+for the immoderate flowing of the term in women.</p>
+<p>V. Excoriations, bruises, and rents in the lower part of the
+womb are often occasioned by the violent distention and separation
+of the caruncles in a woman's labour. For the healing whereof,</p>
+<p>As soon as the woman is laid, if there be only simple contusions
+and excoriations, then let the anodyne cataplasm, formerly
+directed, be applied to the lower parts to ease the pain, made of
+the yolks and whites of new laid eggs, and oil of roses, boiled a
+little over warm embers, continually stirring it until it be mixed,
+and then spread on a fine cloth; it must be applied very warm to
+the bearing place for five or six hours, and when it is taken away,
+lay some fine <!-- Page 309 --><a name='Page_309' id=
+"Page_309"></a> rags, dipped in oil of St. John's wort twice or
+thrice a day; also foment the parts with barley water and honey of
+roses, to cleanse them from the excrements which pass. When the
+woman makes water, let them be defended with fine rags, and thereby
+hinder the urine from causing smart or pain.</p>
+<p>VI. The curding and clotting of the milk is another accident
+that happens to women in child-bed, for in the beginning of
+child-bed, the woman's milk is not purified because of the great
+commotions her body suffered during her labour, which affected all
+the parts, and it is then affected with many humours. Now this
+clotting of the milk does, for the most part, proceed from the
+breasts not being fully drawn, and that, either because she has too
+much milk, and that the infant is too small and weak to suck it
+all, or because she doth not desire to be a nurse, for the milk in
+those cases remaining in the breasts after concoction, without
+being drawn, loses its sweetness and the balsamic qualities it had,
+and by reason of the heat it requires, and the too long stay it
+makes there, is sours, curds and clots, in like manner as we see
+rennet put into ordinary milk to turn it into curds. The curding of
+the milk may also be caused by having taken a great cold, and not
+keeping the breasts well covered.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 310 --><a name='Page_310' id="Page_310"></a> But from
+what cause so ever this curding of the milk proceeds, the most
+certain remedy is, to draw the breasts until it is emitted and
+dried. But in regard that the infant by reason of weakness, cannot
+draw strength enough, the woman being hard marked when her milk is
+curded, it will be most proper to get another woman to draw her
+breasts until the milk comes freely, and then she may give her
+child suck. And that she may not afterwards be troubled with a
+surplus of milk, she must eat such diet as give but little
+nourishment, and keep her body open.</p>
+<p>But if the case be such that the woman neither can nor will be a
+nurse, it is necessary to apply other remedies for the curing of
+this distemper; for then it will be best not to draw the breasts,
+for that will be the way to bring more milk into them. For which
+purpose it will be necessary to empty the body by bleeding the
+arms, besides which, let the humours be drawn down by strong
+clysters and bleeding at the foot; nor will it be amiss to purge
+gently, and to digest, dissolve and dissipate the curded milk, four
+brans dissolved in a decoction of sage, milk, smallage and fennel,
+mixing with it oil of camomile, with which oil let the breasts be
+well anointed. The following liniment is also good to scatter and
+dissipate the milk.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 311 --><a name='Page_311' id="Page_311"></a></p>
+<h4><i>A Liniment to Scatter and Dissipate the Milk.</i></h4>
+<p>That the milk flowing back to the breast may without offence be
+dissipated, you must use this ointment:&mdash;"Take pure wax, two
+ounces, linseed, half a pound; when the wax is melted, let the
+liniment be made, wherein linen cloths must be clipped, and,
+according to their largeness, be laid upon the breasts; and when it
+shall be dispersed, and pains no more, let other linen cloths be
+laid in the distilled water of acorns, and put upon them.</p>
+<p><i>Note.</i>&mdash;That the cloths dipped into distilled water
+of acorns must be used only by those who cannot nurse their own
+children; but if a swelling in the breast of her who gives such do
+arise, from abundance of milk, threatens an inflammation, let her
+use the former ointment, but abstain from using the distilled water
+of acorns.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_VIII' id=
+"EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_VIII"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 312 --><a name='Page_312' id="Page_312"></a> CHAPTER
+VIII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Directions for the Nurses, in ordering Newly-born
+Children</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>When the child's navel-string hath been cut according to the
+rules prescribed, let the midwife presently cleanse it from the
+excrements and filth it brings into the world with it; of which
+some are within the body, as the urine in the bladder, and the
+excrements found in the guts; and the others without, which are
+thick, whitish and clammy, proceeding from the sliminess of the
+waters. There are sometimes children covered all over with this,
+that one would think they were rubbed over with soft cheese, and
+some women are of so easy a belief, that they really think it so,
+because they have eaten some while they were with child. From these
+excrements let the child be cleansed with wine and water a little
+warmed, washing every part therewith, but chiefly the head because
+of the hair, also the folds of the groin, and the cods or
+privities; which parts must be gently cleansed with a linen rag, or
+a soft sponge dipped in lukewarm wine. If this clammy or viscous
+excrement stick so close that it will not easily be washed off from
+those places, it may be fetched off with oil of sweet almond, or a
+little fresh butter <!-- Page 313 --><a name='Page_313' id=
+"Page_313"></a> melted with wine, and afterwards well dried off;
+also make tents of fine rags, and wetting them in this liquor,
+clear the ears and nostrils; but for the eyes, wipe them only with
+a dry, soft rag, not dipping it in the wine, lest it should make
+them smart.</p>
+<p>The child being washed, and cleansed from the native blood and
+impurities which attend it into the world, it must in the next
+place be searched to see whether all things be right about it, and
+that there is no fault nor dislocation; whether its nose be
+straight, or its tongue tied, or whether there be any bruise or
+tumour of the head; or whether the mold be not over shot; also
+whether the scrotum (if it be a male) be not blown up and swelled,
+and, in short, whether it has suffered any violence by its birth,
+in any part of its body, and whether all the parts be well and duly
+shaped; that suitable remedies may be applied if anything be found
+not right. Nor is it enough to see that all be right without, and
+that the outside of the body be cleansed, but she must also observe
+whether it dischargeth the excrements contained within, and whether
+the passage be open; for some have been born without having been
+perforated. Therefore, let her examine whether the conduits of the
+urine and stool be clear, for want of which some have died, not
+being <!-- Page 314 --><a name='Page_314' id="Page_314"></a> able
+to void their excrements, because timely care was not taken at
+first. As to the urine all children, as well males as females, do
+make water as soon as they are born, if they can, especially if
+they feel the heat of the fire, and also sometimes void the
+excrements, but not so soon as the urine. If the infant does not
+ordure the first day, then put into its fundament a small
+suppository, to stir it up to be discharged, that it may not cause
+painful gripes, by remaining so long in the belly. A sugar almond
+may be proper for this purpose, anointed all over with a little
+boiled honey; or else a small piece of castile-soap rubbed over
+with fresh butter; also give the child for this purpose a little
+syrup of roses or violets at the mouth, mixed with some oil of
+sweet almonds, drawn without a fire, anointing the belly also, with
+the same oil or fresh butter.</p>
+<p>The midwife having thus washed and cleansed the child, according
+to the before mentioned directions, let her begin to swaddle it in
+swathing clothes, and when she dresses the head, let her put small
+rags behind the ears, to dry up the filth which usually engenders
+there, and so let her do also in the folds of the armpits and
+groins, and so swathe it; then wrap it up warm in a bed with
+blankets, which there is scarcely any woman so ignorant but knows
+well enough how <!-- Page 315 --><a name='Page_315' id=
+"Page_315"></a> to do; only let me give them this caution, that
+they swathe not the child too tightly in its blankets, especially
+about the breast and stomach, that it may breathe the more freely,
+and not be forced to vomit up the milk it sucks, because the
+stomach cannot be sufficiently distended to contain it; therefore
+let its arms and legs be wrapped in its bed, stretched and straight
+and swathed to keep them so, viz., the arms along its sides, and
+its legs equally both together with a little of the bed between
+them, that they may not be galled by rubbing each other; then let
+the head be kept steady and straight, with a stay fastened each
+side of the blanket, and then wrap the child up in a mantle and
+blankets to keep it warm. Let none think this swathing of the
+infant is needless to set down, for it is necessary it should be
+thus swaddled, to give its little body a straight figure, which is
+most proper and decent for a man, and to accustom him to keep upon
+his feet, who otherwise would go upon all fours, as most animals
+do.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_IX' id=
+"EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_IX"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 316 --><a name='Page_316' id="Page_316"></a> CHAPTER
+IX</h2>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>Of Gripes and Pains in the, Bellies of
+Young Children</i>.</h3>
+<p>This I mention first, as it is often the first and most common
+distemper which happens to little infants, after their birth; many
+children being so troubled therewith, that it causes them to cry
+day and night and at last die of it. The cause of it for the most
+part comes from the sudden change of nourishment, for having always
+received it from the umbilical vessel whilst in the mother's womb,
+they come on a sudden not only to change the manner of receiving
+it, but the nature and quality of what they received, as soon as
+they are born; for instead of purified blood only, which was
+conveyed to them by means of the umbilical vein, they are now
+obliged to be nourished by their mother's milk, which they suck
+with their mouths, and from which are engendered many excrements,
+causing gripes and pains; and not only because it is not so pure as
+the blood with which it was nourished in the womb, but because the
+stomach and the intestines cannot make a good digestion, being
+unaccustomed to it. It is sometimes caused also by a rough phlegm,
+and sometimes by worms; for physicians affirm that worms
+<!-- Page 317 --><a name='Page_317' id="Page_317"></a> have been
+bred in children even in their mother's belly.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. The remedy must be suited to the cause. If it
+proceed from the too sudden change of nourishment, the remedy must
+be to forbear giving the child suck for some days, lest the milk be
+mixed with phlegm, which is then in the stomach corrupt; and at
+first it must suck but little, until it is accustomed to digest it.
+If it be the excrements in the intestines, which by their long stay
+increase their pains, give them at the month a little oil of sweet
+almonds and syrup of roses; if it be worms, lay a cloth dipped in
+oil of wormwood mixed with ox-gall, upon the belly, or a small
+cataplasm, mixed with the powder of rue, wormwood, coloquintida,
+aloes, and the seeds of citron incorporated with ox-gall and the
+powder of lupines. Or give it oil of sweet almonds and syrup of
+roses; if it be worms, lay a cloth, dipped in oil of wormwood mixed
+with ox-gall, upon the belly, or a small cataplasm mixed with the
+powder of rue, wormwood, coloquintida, aloes, and the seeds of
+citron incorporated with ox-gall and the powder of lupines. Or give
+it oil of sweet almonds with sugar-candy, and a scruple of aniseed;
+it purgeth new-born babes from green cholera and stinking phlegm,
+and, if it be given with sugar-pap, it allays the griping pains of
+<!-- Page 318 --><a name='Page_318' id="Page_318"></a> the belly.
+Also anoint the belly with oil of dill, or lay pelitory stamped
+with oil of camomile to the belly.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. II.&mdash;<i>Of Weakness In Newly-born Infants</i>.</h3>
+<p>Weakness is an accident that many children bring into the world
+along with them, and is often occasioned by the labour of the
+mother; by the violence and length whereof they suffer so much,
+that they are born with great weakness, and many times it is
+difficult to know whether they are alive or dead, their body
+appearing so senseless, and their face so blue and livid, that they
+seem to be quite choked; and even after some hours, then-showing
+any signs of life is attended with weakness, that it looks like a
+return from death, and that they are still in a dying
+condition.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. Lay the infant speedily in a warm blanket, and
+carry it to the fire, and then let the midwife take a little wine
+in her mouth and spout it into its mouth, repeating it often, if
+there be occasion. Let her apply linen dipped in urine to the
+breast and belly, and let the face be uncovered, that it may
+breathe the more freely; also, let the midwife keep its mouth a
+little open, cleanse the nostrils with small
+<!-- Page 319 --><a name='Page_319' id="Page_319"></a> linen
+tents<a name='FNanchor_11_11' id="FNanchor_11_11"></a> <a href=
+'#Footnote_11_11'><sup>[11]</sup></a> dipt in white wine, that so
+it may receive the smell of it; and let her chafe every part of its
+body well with warm cloths, to bring back its blood and spirits,
+which being retired inwards through weakness, often puts him in
+danger of being choked. By the application of these means, the
+infant will gradually recover strength, and begin to stir its limbs
+by degrees, and at length to cry; and though it be but weakly at
+first, yet afterwards, as it breathes more freely, its cry will
+become more strong.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. III.&mdash;<i>Of the Fundament being closed up in a
+newly-born Infant</i>.</h3>
+<p>Another defect that new-born infants are liable to is, to have
+their fundaments closed up, by which they can neither evacuate the
+new excrements engendered by the milk they suck, nor that which was
+amassed in their intestines before birth, which is certainly mortal
+without a speedy remedy. There have been some
+<!-- Page 320 --><a name='Page_320' id="Page_320"></a> female
+children who have their fundaments quite closed, and yet have
+voided the excrements of the guts by an orifice which nature, to
+supply the defect, had made within the neck of the womb.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. Here we must take notice, that the fundament is
+closed two ways; either by a single skin, through which one may
+discover some black and blue marks, proceeding from the excrements
+retained, which, if one touch with the finger, there is a softness
+felt within, and thereabout it ought to be pierced; or else it is
+quite stopped by a thick, fleshy substance, in such sort that there
+appears nothing without, by which its true situation may be known.
+When there is nothing but the single skin which makes the closure,
+the operation is very easy, and the children may do very well; for
+then an aperture or opening may be made with a small
+incision-knife, cross-ways, that it may the better receive a round
+form, and that the place may not afterwards grow together, taking
+care not to prejudice the sphincter or muscle of the rectum. The
+incision being thus made, the excrements will certainly have issue.
+But if, by reason of their long stay in the belly, they become so
+dry that the infant cannot void them, then let a clyster be given
+to moisten and bring them away; afterwards put a linen tent into
+the <!-- Page 321 --><a name='Page_321' id="Page_321"></a> new-made
+fundament, which at first had best be anointed with honey of roses,
+and towards the end, with a drying, cicatrizing ointment, such as
+unguentum album or ponphilex, observing to cleanse the infant of
+its excrement, and dry it again as soon and as often as it
+evacuates them, that so the aperture may be prevented from turning
+into a malignant ulcer.</p>
+<p>But if the fundament be stopped up in such a manner, that
+neither mark nor appearance of it can be seen or felt, then the
+operation is much more difficult, and, even when it is done, the
+danger is much greater that the infant will not survive it. Then,
+if it be a female, and it sends forth its excrements by the way I
+mentioned before, it is better not to meddle than, by endeavouring
+to remedy an inconvenience, run an extreme hazard of the infant's
+death. But when there is no vent for the excrements, without which
+death is unavoidable, then the operation is justifiable.</p>
+<p><i>Operation</i>. Let the operator, with a small incision-knife
+that hath but one edge, enter into the void place, and turning the
+back of it upwards, within half a finger's breadth of the child's
+rump, which is the place where he will certainly find the
+intestines, let him thrust it forward, that it may be open enough
+to give free vent to matter there contained, being especially
+<!-- Page 322 --><a name='Page_322' id="Page_322"></a> careful of
+the sphincter; after which, let the wound be dressed according to
+the method directed.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. IV.&mdash;<i>Of the Thrush, or Ulcers In the Mouth of the
+Infant</i>.</h3>
+<p>The thrush is a distemper that children are very subject to, and
+it arises from bad milk, or from foul humour in the stomach; for
+sometimes, though there be no ill humour in the milk itself, yet it
+may corrupt the child's stomach because of its weakness or some
+other indisposition; in which, acquiring an acrimony, instead of
+being well digested, there arise from it thrice biting vapours,
+which forming a thick viscosity, do thereby produce this
+distemper.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. It is often difficult, as physicians tell us,
+because it is seated in hot and moist places, where the
+putrefaction is easily augmented; and because the remedies applied
+cannot lodge there, being soon washed with spittle. But if it
+arises from too hot quality in the nurse's milk, care must be taken
+to temper and cool, prescribing her cool diet, bleeding and purging
+her also, if there be occasion.</p>
+<p>Take lentils, husked, powder them, and lay a little of them upon
+the child's gums. Or <!-- Page 323 --><a name='Page_323' id=
+"Page_323"></a> take bdellium flowers, half an ounce, and with oil
+of roses make a liniment. Also wash the child's mouth with barley
+and plantain-water, and honey of roses, mixing with them a little
+verjuice of lemons, as well to loosen and cleanse the vicious
+humours which cleave to the inside of the infant's mouth, as to
+cool those parts which are already over-heated. It may be done by
+means of a small fine rag, fastened to the end of a little stick,
+and dipped therein, wherewith the ulcers may be gently rubbed,
+being careful not to put the child in too much pain, lest an
+inflammation make the distemper worse. The child's body must also
+be kept open, that the humours being carried to the lower parts,
+the vapours may not ascend, as is usual for them to do when the
+body is costive, and the excrements too long retained.</p>
+<p>If the ulcers appear malignant, let such remedies be used as do
+their work speedily, that the evil qualities that cause them, being
+thereby instantly corrected, their malignity may be prevented; and
+in this case, touch the ulcers with plantain water, sharpened with
+spirits of vitriol; for the remedy must be made sharp, according to
+the malignity of the distemper. It will be necessary to purge these
+ill humours out of the whole habit of the child, by giving half an
+ounce of succory and rhubarb.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><!-- Page 324 --><a name='Page_324' id="Page_324"></a> SECT.
+V.&mdash;<i>Of Pains in the Ears, Inflammation, Moisture,
+etc</i>.</h3>
+<p>The brain in infants is very moist, and hath many excrements
+which nature cannot send out at the proper passages; they get often
+to the ears, and there cause pains, flux of blood, with
+inflammation and matter with pain; this in children is hard to be
+known as they have no other way to make it known but by constant
+crying; you will perceive them ready to feel their ears themselves,
+but will not let others touch them, if they can prevent; and
+sometimes you may discern the parts about the ears to be very
+red.</p>
+<p>These pains, if let alone, are of dangerous consequences,
+because they may bring forth watchings and epilepsy; for the
+moisture breeds worms there, and fouls the spongy bones, and by
+degrees causes incurable deafness.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. Allay the pain with all convenient speed, but have
+a care of using strong remedies. Therefore, only use warm milk
+about the ears, with the decoction of poppy tops, or oil of
+violets; to take away the moisture, use honey of roses, and let
+aqua mollis be dropped into the ears; or take virgin honey, half an
+ounce; red wines two ounces; alum, saffron, saltpetre,
+<!-- Page 325 --><a name='Page_325' id="Page_325"></a> each a
+drachm, mix them at the fire; or drop in hemp seed oil with a
+little wine.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. VI.&mdash;<i>Of Redness and Inflammation of the Buttocks,
+Groin and the Thighs of a Young Child.</i></h3>
+<p>If there be no great care taken to change and wash the child's
+bed as soon as it is fouled with the excrements, and to keep the
+child very clean, the acrimony will be sure to cause redness, and
+beget a smarting in the buttocks, groin and thighs of the child,
+which, by reason of the pain, will afterwards be subject to
+inflammations, which follow the sooner, through the delicacy and
+tenderness of their skin, from which the outward skin of the body
+is in a short time separated and worn away.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. First, keep the child cleanly, and secondly, take
+off the sharpness of its urine. As to keeping it cleanly, she must
+be a sorry nurse who needs to be taught how to do it; for if she
+lets it but have dry, warm and clean beds and cloths, as often and
+as soon as it has fouled and wet them, either by its urine or its
+excrements, it will be sufficient. And as to taking off the
+sharpness of the child's urine, that must be done by the nurse's
+taking a cool diet, that her milk may have the same quality; and,
+<!-- Page 326 --><a name='Page_326' id="Page_326"></a> therefore,
+she ought to abstain from all things that may tend to heat it.</p>
+<p>But besides these, cooling and drying remedies are requisite to
+be applied to the inflamed parts; therefore let the parts be bathed
+in plantain-water, with a fourth of lime water added to it, each
+time the child's excrements are wiped off; and if the pain be very
+great, let it only be fomented with lukewarm milk. The powder of a
+post to dry it, or a little mill-dust strewed upon the parts
+affected, may be proper enough, and is used by many women. Also,
+unguentum album, or diapompholigos, spread upon a small piece of
+leather in form of a plaster, will not be amiss.</p>
+<p>But the chief thing must be, the nurse's taking great care to
+wrap the inflamed parts with fine rags when she opens the child,
+that these parts may not gather and be pained by rubbing
+together.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. VII.&mdash;<i>Of Vomiting in Young Children</i>.</h3>
+<p>Vomiting in young children proceeds sometimes from too much
+milk, and sometimes from bad milk, and as often from a moist, loose
+stomach; for as dryness retains so looseness lets go. This is, for
+the most part, without danger in children; for they that vomit from
+<!-- Page 327 --><a name='Page_327' id="Page_327"></a> their birth
+are the lustiest; for the stomach not being used to meat, and milk
+being taken too much, crudities are easily bred, or the milk is
+corrupted; and it is better to vomit these up than to keep them in;
+but if vomiting last long, it will cause an atrophy or consumption,
+for want of nourishment.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. If this be from too much milk, that which is
+emitted is yellow and green, or otherwise ill-coloured and
+stinking; in this case, mend the milk, as has been shown before;
+cleanse the child with honey of roses, and strengthen its stomach
+with syrup of milk and quinces, made into an electuary. If the
+humours be hot and sharp, give the syrup of pomegranates, currants
+and coral, and apply to the belly the plaster of bread, the stomach
+cerate, or bread dipped in hot wine; or take oil of mastich,
+quinces, mint, wormwood, each half an ounce; of nutmegs by
+expression, half a drachm; chemical oil of mint, three drops. Coral
+hath an occult property to prevent vomiting, and is therefore hung
+about the neck.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. VIII&mdash;<i>Of Breeding Teeth in Young
+Children</i>.</h3>
+<p>This is a very great and yet necessary evil in all children,
+having variety of symptoms <!-- Page 329 --><a name='Page_329' id=
+"Page_329"></a> <!-- Page 328 --><a name='Page_328' id=
+"Page_328"></a> joined with it. They begin to come forth, not all
+at once, but one after the other, about the sixth or seventh month;
+the fore-teeth coming first, then the eye-teeth, and last of all
+the grinders. The eye-teeth cause more pain to the child than any
+of the rest, because they have a deep root, and a small nerve which
+has communication with that which makes the eye move.</p>
+<center><img src='img/co010.jpg' alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<p>In the breeding of the teeth, first they feel an itching in
+their gums, then they are pierced as with a needle, and pricked by
+the sharp bones, whence proceed great pains, watching, inflammation
+of the gums, fever, looseness and convulsions, especially when they
+breed their eye-teeth.</p>
+<p>The signs when children breed their eye-teeth are these:</p>
+<p>1. It is known by the time, which is usually about the seventh
+month.</p>
+<p>2. Their gums are swelled, and they feel a great heat there with
+an itching, which makes them put their fingers into their mouths to
+rub them; a moisture also distils from the gums into the mouth,
+because of the pain they feel there.</p>
+<p>3. They hold the nipple faster than before.</p>
+<p>4. The gums are white when the teeth begin to come, and the
+nurse, in giving them suck, <!-- Page 330 --><a name='Page_330' id=
+"Page_330"></a> finds the mouth hotter, and that they are much
+changed, crying every moment, and cannot sleep, or but very little
+at a time.</p>
+<p>The fever that follows breeding of teeth comes from choleric
+humours, inflamed by watching, pain and heat. And the longer teeth
+are breeding, the more dangerous it is; so that many in the
+breeding of them, die of fevers and convulsions.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. Two things are to be regarded:&mdash;one is, to
+preserve the child from the evil accidents that may happen to it by
+reason of the great pain; the other, to assist as much as may be,
+the cutting of the teeth, when they can hardly cut the gums
+themselves.</p>
+<p>For the first of these, viz., the preventing of those accidents
+to the child, the nurse ought to take great care to keep a good
+diet, and to use all things that may cool and temper her milk, that
+so a fever may not follow the pain of the teeth. And to prevent the
+humour falling too much upon the inflamed gums, let the child's
+belly be always kept loose by gentle clysters, if he be bound;
+though oftentimes there is no need of them, because they are at
+those times usually troubled with a looseness; and yet, for all
+that, clysters may not be improper.</p>
+<p>As to the other, which is to assist it cutting the teeth, that
+the nurse must do from time to <!-- Page 331 --><a name='Page_331'
+id="Page_331"></a> time by mollifying and loosening them, and by
+rubbing them with her finger dipped in butter or honey; or let the
+child have a virgin-wax candle to chew upon; or anoint the gums
+with the mucilage of quince made with mallow-water, or with the
+brains of a hare; also foment the cheeks with the decoction of
+althoea, and camomile flowers and dill, or with the juice of
+mallows and fresh butter. If the gums are inflamed, add juice of
+nightshade and lettuce. I have already said, the nurse ought to
+take a temperate diet; I shall now only add, that barley-broth,
+water-gruel, raw eggs, prunes, lettuce and endive, are good for
+her; but let her avoid salt, sharp, biting and peppered meats, and
+wine.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. IX.&mdash;<i>Of the Flux of the Belly, or Looseness in
+Infants</i>.</h3>
+<p>It is very common for infants to have the flux of the belly, or
+looseness, especially upon the least indisposition; nor is it to be
+wondered at, seeing their natural moistness contributes so much
+thereto; and even if it be extraordinarily violent, such are in a
+better state of health than those that are bound. The flux, if
+violent, proceeds from divers causes, as 1. From breeding of the
+teeth, and is then <!-- Page 332 --><a name='Page_332' id=
+"Page_332"></a> commonly attended with a fever in which the
+concoction is hindered, and the nourishment corrupted. 2. From
+watching. 3. From pain. 4. From stirring up of the humours by a
+fever. 5. When they suck or drink too much in a fever. Sometimes
+they have a flux without breeding of teeth, from inward cold in the
+guts or stomach that obstructs concoction. If it be from the teeth,
+it is easily known; for the signs of breeding in teeth will
+discover it. If it be from external cold, there are signs of other
+causes. If from a humour flowing from the head there are signs of a
+catarrh, and the excrements are frothy. If crude and raw humours
+are voided, and there be wind, belching, and phlegmatic excrements,
+or if they be yellow, green and stink, the flux is from a hot and
+sharp humour. It is best in breeding of teeth when the belly is
+loose, as I have said before; but if it be too violent, and you are
+afraid it may end in a consumption, it must be stopped; and if the
+excrements that are voided be black, and attended with a fever, it
+is very bad.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. The remedy in this case, is principally in respect
+to the nurse, and the condition of the milk must be chiefly
+observed; the nurse must be cautioned that she eat no green fruit,
+nor things of hard concoction. If the child suck not, remove the
+flux with such purges as leave <!-- Page 333 --><a name='Page_333'
+id="Page_333"></a> a cooling quality behind them, as syrup of honey
+or roses, or a clyster. Take the decoction of millium, myrobolans,
+of each two or three ounces, with an ounce or two of syrup of
+roses, and make a clyster. After cleansing, if it proceed from a
+hot cause, give syrup of dried roses, quinces, myrtles and a little
+sanguis draconis. Also anoint with oil of roses, myrtles, mastich,
+each two drachms; with oil of myrtles and wax make an ointment. Or
+take red roses and moulin, of each a handful; cypress roots two
+drachms; make a bag, boil it in red wine and apply it to the belly.
+Or use the plaster bread or stomach ointment. If the cause be cold,
+and the excrements white give syrup of mastich and quinces, with
+mint-water. Use outwardly, mint, mastich, cummin; or take rose
+seeds, an ounce, cummin, aniseed, each two drachms; with oil of
+mastich, wormwood and wax, make an ointment.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. X.&mdash;<i>Of the Epilepsy and Convulsions in
+Children.</i></h3>
+<p>This is a distemper that is often fatal to young children, and
+frequently proceeds from the brain, originating either from the
+parents, or from vapours, or bad humours that twitch the membranes
+of the brain; it is also sometimes <!-- Page 334 --><a name=
+'Page_334' id="Page_334"></a> caused by other distempers and by bad
+diet; likewise, the toothache, when the brain consents, causes it,
+and so does a sudden fright. As to the distemper itself, it is
+manifest and well enough known where it is; and as to the cause
+whence it comes, you may know by the signs of the disease, whether
+it comes from bad milk, or worms, or teeth; if these are all
+absent, it is certain that the brain is first affected; if it come
+with the small-pox or measles, it ceaseth when they come forth, if
+nature be strong enough.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. For the remedy of this grievous, and often mortal
+distemper, give the following powder to prevent it, to a child as
+soon as it is born:&mdash;Take male peony roots, gathered in the
+decrease of the moon, a scruple; with leaf gold make a powder; or
+take peony roots, a drachm; peony seeds, mistletoe of the oak,
+elk's hoof, man's skull, amber, each a scruple; musk, two grains;
+make a powder. The best part of the cure is taking care of the
+nurse's diet, which must be regular, by all means. If it be from
+corrupt milk, provoke a vomit; to do which, hold down the tongue,
+and put a quill dipped in sweet almonds, down the throat. If it
+come from the worms, give such things as will kill the worms. If
+there be a fever, with respect to that also, give coral smaragad
+and elk's hoof. In the fit, give epileptic water, as lavender
+<!-- Page 335 --><a name='Page_335' id="Page_335"></a> water, and
+rub with oil of amber, or hang a peony root, and elk's hoof
+smaragad, about the child's neck.</p>
+<p>As to a convulsion, it is when the brain labours to cast out
+that which troubles it; the mariner is in the marrow of the back,
+and fountain of the nerves; it is a stubborn disease, and often
+kills.</p>
+<p>Wash the body, when in the fit, with decoction of althoea, lily
+roots, peony and camomile flowerets, and anoint it with man's and
+goose's grease, oils of worms, orris, lilies, foxes, turpentine,
+mastich, storax and calamint. The sun flower is also very good,
+boiled in water, to wash the child.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+<a name='Footnote_11_11' id="Footnote_11_11"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_11_11'>[11]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p>Tent (<i>surgical</i>). A bunch of some fibre such as sponge or
+horsehair introduced into an opening, natural or artificial, to
+keep it open, or increase its calibre.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='PROPER_AND_SAFE_REMEDIES' id=
+"PROPER_AND_SAFE_REMEDIES"></a>
+<h1><!-- Page 336 --><a name='Page_336' id="Page_336"></a> PROPER
+AND SAFE REMEDIES<br />
+FOR<br />
+CURING ALL THOSE DISTEMPERS<br />
+THAT ARE PECULIAR<br />
+TO THE FEMALE SEX<br />
+AND ESPECIALLY THOSE OBSERVATIONS<br />
+TO BEARING OF CHILDREN</h1>
+<hr class="long" />
+<h2>BOOK II</h2>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Having finished the first part of this book, and wherein, I
+hope, amply made good my promise to the reader, I am now come to
+treat only of those distempers to which they are more subject when
+in a breeding condition, and those <!-- Page 337 --><a name=
+'Page_337' id="Page_337"></a> that keep them from being so;
+together with such proper and safe remedies as may be sufficient to
+repel them. And since amongst all the diseases to which human
+nature is subject, there is none that more diametrically opposes
+the very end of our creation, and the design of nature in the
+formation of different sexes, and the power thereby given us for
+the work of generation, than that of sterility or barrenness which,
+where it prevails, renders the most accomplished midwife but a
+useless person, and destroys the design of our book; I think,
+therefore, that barrenness is an effect that deserves our first and
+principal consideration.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='REMEDIES_CHAPTER_I' id="REMEDIES_CHAPTER_I"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Barrenness; its several Kinds; with the proper Remedies
+for it; and the Signs of Insufficiency both in Men and
+Women</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>Of Barrenness in General</i>.</h3>
+<p>Barrenness is either natural or artificial.</p>
+<p>Natural barrenness is when a woman is barren, though the
+instruments of generation are perfect both in herself and in her
+husband, and <!-- Page 338 --><a name='Page_338' id="Page_338"></a>
+no preposterous or diabolical course used to it, and neither age,
+nor disease, nor any defect hindering, and yet the woman remains
+naturally barren.</p>
+<p>Now this may proceed from a natural cause, for if the man and
+woman be of one complexion, they seldom have children, and the
+reason is clear, for the universal course of nature being formed of
+a composition of contraries, cannot be increased by a composition
+of likes; and, therefore, if the constitution of the woman be hot
+and dry, as well as the man's there can be no conception; and if,
+on the contrary, the man should be of a cold and moist
+constitution, as well as the woman, the effect would be the same;
+and this barrenness is purely natural. The only way to help this
+is, for people, before they marry, to observe each others
+constitution and complexion, if they design to have children. If
+their complexions and constitutions be alike, they are not fit to
+come together, for discordant natures only, make harmony in the
+work of generation.</p>
+<p>Another natural cause of barrenness, is want of love between man
+and wife. Love is that vivid principle that ought to inspire each
+organ in the act of generation, or else it will be spiritless and
+dull; for if their hearts be not united in love, how should their
+seed unite to cause <!-- Page 339 --><a name='Page_339' id=
+"Page_339"></a> Conception? And this is sufficiently evinced, in
+that there never follows conception on a rape. Therefore, if men
+and women design to have children, let them live so, that their
+hearts as well as their bodies may be united, or else they may miss
+their expectations.</p>
+<p>A third cause of natural barrenness, is the letting virgins
+blood in the arm before their natural courses are come down, which
+is usually in the fourteenth and fifteenth year of their age;
+sometimes, perhaps before the thirteenth, but never before the
+twelfth. And because usually, they are out of order, and indisposed
+before their purgations come down, their parents run to the doctor
+to know what is the matter; and he, if not skilled, will naturally
+prescribe opening a vein in the arm, thinking fullness of blood the
+cause; and thus she seems recovered for the present: and when the
+young virgin happens to be in the same disorder, the mother applies
+again to the surgeon, who uses the same remedy; and by these means
+the blood is so diverted from its proper channel, that it comes not
+down the womb as usual, and so the womb dries up, and she is for
+ever barren. To prevent this, let no virgin blood in the arm before
+her courses come down well; for that will bring the blood
+downwards, and by that means provoke the <i>menstrua</i> to come
+down.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 340 --><a name='Page_340' id="Page_340"></a> Another
+cause of natural barrenness, is debility in copulation. If persons
+perform not that act with all the bent and ardour that nature
+requires, they may as well let it alone; for frigidity and coldness
+never produces conception. Of the cure of this we will speak by and
+by, after I have spoken of accidental barrenness, which is
+occasioned by some morbific matter or infirmity in the body, either
+of the man or of the woman, which being removed they become
+fruitful. And since, as I have before noted, the first and great
+law of creation, was to increase and multiply, and barrenness is in
+direct opposition to that law, and frustrates the end of our
+creation, and often causes man and wife to have hard thoughts one
+of another, I shall here, for the satisfaction of well meaning
+people, set down the signs and causes of insufficiency both in men
+and women; premising first that when people have no children, they
+must not presently blame either party, for neither may be in
+fault.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. II.&mdash;<i>Signs and Causes of Insufficiency in
+Men</i>.</h3>
+<p>One cause may be in some viciousness of the yard, as if the same
+be crooked, or any ligaments thereof distorted and broken, whereby
+the ways <!-- Page 341 --><a name='Page_341' id="Page_341"></a> and
+passages, through which the seed should flow, come to be stopped or
+vitiated.</p>
+<p>Another cause may be, too much weakness of the yard, and
+tenderness thereof, so that it is not strong enough erected to
+inject seed into the womb; for the strength and stiffness of the
+yard very much conduces to conception, by reason of the forcible
+injection of the seed.</p>
+<p>Also, if the stones have received any hurt, so that they cannot
+exercise the proper gift in producing seed, or if they be oppressed
+with an inflammation, tumour, wound or ulcer, or drawn up within
+the belly, and not appearing outwardly.</p>
+<p>Also, a man may be barren by reason of the defect of seed, as
+first, if he cast forth no seed at all, or less in substance than
+is needful. Or, secondly, if the seed be vicious, or unfit for
+generation; as on the one side, it happens in bodies that are gross
+and fat, the matter of it being defective; and on the other side,
+too much leanness, or continual wasting or consumption of the body,
+destroys seed; nature turning all the matter and substance thereof
+into the nutriment of the body.</p>
+<p>Too frequent copulation is also one great cause of barrenness in
+men; for it attracteth the seminal moisture from the stones, before
+it is sufficiently prepared and concocted. So if any
+<!-- Page 342 --><a name='Page_342' id="Page_342"></a> one, by
+daily copulation, do exhaust and draw out all their moisture of the
+seed, then do the stones draw the moist humours from the superior
+veins unto themselves; and so, having but a little blood in them,
+they are forced of necessity to cast it out raw and unconcocted,
+and thus the stones are violently deprived of the moisture of their
+veins, and the superior veins, and all the other parts of the body,
+of their vital spirits; therefore it is no wonder that those who
+use immoderate copulation are very weak in their bodies, seeing
+their whole body is deprived of the best and purest blood, and of
+the spirit, insomuch that many who have been too much addicted to
+that pleasure, have killed themselves in the very act.</p>
+<p>Gluttony, drunkenness, and other excesses, do so much hinder men
+from fruitfulness, that it makes them unfit for generation.</p>
+<p>But among other causes of barrenness of men, this also is one,
+and makes them almost of the nature of eunuchs, and that is the
+incision or the cutting of the veins behind their ears, which in
+case of distempers is oftentimes done; for, according to the
+opinions of most physicians and anatomists, the seed flows from the
+brain by those veins behind the ears, more than any part of the
+body. From whence it is very probable, that the transmission of the
+seed is hindered <!-- Page 343 --><a name='Page_343' id=
+"Page_343"></a> by the cutting of the veins behind the ears, so
+that it cannot descend to the testicles, or may come thither very
+crude and raw.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. III.&mdash;<i>Signs and Causes of Insufficiency or
+Barrenness in Women</i>.</h3>
+<p>Although there are many causes of the barrenness of women, yet
+the chief and principal are internal, respecting either the privy
+parts, the womb or menstruous blood.</p>
+<p>Therefore, Hippocrates saith (speaking as well of easy as
+difficult conception in women) the first consideration is to be had
+of their species; for little women are more apt to conceive than
+great, slender than gross, white and fair than ruddy and high
+coloured, black than wan, those that have their veins conspicuous,
+than others; but to be very fleshy is evil, and to have great
+swelled breasts is good.</p>
+<p>The next thing to be considered is, the monthly purgations,
+whether they have been duly every month, whether they flow
+plentifully, are of a good colour, and whether they have been equal
+every month.</p>
+<p>Then the womb, or place of conception, is to be considered. It
+ought to be clean and sound, dry and soft, not retracted or drawn
+up; not prone or descending downward; nor the mouth
+<!-- Page 344 --><a name='Page_344' id="Page_344"></a> thereof
+turned away, nor too close shut up. But to speak more
+particularly:&mdash;</p>
+<p>The first parts to be spoken of are the <i>pudenda</i>, or
+privities, and the womb; which parts are shut and enclosed either
+by nature or against nature; and from hence, such women are called
+<i>imperforate</i>; as in some women the mouth of their womb
+continues compressed, or closed up, from the time of their birth
+until the coming down of their courses, and then, on a sudden, when
+their terms press forward to purgation, they are molested with
+great and unusual pains. Sometimes these break of their own accord,
+others are dissected and opened by physicians; others never break
+at all, which bring on disorders that end in death.</p>
+<p>All these <i>Aetius</i> particularly handles, showing that the
+womb is shut three manner of ways, which hinders conception. And
+the first is when the <i>pudenda</i> grow and cleave together. The
+second is, when these certain membranes grow in the middle part of
+the matrix within. The third is, when (though the lips and bosom of
+the <i>pudenda</i> may appear fair and open), the mouth of the womb
+may be quite shut up. All which are occasions of barrenness, as
+they hinder the intercourse with man, the monthly courses, and
+conception.</p>
+<p>But amongst all causes of barrenness in
+<!-- Page 345 --><a name='Page_345' id="Page_345"></a> women, the
+greatest is in the womb, which is the field of generation; and if
+this field is corrupt, it is in vain to expect any fruit, be it
+ever so well sown. It may be unfit for generation by reason of many
+distempers to which it is subject; as for instance, overmuch heat
+and overmuch cold; for women whose wombs are too thick and cold,
+cannot conceive, because coldness extinguishes the heat of the
+human seed. Immoderate moisture of the womb also destroys the seed
+of man, and makes it ineffectual, as corn sown in ponds and
+marshes; and so does overmuch dryness of the womb, so that the seed
+perisheth for want of nutriment. Immoderate heat of the womb is
+also a cause of barrenness for it scorcheth up the seed as corn
+sown in the drought of summer; for immoderate heat burns all parts
+of the body, so that no conception can live in the womb.</p>
+<p>When unnatural humours are engendered, as too much phlegm,
+tympanies, wind, water, worms, or any other evil humour abounding
+contrary to nature, it causes barrenness as do all terms not coming
+down in due order.</p>
+<p>A woman may also have accidental causes of barrenness (at least
+such as may hinder her conception), as sudden frights, anger, grief
+and perturbation of mind; too violent exercises, as leaping,
+dancing, running, after copulation, <!-- Page 346 --><a name=
+'Page_346' id="Page_346"></a> and the like. But I will now add some
+signs, by which these things may be known.</p>
+<p>If the cause of barrenness be in the man, through overmuch heat
+in the seed, the woman may easily feel that in receiving it.</p>
+<p>If the nature of the woman be too hot, and so unfit for
+conception, it will appear by her having her terms very little, and
+the colour inclining to yellowness; she is also very hasty,
+choleric and crafty; her pulse beats very swift, and she is very
+desirous of copulation.</p>
+<p>To know whether the fault is in the man or in the woman,
+sprinkle the man's urine upon a lettuce leaf, and the woman's urine
+upon another, and that which dries away first is unfruitful. Also
+take five wheaten corns and seven beans, put them into an earthen
+pot, and let the party make water therein; let this stand seven
+days, and if in that time they begin to sprout, then the party is
+fruitful; but if they sprout not, then the party is barren, whether
+it be the man or the woman; this is a certain sign.</p>
+<p>There are some that make this experiment of a woman's
+fruitfulness; take myrrh, red storax and some odoriferous things,
+and make a perfume of which let the woman receive into the neck of
+the womb through a funnel; if the woman feels the smoke ascend
+through her body to the nose, then she is fruitful; otherwise
+<!-- Page 347 --><a name='Page_347' id="Page_347"></a> she is
+barren. Some also take garlic and beer, and cause the woman to lie
+upon her back upon it, and if she feel the scent thereof in her
+nose, it is a sign of her being fruitful.</p>
+<p>Culpepper and others also give a great deal of credit to the
+following experiment. Take a handful of barley, and steep half of
+it in the urine of a man, and the other half in the urine of the
+woman, for the space of twenty-four hours; then take it out, and
+put the man's by itself, and the woman's by itself; set it in a
+flower-pot, or some other thing, where let it dry; water the man's
+every morning with his own urine, and the woman's with hers, and
+that which grows first is the most fruitful; but if they grow not
+at all, they are both naturally barren.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. If the barrenness proceeds from stoppage of the
+menstrua, let the woman sweat, for that opens the parts; and the
+best way to sweat is in a hot-house. Then let the womb be
+strengthened by drinking a draught of white wine, wherein a handful
+of stinking arrach, first bruised, has been boiled, for by a secret
+magnetic virtue, it strengthens the womb, and by a sympathetic
+quality, removes any disease thereof. To which add also a handful
+of vervain, which is very good to strengthen both the womb and the
+head, which are commonly <!-- Page 348 --><a name='Page_348' id=
+"Page_348"></a> afflicted together by sympathy. Having used these
+two or three days, if they come not down, take of calamint,
+pennyroyal, thyme, betony, dittany, burnet, feverfew, mugwort,
+sage, peony roots, juniper berries, half a handful of each, or as
+many as can be got; let these be boiled in beer, and taken for her
+drink.</p>
+<p>Take one part of gentian-root, two parts of centaury, distil
+them with ale in an alembic after you have bruised the
+gentian-roots and infused them well. This water is an admirable
+remedy to provoke the terms. But if you have not this water in
+readiness, take a drachm of centaury, and half a drachm of
+gentian-roots bruised, boiled in posset drink, and drink half a
+drachm of it at night going to bed. Seed of wild navew beaten to
+powder, and a drachm of it taken in the morning in white wine, also
+is very good; but if it answers not, she must be let blood in the
+legs. And be sure you administer your medicines a little before the
+full of the moon, by no means in the wane of the moon; if you do,
+you will find them ineffectual.</p>
+<p>If barrenness proceed from the overflowing of the menstrua, then
+strengthen the womb as you were taught before; afterwards anoint
+the veins of the back with oil of roses, oil of myrtle and oil of
+quinces every night, and then wrap a piece of white baise about
+your veins, <!-- Page 349 --><a name='Page_349' id="Page_349"></a>
+the cotton side next to the skin and keep the same always to it.
+But above all, I recommend this medicine to you. Take
+comfrey-leaves or roots, and clown woundwort, of each a handful;
+bruise them well, and boil them in ale, and drink a good draught of
+it now and then. Or take cinnamon, cassia lignea, opium, of each
+two drachms; myrrh, white pepper, galbanum, of each one drachm;
+dissolve the gum and opium in white wine; beat the rest into powder
+and make pills, mixing them together exactly, and let the patient
+take two each night going to bed; but let the pills not exceed
+fifteen grains.</p>
+<p>If barrenness proceed from a flux in the womb, the cure must be
+according to the cause producing it, or which the flux proceeds
+from, which may be known by signs; for a flux of the womb, being a
+continual distillation from it for a long time together, the colour
+of what is voided shows what humour it is that offends; in some it
+is red, and that proceeds from blood putrified, in some it is
+yellow, and that denotes choler; in others white and pale, and
+denotes phlegm. If pure blood comes out, as if a vein were opened,
+some corrosion or gnawing of the womb is to be feared. All these
+are known by the following signs:</p>
+<p>The place of conception is continually moist
+<!-- Page 350 --><a name='Page_350' id="Page_350"></a> with the
+humours, the face ill-coloured, the party loathes meat and breathes
+with difficulty, the eyes are much swollen, which is sometimes
+without pain. If the offending humour be pure blood, then you must
+let blood in the arm, and the cephalic vein is fittest to draw back
+the blood; then let the juice of plantain and comfrey be injected
+into the womb. If phlegm be a cause, let cinnamon be a spice used
+in all her meats and drinks, and let her take a little Venice
+treacle or mithridate every morning. Let her boil burnet, mugwort,
+feverfew and vervain in all her broths. Also, half a drachm of
+myrrh, taken every morning, is an excellent remedy against this
+malady. If choler be the cause, let her take burrage, buglos, red
+roses, endive and succory roots, lettuce and white poppy-seed, of
+each a handful; boil these in white wine until one half be wasted;
+let her drink half a pint every morning to which half pint add
+syrup of chicory and syrup of peach-flowers, of each an ounce, with
+a little rhubarb, and this will gently purge her. If it proceed
+from putrified blood, let her be bled in the foot, and then
+strengthen the womb, as I have directed in stopping the
+menstrua.</p>
+<p>If barrenness be occasioned by the falling out of the womb, as
+sometimes it happens, let her apply sweet scents to the nose, such
+as civet, <!-- Page 351 --><a name='Page_351' id="Page_351"></a>
+galbanum, storax, calamitis, wood of aloes; and such other things
+as are of that nature; and let her lay stinking things to the womb,
+such as asafoetida, oil of amber, or the smoke of her own hair,
+being burnt; for this is a certain truth, that the womb flies from
+all stinking, and to all sweet things. But the most infallible cure
+in this case is; take a common burdock leaf (which you may keep
+dry, if you please, all the year), apply this to her head and it
+will draw the womb upwards. In fits of the mother, apply it to the
+soles of the feet, and it will draw the womb downwards. But seed
+beaten into a powder, draws the womb which way you please,
+accordingly as it is applied.</p>
+<p>If barrenness in the woman proceed from a hot cause, let her
+take whey and clarify it; then boil plantain leaves and roots in
+it, and drink it for her ordinary drink. Let her inject plantain
+juice into her womb with a syringe. If it be in the winter, when
+you cannot get the juice, make a strong decoction of the leaves and
+roots in water, and inject that up with a syringe, but let it be
+blood warm, and you will find this medicine of great efficacy. And
+further, to take away barrenness proceeding from hot causes, take
+of conserve of roses, cold lozenges, make a tragacanth, the
+confections of trincatelia; and use, to smell to, camphor,
+rosewater <!-- Page 352 --><a name='Page_352' id="Page_352"></a>
+and saunders. It is also good to bleed the basilica or liver vein,
+and take four or five ounces of blood, and then take this purge;
+take electuarium de epithymo de succo rosarum, of each two drachms
+and a half; clarified whey, four ounces; mix them well together,
+and take it in the morning fasting; sleep after it about an hour
+and a half, and fast for four hours after; and about an hour before
+you eat anything, drink a good draught of whey. Also take
+lilywater, four ounces; mandragore water, one ounce; saffron, half
+a scruple; beat the saffron to a powder, and mix it with waters,
+drink them warm in the morning; use these eight days together.</p>
+<h4><i>Some apparent Remedy against Barrenness and to cause
+Fruitfulness</i>.</h4>
+<p>Take broom flowers, smallage, parsley seed, cummin, mugwort,
+feverfew, of each half a scruple; aloes, half an ounce; Indian
+salt, saffron, of each half a drachm; beat and mix them together,
+and put it to five ounces of feverfew water warm; stop it up, and
+let it stand and dry in a warm place, and this do, two or three
+times, one after the other; then make each drachm into six pills,
+and take one of them every night before supper.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 353 --><a name='Page_353' id="Page_353"></a> For a
+purging medicine against barrenness, take conserve of benedicta
+lax, a quarter of an ounce; depsillo three drachms, electuary de
+rosarum, one drachm; mix them together with feverfew water, and
+drink it in the morning betimes. About three days after the patient
+hath taken this purge, let her be bled, taking four or five ounces
+from the median, or common black vein in the foot; and then give
+for five successive days, filed ivory, a drachm and a half, in
+feverfew water; and during the time let her sit in the following
+bath an hour together, morning and night. Take mild yellow sapes,
+daucas, balsam wood and fruit, ash-keys, of each two handfuls, red
+and white behen, broom flowers, of each a handful; musk, three
+grains; amber, saffron, of each a scruple; boiled in water
+sufficiently; but the musk, saffron, amber and broom flowers must
+be put into the decoction, after it is boiled and strained.</p>
+<h4><i>A Confection very good against Barrenness</i>.</h4>
+<p>Take pistachia, eringoes, of each half an ounce; saffron, one
+drachm; lignum aloes, galengal, mace, coriophilla, balm flowers,
+red and white behen, of each four scruples; syrup of confected
+ginger, twelve ounces; white sugar, six ounces, decoct all these in
+twelve ounces of balm water, and stir them well together; then
+<!-- Page 354 --><a name='Page_354' id="Page_354"></a> put in it
+musk and amber, of each a scruple; take thereof the quantity of a
+nutmeg three times a day; in the morning, an hour before noon and
+an hour after supper.</p>
+<p>But if the cause of barrenness, either in man or woman, be
+through scarcity or diminution of the natural seed, then such
+things are to be taken as do increase the seed, and incite to stir
+up to venery, and further conception; which I shall here set down,
+and then conclude the chapter concerning barrenness.</p>
+<p>For this, yellow rape seed baked in bread is very good; also
+young, fat flesh, not too much salted; also saffron, the tails of
+stincus, and long pepper prepared in wine. But let such persons
+eschew all sour, sharp, doughy and slimy meats, long sleep after
+meat, surfeiting and drunkenness, and so much as they can, keep
+themselves from sorrow, grief, vexation and anxious care.</p>
+<p>These things following increase the natural seed, stir up the
+venery and recover the seed again when it is lost, viz., eggs,
+milk, rice, boiled in milk, sparrows' brains, flesh, bones and all;
+the stones and pizzles of bulls, bucks, rams and bears, also cocks'
+stones, lambs' stones, partridges', quails' and pheasants' eggs.
+And this is an undeniable aphorism, that whatever any creature is
+addicted unto, they move or incite <!-- Page 355 --><a name=
+'Page_355' id="Page_355"></a> the man or the woman that eats them,
+to the like, and therefore partridges, quails, sparrows, etc.,
+being extremely addicted to venery, they work the same effect on
+those men and women that eat them. Also, take notice, that in what
+part of the body the faculty that you would strengthen, lies, take
+that same part of the body of another creature, in whom the faculty
+is strong, as a medicine. As for instance, the procreative faculty
+lies in the testicles; therefore, cocks' stones, lambs' stones,
+etc., are proper to stir up venery. I will also give you another
+general rule; all creatures that are fruitful being eaten, make
+them fruitful that eat them, as crabs, lobsters, prawns, pigeons,
+etc. The stones of a fox, dried and beaten to a powder, and a
+drachm taken in the morning in sheep's milk, and the stones of a
+boar taken in like manner, are very good. The heart of a male quail
+carried about a man, and the heart of a female quail carried about
+a woman, causes natural love and fruitfulness. Let them, also, that
+would increase their seed, eat and drink of the best, as much as
+they can; for <i>sine Cerere el Libero, friget Venus</i>, is an old
+proverb, which is, "without good meat and drink, Venus will be
+frozen to death."</p>
+<p>Pottages are good to increase the seed; such as are made of
+beans, peas, and lupins, mixed <!-- Page 356 --><a name='Page_356'
+id="Page_356"></a> with sugar. French beans, wheat sodden in broth,
+aniseed, also onions, stewed garlic, leeks, yellow rapes, fresh
+mugwort roots, eringo roots confected, ginger connected, etc. Of
+fruits, hazel nuts, cyprus nuts, pistachio, almonds and marchpanes
+thereof. Spices good to increase seed are cinnamon, galengal, long
+pepper, cloves, ginger, saffron and asafoetida, a drachm and a half
+taken in good wine, is very good for this purpose.</p>
+<p>The weakness and debility of a man's yard, being a great
+hindrance to procreation let him use the following ointment to
+strengthen it: Take wax, oil of beaver-cod, marjoram, gentle and
+oil of costus, of each a like quantity, mix them into an ointment,
+and put it to a little musk, and with it anoint the yard, cods,
+etc. Take of house emmets, three drachms, oil of white safannum,
+oil of lilies, of each an ounce; pound and bruise the ants, and put
+them to the oil and let them stand in the sun six days; then strain
+out the oil and add to it euphorbium one scruple, pepper and rue,
+of each one drachm, mustard seed half a drachm, set this altogether
+in the sun two or three days, then anoint the instrument of
+generation therewith.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='REMEDIES_CHAPTER_II' id="REMEDIES_CHAPTER_II"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 357 --><a name='Page_357' id="Page_357"></a> CHAPTER
+II</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The Diseases of the Womb</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>I have already said, that the womb is the field of generation;
+and if this field be corrupted, it is vain to expect any fruit,
+although it be ever so well sown. It is, therefore, not without
+reason that I intend in this chapter to set down the several
+distempers to which the womb is obnoxious, with proper and safe
+remedies against them.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>Of the Hot Distemper of the Womb</i>.</h3>
+<p>The distemper consists in excess of heat; for as heat of the
+womb is necessary for conception, so if it be too much, it
+nourisheth not the seed, but it disperseth its heat, and hinders
+the conception. This preternatural heat is sometimes from the
+birth, and causeth barrenness, but if it be accidental, it is from
+hot causes, that bring the heat and the blood to the womb; it
+arises also from internal and external medicines, and from too much
+hot meat, drink and exercise. Those that are troubled with this
+distemper <!-- Page 358 --><a name='Page_358' id="Page_358"></a>
+have but few courses, and those are yellow, black, burnt or sharp,
+have hair betimes on their privities, are very prone to lust,
+subject to headache, and abound with choler, and when the distemper
+is strong upon them, they have but few terms, which are out of
+order, being bad and hard to flow, and in time they become
+hypochondriacal, and for the most part barren, having sometimes a
+phrenzy of the womb.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. The remedy is to use coolers, so that they offend
+not the vessels that most open for the flux of the terms.
+Therefore, take the following inwardly; succory, endive, violets,
+water lilies, sorrel, lettuce, saunders and syrups and conserve
+made thereof. Also take a conserve of succory, violets,
+water-lilies, burrage, each an ounce; conserve of roses, half an
+ounce, diamargation frigid, diatriascantal, each half a drachm; and
+with syrup of violets, or juice of citrons, make an electuary. For
+outward applications, make use of ointment of roses, violets,
+water-lilies, gourd, Venus navel, applied to the back and
+loins.</p>
+<p>Let the air be cool, her garments thin, and her food endive,
+lettuce, succory and barley. Give her no hot meats, nor strong
+wine, unless mixed with water. Rest is good for her, but she must
+abstain from copulation, though she may sleep as long as she
+pleases.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><!-- Page 359 --><a name='Page_359' id="Page_359"></a> SECT.
+II.&mdash;<i>Of the Cold Distempers of the Womb</i>.</h3>
+<p>This distemper is the reverse of the foregoing, and equally an
+enemy to generation, being caused by a cold quality abounding to
+excess, and proceeds from a too cold air, rest, idleness and
+cooling medicines. It may be known by an aversion to venery, and
+taking no pleasure in the act of copulation when the seed is spent;
+the terms are phlegmatic, thick and slimy, and do not flow as they
+should; the womb is windy and the seed crude and waterish. It is
+the cause of obstructions and barrenness, and is hard to be
+cured.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. Take galengal, cinnamon, nutmeg mace, cloves,
+ginger, cububs, cardamom, grains of paradise, each an ounce and a
+half, galengal, six drachms, long pepper, half an ounce, Zedoary
+five drachms; bruise them and add six quarts of wine, put them into
+a cellar nine days, daily stirring them; then add of mint two
+handfuls, and let them stand fourteen days, pour off the wine and
+bruise them, and then pour on the wine again, and distil them. Also
+anoint with oil of lilies, rue, angelica, cinnamon, cloves, mace
+and nutmeg. Let her diet and air be warm, her meat of easy
+concoction, seasoned with ant-seed, fennel and thyme; and let her
+avoid raw fruits and milk diets.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><!-- Page 360 --><a name='Page_360' id="Page_360"></a> SECT.
+III.&mdash;<i>Of the Inflation of the Womb</i>.</h3>
+<p>The inflation of the womb is a stretching of it by wind, called
+by some a windy mole; the wind proceeds from a cold matter, whether
+thick or thin, contained in the veins of the womb, by which the
+heat thereof is overcome, and which either flows thither from other
+parts, or is gathered there by cold meats and drinks. Cold air may
+be a producing cause of it also, as women that lie in are exposed
+to it. The wind is contained either in the cavity of the vessels of
+the womb, or between the tumicle, and may be known by a swelling in
+the region of the womb, which sometimes reaches to the navel, loins
+and diaphragm, and rises and abates as the wind increaseth or
+decreaseth. It differs from the dropsy, in that it never swells so
+high. That neither physician nor midwife may take it for dropsy,
+let them observe the signs of the woman with the child laid down in
+a former part of this work; and if any sign be wanting, they may
+suspect it to be an inflation; of which it is a further sign, that
+in conception the swelling is invariable; also if you strike upon
+the belly, in an inflation, there will be noise, but not so in case
+there be a conception. It also differs from a mole, because in that
+there is a weight and hardness of the belly, and when the patient
+<!-- Page 361 --><a name='Page_361' id="Page_361"></a> moves from
+one side to the other she feels a great weight which moveth, but
+not so in this. If the inflation continue without the cavity of the
+womb, the pain is greater and more extensive, nor is there any
+noise, because the wind is more pent up.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. This distemper is neither of a long continuance nor
+dangerous, if looked after in time; and if it be in the cavity of
+the womb it is more easily expelled. To which purpose give her
+diaphnicon, with a little castor and sharp clysters that expel the
+wind. If this distemper happen to a woman in travail let her not
+purge after delivery, nor bleed, because it is from a cold matter;
+but if it come after child-bearing, and her terms come down
+sufficiently, and she has fullness of blood, let the saphoena vein
+be opened, after which, let her take the following electuary: take
+conserve of betony and rosemary, of each an ounce and a half;
+candied eringoes, citron peel candied, each half an ounce;
+diacimium, diagenel, each a drachm; oil of aniseed, six drops, and
+with syrup of citrons make an electuary. For outward application
+make a cataplasm of rue, mugwort, camomile, dill, calamint, new
+pennyroyal, thyme, with oil of rue, keir and camomile. And let the
+following clyster to expel the wind be put into the womb: Take
+agnus castus, cinnamon, each <!-- Page 362 --><a name='Page_362'
+id="Page_362"></a> two drachms, boil them in wine to half a pint.
+She may likewise use sulphur, Bath and Spa waters, both inward and
+outward, because they expel the wind.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. IV.&mdash;<i>Of the Straitness of the Womb and its
+Vessels.</i></h3>
+<p>This is another effect of the womb, which is a very great
+obstruction to the bearing of children, hindering both the flow of
+the menses and conception, and is seated in the vessel of the womb,
+and the neck thereof. The causes of this straitness are thick and
+rough humours, that stop the mouths of the veins and arteries.
+These humours are bred either by gross or too much nourishment,
+when the heat of the womb is so weak that it cannot attenuate the
+humours, which by reason thereof, either flow from the whole body,
+or are gathered into the womb. Now the vessels are made straiter or
+closer several ways; sometimes by inflammation, scirrhous or other
+tumours; sometimes by compressions, scars, or by flesh or membranes
+that grow after a wound. The signs by which this is known are, the
+stoppage of the terms, not conceiving, and condities abounding in
+the body which are all shown by particular signs, for if there is a
+<!-- Page 363 --><a name='Page_363' id="Page_363"></a> wound, or
+the secundine be pulled out by force phlegm comes from the wound;
+if stoppage of the terms be from an old obstruction of humours, it
+is hard to be cured; if it be only from the disorderly use of
+astringents, it is more curable; if it be from a scirrhous, or
+other tumours that compress or close the vessel, the disease is
+incurable.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. For the cure of that which is curable, obstructions
+must be taken away, phlegm must be purged, and she must be let
+blood, as will be hereafter directed in the stoppage of the terms.
+Then use the following medicines: Take of aniseed and fennel seed,
+each a drachm; rosemary, pennyroyal, calamint, betony flowers, each
+an ounce; castus, cinnamon, galengal, each half an ounce; saffron
+half a drachm, with wine. Or take asparagus roots, parsley roots,
+each an ounce; pennyroyal, calamint, each a handful; wallflowers,
+gilly-flowers, each two handfuls; boil, strain and add syrup of
+mugwort, an ounce and a half. For a fomentation, take pennyroyal,
+mercury, calamint, marjoram, mugwort, each two handfuls, sage,
+rosemary bays, camomile-flowers, each a handful, boil them in water
+and foment the groin and the bottom of the belly; or let her sit up
+to the navel in a bath, and then anoint about the groin with oil of
+rue, lilies, dill, etc.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><!-- Page 364 --><a name='Page_364' id="Page_364"></a> SECT.
+V.&mdash;<i>Of the falling of the Womb</i>.</h3>
+<p>This is another evil effect of the womb which is both very
+troublesome, and also a hindrance to conception. Sometimes the womb
+falleth to the middle of the thighs, nay, almost to the knees, and
+may be known then by its hanging out. Now, that which causeth the
+womb to change its place is, that the ligaments by which it is
+bound to the other parts, are not in order; for there are four
+ligaments, two above, broad and membranous, round and hollow; it is
+also bound to the great vessels by veins and arteries, and to the
+back by nerves; but the place is changed when it is drawn another
+way, or when the ligaments are loose, and it falls down by its own
+weight. It is drawn on one side when the menses are hindered from
+flowing, and the veins and arteries are full, namely, those that go
+to the womb. If it be a mole on one side, the liver and spleen
+cause it; by the liver vein on the right side, and the spleen on
+the left, as they are more or less filled. Others are of opinion,
+it comes from the solution of the connexion of the fibrous neck and
+the parts adjacent; and that it is from the weight of the womb
+descending; this we deny not, but the ligaments must be loose or
+broken. But women with a dropsy could not be said to have the womb
+fallen <!-- Page 365 --><a name='Page_365' id="Page_365"></a> down,
+if it came only from looseness; but in them it is caused by the
+saltness of the water, which dries more than it moistens. Now, if
+there be a little tumour, within or without the privities, it is
+nothing else but a descent of the womb, but if there be a tumour
+like a goose's egg and a hole at the bottom and there is at first a
+great pain in the parts to which the womb is fastened, as the
+loins, the bottom of the belly, and the os sacrum, it proceeds from
+the breaking or stretching of the ligaments; and a little after the
+pain is abated, and there is an impediment in walking, and
+sometimes blood comes from the breach of the vessels, and the
+excrements and urine are stopped, and then a fever and convulsion
+ensueth, oftentimes proving mortal, especially if it happen to
+women with child.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. For the cure of this distemper, first put up the
+womb before the air alter it, or it be swollen or inflamed; and for
+this purpose give a clyster to remove the excrements, and lay her
+upon her back, with her legs abroad, and her thighs lifted up and
+her head down; then take the tumour in your hand and thrust it in
+without violence; if it be swelled by alteration and cold, foment
+it with the decoction of mallows, althoea, lime, fenugreek,
+camomile flowers, bay-berries, and anoint it with oil of lilies,
+and hen's grease. If there be an inflammation, do
+<!-- Page 366 --><a name='Page_366' id="Page_366"></a> not put it
+up, but fright it in, by putting a red-hot iron before it and
+making a show as if you intended to burn it; but first sprinkle
+upon it the powder of mastich, frankincense and the like; thus,
+take frankincense, mastich, each two drachms; sarcocol steeped in
+milk, drachm; mummy, pomegranate flowers, sanguisdraconis, each
+half a drachm. When it is put up, let her lie with her legs
+stretched, and one upon the other, for eight or ten days, and make
+a pessary in the form of a pear, with cork or sponge, and put it
+into the womb, dipped in sharp wine, or juice of acacia, with
+powder of sanguis, with galbanum and bdellium. Apply also a
+cupping-glass, with a great flame, under the navel or paps, or both
+kidneys, and lay this plaster to the back; take opopanax, two
+ounces, storax liquid, half an ounce; mastich, frankincense, pitch,
+bole, each two drachms; then with wax make a plaster; or take
+laudanum, a drachm and a half; mastich, and frankincense, each half
+a drachm, wood aloes, cloves, spike, each a drachm; ash-coloured
+ambergris, four grains: musk, half a scruple; make two round
+plasters to be laid on each side of the navel; make a fume of
+snails' skins salted, or of garlic, and let it be taken in by the
+funnel. Use also astringent fomentations of bramble leaves,
+plantain, horse-tails, myrtles, each two <!-- Page 367 --><a name=
+'Page_367' id="Page_367"></a> handfuls; wormseed, two handfuls;
+pomegranate flowers, half an ounce; boil them in wine and water.
+For an injection take comfrey root, an ounce; rupturewort, two
+drachms; yarrow, mugwort, each half an ounce; boil them in red
+wine, and inject with a syringe. To strengthen the womb, take
+hartshorn, bays, of each half a drachm; myrrh half a drachm; make a
+powder of two doses, and give it with sharp wine. Or you may take
+Zedoary, parsnip seed, crabs' eyes prepared, each a drachm, nutmeg,
+half a drachm; and give a drachm, in powder; but astringents must
+be used with great caution, lest by stopping the courses a worse
+mischief follow. To keep in its place, make rollers and ligatures
+as for a rupture; and put pessaries into the bottom of the womb,
+that may force it to remain. Let the diet be such as has drying,
+astringent and glueing qualities, as rice, starch, quinces, pears
+and green cheese; but let the summer fruits be avoided; and let her
+wine be astringent and red.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='REMEDIES_CHAPTER_III' id="REMEDIES_CHAPTER_III"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 368 --><a name='Page_368' id="Page_368"></a> CHAPTER
+III</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Diseases Relating to Women's Monthly Courses</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>Of Women's Monthly Courses in
+General.</i></h3>
+<p>That divine Providence, which, with a wisdom peculiar to itself,
+has appointed woman to conceive by coition with man, and to bear
+and bring forth children, has provided for nourishment of children
+during their recess in the womb of their mother, by that redundancy
+of the blood which is natural to all women; and which, flowing out
+at certain periods of time (when they are not pregnant) are from
+thence called <i>terms</i> and <i>menses</i>, from their monthly
+flux of excrementitious and unprofitable blood. Now, that the
+matter flowing forth is excrementitious, is to be understood only
+with respect to the redundancy and overplus thereof, being an
+excrement only with respect to its quantity; for as to its quality,
+it is as pure and incorrupt as any blood in the veins; and this
+appears from the final cause of it, which is the propagation and
+conservation of mankind, and also from the generation of it, being
+superfluity of the last aliment of the fleshy parts. If any ask, if
+the menses be not of hurtful quality, how can they cause such
+venomous effects; if they fall <!-- Page 369 --><a name='Page_369'
+id="Page_369"></a> upon trees and herbs, they make the one barren
+and mortify the other: I answer, this malignity is contracted in
+the womb, for the woman, wanting native heat to digest the
+superfluity, sends it to the matrix, where seating itself till the
+mouth of the womb be dilated, it becomes corrupt and mortified;
+which may easily be, considering the heat and moistness of the
+place; and so this blood being out of its proper vessels, offends
+in quality.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. II.&mdash;<i>Of the Terms coming out of order, either
+before or after the usual Time</i>.</h3>
+<p>Having, in the former part of this work, treated, of the
+suppression and overflowing of the monthly terms, I shall content
+myself with referring the reader thereto, and proceed to speak of
+their coming out of order, either before or after the usual
+time.</p>
+<p>Both these proceed from an ill constitution of body. Everything
+is beautiful in its order, in nature as well as in morality; and if
+the order of nature be broken, it shows the body to be out of
+order. Of each of these effects briefly.</p>
+<p>When the monthly courses come before their time, showing a
+depraved excretion, and flowing sometimes twice a month, the cause
+is in the blood, which stirs up the expulsive faculty of
+<!-- Page 370 --><a name='Page_370' id="Page_370"></a> the womb, or
+else in the whole body, and is frequently occasioned by the
+person's diet, which increases the blood too much, making it too
+sharp or too hot. If the retentive faculty of the womb be weak, and
+the expulsive faculty strong, and of a quick sense, it brings them
+forth the sooner. Sometimes they flow sooner by reason of a fall,
+stroke or some violent passion, which the parties themselves can
+best relate. If it be from heat, thin and sharp humours, it is
+known by the distemper of the whole body. The looseness of the
+vessels and the weakness of the retentive faculty, is known from a
+moist and loose habit of the body. It is more troublesome than
+dangerous, but hinders conception, and therefore the cure is
+necessary for all, but especially such as desire children. If it
+proceeds from a sharp blood, let her temper it by a good diet and
+medicines. To which purpose, let her use baths of iron water, that
+correct the distemper of the bowels, and then evacuate. If it
+proceeds from the retentive faculty, and looseness of the vessels,
+it is to be corrected with gentle astringents.</p>
+<p>As to the courses flowing after the usual time, the causes are,
+thickness of the blood, and the smallness of its quantity, with the
+stoutness of the passage, and weakness of the expulsive faculties.
+Either of these singly may stop the <!-- Page 371 --><a name=
+'Page_371' id="Page_371"></a> courses, but if they all concur, they
+render the distemper worse. If the blood abounds not in such a
+quantity as may stir up nature to expel it, its purging must
+necessarily be deferred, till there be enough. And if the blood be
+thick, the passage stopped, and the expulsive faculty weak, the
+menses must needs be out of order and the purging of them
+retarded.</p>
+<p>For the cure of this, if the quantity of blood be small, let her
+use a larger diet, and a very little exercise. If the blood be
+thick and foul, let it be made thin, and the humours mixed
+therewith, evacuated. It is good to purge, after the courses have
+done flowing, and to use calamint, and, indeed, the oftener she
+purges, the better. She may also use fumes and pessaries, apply
+cupping glasses without scarification to the inside of the thighs,
+and rub the legs and scarify the ankles, and hold the feet in warm
+water four or five days before the courses come down. Let her also
+anoint the bottom of her belly with things proper to provoke the
+terms.</p>
+<h4><i>Remedies for Diseases in Women's Paps</i>.</h4>
+<p>Make a cataplasm of bean meal and salad oil, and lay it to the
+place afflicted. Or anoint with the juice of papilaris. This must
+be done when the papa are very sore.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 372 --><a name='Page_372' id="Page_372"></a> If the
+paps be hard and swollen, take a handful of rue, colewort roots,
+horehound and mint; if you cannot get all these conveniently, any
+two will do; pound the handful in honey, and apply it once every
+day till healed.</p>
+<p>If the nipples be stiff and sore, anoint twice a day with
+Florence oil, till healed. If the paps be flabby and hanging,
+bruise a little hemlock, and apply it to the breast for three days;
+but let it not stand above seven hours. Or, which is safer, rusae
+juice, well boiled, with a little sinapios added thereto, and
+anoint.</p>
+<p>If the paps be hard and dead, make a plate of lead pretty thin,
+to answer the breasts; let this stand nine hours each day, for
+three days. Or sassafras bruised, and used in like manner.</p>
+<h4><i>Receipt for Procuring Milk</i>.</h4>
+<p>Drink arpleui, drawn as tea, for twenty-one days. Or eat of
+aniseeds. Also the juice of arbor vitae, a glassful once a day for
+eleven days, is very good, for it quickens the memory, strengthens
+the body, and causeth milk to flow in abundance.</p>
+<h4><i>Directions for Drawing of Blood</i>.</h4>
+<p>Drawing of blood was first invented for good and salutary
+purposes, although often abused <!-- Page 373 --><a name='Page_373'
+id="Page_373"></a> and misapplied. To bleed in the left arm removes
+long continued pains and headaches. It is also good for those who
+have got falls and bruises.</p>
+<p>Bleeding is good for many disorders, and generally proves a
+cure, except in some extraordinary cases, and in those cases
+bleeding is hurtful. If a woman be pregnant, to draw a little blood
+will give her ease, good health, and a lusty child.</p>
+<p>Bleeding is a most certain cure for no less than twenty-one
+disorders, without any outward or inward applications; and for many
+more with application of drugs, herbs and flowers.</p>
+<p>When the moon is on the increase, you may let blood at any time
+day or night; but when she is on the decline, you must bleed only
+in the morning.</p>
+<p>Bleeding may be performed from the month of March to November.
+No bleeding in December, January or February, unless an occasion
+require it. The months of March, April and November, are the three
+chief months of the year for bleeding in; but it may be performed
+with safety from the ninth of March to the nineteenth of
+November.</p>
+<p>To prevent the dangers that may arise from she unskilful drawing
+of blood, let none open a but a person of experience and
+practice.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 374 --><a name='Page_374' id="Page_374"></a> There are
+three sorts of people you must not let draw blood; first ignorant
+and inexperienced persons. Secondly, those who have bad sight and
+trembling hands, whether skilful or unskilled. For when the hand
+trembles, the lance is apt to start from the vein, and the flesh be
+thereby damaged, which may hurt, canker, and very much torment the
+patient. Thirdly, let no woman bleed, but such as have gone through
+a course of midwifery at college, for those who are unskilful may
+cut an artery, to the great damage of the patient. Besides, what is
+still worse, those pretended bleeders, who take it up at their own
+hand, generally keep unedged and rusty lancets, which prove
+hurtful, even in a skilful hand. Accordingly you ought to be
+cautious in choosing your physician; a man of learning knows what
+vein to open for each disorder; he knows how much blood to take as
+soon as he sees the patient, and he can give you suitable advice
+concerning your disorder.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS' id="BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS"></a>
+<h1><!-- Page 375 --><a name='Page_375' id="Page_375"></a> PART
+III<br />
+<br />
+ARISTOTLE'S BOOK OF PROBLEMS<br />
+WITH OTHER<br />
+ASTROMER, ASTROLOGERS AND<br />
+PHYSICIANS,<br />
+CONCERNING<br />
+THE STATE OF MAN'S BODY.</h1>
+<br />
+<p>Q. Among all living creatures, why hath man only his countenance
+lifted up towards Heaven. A. 1. From the will of the Creator. But
+although this answer be true, yet it seemeth not to be of force,
+because that so all questions might be easily resolved. Therefore,
+2. I answer that, for the most part, every workman doth make his
+first work worse, and then his second better! so God creating all
+other animals <!-- Page 376 --><a name='Page_376' id=
+"Page_376"></a> before man gave them their face looking down to the
+earth; and then secondly he created man, unto whom he gave an
+upright shape, lifted unto heaven, because it is drawn from
+divinity, and it is derived from the goodness of God, who maketh
+all his works both perfect and good. 3. Man only, among all living
+creatures, is ordained to the kingdom of heaven, and therefore hath
+his face elevated and lifted up to heaven, because that despising
+earthly and worldly things, he ought often to contemplate on
+heavenly things. 4. That the reasonable man is like unto angels,
+and finally ordained towards God; and therefore he hath a figure
+looking upward. 5. Man is a microcosm, that is, a little world, and
+therefore he doth command all other living creatures and they obey
+him. 6. Naturally there is unto everything and every work, that
+form and figure given which is fit and proper for its motion; as
+unto the heavens, roundness, to the fire a pyramidical form, that
+is, broad beneath and sharp towards the top, which form is most apt
+to ascend; and so man has his face towards heaven to behold the
+wonders of God's works.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the heads of men hairy? A. The hair is the ornament
+of the head, and the brain is purged of gross humours by the
+growing of the hair, from the highest to the lowest, which
+<!-- Page 377 --><a name='Page_377' id="Page_377"></a> pass through
+the pores of the exterior flesh, become dry, and are converted into
+hair. This appears to be the case, from the circumstance that in
+all man's body there is nothing drier than the hair, for it is
+drier than the bones; and it is well known that some beasts are
+nourished with bones, as dogs, but they cannot digest feathers or
+hair, but void them undigested, being too hot for nourishment. 2.
+It is answered, that the brain is purged in three different ways;
+of superfluous watery humours by the eyes, of choler by the nose,
+and of phlegm by the hair, which is the opinion of the best
+physicians.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have men longer hair on their heads than any other living
+creature? A. Arist. de Generat. Anim. says, that men have the
+moistest brain of all living creatures from which the seed
+proceedeth which is converted into the long hair of the head. 2.
+The humours of men are fat, and do not become dry easily; and
+therefore the hair groweth long on them. In beasts, the humours
+easily dry, and therefore the hair groweth not so long.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the hair take deeper root in man's skin than in that
+of any other living creatures? A. Because it has greater store of
+nourishment in man, and therefore grows more in the inward parts of
+man. And this is the <!-- Page 378 --><a name='Page_378' id=
+"Page_378"></a> reason why in other creatures the hair doth alter
+and change with the skin, and not in man, unless by a scar or
+wound.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have women longer hair than men? A. Because women are
+moister and more phlegmatic than men, and therefore there is more
+matter for hair to them, and, by consequence, the length also of
+their hair. And, furthermore, this matter is more increased in
+women than men from their interior parts, and especially in the
+time of their monthly terms, because the matter doth then ascend,
+whereby the humour that breedeth the hair, doth increase. 2.
+Because women want beards; so the matter of the beard doth go into
+that of the hair.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have some women soft hair and some hard? A. 1. The hair
+hath proportion with the skin; of which some is hard, some thick,
+some subtle and soft, some gross; therefore, the hair which grows
+out of thick, gross skin, is thick and gross; that which groweth
+out of a subtle and fine skin, is fine and soft; when the pores are
+open, then cometh forth much humour, and therefore hard hair is
+engendered; and when the pores are strait, then there doth grow
+soft and fine hair. This doth evidently appear in men, because
+women have softer hair than they; for in women the
+<!-- Page 379 --><a name='Page_379' id="Page_379"></a> pores are
+shut and strait, by reason of their coldness. 2. Because for the
+most part, choleric men have harder and thicker hair than others,
+by reason of their heat, and because their pores are always open,
+and therefore they have beards sooner than others. For this reason
+also, beasts that have hard hair are boldest, because such have
+proceeded from heat and choler, examples of which we have in the
+bear and the boar; and contrariwise, those beasts that have soft
+hair are fearful, because they are cold, as the hare and the hart.
+3. From the climate where a man is born; because in hot regions
+hard and gross hair is engendered, as appears in the Ethiopians,
+and the contrary is the case is cold countries toward the
+north.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have some men curled hair, and some smooth? A. From the
+superior degree of heat in some men, which makes the hair curl and
+grow upward; this is proved by a man's having smooth hair when he
+goes into a hot bath, and it afterwards becomes curled. Therefore
+keepers of baths have often curled hair, as also Ethiopians and
+choleric men. But the cause of this smoothness, is the abundance of
+moist humours.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do women show ripeness by hair in their privy parts, and
+not elsewhere, but men in their breasts? A. Because in men
+<!-- Page 380 --><a name='Page_380' id="Page_380"></a> and women
+there is abundance of humidity in that place, but most in women, as
+men have the mouth of the bladder in that place, where the urine is
+contained, of which the hair in the breast is engendered, and
+especially that about the navel. But of women in general, it is
+said, that the humidity of the bladder of the matrix, or womb, is
+joined and meeteth in that lower secret place, and therefore is
+dissolved and separated in that place into vapours and fumes, which
+are the cause of hair. And the like doth happen in other places, as
+in the hair under the arms.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have not women beards? A. Because they want heat; which
+is the case with some effeminate men, who are beardless from the
+same cause, to have complexions like women.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the hair grow on those that are hanged? A. Because
+their bodies are exposed to the sun, which, by its heat doth
+dissolve all moisture into the fume or vapour of which the hair
+doth grow.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the hair of the beard thicker and grosser than
+elsewhere; and the more men are shaven, the harder and thicker it
+groweth? A. Because by so much as the humours or vapours of a
+liquid are dissolved and taken away, so much the more doth the
+humour <!-- Page 381 --><a name='Page_381' id="Page_381"></a>
+remaining draw to the same; and therefore the more the hair is
+shaven, the thicker the humours gather which engender the hair, and
+cause it to wax hard.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are women smooth and fairer than men? A. Because in women
+much of the humidity and superfluity, which are the matter and
+cause of the hair of the body, is expelled with their monthly
+terms; which superfluity, remaining in men, through vapours passes
+into hair.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth man, above all other creatures, wax hoary and gray?
+A. Because man hath the hottest heart of all living creatures; and
+therefore, nature being most wise, lest a man should be suffocated
+through the heat of his heart, hath placed the heart, which is most
+hot, under the brain, which is most cold; to the end that the heat
+of the heart may be tempered by the coldness of the brain; and
+contrariwise, that the coldness of the brain may be qualified by
+the heat of the heart; and thereby there might be a temperature in
+both. A proof of this is, that of all living creatures man hath the
+worst breath when he comes to full age. Furthermore, man doth
+consume nearly half his time in sleep, which doth proceed from the
+great excess of coldness and moisture in the brain, and from his
+wanting <!-- Page 382 --><a name='Page_382' id="Page_382"></a>
+natural heat to digest and consume that moisture, which heat he
+hath in his youth, and therefore, in that age is not gray, but in
+old age, when heat faileth; because then the vapours ascending from
+the stomach remain undigested and unconsumed for want of natural
+heat, and thus putrefy, on which putrefaction of humours that the
+whiteness doth follow, which is called grayness or hoariness.
+Whereby it doth appear, that hoariness is nothing but a whiteness
+of hair, caused by a putrefaction of the humours about the roots of
+the hair, through the want of natural heat in old age. Sometimes
+all grayness is caused by the naughtiness of the complexion, which
+may happen in youth: sometimes through over great fear and care as
+appeareth in merchants, sailors and thieves.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth red hair grow white sooner than hair of any other
+colour? A. Because redness is an infirmity of the hair; for it is
+engendered of a weak and infirm matter, that is, of matter
+corrupted with the flowers of the woman; and therefore it waxes
+white sooner than any other colour.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do wolves grow grisly? A. To understand this question,
+note the difference between grayness and grisliness; grayness is
+caused through defect of natural heat, but grisliness through
+devouring and heat. The <!-- Page 383 --><a name='Page_383' id=
+"Page_383"></a> wolf being a devouring beast, he eateth
+gluttonously without chewing, and enough at once for three days; in
+consequence of which, gross vapours engendered in the wolf's body,
+which cause grisliness. Grayness and grisliness have this
+difference; grayness is only in the head, but grisliness all over
+the body.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do horses grow grisly and gray? A. Because they are for
+the most part in the sun, and heat naturally causes putrefaction;
+therefore the matter of hair doth putrefy, and in consequence they
+are quickly peeled.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do men get bald, and trees let fall their leaves in
+winter? A. The want of moisture is the cause in both, which is
+proved by a man's becoming bald through venery, because by that he
+lets forth his natural humidity and heat; and by that excess in
+carnal pleasure the moisture is consumed which is the nutriment of
+the hair. Thus, eunuchs and women do not grow bald, because they do
+not part from this moisture; and therefore eunuchs are of the
+complexion of women.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are not women bald? A. Because they are cold and moist,
+which are the causes that the hair remaineth; for moistness doth
+give nutriment to the hair, and coldness doth bind the pores.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are not blind men naturally bald?
+<!-- Page 384 --><a name='Page_384' id="Page_384"></a> A. Because
+the eye hath moisture in it, and that moisture which should pass
+through by the substance of the eyes, doth become a sufficient
+nutriment for the hair and therefore they are seldom bald.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the hair stand on end when men are afraid? A.
+Because in time of fear the heat doth go from the outward parts of
+the body into the inward to help the heart, and so the pores in
+which the hair is fastened are shut up, after which stopping and
+shutting up of the pores, the standing up of the hair doth
+follow.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Head' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Head"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Head</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why is a man's head round? A. Because it contains in it the
+moistest parts of the living creature: and also that the brain may
+be defended thereby, as with a shield.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the head not absolutely long but somewhat round? A. To
+the end that the three creeks and cells of the brain might the
+better be distinguished; that is, the fancy in the forehead, the
+discoursing or reasonable part in the middle, and memory in the
+hinder-most part.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth a man lift up his head towards the heavens when he
+doth imagine? <!-- Page 385 --><a name='Page_385' id=
+"Page_385"></a> A. Because the imagination is in the fore part of
+the head or brain, and therefore it lifteth up itself, that the
+creeks or cells of the imagination may be opened, and that the
+spirits which help the imagination, and are fit for that purpose,
+having their concourse thither, may help the imagination.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth a man, when he museth or thinketh of things past,
+look towards the earth? A. Because the cell or creek which is
+behind, is the creek or chamber of the memory; and therefore, that
+looketh towards heaven when the head is bowed down, and so the cell
+is open, to the end that the spirits which perfect the memory
+should enter it.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is not the head fleshy, like other parts of the body? A.
+Because the head would be too heavy, and would not stand steadily.
+Also, a head loaded with flesh, betokens an evil complexion.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the head subject to aches and griefs? A. By reason
+that evil humours, which proceed from the stomach, ascend up to the
+head and disturb the brain, and so cause pain in the head;
+sometimes it proceeds from overmuch filling the stomach, because
+two great sinews pass from the brain to the mouth of the stomach,
+and therefore these two parts do always suffer grief together.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 386 --><a name='Page_386' id="Page_386"></a> Q. Why
+have women the headache oftener than men? A. By reason of their
+monthly terms, which men are not troubled with, and by which a
+moist, unclean and venomous fume is produced, that seeks passage
+upwards, and so causes the headache.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the brain white? A. 1. Because it is cold, and
+coldness is the mother of white. 2. Because it may receive the
+similitude and likeness of all colours, which the white colour can
+best do, because it is most simple.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are all the senses in the head? A. Because the brain is
+there, on which all the senses depend, and are directed by it; and,
+consequently, it maketh all the spirits to feel, and governeth all
+the membranes.</p>
+<p>Q. Why cannot a person escape death if the brain or heart be
+hurt? A. Because the brain and heart are the two principal parts
+which concern life; and, therefore, if they be hurt, there is no
+remedy left for cure.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the brain moist? A. Because it may easily receive an
+impression, which moisture can best do, as it appeareth in wax,
+which doth easily receive the print of the seal when soft.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the brain cold? A. 1. Because that by this coldness it
+may clear the <!-- Page 387 --><a name='Page_387' id=
+"Page_387"></a> understanding of man and make it subtle. 2. That by
+the coldness of the brain, the heat of the heart may be
+tempered.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Eyes' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Eyes"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Eyes</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why have you one nose and two eyes? A. Because light is more
+necessary to us than smelling; and therefore it doth proceed from
+the goodness of Nature, that if we receive any hurt or loss of one
+eye, the other should remain.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have children great eyes in their youth, which become
+small as they grow up? A. It proceeds from the want of fire, and
+from the assemblage and meeting together of the light and humour;
+the eyes, being lightened by the sun, which doth lighten the easy
+humour thereof and purge them: and, in the absence of the sun,
+those humours become dark and black, and the sight not so good.</p>
+<p>Q. Why does the blueish grey eye see badly in the day-time and
+well in the night? A. Because greyness is light and shining in
+itself, and the spirits with which we see are weakened in the
+day-time and strengthened in the night.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are men's eyes of diverse colours? A. By reason of
+diversity of humours. The eye hath four coverings and three
+humours. The first covering is called consolidative, which is the
+outermost, strong and fat. The second <!-- Page 388 --><a name=
+'Page_388' id="Page_388"></a> is called a horny skin or covering,
+of the likeness of a horn; which is a clear covering. The third,
+uvea, of the likeness of a black grape. The fourth is called a
+cobweb. The first humour is called <i>albuginous</i>, from its
+likeness unto the white of an egg. The second glarial; that is,
+clear, like unto crystalline. The third vitreous, that is, clear as
+glass. And the diversity of humours causeth the diversity of the
+eyes.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are men that have but one eye, good archers? and why do
+good archers commonly shut one? And why do such as behold the stars
+look through a trunk with one eye? A. This matter is handled in the
+perspective arts; and the reason is, as it doth appear in <i>The
+Book of Causes</i>, because that every virtue and strength united
+and knit together, is stronger than when dispersed and scattered.
+Therefore, all the force of seeing dispersed in two eyes, the one
+being shut, is gathered into the other, and so the light is
+fortified in him; and by consequence he doth see better and more
+certainly with one eye being shut, than when both are open.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do those that drink and laugh much, shed most tears? A.
+Because that while they drink and laugh without measure the air
+which is drawn in doth not pass out through
+<!-- Page 389 --><a name='Page_389' id="Page_389"></a> the
+windpipe, and so with force is directed and sent to the eyes, and
+by their pores passing out, doth expel the humours of the eyes;
+which humour being expelled, brings tears.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do such as weep much, urine but little? A. Because the
+radical humidity of a tear and of urine are of one and the same
+nature, and, therefore, where weeping doth increase, urine
+diminishes. And that they are of one nature is plain to the taste,
+because they are both salt.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do some that have clear eyes see nothing? A. By reason of
+the oppilation and naughtiness of the sinews with which we see; for
+the temples being destroyed, the strength of the light cannot be
+carried from the brain to the eye.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the eye clear and smooth like glass? A. 1. Because the
+things which may be seen are better beaten back from a smooth thing
+than otherwise, that thereby the sight should strengthen. 2.
+Because the eye is moist above all parts of the body, and of a
+waterish nature; and as the water is clear and smooth, so likewise
+is the eye.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do men and beasts who have their eyes deep in their head
+best see far off? A. Because the force and power by which we see is
+dispersed in them, and both go directly to the
+<!-- Page 390 --><a name='Page_390' id="Page_390"></a> thing which
+is seen. Thus, when a man doth stand in a deep ditch or well, he
+doth see in the daytime the stars of the firmament; because then
+the power of the night and of the beams are not scattered.</p>
+<p>Q. Wherefore do those men who have eyes far out in their head
+not see far distant? A. Because the beams of the sight which pass
+from the eye, are scattered on every side, and go not directly unto
+the thing that is seen, and therefore the sight is weakened.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are so many beasts born blind, as lions' whelps and dogs'
+whelps. A. Because such beasts are not yet of perfect ripeness and
+maturity, and the course of nutriment doth not work in them. Thus
+the swallow, whose eyes, if they were taken out when they are young
+in their nest, would grow in again. And this is the case in many
+beasts who are brought forth before their time as it were dead, as
+bear's whelps.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the eyes of a woman that hath her flowers, stain new
+glass? And why doth a basilisk kill a man with his sight? A. When
+the flowers do run from a woman, then a most venomous air is
+distilled from them, which doth ascend into a woman's head; and
+she, having pain in her head, doth wrap it up with a cloth or
+handkerchief; and because the eyes <!-- Page 391 --><a name=
+'Page_391' id="Page_391"></a> are full of insensible holes, which
+are called pores, there the air seeketh a passage, and infects the
+eyes, which are full of blood. The eyes also appear dropping and
+full of tears, by reason of the evil vapour that is in them; and
+these vapours are incorporated and multiplied till they come to the
+glass before them; and by reason that such a glass is round, clear
+and smooth, it doth easily receive that which is unclean. 2. The
+basilisk is a very venomous and infectious animal, and there pass
+from his eyes vapours which are multiplied upon the thing which is
+seen by him, and even unto the eye of man; the which venomous
+vapours or humours entering into the body, do infect him, and so in
+the end the man dieth. And this is also the reason why the
+basilisk, looking upon a shield perfectly well made with fast
+clammy pitch, or any hard smooth thing, doth kill itself, because
+the humours are beaten back from the hard smooth thing unto the
+basilisk, by which beating back he is killed.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the sparkling in cats' eyes and wolves' eyes seen in
+the dark and not in the light? A. Because that the greater light
+doth darken the lesser; and therefore, in a greater light the
+sparkling cannot be seen; but the greater the darkness, the easier
+it is seen, and is more strong and shining.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 392 --><a name='Page_392' id="Page_392"></a> Q. Why is
+the sight recreated and refreshed by a green colour? A. Because
+green doth merely move the sight, and therefore doth comfort it;
+but this doth not, in black or white colours, because these colours
+do vehemently stir and alter the organ and instrument of the sight,
+and therefore make the greater violence; and by how much the more
+violent the thing is which is felt or seen the more it doth destroy
+and weaken the sense.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Nose' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Nose"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Nose</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why doth the nose stand out further than any other part of
+the body. A. 1. Because the nose is, as it were, the sink of the
+brain, by which the phlegm of the brain is purged; and therefore it
+doth stand forth, lest the other parts should be defiled. 2.
+Because the nose is the beauty of the face, and doth smell.</p>
+<p>Q. Why hath a man the worst smell of all creatures? A. Because
+man hath most brains of all creatures; and, therefore, by exceeding
+coldness and moisture, the brain wanteth a good disposition, and by
+consequence, the smelling instrument is not good, yea, some men
+have no smell.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have vultures and cormorants a keen smell? A. Because
+they have a very dry brain; and, therefore, the air carrying the
+<!-- Page 393 --><a name='Page_393' id="Page_393"></a> smell, is
+not hindered by the humidity of the brain, but doth presently touch
+its instrument; and, therefore, vultures, tigers and other ravenous
+beasts, have been known to come five hundred miles after dead
+bodies.</p>
+<p>Q. Why did nature make the nostrils? A. 1. Because the mouth
+being shut we draw breath in by the nostrils, to refresh the heart.
+2. Because the air which proceedeth from the mouth doth savour
+badly, because of the vapours which rise from the stomach, but that
+which we breathe from the nose is not noisome. 3. Because the
+phlegm which doth proceed from the brain is purged by them.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do men sneeze? A. That the expulsive virtue and power of
+the sight should thereby be purged, and the brain also from
+superfluities; because, as the lungs are purged by coughing, so is
+the sight and brain by sneezing; and therefore physicians give
+sneezing medicaments to purge the brain; and thus it is, such sick
+persons as cannot sneeze, die quickly, because it is a sign their
+brain is wholly stuffed with evil humours, which cannot be
+purged.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do such as are apoplectic sneeze, that is, such as are
+subject easily to bleed? A. Because the passages, or ventricles of
+the brain are stopped, and if they could sneeze, their apoplexy
+would be loosed.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 394 --><a name='Page_394' id="Page_394"></a> Q. Why
+does the heat of the sun provoke sneezing, and not the heat of the
+fire? A. Because the heat of the sun doth dissolve, but not
+consume, and therefore the vapour dissolved is expelled by
+sneezing; but the heat of the fire doth dissolve and consume, and
+therefore doth rather hinder sneezing than provoke it.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Ears' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Ears"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Ears</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why do beasts move their ears, and not men? A. Because there
+is a certain muscle near the under jaw which doth cause motion in
+the ear; and therefore, that muscle being extended and stretched,
+men do not move their ears, as it hath been seen in divers men; but
+all beasts do use that muscle or fleshy sinew, and therefore do
+move their ears.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is rain prognosticated by the pricking up of asses' ears?
+A. Because the ass is of a melancholic constitution, and the
+approach of rain produceth that effect on such a constitution. In
+the time of rain all beasts prick up their ears, but the ass before
+it comes.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have some animals no ears? A. Nature giveth unto
+everything that which is fit for it, but if she had given birds
+ears, their flying would have been hindered by them. Likewise fish
+want ears, because they would <!-- Page 395 --><a name='Page_395'
+id="Page_395"></a> hinder their swimming, and have only certain
+little holes through which they hear.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have bats ears, although of the bird kind? A. Because
+they are partly birds in nature, in that they fly, by reason
+whereof they have wings; and partly they are hairy and seem to be
+of the nature of mice, therefore nature hath given them ears.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have men only round ears? A. Because the shape of the
+whole and of the parts should be proportionable, and especially in
+all things of one nature; for as a drop of water is round, so the
+whole water: and so, because a man's head is round, the ears
+incline towards the same figure; but the heads of beasts are
+somewhat long, and so the ears are drawn into length likewise.</p>
+<p>Q. Why hath nature given all living creatures ears? A. 1.
+Because with them they should hear. 2. Because by the ear choleric
+superfluity is purged; for as the head is purged of phlegmatic
+superfluity by the nose, so from choleric, by the ears.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Mouth' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Mouth"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Mouth</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why hath the mouth lips to compass it? A. Because the lips
+cover and defend the teeth; for it would be unseemly if the teeth
+<!-- Page 396 --><a name='Page_396' id="Page_396"></a> were always
+seen. Also, the teeth being of a cold nature, would be soon hurt if
+they were not covered with lips.</p>
+<p>Q. Why has a man two eyes and but one mouth? A. Because a man
+should speak but little, and hear and see much. And by hearing and
+the light we see difference of things.</p>
+<p>Q. Why hath a man a mouth? A. 1. Because the mouth is the gate
+and door of the stomach. 2. Because the meat is chewed in the
+mouth, and prepared and made ready for the first digestion. 3.
+Because the air drawn into the hollow of the mouth for the
+refreshing of the heart, is made pure and subtle.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the lips moveable? A. For the purpose of forming the
+voice and words which cannot be perfectly done without them. For as
+without <i>a, b, c</i>, there is no writing, so without the lips no
+voice can well be formed.</p>
+<p>Q. What causes men to yawn or gape? A. It proceeds from the
+thick fume and vapours that fill the jaws; by the expulsion of
+which is caused the stretching out and expansion of the jaws, and
+opening of the mouth.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth a man gape when he seeth another do the same? A. It
+proceeds from the imagination. And this is proved by the similitude
+of the ass, who by reason of his melancholy, doth retain his
+superfluity for a long <!-- Page 397 --><a name='Page_397' id=
+"Page_397"></a> time, and would neither eat nor piss unless he
+should hear another doing the like.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Teeth' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Teeth"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Teeth</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why do the teeth only, amongst all ether bones, experience
+the sense of feeling? A. That they may discern heat and cold, that
+hurt them, which other bones need not.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have men more teeth than women? A. By reason of the
+abundance of heat and cold which is more in men than in women.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the teeth grow to the end of our life, and not the
+other bones? A. Because otherwise they would be consumed with
+chewing and grinding.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the teeth only come again when they fall, or be taken
+out, and other bones being taken away, grow no more? A. Because
+other bones are engendered of the humidity which is called radical,
+and so they breed in the womb of the mother, but the teeth are
+engendered of nutritive humidity, which is renewed and increased
+from day to day.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the fore-teeth fall in youth, and grow again, and not
+the cheek teeth? A. From the defect of matter, and from the figure;
+because the fore-teeth are sharp, and the others broad. Also, it is
+the office of the fore-teeth <!-- Page 398 --><a name='Page_398'
+id="Page_398"></a> to cut the meat, and therefore they are sharp;
+and the office of the others to chew the meat, and therefore they
+are broad in fashion, which is fittest for that purpose.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the fore-teeth grow soonest? A. Because we want them
+sooner in cutting than the others in chewing.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the teeth grow black in human creatures in their old
+age? A. It is occasioned by the corruption of the meat, and the
+corruption of phlegm with a choleric humour.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are colts' teeth yellow, and of the colour of saffron,
+when they are young, and become white when they grow up? A. Because
+horses have abundance of watery humours in them, which in their
+youth are digested and converted into grossness; but in old age
+heat diminishes, and the watery humours remain, whose proper colour
+is white.</p>
+<p>Q. Why did nature give living creatures teeth? A. To some to
+fight with, and for defence of their lives, as unto wolves and
+bears, unto some to eat with, as unto horses, unto some for the
+forming of the voices, as unto men.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do horned beasts want their upper teeth? A. Horns and
+teeth are caused by the same matter, that is, nutrimental humidity,
+and therefore the matter which passeth into the horns turneth not
+into teeth, consequently <!-- Page 399 --><a name='Page_399' id=
+"Page_399"></a> they want the upper teeth. And such beasts cannot
+chew well; therefore, to supply the want of teeth, they have two
+stomachs, from whence it returns and they chew it again, then it
+goes into the other to be digested.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are some creatures brought forth with teeth, as kids and
+lambs; and some without, as men? A. Nature doth not want in
+necessary things, nor abound in things superfluous; and therefore,
+because these beasts, not long after they are fallen, do need
+teeth, they are fallen with teeth; but men, being nourished by
+their mother, for a long time do not stand in need of teeth.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Tongue' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Tongue"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Tongue</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why is the tongue full of pores? A. Because the tongue is the
+means whereby which we taste; and through the mouth, in the pores
+of the tongue, doth proceed the sense of tasting. Again, it is
+observed, that frothy spittle is sent into the mouth by the tongue
+from the lungs, moistening the meat and making it ready for
+digestion.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the tongues of such as are sick of agues judge all
+things bitter? A. Because the stomachs of such persons are filled
+with <!-- Page 400 --><a name='Page_400' id="Page_400"></a>
+choleric humours; and choler is very bitter, as appeareth by the
+gall; therefore this bitter fume doth infect their tongues; and so
+the tongue, being full of these tastes, doth judge everything
+bitter.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the tongue water when we hear sour and sharp things
+spoken of? A. Because the imaginative virtue or power is of greater
+force than the power or faculty of tasting; and when we imagine a
+taste, we conceive the power of tasting as a swan; there is nothing
+felt by the taste, but by means of the spittle the tongue doth
+water.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do some persons stammer and lisp? A. Sometimes through
+the moistness of the tongue and brain, as in children, who cannot
+speak plainly nor pronounce many letters. Sometimes it happeneth by
+reason of the shrinking of certain sinews which go to the tongue,
+which are corrupted with phlegm.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the tongues of serpents and mad dogs venomous? A.
+Because of the malignity and tumosity of the venomous humour which
+predominates in them.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is a dog's tongue good for medicine, and a horse's tongue
+pestiferous? A. By reason of some secret property, or that the
+tongue of a dog is full of pores, and so doth draw
+<!-- Page 401 --><a name='Page_401' id="Page_401"></a> and take
+away the viscosity of the wound. It is observed that a dog hath
+some humour in his tongue, with which, by licking he doth heal; but
+the contrary effect is the lick of a horse's tongue.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is spittle white? A. By reason of the continual moving of
+the tongue, whereof heat is engendered, which doth make this
+superfluity white; as seen in the froth of water.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is spittle unsavoury and without taste? A. If it had a
+certain determinate taste, then the tongue would not taste at all,
+but only have the taste of spittle, and could not distinguish
+others.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the spittle of one that is fasting heal an
+imposthume? A. Because it is well digested and made subtle.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do some abound in spittle more than others? A. This doth
+proceed of a phlegmatic complexion, which doth predominate in them;
+and such are liable to a quotidian ague, which ariseth from the
+predominance of phlegm; the contrary in those that spit little,
+because heat abounds in them, which consumes the humidity of the
+spittle; and so the defect of spittle is a sign of fever.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the spittle of a man that is fasting more subtle than
+of one that is full? A. Because the spittle is without the
+viscosity of <!-- Page 402 --><a name='Page_402' id="Page_402"></a>
+meat, which is wont to make the spittle of one who is full, gross
+and thick.</p>
+<p>Q. From whence proceeds the spittle of a man? A. From the froth
+of the lungs, which according to the physicians, is the seat of the
+phlegm.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are beasts when going together for generation very full
+of froth and foam? A. Because then the lights and heart are in
+greater motion of lust; therefore there is engendered in them much
+frothy matter.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have not birds spittle? A. Because they have very dry
+lungs.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the tongue sometimes lose the use of speaking? A. It
+is occasioned by a palsy or apoplexy, which is a sudden effusion of
+blood, and by gross humours; and sometimes also by infection of
+<i>spiritus animates</i> in the middle cell of the brain which
+hinders the spirits from being carried to the tongue.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Roof_of_the_Mouth' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Roof_of_the_Mouth"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Roof of the Mouth</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why are fruits, before they are ripe, of a bitter and sour
+relish, and afterward sweet? A. A sour relish or taste proceeds
+from coldness and want of heat in gross and thick humidity; but a
+sweet taste is produced by sufficient <!-- Page 403 --><a name=
+'Page_403' id="Page_403"></a> heat; therefore in the ripe fruit
+humidity is subtle through the heat of the sun, and such fruit is
+commonly sweet; but before it is ripe, as humidity is gross or
+subtle for want of heat, the fruit is bitter or sour.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are we better delighted with sweet tastes than with
+bitter or any other? A. Because a sweet thing is hot and moist, and
+through its heat dissolves and consumes superfluous humidities, and
+by this humidity immundicity is washed away; but a sharp, eager
+taste, by reason of the cold which predominates in it, doth bind
+overmuch, and prick and offend the parts of the body in purging,
+and therefore we do not delight in that taste.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth a sharp taste, as that of vinegar, provoke appetite
+rather than any other? A. Because it is cold, and doth cool. For it
+is the nature of cold to desire to draw, and therefore it is the
+cause of appetite.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do we draw in more air than we breathe out? A. Because
+much air is drawn in that is converted into nutriment, and with the
+vital spirits is contained in the lungs. Therefore a beast is not
+suffocated as long as it receives air with its lungs, in which some
+part of the air remaineth also.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the air seem to be expelled and put forth, seeing
+the air is invisible, by <!-- Page 404 --><a name='Page_404' id=
+"Page_404"></a> reason of its variety and thinness? A. Because the
+air which is received in us, is mingled with vapours and fumes from
+the heart, by reason whereof it is made thick, and so is seen. And
+this is proved by experience, because that in winter, we see our
+breath, for the coldness of the air doth bind the air mixed with
+fume, and so it is thickened and made gross, and by consequence is
+seen.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have some persons stinking breath? A. Because of the evil
+fumes that arise from the stomach. And sometimes it doth proceed
+from the corruption of the airy parts of the body, as the lungs.
+The breath of lepers is so infected that it would poison birds if
+near them, because the inward parts are very corrupt.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are lepers hoarse? A. Because the vocal instruments are
+corrupted, that is, the lights.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do persons become hoarse? A. Because of the rheum
+descending from the brain, filling the conduit of the lights; and
+sometimes through imposthumes of the throat, or rheum gathering in
+the neck.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have the females of all living creatures the shrillest
+voices, the crow only excepted, and a woman a shriller and smaller
+voice than a man? A. By reason of the composition of the veins and
+vocal arteries the voice <!-- Page 405 --><a name='Page_405' id=
+"Page_405"></a> is formed, as appears by this similitude, that a
+small pipe sounds shriller than a great. Also in women, because the
+passage where the voice is formed is made narrow and strait, by
+reason of cold, it being the nature of cold to bind; but in men,
+the passage is open and wider through heat, because it is the
+property of heat to open and dissolve. It proceedeth in women
+through the moistness of the lungs, and weakness of the heat. Young
+and diseased men have sharp and shrill voices from the same
+cause.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the voice change in men at fourteen, and in women at
+twelve; in men they begin to yield seed, in women when their
+breasts begin to grow? A. Because then the beginning of the voice
+is slackened and loosened; and this is proved by the similitude of
+the string of an instrument let down or loosened, which gives a
+great sound, and also because creatures that are gelded, as
+eunuchs, capons., etc., have softer and slenderer voices than
+others, by the want of their stones.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do small birds sing more and louder than great ones, as
+appears in the lark and nightingale? A. Because the spirits of
+small birds are subtle and soft, and the organ conduit strait, as
+appeareth in a pipe; therefore their notes following easily at
+desire, they sing very soft.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 406 --><a name='Page_406' id="Page_406"></a> Q. Why do
+bees, wasps, locusts and many other such like insects, make a
+noise, seeing they have no lungs, nor instruments of music? A.
+Because in them there is a certain small skin, which, when struck
+by the air, causeth a sound.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do not fish make a sound? A. Because they have no lungs,
+but only gills, nor yet a heart, and therefore they need not the
+drawing in of the air, and by consequence they make no noise,
+because a voice is a percussion of the air which is drawing.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Neck' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Neck"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Neck</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why hath a living creature a neck? A. Because the neck is the
+supporter of the head, and therefore the neck is in the middle
+between the head and the body, to the intent that by it, and by its
+sinews, motion and sense of the body might be conveyed through all
+the body; and that by means of the neck, the heart, which is very
+hot, might be separated from the brain.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do some creatures want necks, as serpents and fishes? A.
+Because they want hearts, and therefore want that assistance which
+we have spoken of; or else they have a neck
+<!-- Page 407 --><a name='Page_407' id="Page_407"></a> in some
+inward part of them, which is not distinguished outwardly.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the neck full of bones and joints? A. That it may bear
+and sustain the head the better. Also, because the back bone is
+joined to the brain in the neck, and from thence it receives
+marrow, which is of the substance of the brain.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have some creatures long necks, as cranes, storks and
+such like? A. Because such birds seek their food at the bottom of
+waters. And some creatures have short necks, as sparrows, hawks,
+etc., because such are ravenous, and therefore for strength have
+short necks, as appeareth in the ox, who has a short neck and
+strong.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the neck hollow, and especially before, about the
+tongue? A. Because there are two passages, whereof the one doth
+carry the meat to the nutritive instrument, or stomach and liver,
+which is called by the Greeks <i>Aesophagus;</i> and the other is
+the windpipe.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the artery made with rings and circle? A. The better
+to bow and give a good sounding.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Shoulders_and_Arms' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Shoulders_and_Arms"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Shoulders and Arms</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why hath a man shoulders and arms? A. To lift and carry
+burdens.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 408 --><a name='Page_408' id="Page_408"></a> Q. Why
+are the arms round? A. For the swifter and speedier work.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the arms thick? A. That they may be strong to lift
+and bear burdens, and thrust and give a strong blow; so their bones
+are thick, because they contain much marrow, or they would be
+easily corrupted and injured.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the arms become small and slender in some diseases, as
+in mad men, and such as are sick of the dropsy? A. Because all the
+parts of the body do suffer the one with the other; and therefore
+one member being in grief, all the humours do concur and run
+thicker to give succour and help to the aforesaid grief.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have brute beasts no arms? A. Their fore feet are instead
+of arms, and in their place.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Hands' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Hands"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Hands</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. For what use hath a man hands, and an ape also, like unto a
+man? A. The hand is an instrument a man doth especially make use
+of, because many things are done by the hands, and not by any other
+part.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are some men ambo-dexter, that is, they use the left hand
+as the right? A. <!-- Page 409 --><a name='Page_409' id=
+"Page_409"></a> By reason of the great heat of the heart, and for
+the hot bowing of the same, for it is that which makes a man as
+nimble of the left hand as of the right.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the fingers full of joints? A. To be more fit and apt
+to receive and keep what is put in them.</p>
+<p>Q. Why hath every finger three joints, and the thumb but two? A.
+The thumb hath three, but the third is joined to the arm, therefore
+is stronger than the other fingers; and is called pollex or polico,
+that is, to excel in strength.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the fingers of the right hand nimbler than the
+fingers of the left? A. It proceedeth from the heat that
+predominates in those parts, and causeth great agility.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Nails' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Nails"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Nails</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. From whence do nails proceed? A. Of the tumosity and humours,
+which are resolved and go into the extremities of the fingers; and
+they are dried through the power of the external air, and brought
+to the hardness of horn.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the nails of old men grow black and pale? A. Because
+the heat of the heart decaying causeth their beauty to decay
+also.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 410 --><a name='Page_410' id="Page_410"></a> Q. Why
+are men judged to be good or evil complexioned by the colour of the
+nails? A. Because they give witness of the goodness or badness of
+their heart, and therefore of the complexion, for if they be
+somewhat red, they betoken choler well tempered; but if they be
+yellowish or black, they signify melancholy.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do white spots appear in the nails? A. Through mixture of
+phlegm with nutriment.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Paps_and_Dugs' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Paps_and_Dugs"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Paps and Dugs.</i></h3>
+<p>Q. Why are the paps placed upon the breasts? A. Because the
+breast is the seat of the heart, which is most hot; and therefore
+the paps grow there, to the end that the menses being conveyed
+thither as being near the heat of the heart, should the sooner be
+digested, perfected and converted with the matter and substance of
+the milk.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the paps below the breasts in beasts, and above the
+breast in women? A. Because woman goes upright, and has two legs
+only; and therefore if her paps were below her breasts, they would
+hinder her going; but beasts having four feet prevents that
+inconveniency.</p>
+<p>Q. Whether are great, small or middle-sized paps best for
+children to suck? A. In <!-- Page 411 --><a name='Page_411' id=
+"Page_411"></a> great ones the heat is dispersed, there is no good
+digestion of the milk; but in small ones the power and force is
+strong, because a virtue united is strongest; and by consequence
+there is a good digestion for the milk.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have not men as great paps and breasts as women? A.
+Because men have not monthly terms, and therefore have no vessel
+deputed for them.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the paps of young women begin to grow about thirteen
+or fifteen years of age? A. Because then the flowers have no course
+to the teats, by which the young one is nourished, but follow their
+ordinary course and therefore wax soft.</p>
+<p>Q. Why hath a woman who is with child of a boy, the right pap
+harder than the left? A. Because the male child is conceived in the
+right side of the mother; and therefore the flowers do run to the
+right pap, and make it hard.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth it show weakness of the child, when the milk doth
+drop out of the paps before the woman is delivered? A. Because the
+milk is the proper nutriment of the child in the womb of its
+mother, therefore if the milk run out, it is a token that the child
+is not nourished, and consequently is weak.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the hardness of the paps betoken
+<!-- Page 412 --><a name='Page_412' id="Page_412"></a> the health
+of the child in the womb? A. Because the flowers are converted into
+milk, and thereby strength is signified.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are women's paps hard when they be with child, and soft
+at other times? A. Because they swell then, and are puffed, and the
+great moisture which proceeds from the flowers doth run into the
+paps, which at other seasons remaineth in the matrix and womb, and
+is expelled by the place deputed for that end.</p>
+<p>Q. By what means doth the milk of the paps come to the matrix or
+womb? A. There is a certain knitting and coupling of the paps with
+the womb, and there are certain veins which the midwives do cut in
+the time of the birth of the child, and by those veins the milk
+flows in at the navel of the child, and so it receives nourishment
+by the navel.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it a sign of a male child in the womb when the milk
+that runneth out of a woman's breast is thick, and not much, and of
+a female when it is thin? A. Because a woman that goeth with a boy
+hath a great heat in her, which doth perfect the milk and make it
+thick; but she who goes with a girl hath not so much heat, and
+therefore the milk is undigested, imperfect, watery and thin, and
+will swim above the water if it be put into it.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 413 --><a name='Page_413' id="Page_413"></a> Q. Why is
+the milk white, seeing the flowers are red, of which it is
+engendered? A. Because blood which is well purged and concocted
+becomes white, as appeareth in flesh whose proper colour is white,
+and being boiled, is white. Also, because every humour which is
+engendered of the body, is made like unto that part in colour where
+it is engendered as near as it can be; but because the flesh of the
+paps is white, therefore the colour of the milk is white.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth a cow give milk more abundantly than other beasts?
+A. Because she is a great eating beast, where there is much monthly
+superfluity engendered, there is much milk; because it is nothing
+else but the blood purged and tried.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is not milk wholesome? A. 1. Because it curdeth in the
+stomach, whereof an evil breath is bred. 2. Because the milk doth
+grow sour in the stomach, where evil humours are bred, and infect
+the breath.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is milk bad for such as have the headache? A. Because it
+is easily turned into great fumosities, and hath much terrestrial
+substance in it, the which ascending, doth cause the headache.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is milk fit nutriment for infants? A. Because it is a
+natural and usual food, and <!-- Page 414 --><a name='Page_414' id=
+"Page_414"></a> they were nourished by the same in the womb.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the white-meats made of a newly milked cow good? A.
+Because milk at that time is very springy, expels fumosities, and,
+as it were, purges at that time.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the milk naught for the child, if the woman giving
+suck uses carnal copulation? A. Because in time of carnal
+copulation, the best part of the milk goes to the seed vessels, and
+to the womb, and the worst remain in the paps, which hurts the
+child.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do physicians forbid the eating of fish and milk at the
+same time? A. Because they produce a leprosy, and because they are
+phlegmatic.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have not birds and fish milk and paps? A. Because paps
+would hinder the flight of birds. And although fish have neither
+paps nor milk, the females cast much spawn, which the male touches
+with a small gut, and causes their kind to continue in
+succession.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Back' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Back"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Back</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why have beasts a back? A. 1. Because the back is the way and
+mien of the body from which are extended and spread throughout, all
+the sinews of the backbone. 2. Because <!-- Page 415 --><a name=
+'Page_415' id="Page_415"></a> it should be a guard and defence for
+the soft parts of the body, as for the stomach, liver, lights and
+such like. 3. Because it is the foundation of all the bones, as the
+ribs, fastened to the back bone.</p>
+<p>Q. Why hath the back bone so many joints or knots, called
+<i>spondyli</i>? A. Because the moving and bending it, without such
+joints, could not be done; and therefore they are wrong who say
+that elephants have no such joints, for without them they could not
+move.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do fish die after their back bones are broken? A. Because
+in fish the back bone is instead of the heart; now the heart is the
+first thing that lives and the last that dies; and when that bone
+is broken, fish can live no longer.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth a man die soon after the marrow is hurt or perished?
+A. Because the marrow proceeds from the brain, which is the
+principal part of a man.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have some men the piles? A. Those men are cold and
+melancholy, which melancholy first passes to the spleen, its proper
+seat, but there cannot be retained, for the abundancy of blood; for
+which reason it is conveyed to the back bone, where there are
+certain veins which terminate in the back, and receive the blood.
+When those veins are full of the <!-- Page 416 --><a name=
+'Page_416' id="Page_416"></a> melancholy blood, then the conduits
+of nature are opened, and the blood issues out once a month, like
+women's terms. Those men who have this course of blood, are kept
+from many infirmities, such as dropsy, plague, etc.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the Jews much subject to this disease? A. Because
+they eat much phlegmatic and cold meats, which breed melancholy
+blood, which is purged with the flux. Another reason is, motion
+causes heat and heat digestion; but strict Jews neither move,
+labour nor converse much, which breeds a coldness in them, and
+hinders digestion, causing melancholic blood, which is by this
+means purged out.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Heart' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Heart"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Heart</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why are the lungs light, spongy and full of holes? A. That
+the air may be received into them for cooling the heart, and
+expelling humours, because the lungs are the fan of the heart; and
+as a pair of bellows is raised up by taking in the air, and shrunk
+by blowing it out, so likewise the lungs draw the air to cool the
+heart, and cast it out, lest through too much air drawn in, the
+heart should be suffocated.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the flesh of the lungs white? A. Because they are in
+continual motion.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 417 --><a name='Page_417' id="Page_417"></a> Q. Why
+have those beasts only lungs that have hearts? A. Because the lungs
+be no part for themselves, but for the heart, and therefore, it
+were superfluous for those creatures to have lungs that have no
+hearts.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do such creatures as have no lungs want a bladder? A.
+Because such drink no water to make their meat digest and need no
+bladder for urine; as appears in such birds as do not drink at all,
+viz., the falcon and sparrow hawk.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the heart in the midst of the body? A. That it may
+import life to all, parts of the body, and therefore it is compared
+to the sun, which is placed in the midst of the planets, to give
+light to them all.</p>
+<p>Q. Why only in men is the heart on the left side? A. To the end
+that the heat of the heart may mitigate the coldness of the spleen;
+for the spleen is the seat of melancholy, which is on the left side
+also.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the heart first engendered; for the heart doth live
+first and die last? A. Because the heart is the beginning and
+original of life, and without it no part can live. For of the seed
+retained in the matrix, there is first engendered a little small
+skin, which compasses the seed; whereof first the heart is made of
+the purest blood; then of blood not so pure,
+<!-- Page 418 --><a name='Page_418' id="Page_418"></a> the liver;
+and of thick and cold blood the marrow and brain.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are beasts bold that have little hearts? A. Because in a
+little heart the heat is well united and vehement, and the blood
+touching it, doth quickly heat it and is speedily carried to the
+other parts of the body, which give courage and boldness.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are creatures with a large heart timorous, as the hare?
+A. The heart is dispersed in such a one, and not able to heat the
+blood which cometh to it; by which means fear is bred.</p>
+<p>Q. How is it that the heart is continually moving? A. Because in
+it there is a certain spirit which is more subtle than air, and by
+reason of its thickness and rarefaction, seeks a larger space,
+filling the hollow room of the heart; hence the dilating and
+opening of the heart, and because the heart is earthly the
+thrusting and moving ceasing, its parts are at rest, tending
+downwards. As a proof of this, take an acorn, which, if put into
+the fire, the heat doth dissolve its humidity, therefore occupies a
+greater space, so that the rind cannot contain it, but puffs up,
+and throws it into the fire. The like of the heart. Therefore the
+heart of a living creature is triangular, having its least part
+towards its left side, and <!-- Page 419 --><a name='Page_419' id=
+"Page_419"></a> the greater towards the right; and doth also open
+and shut in the least part, by which means it is in continual
+motion; the first motion is called <i>diastole</i>, that is
+extending the heart or breast; the other <i>systole</i>, that is,
+shutting of the heart; and from these all the motions of the body
+proceed, and that of the pulse which the physicians feel.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes it that the flesh of the heart is so compact and
+knit together? A. Because in thick compacted substances heat is
+commonly received and united. And because the heart with its heat
+should moderate the coldness of the brain, it is made of that fat
+flesh apt to keep a strong heat.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes the heart to be the hottest part of all living
+creatures? A. It is so compacted as to receive the heat best, and
+because it should mitigate the coldness of the brain.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the heart the beginning of life? A. It is plain that
+in it the vital spirit is bred, which is the heat of life; and
+therefore the heart having two receptacles, viz., the right and the
+left the right hath more blood than spirits; which spirit is
+engendered to give life and vivify the body.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the heart long and sharp like a pyramid? A. The round
+figure hath an <!-- Page 420 --><a name='Page_420' id=
+"Page_420"></a> angle, therefore the heart is round, for fear any
+poison or hurtful matter should be retained in it; and because that
+figure is fittest for motion.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes the blood chiefly to be in the heart? A. The blood
+in the heart has its proper or efficient place, which some
+attribute to the liver; and therefore the heart doth not receive
+blood from any other parts but all other parts of it.</p>
+<p>Q. How happens it that some creatures want a heart? A. Although
+they have no heart, yet they have somewhat that answers for it, as
+appears in eels and fish that have the back bone instead of the
+heart.</p>
+<p>Q. Why does the heart beat in some creatures after the head is
+cut off, as in birds and hens? A. Because the heart lives first and
+dies last, and therefore beats longer than other parts.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the heat of the heart sometimes fail of a sudden,
+and in those who have the falling sickness? A. This proceeds from
+the defect of the heart itself, and of certain small skins with
+which it is covered, which, being infected and corrupted, the heart
+faileth on a sudden; sometimes only by reason of the parts
+adjoining; and therefore, when any venomous humour goes out of the
+stomach <!-- Page 421 --><a name='Page_421' id="Page_421"></a> that
+turns the heart and parts adjoining, that causeth this
+fainting.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Stomach' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Stomach"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Stomach</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. For what reason is the stomach large and wide? A. Because in
+it the food is first concocted or digested as it were in a pot, to
+the end that which is pure should be separated from that which is
+not; and therefore, according to the quantity of food, the stomach
+is enlarged.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes it that the stomach is round? A. Because if it had
+angles and corners, food would remain in them and breed
+ill-humours, so that a man would never want agues, which humours
+are evacuated and consumed, and not hid in any such corners, by the
+roundness of the stomach.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes the stomach to be full of sinews? A. Because the
+sinews can be extended and enlarged, and so is the stomach when it
+is full; but when empty it is drawn together, and therefore nature
+provides the sinews.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes the stomach to digest? A. Because of the heat which
+is in it, and comes from the parts adjoining, that is, the liver
+and the heart. For as we see in metals the heat
+<!-- Page 422 --><a name='Page_422' id="Page_422"></a> of the fire
+takes away the rust and dross from iron, the silver from tin, and
+gold from copper; so also by digestion the pure is separated from
+the impure.</p>
+<p>Q. For what reason doth the stomach join the liver? A. Because
+the liver is very hot, and with its heat helps digestion, and
+provokes appetite.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are we commonly cold after dinner? A. Because then the
+heat goes to the stomach to further digestion, and so the other
+parts grow cold.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it hurtful to study soon after dinner? A. Because when
+the heat labours to help the imagination in study, it ceases from
+digesting the food, which remains undigested; therefore people
+should walk sometimes after meals.</p>
+<p>Q. How cometh the stomach slowly to digest meat? A. Because it
+swims in the stomach. Now, the best digestion is in the bottom of
+the stomach, because the fat descends not there; such as eat fat
+meat are very sleepy by reason that digestion is hindered.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is all the body wrong when the stomach is uneasy? A.
+Because the stomach is knit with the brain, heart and liver, which
+are the principal parts in man; and when it is not well, the others
+are indisposed. <!-- Page 423 --><a name='Page_423' id=
+"Page_423"></a> Again, if the first digestion be hindered, the
+others are also hindered; for in the first digestion is the
+beginning of the infirmity in the stomach.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are young men sooner hungry than old men? A. Young men do
+digest for three causes; 1. For growing; 2. For restoring life; and
+3. For conservation of life. Also, young men are hot and dry, and
+therefore the heat doth digest more, and by consequence they desire
+more.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do physicians prescribe that men should eat when they
+have an appetite? A. Because much hunger and emptiness will fill
+the stomach with naughty rotten humours, which are drawn in instead
+of meat; for, if we fast over night we have an appetite to meat,
+but none in the morning; as then the stomach is filled with naughty
+humours, and especially its mouth, which is no true filling, but a
+deceitful one. And, therefore, after we have eaten a little, our
+stomach comes to us again; for the first morsel, having made clean
+the mouth of the stomach, doth provoke the appetite.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do physicians prescribe that we should not eat too much
+at a time, but little by little? A. Because when the stomach is
+full, the meat doth swim in it, which is a dangerous thing. Another
+reason is, that as very <!-- Page 424 --><a name='Page_424' id=
+"Page_424"></a> green wood doth put out the fire, so much meat
+chokes the natural heat and puts it out; and therefore the best
+physic is to use temperance in eating and drinking.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do we desire change of meals according to the change of
+times; as in winter, beef, mutton; in summer light meats, as veal,
+lamb, etc.? A. Because the complexion of the body is altered and
+changed according to the time of year. Another reason is, that this
+proceeds from the quality of the season: because the cold in winter
+doth cause a better digestion.</p>
+<p>Q. Why should not the meat we eat be as hot as pepper and
+ginger? A. Because as hot meat doth inflame the blood, and dispose
+it to a leprosy, so, on the contrary, meat too cold doth mortify
+and chill the blood. Our meat should not be over sharp, because it
+wastes the constitution; too much sauce doth burn the entrails, and
+inclineth to too often drinking; raw meat doth the same; and over
+sweet meats to constipate and cling the veins together.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it a good custom to eat cheese after dinner, and pears
+after all meat? A. Because, by reason of its earthliness and
+thickness it tendeth down towards the bottom of the stomach, and so
+put down the meat; and the like of pears. Note, that new cheese is
+<!-- Page 425 --><a name='Page_425' id="Page_425"></a> better than
+old, and that old soft cheese is very bad, and causeth the headache
+and stopping of the liver; and the older the worse. Whereof it is
+said that cheese digesteth all things but itself.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are nuts good after cheese, as the proverb is, "After
+fish nuts, and after flesh cheese?" A. Because fish is of hard
+digestion, and doth easily putrefy and corrupt; and nuts are a
+remedy against poison.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it unwholesome to wait long for one dish after
+another, and to eat of divers kinds of meat? A. Because the first
+begins to digest when the last is eaten, and so digestion is not
+equally made. But yet this rule is to be noted; dishes light of
+digestion, as chickens, kids, veal, soft eggs and such like, should
+be first eaten; because, if they should be first served and eaten
+and were digested, they would hinder the digestion of the others;
+and the light meats not digested would be corrupted in the stomach
+and kept in the stomach violently, whereof would follow belching,
+loathing, headache, bellyache and great thirst. It is very hurtful
+too, at the same meal to drink wine and milk, because they are
+productive of leprosy.</p>
+<p>Q. Whether is meat or drink best for the stomach? A. Drink is
+sooner digested than meat, because meat is of greater substance,
+<!-- Page 426 --><a name='Page_426' id="Page_426"></a> and more
+material than drink, and therefore meat is harder to digest.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it good to drink after dinner? A. Because the drink
+will make the meat readier to digest. The stomach is like unto a
+pot which doth boil meat, and therefore physicians do counsel to
+drink at meals.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it good to forbear a late supper? A. Because there is
+little moving or stirring after supper, and so the meat is not sent
+down to the bottom of the stomach, but remaineth undigested, and so
+breeds hurts; therefore a light supper is best.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Blood' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Blood"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Blood</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why is it necessary that every living creature that hath
+blood have also a liver? A. Because the blood is first made in the
+liver, its seat, being drawn from the stomach by certain principal
+veins, and so engendered.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the blood red? A. 1. It is like the part in which it
+is made, viz., the liver, which is red. 2. It is likewise sweet,
+because it is well digested and concocted; but if it hath a little
+earthly matter mixed with it, that makes it somewhat salt.</p>
+<p>Q. How is women's blood thicker than <!-- Page 427 --><a name=
+'Page_427' id="Page_427"></a> men's? Their coldness thickens,
+binds, congeals, and joins together.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes the blood to all parts of the body through the
+liver, and by what means? A. Through the principal veins, as the
+veins of the head, liver, etc., to nourish the body.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Urine' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Urine"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Urine</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. How doth the urine come into the bladder, seeing the bladder
+is shut? A. Some say sweatings; others, by a small skin in the
+bladder, which opens and lets in the urine. Urine is a certain and
+not deceitful messenger of the health or infirmity of man. Men make
+white urine in the morning, and before dinner red, but after dinner
+pale, and also after supper.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it hurtful to drink much cold water? A. Because one
+contrary doth hinder and expel another; water is very cold, and
+lying so in the stomach, doth hinder digestion.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it unwholesome to drink new wine? A. 1. It cannot be
+digested; therefore it causeth the belly to swell, and a kind of
+bloody flux. 2. It hinders making water.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do physicians forbid us to labour presently after dinner?
+A. 1. Because the motion hinders the virtue and power of digestion.
+<!-- Page 428 --><a name='Page_428' id="Page_428"></a> 2. Because
+stirring immediately after dinner causes the different parts of the
+body to draw the meat to them, which often breeds sickness. 3.
+Because motion makes the food descend before it is digested. And
+after supper it is good to walk a little, that the food may go to
+the bottom of the stomach.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it good to walk after dinner? A. Because it makes a
+man well disposed, and fortifies and strengthens the natural heat,
+causing the superfluity of the stomach to descend.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it wholesome to vomit? A. It purges the stomach of all
+naughty humours, expelling them, which would breed again if they
+should remain in it; and purges the eyes and head, clearing the
+brain.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes sleep to strengthen the stomach and the digestive
+faculty? A. Because in sleep the heat draws inwards, and helps
+digestion; but when we awake, the heat returns, and is dispersed
+through the body.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Gall_and_Spleen' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Gall_and_Spleen"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Gall and Spleen</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. How come living creatures to have a gall? A. Because choleric
+humours are received into it, which through their acidity helps
+<!-- Page 429 --><a name='Page_429' id="Page_429"></a> the guts to
+expel superfluities; also it helps digestion.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes the jaundice to proceed from the gall? A. The
+humour of the gall is bluish and yellow; therefore when its pores
+are stopped the humour cannot go into the sack thereof, but are
+mingled with the blood, wandering throughout all the body and
+infecting the skin.</p>
+<p>Q. Why hath a horse, mule, ass or cow a gall? A. Though these
+creatures have no gall in one place, as in a purse or vessel, yet
+they have one dispersed in small veins.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes the spleen to be black? A. It is occasioned by
+terrestrial and earthy matter of a black colour. According to
+physicians, the spleen is the receptacle of melancholy, and that is
+black.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is he lean who hath a large spleen? A. Because the spleen
+draws much water to itself, which would turn to fat; therefore, men
+that have a small spleen are fat.</p>
+<p>Q. Why does the spleen cause men to laugh, as says Isidorus; "We
+laugh with the spleen, we are angry with the gall, we are wise with
+the heart, we love with the liver, we feel with the brain, and
+speak with the lungs"? A. The reason is, the spleen draws much
+melancholy to it, being its proper seat, the which melancholy
+proceeds from sadness, and is there <!-- Page 430 --><a name=
+'Page_430' id="Page_430"></a> consumed; and the cause failing, the
+effect doth so likewise. And by the same reason the gall causes
+anger, for choleric men are often angry, because they have much
+gall.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Carnal_Copulation' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Carnal_Copulation"></a>
+<h3><i>Of Carnal Copulation</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why do living creatures use carnal copulation? A. Because it
+is most natural in them to get their like.</p>
+<p>Q. What is carnal copulation? A. It is a mutual action of male
+and female, with instruments ordained for that purpose to propagate
+their kind.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is this action good in those that use it lawfully and
+moderately? A. Because it eases and lightens the body, clears the
+mind, comforts the head and senses, and expels melancholy.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is immoderate carnal copulation hurtful? A. Because it
+destroys the sight, dries the body, and impairs the brain, often
+causes fevers and shortens life also.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth carnal copulation injure melancholic or choleric
+men, especially thin men? A. Because it dries the bones much which
+are naturally so. On the contrary, it is good for the phlegmatic
+and sanguine, because <!-- Page 431 --><a name='Page_431' id=
+"Page_431"></a> they abound with that substance which by nature, is
+necessarily expelled.</p>
+<p>Q. Why should not the act be used when the body is full? A.
+Because it hinders digestion; and it is not good for a hungry
+belly, because it weakens.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it not good soon after a bath? A. Because then the
+pores are open, and the heat dispersed through the body: for after
+bathing, it cools the body too much.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it not proper after vomiting or looseness? A. Because
+it is dangerous to purge twice a day; for in this act the veins are
+purged, and the guts by the vomit.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is there such delight in the act of venery? A. Because
+this act is such a contemptible thing in itself, that all creatures
+would naturally abhor it were there no pleasure in it; and
+therefore nature readily uses it, that all kinds of living things
+should be maintained and kept up.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do such as use it often take less delight in it than
+those who come to it seldom? A. 1. The passages of the seed are
+over large and wide; and therefore it makes no stay there, which
+would cause the delight. 2. Through often evacuation there is
+little seed left, and therefore no delight. 3. Because such,
+instead of seed there is cast out blood, <!-- Page 432 --><a name=
+'Page_432' id="Page_432"></a> undigested and raw, or some other
+watery substance, which is not hot, and therefore affords no
+delight.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Seed_of_Man_and_Beasts' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Seed_of_Man_and_Beasts"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Seed of Man and Beasts</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. How, and of what cometh the seed of man? A. Some philosophers
+and physicians say, it is superfluous humours; others say, that the
+seed is pure blood, flowing from the brain, concocted and whitened
+in the testicles; but sweat, urine, spittle, phlegm, choler, and
+the like, and blood dispersed throughout the whole body, come
+chiefly from the heart, liver and brain, because those parts are
+greatly weakened by casting seed; and therefore it appears that
+frequent carnal copulation is not good.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is a man's seed white, and a woman's red? A. It is white
+in men by reason of great heat and quick digestion, because it is
+rarefied in the testicles; but a woman's is red, because her terms
+corrupt the undigested blood, and it hath its colour.</p>
+<p>Q. How come females to have monthly courses? A. Because they are
+cold in respect of men, and because all their nourishment cannot be
+converted into blood, a great part <!-- Page 433 --><a name=
+'Page_433' id="Page_433"></a> of which turns to menses, which are
+monthly expelled.</p>
+<p>Q. For what reason do the menses not come down in females before
+the age of thirteen? A. Because young women are hot, and digest all
+their nourishment.</p>
+<p>Q. For what reason do they leave off at about fifty? A. Because
+nature is then so exhausted, they cannot expel them by reason of
+weakness.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have not breeding women the menses? A. Because that then
+they turn into milk, and into the nourishment of the child: for if
+a woman with child have them, it is a sign that she will
+miscarry.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are they termed <i>menstrua</i>, from the word
+<i>mensis</i>, a month? A. Because it is a space of time that
+measures the moon, as she ends her course in twenty-nine days, and
+fourteen hours.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do they continue longer with some than others, as with
+some six or seven, but commonly with all three days? A. The first
+are cold, therefore they increase most in them, and consequently
+are longer expelling; other women are hot, and therefore have fewer
+and are sooner expelled.</p>
+<p>Q. Are the menses which are expelled, and those by which the
+child is engendered, all one? <!-- Page 434 --><a name='Page_434'
+id="Page_434"></a> A. No, because the one are unclean, and unfit
+for that purpose; but the other very pure and clear, therefore the
+fittest for generation.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have not women their menses all one and the same time,
+but some in the new moon, some in the full, and others at the wane?
+A. From their several complexions, and though all women (in respect
+of men) are phlegmatic, yet some are more sanguine than others,
+some more choleric; and as the moon hath her quarters, so have
+women their complexions; the first sanguine, the second
+choleric.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do women easily conceive after their menses? A. Because
+the womb being cleansed, they are better prepared for
+conception.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do women look pale when they first have their menses upon
+them? A. Because the heat goes from the outward parts of the body
+to the inward, to help nature to expel their terms, which
+deprivation of heat doth cause a paleness in the face. Or, because
+that flux is caused of raw humours, which, when they run, make the
+face colourless.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do they at that time abhor their meat? A. Because nature
+labours more to expel their terms than digest; and, therefore, if
+they should eat, their food would remain raw in the stomach.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 435 --><a name='Page_435' id="Page_435"></a> Q. Why
+are some women barren and do not conceive? A. 1. It proceeds
+sometimes from the man who may be of a cold nature, so that his
+seed is unfit for generation. 2. Because it is waterish, and so
+doth not stay in the womb. 3. By reason that the seed of them both
+hath not a like proportion, as if the man be melancholy and the
+woman sanguine, or the man choleric and the woman phlegmatic.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do fat women seldom conceive? A. Because they have a
+slippery womb, and the seed will not stay in it. Or, because the
+mouth of the matrix is very strait, and the seed cannot enter it,
+or, if it does, it is so very slowly that it grows cold and unfit
+for generation.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do those of a hot constitution seldom conceive? A.
+Because the seed in them is extinguished or put out, as water cast
+into fire; whereof we find that women who vehemently desire the
+flesh seldom conceive.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are whores never with child? A. By reason of divers
+seeds, which corrupt and spoil the instruments of conception, for
+it makes them so slippery, that they cannot retain seed. Or, else,
+it is because one man's seed destroys another's, so neither is good
+for generation.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do women conceive twins? A. Because there are seven cells
+or receptacles in the womb; wherefore they may naturally have
+<!-- Page 436 --><a name='Page_436' id="Page_436"></a> so many
+children at once as there falls seed into these cells.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are twins but half men, and not so strong as others? A.
+The seed that should have been for one, is divided into two and
+therefore they are weakly and seldom live long.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Hermaphrodites' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Hermaphrodites"></a>
+<h3><i>Of Hermaphrodites</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. How are hermaphrodites begotten? A. Nature doth always tend
+to that which is best, and always intendeth to beget the male and
+not the female, because the female is only for the male's mate.
+Therefore the male is sometimes begotten in all its principal
+parts; and, yet, through the indisposition of the womb and object,
+and inequality of the seeds, when nature cannot perfect the male,
+she brings forth the female too. And therefore natural philosophers
+say, that an hermaphrodite is impotent in the privy parts of a man,
+as appears by experience.</p>
+<p>Q. Is an hermaphrodite accounted a man or a woman? A. It is to
+be considered in which member he is fittest for copulation; if he
+be fittest in the woman's, then he is a woman; if in a man's, then
+he is a man.</p>
+<p>Q. Should he be baptized in the name of a
+<!-- Page 437 --><a name='Page_437' id="Page_437"></a> man or a
+woman? A. In the name of a man, because names are given <i>ad
+placitum</i>, and therefore he should be baptized, according to the
+worthiest name, because every agent is worthier than its
+patient.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Monsters' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Monsters"></a>
+<h3><i>Of Monsters</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Doth nature make any monsters? A. She doth; if she did not,
+then would she be deprived of her end. For of things possible, she
+doth always propose to bring forth that which is most perfect and
+best; but in the end, through the evil disposition of the matter,
+not being able to bring forth that which she intended, she brings
+forth that which she can. As it happened in Albertus's time, when
+in a certain village, a cow brought forth a calf, half a man; then
+the countrymen suspecting a shepherd, would have burnt him with the
+cow; but Albertus, being skilled in astronomy, said that this did
+proceed from a certain constellation, and so delivered the shepherd
+from their hands.</p>
+<p>Q. Are they one or two? A. To find out, you must look into the
+heart, if there be two hearts, there be two men.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are some children like their father, some like their
+mother, some to both and some <!-- Page 438 --><a name='Page_438'
+id="Page_438"></a> to neither? A. If the seed of the father wholly
+overcome that of the mother the child doth resemble the father; but
+if the mother's predominate, then it is like the mother; but if he
+be like neither, that doth sometimes happen through the four
+qualities, sometimes through the influence of some heavenly
+constellation.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are children oftener like the father than the mother? A.
+It proceeds from the imagination of the mother in the act of
+copulation, as appeared in a queen who had her imagination on a
+blackamoor; and in the Ethiopian queen who brought forth a white
+child, because her imagination was upon a white colour; as is seen
+in Jacob's skill in casting rods of divers colours into the water,
+when his sheep went to ram.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do children born in the eighth month for the most part
+die quickly, and why are they called the children of the moon? A.
+Because the moon is a cold planet, which has dominion over the
+child, and therefore doth bind it with coldness, which is the cause
+of its death.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth a child cry as soon as it is born? A. Because of the
+sudden change from heat to cold: which cold doth affect its
+tenderness. Another reason is, because the child's soft and tender
+body is wringed and put together coming <!-- Page 439 --><a name=
+'Page_439' id="Page_439"></a> out of the narrow and strait passage
+of the matrix, and especially, the brain being moist, and the head
+being pressed and wrinkled together, is the cause that some humours
+distil by the eyes, which are the cause of tears and weeping.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the child put its fingers into its mouth as soon as
+it cometh into the world? A. Because that coming out of the womb it
+cometh out of a hot bath, and entering into the cold, puts them
+into its mouth for want of heat.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Child_in_the_Womb' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Child_in_the_Womb"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Child in the Womb</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. How is the child engendered in the womb? A. The first six
+days the seed hath this colour of milk, but in the six following a
+red colour, which is near unto the disposition of the flesh; and
+then it is changed into a thick substance of blood. But in the
+twelve days following, this substance becomes so thick and round
+that it is capable of receiving shape and form.</p>
+<p>Q. Doth the child in the womb void excrements or make water? No.
+Because it hath not the first digestion which is in the stomach. It
+receives no food by the mouth, but by the navel; therefore, makes
+no urine but sweats, <!-- Page 440 --><a name='Page_440' id=
+"Page_440"></a> which is but little, and is received in a skin in
+the matrix, which at the birth is cast out.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Abortion_and_Untimely_Birth' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Abortion_and_Untimely_Birth"></a>
+<h3><i>Of Abortion and Untimely Birth</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why do women that eat unwholesome meats, easily miscarry? A.
+Because they breed putrefied seed, which the mind abhorring doth
+cast it out of the womb as unfit for the shape which is adapted to
+receive the soul.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth wrestling and leaping cause the casting of the
+child, as some subtle women do on purpose? A. The vapour is
+burning, and doth easily hurt the tender substance of the child,
+entering in at the pores of the matrix.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth much joy cause a woman to miscarry? A. Because in
+the time of joy, a woman is destitute of heat, and so a miscarriage
+doth follow.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do women easily miscarry when they are first with child,
+viz., the first, second or third month? A. As apples and pears
+easily fall at first, because the knots and ligaments are weak, so
+it is with a child in the womb.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it hard to miscarry in the third, fourth, fifth and
+sixth month? A. Because the ligaments are stronger and well
+fortified.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><!-- Page 441 --><a name='Page_441' id="Page_441"></a> <a name=
+'BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Divers_Matters' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Divers_Matters"></a> <i>Of Divers
+Matters</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why has not a man a tail like a beast? A. Because man is a
+noble creature, whose property is to sit; which a beast, having a
+tail, cannot.</p>
+<p>Q. Why does hot water freeze sooner than cold? A. Hot water is
+thinner, and gives better entrance to the frost.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is every living creature dull after copulation? A. By
+reason that the act is filthy and unclean; and so every living
+creature abhors it. When men do think upon it, they are ashamed and
+sad.</p>
+<p>Q. Why cannot drunken men judge of taste as well as sober men?
+A. Because the tongue, being full of pores and spongy, receives
+more moisture into it, and more in drunken men than in sober;
+therefore, the tongue, through often drinking, is full of bad
+humours, and so the faculty of tasting is rendered out of order;
+also, through the thickening of the taste itself, drink taken by
+drunkards is not presently felt. And by this may also be understood
+why drunkards have not a perfect speech.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have melancholy beasts long ears? A. The ears proceed
+from a dry and cold substance, called gristle, which is apt to
+become bone; and because melancholy beasts do
+<!-- Page 442 --><a name='Page_442' id="Page_442"></a> abound with
+this kind of substance, they have long ears.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do hares sleep with their eyes open? A. 1. They have
+their eyes standing out, and their eyelids short, therefore, never
+quite shut. 2. They are timorous, and as a safe-guard to
+themselves, sleep with their eyes open.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do not crows feed their young till they be nine days old?
+A. Because seeing them of another colour, they think they are of
+another kind.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are sheep and pigeons mild? A. They want galls, the cause
+of anger.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have birds their stones inward? A. Because if outward,
+they would hinder their flying and lightness.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes it that birds do not piss? A. Because that
+superfluity which would be converted into urine, is turned into
+feathers.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do we hear better in the night than by day? A. Because
+there is a greater quietness in the night than in the day, for the
+sun doth not exhale the vapours by night, but it doth in the day,
+therefore the moon is more fit than in the day; and the moon being
+fit, the motion is better received, which is said to be caused by a
+sound.</p>
+<p>Q. For what reason doth a man laugh sooner
+<!-- Page 443 --><a name='Page_443' id="Page_443"></a> when touched
+in the armpits than in any other part of the body? A. Because there
+is in that place a meeting of many sinews, and the mean we touch,
+which is the flesh, is more subtle than in other parts, and
+therefore of finer feeling. When a man is moderately and gently
+touched there the spirits that are dispersed run into the face and
+causes laughter.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do some women love white men and some black men? A. 1.
+Some have weak sight, and such delight in black, because white doth
+hurt the sight more than black. 2. Because like delight in like;
+but some women are of a hot nature, and such are delighted with
+black, because blackness followeth heat; and others are of a cold
+nature, and those are delighted with white, because cold produces
+white.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do men incline to sleep after labour? A. Because, through
+continual moving, the heat is dispersed to the external parts of
+the body, which, after labour, is gathered together in the internal
+parts, there to digest; and from digestion, vapours arise from the
+heart to the brain, which stop the passage by which the natural
+heat should be dispersed to the external part; and then, the
+external parts being cold and thick, by reason of the coldness of
+the brain sleep is easily procured. By this it appeareth
+<!-- Page 444 --><a name='Page_444' id="Page_444"></a> that such as
+eat and drink too much, do sleep much and long, because there are
+great store of humours and vapours bred in such persons which
+cannot be consumed and digested by the natural heat.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are such as sleep much, evil disposed and ill-coloured?
+A. Because in too much sleep moisture is gathered together, which
+cannot be consumed, and so it doth covet to go out through the
+superficial parts of the body, and especially it resorts to the
+face, and therefore is the cause of bad colours, as appeareth in
+such as are phlegmatic and who desire more sleep than others.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do some imagine in their sleep that they eat and drink
+sweet things? A. Because the phlegm drawn up by the jaws doth
+distil and drop to the throat; and this phlegm is sweet after a
+sore sweat, and that seemeth so to them.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do some dream in their sleep that they are in the water
+and drowned, and some that they were in the water and not drowned;
+especially such as are phlegmatic? A. Because when the phlegmatic
+substance doth turn to the high parts of the body, then many think
+they are in the water and drowned; but when that substance draweth
+into the internal parts, then they think they escape. Another
+<!-- Page 445 --><a name='Page_445' id="Page_445"></a> reason may
+be, overmuch repletion and drunkenness: and therefore, when men are
+overmuch filled with meat, the fumes and vapours ascend and gather
+together, and they think they are drowned and strangled; but if
+they cannot ascend so high then they seem to escape.</p>
+<p>Q. May a man procure a dream by an external cause? A. It may be
+done. If a man speak softly in another man's ear and awake him not,
+then of his stirring of the spirits there are thunderings and
+buzzings in the head, which cause dreamings.</p>
+<p>Q. How many humours are there in a man's body? A. Four, whereof
+every one hath its proper place. The first is choler, called by
+physicians <i>flava bilis</i>, which is placed in the liver. The
+second is melancholy, called <i>atra bilis</i>, whose seat is in
+the spleen. The third is phlegm, whose place is in the head. The
+fourth is blood, whose place is in the heart.</p>
+<p>Q. What condition and quality hath a man of a sanguine
+complexion? A. It is fair and beautiful; hath his hair for the most
+part smooth; is bold; retaineth that which he hath conceived; is
+shame-faced, given to music, a lover of sciences, liberal,
+courteous, and not desirous of revenge.</p>
+<p>Q. What properties do follow those of a phlegmatic complexion?
+A. They are dull <!-- Page 446 --><a name='Page_446' id=
+"Page_446"></a> of wit, their hair never curls, they are seldom
+very thirsty, much given to sleep, dream of things belonging to
+water, are fearful, covetous, given to heap up riches, and are weak
+in the act of venery.</p>
+<p>Q. What are the properties of a choleric man? A. He is brown in
+complexion, unquiet, his veins hidden, eateth little and digesteth
+less, dreameth of dark and confused things, is sad, fearful,
+exceedingly covetous, and incontinent.</p>
+<p>Q. What dreams do follow these complexions? A. Pleasant, merry
+dreams do follow the sanguine; fearful dreams, the melancholic; the
+choleric dream of children fighting and fire; the phlegmatic dream
+of water. This is the reason why a man's complexion is said to be
+known by his dreams.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the reason that if you cover an egg over with salt,
+and let it lie in it a few days, all the meat within is consumed?
+A. A great dryness of the salt consumes the substance of the
+egg.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the melancholic complexion the worst? A. Because it
+proceeds from the dregs of the blood, is an enemy to mirth and
+bringeth on aged appearance and death, being cold and dry.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the cause that some men die <!-- Page 447 --><a name=
+'Page_447' id="Page_447"></a> joyful, and some in extreme grief? A.
+Over-great joy doth overmuch heat the internal parts of the body;
+and overmuch grief doth drown and suffocate the heart, which
+failing, a man dieth.</p>
+<p>Q. Why hath a man so much hair on his head? A. The hair on his
+head proceeds from the vapours which arise from the stomach, and
+ascend to the head, and also of the superfluities which are in the
+brain; and those two passing through the pores of the head are
+converted into hair, by reason of the heat and dryness of the head.
+And because man's body is full of humours, and he hath more brains
+than any other living creatures.</p>
+<p>Q. How many ways is the brain purged and other hidden places of
+the body? A. Four; the watery and gross humours are purged by the
+eyes, melancholy by the ears, choler by the nose, and phlegm by the
+hair.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the reason that such as are very fat in their youth,
+are in danger of dying on a sudden? A. Such have very small and
+close veins, by reason of their fatness, so that the air and the
+breath can hardly have free course in them; and thereupon the
+natural heat wanting the refreshment of air, is put out, and as it
+were, quenched.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do garlic and onions grow after <!-- Page 448 --><a name=
+'Page_448' id="Page_448"></a> they are gathered? A. It proceedeth
+from the humidity that is in them.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do men feel cold sooner than women? A. Because men, being
+more hot than women, have their pores more open, and therefore it
+doth sooner enter into them than women.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are not old men so subject to the plague as young men and
+children? A. They are cold, and their pores are not so open as in
+youth; and therefore the infecting air doth not penetrate so soon
+by reason of their coldness.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do we cast water in a man's face when he swooneth? A.
+Because through the coldness of water the heat may run to the
+heart, and so give strength.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are those waters best and most delicate which run towards
+the rising sun? A. Because they are soonest stricken with the
+sunbeams, and made pure and subtle, the sun having them under it,
+and by that means taking off the coldness and gross vapours which
+they gather from the ground they run through.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have women such weak and small voices? A. Because their
+instruments and organs of speaking, by reason of their coldness,
+are small and narrow; and therefore, receiving but little air,
+cause the voice to be effeminate.</p>
+<p>Q. Whereof doth it proceed that want of
+<!-- Page 449 --><a name='Page_449' id="Page_449"></a> sleep doth
+weaken the brain and body? A. Much watching doth engender choler,
+the which being hot both dry up and lessen the humours which serve
+the brain, the head, and other parts of the body.</p>
+<p>Q. Wherefore doth vinegar so readily staunch blood? A. From its
+cold virtue, for all cold is naturally binding, and vinegar being
+cold, hath the like property.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is sea-water salter in summer than in winter? A. From the
+heat of the sun, seeing by experiment that a salt thing being
+heated becometh more salt.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do men live longer in hot regions than in cold? A.
+Because they may be more dry, and by that means the natural heat is
+better preserved in them than in cold countries.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is well-water seldom or ever good? A. All water which
+standeth still in the spring and is never heated by the sunbeams,
+is very heavy, and hath much matter in it, and therefore wanting
+the heat of the sun, is naught.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do men sleep better and more at ease on the right side
+than on the left? A. Because when they be on the left side, the
+lungs do lie upon and cover the heart, which is on that side under
+the pap; now the heart, the fountain of life, being thus occupied
+and hindered with the lungs, cannot exercise its own
+<!-- Page 450 --><a name='Page_450' id="Page_450"></a> proper
+operation, as being overmuch heated with the lungs lying upon it,
+and therefore wanting the refreshment of the air which the lungs do
+give it, like the blowing of a pair of bellows, is choked and
+suffocated, but by lying on the right side, those inconveniences
+are avoided.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the reason that old men sneeze with great difficulty?
+A. Because that through their coldness their arteries are very
+narrow and close, and therefore the heat is not of force to expel
+the cold.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth a drunken man think that all things about him do
+turn round? A. Because the spirits which serve the sight are
+mingled with vapours and fumes, arising from the liquors he has
+drunk; the overmuch heat causeth the eye to be in continual motion,
+and the eye being round, causeth all things about it to seem to go
+round.</p>
+<p>Q. Wherefore doth it proceed, that bread which is made with salt
+is lighter than that which is made without it, considering that
+salt is very heavy of itself? A. Although bread is very heavy of
+itself, yet the salt dries it and makes it light, by reason of the
+heat which it hath; and the more heat there is in it, the better
+the bread is, and the lighter and more wholesome for the body.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 451 --><a name='Page_451' id="Page_451"></a> Q. Why is
+not new bread good for the stomach? A. Because it is full of
+moistness, and thick, hot vapours, which do corrupt the blood, and
+hot bread is blacker than cold, because heat is the mother of
+blackness, and because the vapours are not gone out of it.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do lettuces make a man sleep? A. Because they engender
+gross vapours.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the dregs of wine and oil go to the bottom, and those
+of honey swim uppermost? A. Because the dregs of wine and oil are
+earthly, and therefore go to the bottom; but honey is a liquid that
+cometh from the stomach and belly of the bee; and is there in some
+sort putrefied and made subtle; on which account the dregs are most
+light and hot, and therefore go uppermost.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do cats' and wolves' eyes shine in the night, and not in
+the day? A. The eyes of these beasts are by nature more crystalline
+than the eyes of other beasts, and therefore do so shine in
+darkness; but the brightness of the sun doth hinder them from being
+seen in the day-time.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the reason that some men, if they see others dance,
+do the like with their hands and feet, or by other gestures of the
+body? A. Because the sight having carried and represented unto the
+mind that action, and judging <!-- Page 452 --><a name='Page_452'
+id="Page_452"></a> the same to be pleasant and delightful, and
+therefore the imagination draweth the like of it in conceit and
+stirs up the body by the gestures.</p>
+<p>Q. Why does much sleep cause some to grow fat and some lean? A.
+Those who are of ill complexion, when they sleep, do consume and
+digest the superfluities of what they have eaten, and therefore
+become fat. But such as are of good complexion, when they sleep are
+more cold, and digest less.</p>
+<p>Q. How much, and from what cause do we suffer hunger better than
+thirst? A. When the stomach hath nothing else to consume, it
+consumeth the phlegm and humours which it findeth most ready and
+most at hand; and therefore we suffer hunger better than thirst,
+because the heat hath nothing to refresh itself with.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the hair fall after a great sickness? A. Where the
+sickness is long, as in the ague, the humours of the head are dried
+up through overmuch heat, and, therefore, wanting nourishment, the
+hair falls.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the hair of the eyebrows grow long in old men? A.
+Because through their age the bones are thin through want of heat,
+and therefore the hair doth grow there, by reason of the rheum of
+the eye.</p>
+<p>Q. Whereof proceedeth gaping? A. Of <!-- Page 453 --><a name=
+'Page_453' id="Page_453"></a> gross vapours, which occupy the vital
+spirits of the head, and of the coldness of the senses causing
+sleepiness.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the reason that some flowers do open with the sun
+rising, and shut with the sun setting? A. Cold doth close and shut,
+as hath been said, but the heat of the sun doth open and enlarge.
+Some compare the sun to the soul of the body; for as the soul
+giveth life, so the sun doth give life, and vivificate all things;
+but cold bringeth death, withering and decaying all things.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth grief cause men to grow old and grey? A. Age is
+nothing else but dryness and want of humours in the body; grief
+then causeth alteration, and heat dryness; age and greyness follow
+immediately.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are gelded beasts weaker than such as are not gelded? A.
+Because they have less heat, and by that means less force and
+strength.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_MARCUS_ANTONINUS_SANCTIPERTIAS' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_MARCUS_ANTONINUS_SANCTIPERTIAS"></a>
+<!-- Page 454 --><a name='Page_454' id="Page_454"></a>
+<h2>THE PROBLEMS OF<br />
+MARCUS ANTONINUS SANCTIPERTIAS</h2>
+<br />
+<p>Q. Why is it esteemed, in the judgment of the most wise, the
+hardest thing to know a man's self? A. Because nothing can be known
+that is of so great importance to man for the regulation of his
+conduct in life. Without this knowledge, man is like the ship
+without either compass or rudder to conduct her to port, and is
+tossed by every passion and prejudice to which his natural
+constitution is subjected. To know the form and perfection of man's
+self, according to the philosophers, is a task too hard; and a man,
+says Plato, is nothing, or if he be anything, he is nothing, but
+his soul.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is a man, though endowed with reason, the most unjust of
+all living creatures? A. Because only man is desirous of honour;
+and so it happens that every one covets to seem
+<!-- Page 455 --><a name='Page_455' id="Page_455"></a> good, and
+yet naturally shuns labour, though he attain no virtue by it.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth immoderate copulation do more hurt than immoderate
+letting of blood? A. The seed is full of nutriment, and better
+prepared for the nurture of the body, than the blood; for the blood
+is nourished by the seed.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the reason that those that have long yards cannot
+beget children? A. The seed, in going a long distance, doth lose
+the spirit, and therefore becomes cold and unfit.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do such as are corpulent cast forth but little seed in
+the act of copulation, and are often barren? A. Because the seed of
+such goeth to nourish the body. For the same reason corpulent women
+have but few menses.</p>
+<p>Q. How come women to be prone to venery in the summer time and
+men in the winter? A. In summer the man's testicles hang down and
+are feebler than in winter, or because hot natures become more
+lively in the cold season; for a man is hot and dry, and a woman
+cold and moist; and therefore in summer the strength of men decays,
+and that of women increases, and they grow livelier by the benefit
+of the contrary quality.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is man the proudest of all living creatures? A. By reason
+of his great knowledge; or, as philosophers say, all intelligent
+<!-- Page 456 --><a name='Page_456' id="Page_456"></a> beings
+having understanding, nothing remains that escapes man's knowledge
+in particular; or it is because he hath rule over all earthly
+creatures, and all things seem to be brought under his
+dominion.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have beasts their hearts in the middle of their breasts,
+and man his inclining to the left? A. To moderate the cold on that
+side.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the woman love the man best who has got her
+maidenhead? A. By reason of shame-facedness; Plato saith,
+shame-facedness doth follow love, or, because it is the beginning
+of great pleasure, which doth bring a great alteration in the whole
+body, whereby the powers of the mind are much delighted, and stick
+and rest immoveable in the same.</p>
+<p>Q. How come hairy people to be more lustful than any other? A.
+Because they are said to have greater store of excrements and seed
+as philosophers assert.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the cause that the suffocation of the matrix, which
+happens to women through strife and contention, is more dangerous
+than the detaining of the flowers? A. Because the more perfect an
+excrement is in its natural disposition, the worse it is when it is
+altered from that disposition, and drawn to the contrary quality;
+as is seen in vinegar, which is <!-- Page 457 --><a name='Page_457'
+id="Page_457"></a> sharpest when it is made of the best wine. And
+so it happens that the more men love one another the more they fall
+into variance and discord.</p>
+<p>Q. How come women's bodies to be looser, softer and less than
+man's; and why do they want hair? A. By reason of their menses; for
+with them their superfluities go away, which would produce hair;
+and thereby the flesh is filled, consequently the veins are more
+hid in women than in men.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the reason that when we think upon a horrible thing,
+we are stricken with fear? A. Because the conceit or imagination of
+things has force and virtue. For Plato saith, the fancy of things
+has some affinity with things themselves; for the image and
+representation of cold and heat is such as the nature of things
+are. Or it is this, because when we comprehend any dreadful matter,
+the blood runneth to the internal parts; and therefore the external
+parts are cold and shake with fear.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth a radish root help digestion and yet itself
+remaineth undigested? A. Because the substance consisteth of divers
+parts; for there are some thin parts in it, which are fit to digest
+meat, the which being dissolved, there doth remain some thick and
+close substance in it, which the heat cannot digest.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 458 --><a name='Page_458' id="Page_458"></a> Q. Why do
+such as cleave wood, cleave it easier in the length than athwart?
+A. Because in the wood there is a grain, whereby, if it be cut in
+length, in the very cutting, one part naturally separateth from
+another.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the reason, that if a spear be stricken on the end,
+the sound cometh sooner to one who standeth near, than to him who
+striketh? A. Because, as hath been said, there is a certain long
+grain in wood, directly forward, filled with air, but on the other
+side there is none, and therefore a beam or spear being stricken on
+the end, the air which is hidden receiveth a sound in the aforesaid
+grain which serveth for its passage; and, seeing the sound cannot
+go easily out of it is carried into the ear of him who is opposite;
+as those passages do not go from side to side, a sound cannot be
+distinctly heard there.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the thighs and calves of the legs of men flesh,
+seeing the legs of beasts are not so? A. Because men only go
+upright; and therefore nature hath given the lower parts
+corpulency, and taken it away from the upper; and thus she hath
+made the buttocks, the thighs, and calves of the legs fleshy.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the sensible powers in the heart; yet if the hinder
+part of the brain be hurt, the memory suffereth by it; if the
+forepart, the <!-- Page 459 --><a name='Page_459' id=
+"Page_459"></a> imagination; if the middle, the cogitative part? A.
+It is because the brain is appointed by nature to cool the blood of
+the heart; whereof it is, that in divers of its parts it serveth
+the powers and instruments with their heart, for every action of
+the soul doth not proceed from one measure of heat.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_ALEXANDER_APHRODISEUS' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_ALEXANDER_APHRODISEUS"></a>
+<h2>THE PROBLEMS OF<br />
+ALEXANDER APHRODISEUS</h2>
+<br />
+<p>Q. Why doth the sun make a man black and dirt white, wax soft
+and dirt hard? A. By reason of the disposition of the substance
+that doth suffer. All humours, phlegm excepted, when heated above
+measure, do seem black about the skin; and dirt, being full either
+of <!-- Page 460 --><a name='Page_460' id="Page_460"></a>
+saltpetre, or salt liquor, when the sun hath consumed its dregs and
+filth, doth become white again. When the sun hath stirred up and
+drawn the humidity of the wax, it is softened; but in the dirt, the
+sun doth consume the humidity, which is very much and makes it
+hard.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are round ulcers hard to be cured? A. Because they are
+bred of a sharp choler, which eats and gnaws; and because it doth
+run, dropping and gnawing, it makes a round ulcer; for which reason
+it requires dry medicines, as physicians assert.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is honey sweet to all men, but to such as have jaundice?
+A. Because they have much bitter choler all over their bodies,
+which abounds in the tongue; whence it happens when they eat honey
+the humours are stirred, and the taste itself, by the bitterness of
+choler, causes an imagination that the honey is bitter.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth water cast on serpents, cause them to fly? A.
+Because they are dry and cold by nature, having but little blood,
+and therefore fly from excessive coldness.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth an egg break if roasted, and not if boiled? A. When
+moisture comes near the fire, it is heated very much, and so breeds
+wind, which being put up in little room, forces its way out, and
+breaks the shell: the like <!-- Page 461 --><a name='Page_461' id=
+"Page_461"></a> happens in tubs or earthen vessels when new wine is
+put into them; too much phlegm breaks the shell of an egg in
+roasting; it is the same with earthen pots too much heated;
+wherefore some people wet an egg when they intend to roast it. Hot
+water, by its softness, doth dissipate its humidity by little and
+little, and dissolves it through the thinness and passages of the
+shell.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do men wink in the act of copulation, and find a little
+alteration in all other senses? A. Because, being overcome by the
+effect of that pleasure, they do comprehend it the better.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have children gravel breeding in their bladders, and old
+men in their kidneys and veins? A. Because children have straight
+passages in their kidneys, and an earthly thick humour is thrust
+with violence by the urine to the bladder, which hath wide conduits
+or passages, that give room for the urine and humour whereof gravel
+is engendered, which waxes thick, and seats itself, as the manner
+of it is. In old men it is the reverse, for they have wide passages
+of the veins, back and kidneys, that the urine may pass away, and
+the earthly humour congeal and sink down; the colour of the gravel
+shows the humour whereof the stone comes.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 462 --><a name='Page_462' id="Page_462"></a> Q. Why is
+it, if the stone do congeal and wax hard through heat, we use not
+contrary things to dissolve it by coldness, but light things, as
+parsley, fennel and the like? A. It is thought, to fall out by an
+excessive scorching heat, by which the stones do crumble into sand,
+as in the manner of earthen vessels, which, when they are
+overheated or roasted, turn to sand. And by this means it happens
+that small stones are avoided, together with sand, in making water.
+Sometimes cold drink thrusts out the stone, the kidneys being
+stretched and casting it out by a great effort; thus easing the
+belly of its burden. Besides, it often happens that immoderate heat
+of the kidneys, or of the veins of the back (through which the
+stone doth grow) is quenched with coldness.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the curing of an ulcer or bile in the kidneys or
+bladder very hard? A. Because the urine being sharp, doth ulcerate
+the sore. Ulcers are worse to cure in the bladder than in the
+kidneys, because urine stays in the former, but runs away from the
+latter.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do chaff and straw keep water hot, but make snow cold? A.
+Because the nature of chaff wants a manifest quantity; seeing,
+therefore that of its own nature, it can easily be mingled, and
+consumed by that which it is annexed onto, it easily assumes the
+same nature, <!-- Page 463 --><a name='Page_463' id="Page_463"></a>
+and being put into hot things, it is easily hot, heats again, and
+keeps hot; and on the contrary, being made cold by the snow, and
+making the snow cold it keeps in its coldness.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have we oftentimes a pain in making water? A. Because
+sharp choler issuing out, and pricking the bladder of the urine,
+doth provoke and stir up the whole body to ease the part offended,
+and to expel the humour moderately. This doth happen most of all
+unto children, because they have moist excrements by reason of
+their often drinking.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have some medicines of one kind contrary effects, as
+experience proves; for mastich doth expel, dissolve and also knit;
+and vinegar cools and heats? A. Because there are some small
+invisible bodies in them, not in confusion, but by interposition;
+as sand moistened doth clog together and seem to be but one body,
+though indeed there are many small bodies in sand. And since this
+is so, it is not absurd that the contrary qualities and virtues
+should be hidden in mastich, and that nature hath given that virtue
+to these bodies.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do nurses rock and move their children when they would
+rock them to sleep? A. To the end that the humours being scattered
+by moving, may move the brains; but those of more years cannot
+endure this.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 464 --><a name='Page_464' id="Page_464"></a> Q. Why
+doth oil, being drunk, cause one to vomit, and especially yellow
+choler? A. Because being light, and ascending upwards it provoketh
+the nutriment in the stomach, and lifteth it up; and so, the
+stomach being grieved, summoneth the ejective virtue to vomit, and
+especially choler, because that is light and consisteth of subtle
+parts, and therefore the sooner carried upward; for when it is
+mingled with any moist thing, it runneth into the highest room.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth not oil mingle with moist things? A. Because, being
+pliant, soft and thick in itself, it cannot be divided into parts,
+and so cannot be mingled; neither if it be put on the earth can it
+enter into it.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are water and oil frozen in cold weather, and wine and
+vinegar not? A. Because that oil being without quality, and fit to
+be compounded with anything, is cold quickly and so extremely that
+it is most cold. Water being cold of nature, doth easily freeze
+when it is made colder than its own nature. Wine being hot, and of
+subtle parts, suffereth no freezing.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do contrary things in quality bring forth the same
+effect? A. That which is moist is hardened and bound alike by heat
+and cold. Snow and liquid do freeze with cold; a
+<!-- Page 465 --><a name='Page_465' id="Page_465"></a> plaster and
+gravel in the bladder are made dry with heat. The effect indeed is
+the same, but by two divers actions; the heat doth consume and eat
+the abundance of moisture; but the cold stopping and shutting with
+its over much thickness, doth wring out the filthy humidity, like
+as a sponge wrung with the hand doth cast out the water which it
+hath in the pores and small passages.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth a shaking or quivering seize us oftentimes when any
+fearful matter doth happen, as a great noise or a crack made, the
+sudden downfall of water, or the fall of a large tree? A. Because
+that oftentimes the humours being digested and consumed by time and
+made thin and weak, all the heat vehemently, suddenly and sharply
+flying into the inward part of the body, consumeth the humours
+which cause the disease. So treacle hath this effect, and many such
+like, which are hot and dry when taken after connexion.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do steel glasses shine so clearly? A. Because they are
+lined in the inside with white lead, whose nature is shining, and
+being put to glass, which is lucid and transparent, doth shine much
+more; and casts its beams through its passages, and without the
+body of the glass; and by that means the glass is very shining and
+clear.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 466 --><a name='Page_466' id="Page_466"></a> Q. Why do
+we see ourselves in glasses and clear water? A. Because the quality
+of the sight, passing into the bright bodies by reflection, doth
+return again on the beam of the eyes, as the image of him who
+looketh on it.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the reason that if you cast a stone in standing water
+which is near the surface of the earth, it causes many circles, and
+not if the water be deep in the earth? A. Because the stone, with
+the vehemence of the cast, doth agitate the water in every part of
+it, until it come to the bottom; and if there be a very great
+vehemence in the throw, the circle is still greater, the stone
+going down to the bottom causing many circles. For, first of all,
+it doth divide the outermost and superficial parts of the water in
+many parts, and so, always going down to the bottom, again dividing
+the water, it maketh another circle, and this is done successively
+until the stone resteth; and because the vehemence of the stone is
+slackened, still as it goes down, of necessity the last circle is
+less than the first, because by that and also by its force the
+water is divided.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are such as are deaf by nature, dumb? A. Because they
+cannot speak and express that which they never hear. Some
+physicians do say, that there is one knitting and uniting of sinews
+belonging to the like disposition. <!-- Page 467 --><a name=
+'Page_467' id="Page_467"></a> But such as are dumb by accident are
+not deaf at all, for then there ariseth a local passion.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth itching arise when an ulcer doth wax whole and
+phlegm ceases? A. Because the part which is healed and made sound
+doth pursue the relic of the humours which remained there against
+nature, and which was the cause of the bile, and so going out
+through the skin, and dissolving itself, doth originally cause the
+itch.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes a man to sneeze oftener and more vehemently than a
+beast? A. Because he uses more meats and drinks, and of more
+different sorts, and that more than is requisite; the which, when
+he cannot digest as he would, he doth gather together much air and
+spirit, by reason of much humidity; the spirits then very subtle,
+ascending into the head, often force a man to void them, and so
+provoke sneezing. The noise caused thereby proceeds from a vehement
+spirit or breath passing through the conduit of the nostrils, as
+belching doth from the stomach or farting by the fundament, the
+voice by the throat, and a sound by the ear.</p>
+<p>Q. How come the hair and nails of dead people to grow? A.
+Because the flesh rotting, withering and falling away, that which
+was hidden about the root of the hair doth now
+<!-- Page 468 --><a name='Page_468' id="Page_468"></a> appear as
+growing. Some say that it grows indeed, because carcasses are
+dissolved in the beginning to many excrements and superfluities by
+putrefaction. These going out at the uppermost parts of the body by
+some passages, do increase the growth of the hair.</p>
+<p>Q. Why does not the hair of the feet soon grow grey? A. For this
+reason, because that through great motion they disperse and
+dissolve the superfluous phlegm that breeds greyness. The hair of
+the secrets grows very late, because of the place, and because that
+in carnal copulation it dissolves the phlegm also.</p>
+<p>Q. Why, if you put hot burnt barley upon a horse's sore, is the
+hair which grows upon the sore not white, but like the other hair?
+A. Because it hath the force of expelling; and doth drive away and
+dissolve the phlegm, as well as all other unprofitable matter that
+is gathered together through the weakness of the parts, or condity
+of the sore.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the hair never grow on an ulcer or bile? A. Because
+man hath a thick skin, as is seen by the thickness of his hair; and
+if the scar be thicker than the skin itself, it stops the passages
+from whence the hair should grow. Horses have thinner skins, as is
+plain by their hair; therefore all passages are not stopped in
+their wounds and sores; and after the excrements
+<!-- Page 469 --><a name='Page_469' id="Page_469"></a> which were
+gathered together have broken a passage through those small pores
+the hair doth grow.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is Fortune painted with a double forehead, the one side
+bald and the other hairy? A. The baldness signifies adversity, and
+hairiness prosperity, which we enjoy when it pleaseth her.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have some commended flattery? A. Because flattery setteth
+forth before our eyes what we ought to be, though not what we
+are.</p>
+<p>Q. Wherefore should virtue be painted girded? A. To show that
+virtuous men should not be slothful, but diligent and always in
+action.</p>
+<p>Q. Why did the ancients say it was better to fall into the hands
+of a raven than a flatterer? A. Because ravens do not eat us till
+we be dead, but flatterers devour us alive.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have choleric men beards before others? A. Because they
+are hot, and their pores large.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes it that such as have the hiccups do ease themselves
+by holding their breath? A. The breath retained doth heat the
+interior parts of the body, and the hiccups proceeds from cold.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes it that old men remember <!-- Page 470 --><a name=
+'Page_470' id="Page_470"></a> well what they have seen and done in
+their youth, and forget such things as they see and do in their old
+age? A. Things learned in youth take deep root and habitude in a
+person, but those learned in age are forgotten because the senses
+are then weakened.</p>
+<p>Q. What kind of covetousness is best? A. That of time when
+employed as it ought to be.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is our life compared to a play? A. Because the dishonest
+do occupy the place of the honest, and the worst sort the room of
+the good.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do dolphins, when they appear above the water, denote a
+storm or tempest approaching? A. Because at the beginning of a
+tempest there do arise from the bottom of the sea, certain hot
+exhalations and vapours which heat the dolphins, causing them to
+rise up for cold air.</p>
+<p>Q. Why did the Romans call Fabius Maximus the target of the
+people, and Marcellus the sword? A. Because the one adapted himself
+to the service of the commonwealth, and the other was very eager to
+revenge the injuries of his country; and yet they were in the
+senate joined together, because the gravity of the one would
+moderate the courage and boldness of the other.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the shining of the moon hurt
+<!-- Page 471 --><a name='Page_471' id="Page_471"></a> the head? A.
+Because it moves the humours of the brain, and cannot afterwards
+dissolve them.</p>
+<p>Q. If water do not nourish, why do men drink it? A. Because
+water causeth the nutriment to spread through the body.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is sneezing good? A. Because it purgeth the brain as milk
+is purged by the cough.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is hot water lighter than cold? A. Because boiling water
+has less ventosity and is more light and subtle, the earthly and
+heavy substance being separated from it.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes marsh and pond water to be bad? A. By reason they
+are phlegmatic, and do corrupt in summer; the fineness of water is
+turned into vapours, and the earthiness doth remain.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are studious and learned men soonest bald? A. It proceeds
+from a weakness of the spirits, or because warmth of digestion
+cause phlegm to abound in them.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth much watching make the brain feeble? A. Because it
+increases choler, which dries and extenuates the body.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are boys apt to change their voices about fourteen years
+of age? A. Because that then nature doth cause a great and sudden
+change of voice; experience proves this to
+<!-- Page 472 --><a name='Page_472' id="Page_472"></a> be true; for
+at that time we may see that women's paps do grow great, do hold
+and gather milk, and also those places that are above their hips,
+in which the young fruit would remain. Likewise men's breasts and
+shoulders, which then can bear great and heavy burdens; also their
+stones in which their seed may increase and abide, and in their
+privy members, to let out the seed with ease. Further all the body
+is made bigger and dilated, as the alteration and change of every
+part doth testify, and the harshness of the voice and hoarseness;
+for the rough artery, the wind pipe, being made wide in the
+beginning, and the exterior and outward part being unequal to the
+throat, the air going out the rough, unequal and uneven pipe doth
+then become unequal and sharp, and after, hoarse, something like
+unto the voice of a goat, wherefore it has its name called
+Bronchus. The same doth also happen to them unto whose rough artery
+distillation doth follow; it happens by reason of the drooping
+humidity that a slight small skin filled unequally causes the
+uneven going forth of the spirit and air. Understand, that the
+windpipe of goats is such by reason of the abundance of humidity.
+The like doth happen unto all such as nature hath given a rough
+artery, as unto cranes. After the age of fourteen they leave off
+that voice, because the <!-- Page 473 --><a name='Page_473' id=
+"Page_473"></a> artery is made wider and reacheth its natural
+evenness and quality.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do hard dens, hollow and high places, send back the
+likeness and sound of the voice? A. Because that in such places
+also by reflection do return back the image of a sound, for the
+voice doth beat the air, and the air the place, which the more it
+is beaten the more it doth bear, and therefore doth cause the more
+vehement sound of the voice; moist places, and as it were, soft,
+yielding to the stroke, and dissolving it, give no sound again; for
+according to the quantity of the stroke, the quality and quantity
+of the voice is given, which is called an echo. Some do idly fable
+that she is a goddess; some say that Pan was in love with her,
+which without doubt is false. He was some wise man, who did first
+desire to search out the cause of the voice, and as they who love,
+and cannot enjoy that love, are grieved, so in like manner was he
+very sorry until he found out the solution of that cause; as
+Endymion also, who first found out the course of the moon, watching
+all night, and observing her course, and searching her motion, did
+sleep in the daytime, and that she came to him when he was asleep,
+because she did give the philosopher the solution of the course
+herself. They say also that he was a shepherd, because that
+<!-- Page 474 --><a name='Page_474' id="Page_474"></a> in the
+desert and high places, he did mark the course of the moon. And
+they gave him also the pipe because that the high places are blown
+with wind, or else because he sought out the consonancy of figures.
+Prometheus also, being a wise man, sought the course of the star,
+which is called the eagle in the firmament, his nature and place;
+and when he was, as it were, wasted with the desire of learning,
+then at last he rested, when Hercules did resolve unto him all
+doubts with his wisdom.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do not swine cry when they are carried with their snouts
+upwards? A. Because that of all other beasts they bend more to the
+earth. They delight in filth, and that they seek, and therefore in
+the sudden change of their face, they be as it were strangers, and
+being amazed with so much light do keep that silence; some say the
+windpipe doth close together by reason of the straitness of it.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do swine delight in dirt? A. As physicians do say, they
+are naturally delighted with it, because they have a great liver,
+in which desire it, as Aristotle saith, the wideness of their snout
+is the case, for he that hath smelling which doth dissolve itself,
+and as it were strive with stench.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do many beasts when they see <!-- Page 475 --><a name=
+'Page_475' id="Page_475"></a> their friends, and a lion and a bull
+beat their sides when they are angry? A. Because they have the
+marrow of their backs reaching to the tail, which hath the force of
+motion in it, the imagination acknowledging that which is known to
+them, as it were with the hand, as happens to men, doth force them
+to move their tails. This doth manifestly show some secret force to
+be within them, which doth acknowledge what they ought. In the
+anger of lions and bulls, nature doth consent to the mind, and
+causeth it to be greatly moved, as men do sometimes when they are
+angry, beating their hands on other parts; when the mind cannot be
+revenged on that which doth hurt, it presently seeks out some other
+source, and cures the malady with a stroke or blow.</p>
+<p>Q. How come steel glasses to be better for the sight than any
+other kind? A. Because steel is hard, and doth present unto us more
+substantially the air that receiveth the light.</p>
+<p>Q. How doth love show its greater force by making the fool to
+become wise, or the wise to become a fool? A. In attributing wisdom
+to him that has it not; for it is harder to build than to pull
+down; and ordinarily love and folly are but an alteration of the
+mind.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes much labour and fatigue to
+<!-- Page 476 --><a name='Page_476' id="Page_476"></a> be bad for
+the sight? A. Because it dries the blood too much.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is goat's milk reckoned best for the stomach? A. Because
+it is thick, not slimy, and they feed on wood and boughs rather
+than on grass.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do grief and vexation bring grey hairs? A. Because they
+dry, which bringeth on greyness.</p>
+<p>Q. How come those to have most mercy who have the thickest
+blood? A. Because the blood which is fat and thick makes the
+spirits firm and constant, wherein consists the force of all
+creatures.</p>
+<p>Q. Whether it is hardest, to obtain a person's love, or to keep
+it when obtained? A. It is hardest to keep it, by reason of the
+inconstancy of man, who is quickly angry, and soon weary of a
+thing; hard to be gained and slippery to keep.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do serpents shun the herb rue? A. Because they are cold,
+dry and full of sinews, and that herb is of a contrary nature.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is a capon better to eat than a cock? A. Because a capon
+loses not his moisture by treading of the hens.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is our smell less in winter than in summer? A. Because
+the air is thick, and less moveable.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 477 --><a name='Page_477' id="Page_477"></a> Q. Why
+does hair burn so quickly? A. Because it is dry and cold.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is love compared to a labyrinth? A. Because the entry and
+coming in is easy, and the going out almost impossible or hard.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='PHSIOGNOMY' id="PHSIOGNOMY"></a> <!-- Page 479 --><a name=
+'Page_479' id="Page_479"></a> <!-- Page 478 --><a name='Page_478'
+id="Page_478"></a>
+<h1>PART IV<br />
+DISPLAYING THE SECRETS OF<br />
+NATURE<br />
+RELATING TO<br />
+PHYSIOGNOMY</h1>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_I' id="PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_I"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION 1.&mdash;<i>Of Physiognomy, showing what it is, and
+whence it is derived</i>.</h3>
+<p>Physiognomy is an ingenious science, or knowledge of nature, by
+which the inclinations and dispositions of every creature are
+understood, and because some of the members are uncompounded, and
+entire of themselves, as the tongue, the heart, etc., and some are
+of a mixed nature, <!-- Page 480 --><a name='Page_480' id=
+"Page_480"></a> as the eyes, the nose and others, we therefore say
+that there are signs which agree and live together, which inform a
+wise man how to make his judgment before he be too rash to deliver
+it to the world.</p>
+<p>Nor is it to be esteemed a foolish or idle art, seeing it is
+derived from the superior bodies; for there is no part of the face
+of man but what is under the peculiar influence or government, not
+only of the seven planets but also of the twelve signs of Zodiac;
+and the dispositions, vices, virtues and fatality, either of a man
+or woman are plainly foretold, if the person pretending to the
+knowledge thereof be an artist, which, that my readers may hereby
+attain it I shall set these things in a clearer light.</p>
+<p>The reader should remember that the forehead is governed by
+Mars; the right eye is under the domination of Sol; the left is
+ruled by the Moon; the right ear is under Jupiter; the left,
+Saturn, the rule of the nose is claimed by Venus, which, by the
+way, is one reason that in all unlawful venereal encounters, the
+nose is too subject to bear the scars that are gotten in those
+wars; and nimble Mercury, the significator of eloquence claims the
+dominion of the mouth, and that very justly.</p>
+<p>Thus have the seven planets divided the face among them, but not
+with so absolute a way <!-- Page 481 --><a name='Page_481' id=
+"Page_481"></a> but that the twelve signs of the Zodiac do also
+come in with a part (see the engraving) and therefore the sign
+Cancer presides in the upper part of the forehead, and Leo attends
+upon the right eyebrow, as Saggittarius does upon the right eye,
+and Libra upon the right ear, upon the left eyebrow you will find
+Aquarius; and Gemini and Aries taking care of the left ear; Taurus
+rules in the middle of the forehead, and Capricorn the chin;
+Scorpio takes upon him the protection of the nose; Virgo claims the
+precedence of the right cheek, Pisces the left. And thus the face
+of man is cantoned out amongst the signs and planets; which being
+carefully <!-- Page 482 --><a name='Page_482' id="Page_482"></a>
+attended to, will sufficiently inform the artist how to pass a
+judgment. For according to the sign or planet ruling so also is the
+judgment to be of the part ruled, which all those that have
+understanding know easily how to apply.</p>
+<center><img src='img/bw481.png' alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<p>In the judgment that is to be made from physiognomy, there is a
+great difference betwixt a man and a woman; the reason is, because
+in respect of the whole composition men more fully comprehend it
+than women do, as may evidently appear by the manner and method we
+shall give. Wherefore the judgments which we shall pass in every
+chapter do properly concern a man, as comprehending the whole
+species, and but improperly the woman, as being but a part thereof,
+and derived from the man, and therefore, whoever is called to give
+judgment on such a face, ought to be wary about all the lines and
+marks that belong to it, respect being also had to the sex, for
+when we behold a man whose face is like unto a woman's and we pass
+a judgment upon it, having diligently observed it, and not on the
+face only, but on other parts of the body, as hands, etc., in like
+manner we also behold the face of a woman, who in respect to her
+flesh and blood is like unto a man, and in the disposure also of
+the greatest part of the body. But does physiognomy give the same
+judgment on her, as it <!-- Page 483 --><a name='Page_483' id=
+"Page_483"></a> does of a man that is like unto her? By no means,
+but far otherwise, in regard that the conception of the woman is
+much different from that of a man, even in those respects which are
+said to be common. Now in those common respects two parts are
+attributed to a man, and a third part to a woman.</p>
+<p>Wherefore it being our intention to give you an exact account,
+according to the rule of physiognomy of all and every part of the
+members of the body, we will begin with the head, as it hath
+relation only to man and woman, and not to any other creature, that
+the work may be more obvious to every reader.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_II' id="PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_II"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Judgment of Physiognomy</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Hair that hangs down without curling, if it be of a fair
+complexion, thin and soft withal, signifies a man to be naturally
+faint-hearted, and of a weak body, but of a quiet and harmless
+disposition. Hair that is big, and thick and
+<!-- Page 484 --><a name='Page_484' id="Page_484"></a> short
+withal, denotes a man to be of a strong constitution, secure, bold,
+deceitful and for the most part, unquiet and vain, lusting after
+beauty, and more foolish than wise, though fortune may favour him.
+He whose hair is partly curled and partly hanging down, is commonly
+wise or a very great fool, or else as very a knave as he is a fool.
+He whose hair grows thick on his temples and his brow, one may
+certainly at first sight conclude that such a man is by nature
+simple, vain, luxurious, lustful, credulous, clownish in his speech
+and conversation and dull in his apprehension. He whose hair not
+only curls very much, but bushes out, and stands on end, if the
+hair be white or of a yellowish colour, he is by nature proud and
+bold, dull of apprehension, soon angry, and a lover of venery, and
+given to lying, malicious and ready to do any mischief. He whose
+hair arises in the corners of the temples, and is gross and rough
+withal, is a man highly conceited of himself, inclined to malice,
+but cunningly conceals it, is very courtly and a lover of new
+fashions. He who hath much hair, that is to say, whose hair is
+thick all over his head, is naturally vain and very luxurious, of a
+good digestion, easy of belief, and slow of performance, of a weak
+memory and for the most part unfortunate. He whose hair is of a
+reddish complexion, <!-- Page 485 --><a name='Page_485' id=
+"Page_485"></a> is for the most part, if not always, proud,
+deceitful, detracting and full of envy. He whose hair is
+extraordinarily fair, is for the most part a man fit for the most
+praiseworthy enterprises, a lover of honour, and much more inclined
+to do good than evil; laborious and careful to perform whatsoever
+is committed to his care, secret in carrying on any business, and
+fortunate. Hair of a yellowish colour shows a man to be good
+conditioned, and willing to do anything, fearful, shamefaced and
+weak of body, but strong in the abilities of the mind, and more apt
+to remember, than to avenge an injury. He whose hair is of a
+brownish colour, and curled not too much nor too little, is a
+well-disposed man, inclined to that which is good, a lover of
+peace, cleanliness and good manners. He whose hair turns grey or
+hoary in the time of his youth, is generally given to women, vain,
+false, unstable, and talkative. [Note. That whatever signification
+the hair has in men, it has the same in women also.]</p>
+<p>The forehead that riseth in a round, signifies a man liberally
+merry, of a good understanding, and generally inclined to virtue.
+He whose forehead is fleshy, and the bone of the brow jutting out,
+and without wrinkles, is a man much inclined to suits of law,
+contentious, vain, deceitful, and addicted to follow ill courses.
+<!-- Page 486 --><a name='Page_486' id="Page_486"></a> He whose
+forehead is very low and little, is of a good understanding,
+magnanimous, but extremely bold and confident, and a great
+pretender to love and honour. He whose forehead seems sharp, and
+pointed up in the corners of his temples, so that the bone seems to
+jut forth a little, is a man naturally weak and fickle, and weak in
+the intellectuals. He whose brow upon the temples is full of flesh,
+is a man of a great spirit, proud, watchful and of a gross
+understanding. He whose brow is full of wrinkles, and has as it
+were a seam coming down the middle of the forehead, so that a man
+may think he has two foreheads, is one that is of a great spirit, a
+great wit, void of deceit, and yet of a hard fortune. He who has a
+full, large forehead, and a little round withal, destitute of hair,
+or at least that has little on it is bold, malicious, full of
+choler and apt to transgress beyond all bounds, and yet of a good
+wit and very apprehensive. He whose forehead is long and high and
+jutting forth, and whose face is figured, almost sharp and peaked
+towards the chin, is one reasonably honest, but weak and simple,
+and of a hard fortune.</p>
+<p>Those eyebrows that are much arched, whether in man or woman,
+and which by frequent motion elevate themselves, show the person to
+be proud, high-spirited, vain-glorious, bold and
+<!-- Page 487 --><a name='Page_487' id="Page_487"></a> threatening,
+a lover of beauty, and indifferently inclined to either good or
+evil. He whose eyelids bend down when he speaks to another or when
+he looks upon him, and who has a kind of skulking look, is by
+nature a penurious wretch, close in all his actions, of a very few
+words, but full of malice in his heart. He whose eyebrows are
+thick, and have but little hair upon them, is but weak in his
+intellectuals, and too credulous, very sincere, sociable, and
+desirous of good company. He whose eyebrows are folded, and the
+hair thick and bending downwards, is one that is clownish and
+unlearned, heavy, suspicious, miserable, envious, and one that will
+cheat and cozen you if he can. He whose eyebrows have but short
+hair and of a whitish colour is fearful and very easy of belief,
+and apt to undertake anything. Those, on the other side, whose
+eyebrows are black, and the hair of them thin, will do nothing
+without great consideration, and are bold and confident of the
+performance of what they undertake; neither are they apt to believe
+anything without reason for so doing.</p>
+<p>If the space between the eyebrows be of more than the ordinary
+distance, it shows the person to be hard-hearted, envious, close,
+cunning, apprehensive, greedy of novelties, of a vain fortune,
+addicted to cruelty more than love. <!-- Page 488 --><a name=
+'Page_488' id="Page_488"></a> But those men whose eyebrows are at a
+lesser distance from each other, are for the most part of a dull
+understanding; yet subtle enough in their dealings, and of an
+uncommon boldness, which is often attended with great felicity; but
+that which is most commendable in them is, that they are most sure
+and constant in their friendship.</p>
+<p>Great and full eyes in either man or woman, show the person to
+be for the most part slothful, bold, envious, a bad concealer of
+secrets, miserable, vain, given to lying, and yet a bad memory,
+slow in invention, weak in his intellectuals, and yet very much
+conceited of that little knack of wisdom he thinks himself master
+of. He whose eyes are hollow in his head, and therefore discerns
+well at a great distance, is one that is suspicious, malicious,
+furious, perverse in his conversation, of an extraordinary memory,
+bold, cruel, and false, both in words and deeds, threatening,
+vicious, luxurious, proud, envious and treacherous; but he whose
+eyes are, as it were, starting out of his head, is a simple,
+foolish person, shameless, very fertile and easy to be persuaded
+either to vice or virtue. He who looks studiously and acutely, with
+his eyes and eyelids downwards, denotes thereby to be of a
+malicious nature, very treacherous, false, unfaithful, envious,
+miserable, impious towards <!-- Page 489 --><a name='Page_489' id=
+"Page_489"></a> God, and dishonest towards men. He whose eyes are
+small and conveniently round, is bashful and weak, very credulous,
+liberal to others, and even in his conversation. He whose eyes look
+asquint, is thereby denoted to be a deceitful person, unjust,
+envious, furious, a great liar, and as the effect of all that is
+miserable. He who hath a wandering eye and which is rolling up and
+down, is for the most part a vain, simple, deceitful, lustful,
+treacherous, or high-minded man, an admirer of the fair sex, and
+one easy to be persuaded to virtue or vice. He or she whose eyes
+are twinkling, and which move forward or backward, show the person
+to be luxurious, unfaithful and treacherous, presumptuous, and hard
+to believe anything that is spoken. If a person has any greenness
+mingled with the white of his eye, such is commonly silly, and
+often very false, vain and deceitful, unkind to his friends, a
+great concealer of his own secrets, and very choleric. Those whose
+eyes are every way rolling up and down, or they who seldom move
+their eyes, and when they do, as it were, draw their eyes inwardly
+and accurately fasten them upon some object, such are by their
+inclinations very malicious, vain-glorious, slothful, unfaithful,
+envious, false and contentious. They whose eyes are addicted to
+blood-shot, are naturally proud, disdainful,
+<!-- Page 490 --><a name='Page_490' id="Page_490"></a> cruel,
+without shame, perfidious and much inclined to superstition. But he
+whose eyes are neither too little nor too big, and inclined to
+black, do signify a man mild, peaceable, honest, witty, and of a
+good understanding; and one that, when need requires, will be
+serviceable to his friends.</p>
+<p>A long and thin nose, denotes a man bold, furious, angry, vain,
+easy to be persuaded either to good or evil, weak and credulous. A
+long nose extended, the tip of it bending downwards, shows the
+person to be wise, discreet, secret and officious, honest, faithful
+and one that will not be over-reached in bargaining.</p>
+<p>A bottle-nose is what denotes a man to be impetuous in the
+obtaining of his desires, also a vain, false, luxurious, weak and
+uncertain man; apt to believe and easy to be persuaded. A broad
+nose in the middle, and less towards the end, denotes a vain,
+talkative person, a liar, and one of hard fortune. He who hath a
+long and great nose is an admirer of the fair sex, and well
+accomplished for the wars of Venus, but ignorant of the knowledge
+of anything that is good, extremely addicted to vice; assiduous in
+the obtaining what he desires, and very secret in the prosecution
+of it; and though very ignorant, would fain be thought very
+knowing.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 491 --><a name='Page_491' id="Page_491"></a> A nose
+very sharp on the tip of it, and neither too long nor too short,
+too thick nor too thin, denotes the person, if a man, to be of a
+fretful disposition, always pining and peevish; and if a woman, a
+scold, or contentious, wedded to her own humours, of a morose and
+dogged carriage, and if married, a plague to her husband. A nose
+very round at the end of it, and having but little nostrils, shows
+the person to be munificent and liberal, true to his trust, but
+withal, very proud, credulous and vain. A nose very long and thin
+at the end of it, and something round, withal, signifies one bold
+in his discourse, honest in his dealings, patient in receiving, and
+slow in offering injuries, but yet privately malicious. He whose
+nose is naturally more red than any other part of his face, is
+thereby denoted to be covetous, impious, luxurious, and an enemy to
+goodness. A nose that turns up again, and is long and full at the
+tip of it, shows the person that has it to be bold, proud,
+covetous, envious, luxurious, a liar and deceiver, vain, glorious,
+unfortunate and contentious. He whose nose riseth high in the
+middle, is prudent and polite, and of great courage, honourable in
+his actions, and true to his word. A nose big at the end shows a
+person to be of a peaceable disposition, industrious and faithful,
+and of a good understanding. A very wide <!-- Page 492 --><a name=
+'Page_492' id="Page_492"></a> nose, with wide nostrils, denotes a
+man dull of apprehension, and inclined more to simplicity than
+wisdom, and withal vain, contentious and a liar.</p>
+<p>When the nostrils are close and thin, they denote a man to have
+but little testicles, and to be very desirous of the enjoyment of
+women, but modest in his conversation. But he whose nostrils are
+great and wide, is usually well hung and lustful; but withal of an
+envious, bold and treacherous disposition and though dull of
+understanding, yet confident enough.</p>
+<p>A great and wide mouth shows a man to be bold, warlike,
+shameless and stout, a great liar and as great a talker, also a
+great eater, but as to his intellectuals, he is very dull, being
+for the most part very simple.</p>
+<p>A little mouth shows the person to be of a quiet and pacific
+temper, somewhat reticent, but faithful, secret, modest, bountiful,
+and but a little eater.</p>
+<p>He whose mouth smells of a bad breath, is one of a corrupted
+liver and lungs, is oftentimes vain, wanton, deceitful, of
+indifferent intellect, envious, covetous, and a promise-breaker. He
+that has a sweet breath, is the contrary.</p>
+<p>The lips, when they are very big and blubbering, show a person
+to be credulous, foolish, <!-- Page 493 --><a name='Page_493' id=
+"Page_493"></a> dull and stupid, and apt to be enticed to anything.
+Lips of a different size denote a person to be discreet, secret in
+all things, judicious and of a good wit, but somewhat hasty. To
+have lips, well coloured and more thin than thick, shows a person
+to be good-humoured in all things and more easily persuaded to good
+than evil. To have one lip bigger than the other, shows a variety
+of fortunes, and denotes the party to be of a dull, sluggish
+temper, but of a very indifferent understanding, as being much
+addicted to folly.</p>
+<p>When the teeth are small, and but weak in performing their
+office, and especially if they are short and few, though they show
+the person to be of a weak constitution, yet they denote him to be
+of a meek disposition, honest, faithful and secret in whatsoever he
+is intrusted with. To have some teeth longer and shorter than
+others, denotes a person to be of a good apprehension, but bold,
+disdainful, envious and proud. To have the teeth very long, and
+growing sharp towards the end, if they are long in chewing, and
+thin, denotes the person to be envious, gluttonous, bold,
+shameless, unfaithful and suspicious. When the teeth look very
+brown or yellowish, whether they be long or short, it shows the
+person to be of a suspicious temper, envious, deceitful and
+turbulent. To <!-- Page 494 --><a name='Page_494' id=
+"Page_494"></a> have teeth strong and close together, shows the
+person to be of a long life, a desirer of novelties, and things
+that are fair and beautiful, but of a high spirit, and one that
+will have his humour in all things; he loves to hear news, and to
+repeat it afterwards, and is apt to entertain anything on his
+behalf. To have teeth thin and weak, shows a weak, feeble man, and
+one of a short life, and of a weak apprehension; but chaste,
+shame-faced, tractable and honest.</p>
+<p>A tongue to be too swift of speech shows a man to be downright
+foolish, or at best but a very vain wit. A stammering tongue, or
+one that stumbles in the mouth, signifies a man of a weak
+understanding, and of a wavering mind, quickly in a rage, and soon
+pacified. A very thick and rough tongue denotes a man to be
+apprehensive, subtle and full of compliments, yet vain and
+deceitful, treacherous, and prone to impiety. A thin tongue shows a
+man of wisdom and sound judgment, very ingenious and of an affable
+disposition, yet somewhat timorous and too credulous.</p>
+<p>A great and full voice in either sex shows them to be of a great
+spirit, confident, proud and wilful. A faint and weak voice,
+attended with but little breath, shows a person to be of good
+understanding, a nimble fancy, a little <!-- Page 495 --><a name=
+'Page_495' id="Page_495"></a> eater, but weak of body, and of a
+timorous disposition. A loud and shrill voice, which sounds clearly
+denotes a person provident, sagacious, true and ingenious, but
+withal capricious, vain, glorious and too credulous. A strong voice
+when a man sings denotes him to be of a strong constitution, and of
+a good understanding, a nimble fancy, a little eater, but weak of
+body, and of a timorous disposition.</p>
+<p>A strong voice when a man sings, denotes him to be of a strong
+constitution, and of a good understanding, neither too penurious
+nor too prodigal, also ingenious and an admirer of the fair sex. A
+weak and trembling voice shows the owner of it to be envious,
+suspicious, slow in business, feeble and fearful. A loud, shrill
+and unpleasant voice, signifies one bold and valiant, but
+quarrelsome and injurious and altogether wedded to his own humours,
+and governed by his own counsels. A rough and hoarse voice, whether
+in speaking or singing, declares one to be a dull and heavy person,
+of much guts and little brains. A full and yet mild voice, and
+pleasing to the hearer, shows the person to be of a quiet and
+peaceable disposition (which is a great virtue and rare to be found
+in a woman), and also very thrifty and secret, not prone to anger,
+but of a yielding temper. A voice beginning low or in the bass, and
+ending <!-- Page 496 --><a name='Page_496' id="Page_496"></a> high
+in the treble, denotes a person to be violent, angry, bold and
+secure.</p>
+<p>A thick and full chin abounding with too much flesh, shows a man
+inclined to peace, honest and true to his trust, but slow in
+invention, and easy to be drawn either to good or evil. A peaked
+chin and reasonably full of flesh, shows a person to be of a good
+understanding, a high spirit and laudable conversation. A double
+chin shows a peaceable disposition, but dull of apprehension, vain,
+credulous, a great supplanter, and secret in all his actions. A
+crooked chin, bending upwards, and peaked for want of flesh, is by
+the rules of physiognomy, according to nature, a very bad man,
+being proud, imprudent, envious, threatening, deceitful, prone to
+anger and treachery, and a great thief.</p>
+<p>The hair of young men usually begins to grow down upon their
+chins at fifteen years of age, and sometimes sooner. These hairs
+proceed from the superfluity of heat, the fumes whereof ascend to
+their chin, like smoke to the funnel of a chimney; and because it
+cannot find an open passage by which it may ascend higher, it vents
+itself forth in the hairs which are called the beard. There are
+very few, or almost no women at all, that have hairs on their
+cheeks; and the reason is, that those humours which
+<!-- Page 497 --><a name='Page_497' id="Page_497"></a> cause hair
+to grow on the cheeks of a man are by a woman evacuated in the
+monthly courses, which they have more or less, according to the
+heat or coldness of their constitution, and the age and motion of
+the moon, of which we have spoken at large in the first part of
+this book. Yet sometimes women of a hot constitution have hair to
+be seen on their cheeks, but more commonly on their lips, or near
+their mouths, where the heat most aboundeth. And where this
+happens, such women are much addicted to the company of men, and of
+a strong and manly constitution. A woman who hath little hair on
+her cheeks, or about her mouth and lips, is of a good complexion,
+weak constitution, shamefaced, mild and obedient, whereas a woman
+of a more hot constitution is quite otherwise. But in a man, a
+beard well composed and thick of hair, signifies a man of good
+nature, honest, loving, sociable and full of humanity; on the
+contrary, he that hath but a little beard, is for the most part
+proud, pining, peevish and unsociable. They who have no beards,
+have always shrill and a strange kind of squeaking voices, and are
+of a weak constitution, which is apparent in the case of eunuchs,
+who, after they are deprived of their virility are transformed from
+the nature of men into the condition of women.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 498 --><a name='Page_498' id="Page_498"></a> Great and
+thick ears are a certain sign of a foolish person, or a bad memory
+and worse understanding. But small and thin ears show a person to
+be of a good wit, grave, sweet, thrifty, modest, resolute, of a
+good memory, and one willing to serve his friend. He whose ears are
+longer than ordinary, is thereby signified to be a bold man,
+uncivil, vain, foolish, serviceable to another more than to
+himself, and a man of small industry, but of a great stomach.</p>
+<p>A face apt to sweat on every motion, shows a person to be of a
+very hot constitution, vain and luxurious, of a good stomach, but
+of a bad understanding, and a worse conversation. A very fleshy
+face shows the person to be of a fearful disposition, but a merry
+heart, and withal bountiful and discreet, easy to be entreated, and
+apt to believe everything. A lean face, by the rules of
+physiognomy, denotes the person to be of a good understanding, but
+somewhat capricious and disdainful in his conversation. A little
+and round face, shows a person to be simple, very fearful, of a bad
+memory, and a clownish disposition. A plump face, full of
+carbuncles, shows a man to be a great drinker of wine, vain,
+daring, and soon intoxicated. A face red or high coloured, shows a
+man much inclined to choler, and one that will be soon angry and
+not easily pacified. A long and lean <!-- Page 499 --><a name=
+'Page_499' id="Page_499"></a> face, shows a man to be both bold,
+injurious and deceitful. A face every way of a due proportion,
+denotes an ingenious person, one fit for anything and very much
+inclined to what is good. One of a broad, full, fat face is, by the
+rules of physiognomy, of a dull, lumpish, heavy constitution, and
+that for one virtue has three vices. A plain, flat face, without
+any rising shows a person to be very wise, loving and courtly in
+his carriage, faithful to his friend and patient in adversity. A
+face sinking down a little, with crosses in it, inclining to
+leanness, denotes a person to be very laborious, but envious,
+deceitful, false, quarrelsome, vain and silly, and of a dull and
+clownish behaviour. A face of a handsome proportion, and more
+inclining to fat than lean, shows a person just in his actions,
+true to his word, civil, and respectful in his behaviour, of an
+indifferent understanding, and of an extraordinary memory. A
+crooked face, long and lean, denotes a man endued with as bad
+qualities as the face is with ill features. A face broad about the
+brows, and sharper and less as it grows towards the chin, shows a
+man simple and foolish in managing his affairs, vain in his
+discourse, envious in his nature, deceitful, quarrelsome and rude
+in his conversation. A face well-coloured, full of good features,
+and of an exact symmetry, and a just proportion in all
+<!-- Page 500 --><a name='Page_500' id="Page_500"></a> its parts,
+and which is delightful to look upon, is commonly the index of a
+fairer mind and shows a person to be well disposed; but withal
+declares that virtue is not so impregnably seated there, but that
+by strong temptations (especially by the fair sex) it may be
+supplanted and overcome by vice. A pale complexion, shows the
+person not only to be fickle, but very malicious, treacherous,
+false, proud, presumptuous, and extremely unfaithful. A face
+well-coloured, shows the person to be of a praiseworthy disposition
+and a sound complexion, easy of belief, and respectful to his
+friend, ready to do a courtesy, and very easy to be drawn to
+anything.</p>
+<p>A great head, and round, withal, denotes the person to be
+secret, and of great application in carrying on business, and also
+ingenious and of a large imaginative faculty and invention; and
+likewise laborious, constant and honest. The head whose gullet
+stands forth and inclines towards the earth, signifies a person
+thrifty, wise, peaceable, secret, of a retired temper, and constant
+in the management of his affairs. A long head and face, and great,
+withal, denotes a vain, foolish, idle and weak person, credulous
+and very envious. To have one's head always shaking and moving from
+side to side, denotes a shallow, weak person, unstable in all his
+actions, given to lying, a great deceiver, a great talker,
+<!-- Page 501 --><a name='Page_501' id="Page_501"></a> and prodigal
+in all his fortunes. A big head and broad face, shows a man to be
+very courageous, a great hunter after women, very suspicious, bold
+and shameless. He who hath a very big head, but not so
+proportionate as it ought to be to the body, if he hath a short
+neck and crooked gullet is generally a man of apprehension, wise,
+secret, ingenious, of sound judgment, faithful, true and courteous
+to all. He who hath a little head, and long, slender throat, is for
+the most part a man very weak, yet apt to learn, but unfortunate in
+his actions. And so much shall suffice with respect to judgment
+from the head and face.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_III' id="PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_III"></a>
+<!-- Page 502 --><a name='Page_502' id="Page_502"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Judgments drawn from several other parts of Man's
+Body</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>In the body of man the head and feet are the principal parts,
+being the index which heaven has laid open to every one's view to
+make a judgment therefrom, therefore I have been the larger in my
+judgment from the several parts thereof. But as to the other parts,
+I shall be much more brief as not being so obvious to the eyes of
+men; yet I would proceed in order.</p>
+<p>The throat, if it be white, whether it be fat or lean, shows a
+man to be vain-glorious, timorous, wanton, and very much subject to
+choler. If the throat be so thin and lean that the veins appear, it
+shows a man to be weak, slow, and a dull and heavy
+constitution.</p>
+<p>A long neck shows one to have a long and slender foot, and that
+the person is stiff and inflexible either to good or evil. A short
+neck shows one to be witty and ingenious, but deceitful and
+inconstant, well skilled in the use of arms, and yet cares not to
+use them, but is a great lover of peace and quietness.</p>
+<p>A lean shoulder bone, signifies a man to be weak, timorous,
+peaceful, not laborious, and <!-- Page 503 --><a name='Page_503'
+id="Page_503"></a> yet fit for any employment. He whose shoulder
+bones are of a great bigness is commonly, by the rule of
+physiognomy, a strong man, faithful but unfortunate; somewhat dull
+of understanding, very laborious, a great eater and drinker, and
+one equally contented in all conditions. He whose shoulder bone
+seems to be smooth, is by the rule of nature, modest in his look,
+and temperate in all his actions, both at bed and board. He whose
+shoulder bone bends, and is crooked inwardly, is commonly a dull
+person and deceitful.</p>
+<p>Long arms, hanging down and touching the knees, though such arms
+are rarely seen, denotes a man liberal, but withal vain-glorious,
+proud and inconstant. He whose arms are very short in respect to
+the stature of his body, is thereby signified to be a man of high
+and gallant spirit, of a graceful temper, bold and warlike. He
+whose arms are full of bones, sinews and flesh, is a great desirer
+of novelties and beauties, and one that is very credulous and apt
+to believe anything. He whose arms are very hairy, whether they be
+lean or fat, is for the most part a luxurious person, weak in body
+and mind, very suspicious and malicious withal. He whose arms have
+no hair on them at all, is of a weak judgment, very angry, vain,
+wanton, credulous, easily deceived himself, yet a great deceiver of
+<!-- Page 504 --><a name='Page_504' id="Page_504"></a> others, no
+fighter, and very apt to betray his dearest friends.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_IV' id="PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_IV"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Palmistry, showing the various Judgments drawn from the
+Hand</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Being engaged in this fourth part to show what judgment may be
+drawn, according to physiognomy, from the several parts of the
+body, and coming in order to speak of the hands, it has put me
+under the necessity of saying something about palmistry, which is a
+judgment made of the conditions, inclinations, and fortunes of men
+and women, from the various lines and characters nature has
+imprinted in their hands, which are almost as serious as the hands
+that have them.</p>
+<p>The reader should remember that one of the lines of the hand,
+and which indeed is reckoned the principal, is called the line of
+life; this line encloses the thumb, separating it from the hollow
+of the hand. The next to it, which is called the natural line,
+takes its beginning from the rising of the forefinger, near the
+line of life, and reaches to the table line, and generally makes a
+triangle. The table line, commonly <!-- Page 505 --><a name=
+'Page_505' id="Page_505"></a> called the line of fortune, begins
+under the little finger, and ends near the middle finger. The
+girdle of Venus, which is another line so called begins near the
+first joint of the little finger, and ends between the fore-finger
+and the middle finger. The line of death is that which plainly
+appears in a counter line to that of life, and is called the sister
+line, ending usually as the other ends; for when the line of life
+is ended, death comes, and it can go no farther. There are lines in
+the fleshy parts, as in the ball of the thumb, which is called the
+mount of Venus; under each of the fingers are also mounts, which
+are governed by several planets; and the hollow of the hand is
+called the plain of Mars.</p>
+<p>I proceed to give judgment from these several lines:&mdash;In
+palmistry, the left hand is chiefly to be regarded, because therein
+the lines are most visible, and have the strictest communication
+with the heart and brain. In the next place, observe the line of
+life, and if it be fair, extended to its full length, and not
+broken with an intermixture of cross lines, it shows long life and
+health, and it is the same if a double line appears, as there
+sometimes does. When the stars appear in this line, it is a
+signification of great losses and calamities; if on it there be the
+figures of two O's or a Q, it threatens the person with blindness;
+if it wraps itself about <!-- Page 506 --><a name='Page_506' id=
+"Page_506"></a> the table line, then does it promise wealth and
+honour to be attended by prudence and industry. If the line be cut
+and jagged at the upper end, it denotes much sickness; if this line
+be cut by any lines coming from the mount of Venus, it declares the
+person to be unfortunate in love and business also, and threatens
+him with sudden death. A cross below the line of life and the table
+line, shows the person to be very liberal and charitable, one of a
+noble spirit. Let us now see the signification of the table
+line.</p>
+<p>The table line, when broad and of a lively colour, shows a
+healthful constitution, and a quiet contented mind, and a
+courageous spirit, but if it has crosses towards the little finger,
+it threatens the party with much affliction by sickness. If the
+line be double, or divided into three parts at any of the
+extremities, it shows the person to be of a generous temper, and of
+a good fortune to support it; but if this line be forked at the
+end, it threatens the person shall suffer by jealousies and doubts,
+and loss of riches gotten by deceit. If three points such as these
+<sup>*</sup><sub>*</sub><sup>*</sup> are found in it, they denote
+the person prudent and liberal, a lover of learning, and of a good
+temper, if it spreads towards the fore and middle finger and ends
+blunt, it denotes preferment. Let us now see what is signified by
+the middle line. This line has in it oftentimes (for
+<!-- Page 507 --><a name='Page_507' id="Page_507"></a> there is
+scarce a hand in which it varies not) divers very significant
+characters. Many small lines between this and the table line
+threaten <!-- Page 508 --><a name='Page_508' id="Page_508"></a> the
+party with sickness, and also gives him hopes of recovery. A half
+cross branching into this line, declares the person shall have
+honour, riches, and good success in all his undertakings. A half
+moon denotes cold and watery distempers; but a sun or star upon
+this line, denotes prosperity and riches; this line, double in a
+woman, shows she will have several husbands, but no children.</p>
+<center><img src='img/bw507.png' alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<p>The line of Venus, if it happens to be cut or divided near the
+forefinger, threatens ruin to the party, and that it shall befall
+him by means of lascivious women and bad company. Two crosses upon
+the line, one being on the forefinger and the other bending towards
+the little finger, show the party to be weak, and inclined to
+modesty and virtue, indeed it generally denotes modesty in women;
+and therefore those who desire such, usually choose them by this
+standard.</p>
+<p>The liver line, if it be straight and crossed by other lines,
+shows the person to be of a sound judgment, and a piercing
+understanding, but if it be winding, crooked and bending outward,
+it draws deceit and flattery, and the party is not to be trusted.
+If it makes a triangle or quadrangle, it shows the person to be of
+a noble descent, and ambitious of honour and promotion. If it
+happens that this line and the middle <!-- Page 509 --><a name=
+'Page_509' id="Page_509"></a> line begin near each other, it
+denotes a person to be weak in his judgment, if a man; but if a
+woman, in danger by hard labour.</p>
+<p>The plain of Mars being in the hollow of the hand, most of the
+lines pass through it, which renders it very significant. This
+plain being crooked and distorted, threatens the party to fall by
+his enemies. When the lines beginning at the wrist are long within
+the plain, reaching to the brawn of the hand, that shows the person
+to be much given to quarrelling, often in broils and of a hot and
+fiery spirit, by which he suffers much damage. If deep and long
+crosses be in the middle of the plain, it shows the party shall
+obtain honour by martial exploits; but if it be a woman, she shall
+have several husbands and easy labour with her children.</p>
+<p>The line of Death is fatal, when crosses or broken lines appear
+in it; for they threaten the person with sickness and a short life.
+A clouded moon appearing therein, threatens a child-bed woman with
+death. A bloody spot in the line, denotes a violent death. A star
+like a comet, threatens ruin by war, and death by pestilence. But
+if a bright sun appears therein, it promises long life and
+prosperity.</p>
+<p>As for the lines of the wrist being fair, they denote good
+fortune; but if crossed and broken, the contrary.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_V' id="PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_V"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 510 --><a name='Page_510' id="Page_510"></a> CHAPTER
+V</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Judgments according to Physiognomy, drawn from the several
+parts of the Body, from the Hands to the Feet</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>A large and full breast, shows a man valiant and courageous, but
+withal proud and hard to deal with, quickly angry, and very
+apprehensive of an injury; he whose breast is narrow, and which
+riseth a little in the middle of it, is, by the best rule of
+physiognomy, of a clear spirit, of a great understanding, good in
+counsel, very faithful, clean both in mind and body, yet as an
+enemy to this, he is soon angry, and inclined long to keep it. He
+whose breast is somewhat hairy, is very luxurious, and serviceable
+to another. He who hath no hair upon his breast, is a man weak by
+nature, of a slender capacity and very timorous, but of a laudable
+life and conversation, inclined to peace, and much retired to
+himself.</p>
+<p>The back of the chin bone, if the flesh be anything hairy and
+lean, and higher than any other part that is behind, signifies a
+man shameless, beastly and withal malicious. He whose back is
+large, big and fat, is thereby denoted to be a strong and stout
+man, but of a heavy disposition, vain, slow and full of deceit.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 511 --><a name='Page_511' id="Page_511"></a> He or she
+whose belly is soft over all the body, is weak, lustful, and
+fearful upon little or no occasion, of a good understanding, and an
+excellent invention, but little eaters, faithful, but of various
+fortune, and meet with more adversity than prosperity. He whose
+flesh is rough and hard, is a man of strong constitution and very
+bold, but vain, proud and of a cruel temper. A person whose skin is
+smooth, fat and white, is a person, curious, vain-glorious,
+timorous, shame-faced, malicious, false, and too wise to believe
+all he hears.</p>
+<p>A thigh, full of strong, bristly hair, and the hair inclined to
+curl, signifies one lustful, licentious, and fit for copulation.
+Thighs with but little hair, and those soft and slender, show the
+person to be reasonably chaste, and one that has no great desire to
+coition, and who will have but few children.</p>
+<p>The legs of both men and women have a fleshy substance behind,
+which are called calves, which nature hath given them (as in our
+book of living creatures we have observed), in lieu of those long
+tails which other creatures have pendant behind. Now a great calf,
+and he whose legs are of great bone, and hair withal, denotes the
+person to be strong, bold, secure, dull in understanding and slow
+in business, inclined to procreation, and for the most part
+<!-- Page 512 --><a name='Page_512' id="Page_512"></a> fortunate in
+his undertakings. Little legs, and but little hair on them, show
+the person to be weak, fearful, of a quick understanding, and
+neither luxurious at bed nor board. He whose legs do much abound
+with hair, shows he has great store in another place, and that he
+is lustful and luxurious, strong, but unstable in his resolution,
+and abounding with ill humours.</p>
+<p>The feet of either men or women, if broad and thick with flesh,
+and long in figure, especially if the skin feels hard, they are by
+nature of a strong constitution, and gross nutriment, but of weak
+intellect, which renders the understanding vain. But feet that are
+thin and lean, and of a soft skin, show the person to be but weak
+of body, but of a strong understanding and an excellent wit.</p>
+<p>The soles of the feet do administer plain and evident signs,
+whereby the disposition and constitution of men and women may be
+known, as do the palms of their hands, as being full of lines, by
+which lines all the fortunes and misfortunes of men and women may
+be known, and their manners and inclinations made plainly to
+appear. But this in general we may take notice, as that many long
+lines and strokes do presage great affliction, and a very
+troublesome life, attended with much grief and toil, care, poverty,
+and misery; but short lines, if they <!-- Page 513 --><a name=
+'Page_513' id="Page_513"></a> are thick and full of cross lines,
+are yet worse in every degree. Those, the skin of whose soles is
+very thick and gross, are, for the most part, able, strong and
+venturous. Whereas, on the contrary, those the skin of whose soles
+of their feet is thin, are generally weak and timorous.</p>
+<p>I shall now, before I conclude (having given an account of what
+judgments may be made by observing the several parts of the body,
+from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet), give an
+account of what judgments may be drawn by the rule of physiognomy
+from things extraneous which are found upon many, and which indeed
+to them are parts of the body, but are so far from being necessary
+parts that they are the deformity and burden of it, and speak of
+the habits of the body, as they distinguish persons.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><i>Of Crooked and Deformed Persons</i>.</h3>
+<p>A crooked breast and shoulder, or the exuberance of flesh in the
+body either of man or woman, signifies the person to be extremely
+parsimonious and ingenious, and of a great understanding, but very
+covetous and scraping after the things of the world, attended also
+with a very bad memory, being also very deceitful and malicious;
+they are seldom in <!-- Page 514 --><a name='Page_514' id=
+"Page_514"></a> a medium, but either virtuous or extremely vicious.
+But if the person deformed hath an excrescence on his breast
+instead of on the back, he is for the most part of a double heart,
+and very mischievous.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><i>Of the divers Manners of going, and particular Posture both
+of Men and Women</i>.</h3>
+<p>He or she that goes slowly, making great steps as they go, are
+generally persons of bad memory, and dull of apprehension, given to
+loitering, and not apt to believe what is told them. He who goes
+apace, and makes short steps, is most successful in all his
+undertakings, swift in his imagination, and humble in the
+disposition of his affairs. He who makes wide and uneven steps, and
+sidelong withal, is one of a greedy, sordid nature, subtle,
+malicious, and willing to do evil.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><i>Of the Gait or Motion in Men and Women</i>.</h3>
+<p>Every man hath a certain gait or motion, and so in like manner
+hath every woman; for a man to be shaking his head, or using any
+light motion with his hands or feet, whether he stands or sits, or
+speaks, is always accompanied with an extravagant motion,
+unnecessary, superfluous and unhandsome. Such a man, by the rule of
+physiognomy is vain, unwise, unchaste, <!-- Page 515 --><a name=
+'Page_515' id="Page_515"></a> a detractor, unstable and unfaithful.
+He or she whose motion is not much when discoursing with any one,
+is for the most part wise and well bred, and fit for any
+employment, ingenious and apprehensive, frugal, faithful and
+industrious in business. He whose posture is forwards and
+backwards, or, as it were, whisking up and down, mimical, is
+thereby denoted to be a vain, silly person, of a heavy and dull
+wit, and very malicious. He whose motion is lame and limping, or
+otherwise imperfect, or that counterfeits an imperfection is
+denoted to be envious, malicious, false and detracting.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><i>Judgment drawn from the Stature of Man</i>.</h3>
+<p>Physiognomy draws several judgments also from the stature of
+man, which take as followeth; if a man be upright and straight,
+inclined rather to leanness than fat, it shows him to be bold,
+cruel, proud, clamorous, hard to please, and harder to be
+reconciled when displeased, very frugal, deceitful, and in many
+things malicious. To be of tall stature and corpulent with it,
+denotes him to be not only handsome but valiant also, but of no
+extraordinary understanding, and which is worst of all, ungrateful
+and trepanning. He who is extremely tall and very lean and thin is
+a projecting man, that designs no good to himself, and suspects
+every <!-- Page 516 --><a name='Page_516' id="Page_516"></a> one to
+be as bad as himself, importunate to obtain what he desires, and
+extremely wedded to his own humour. He who is thick and short, is
+vain, envious, suspicious, and very shallow of apprehension, easy
+of belief, but very long before he will forget an injury. He who is
+lean and short but upright withal, is, by the rules of physiognomy,
+wise and ingenious, bold and confident, and of a good
+understanding, but of a deceitful heart. He who stoops as he goes,
+not so much by age as custom, is very laborious, a retainer of
+secrets, but very incredulous and not easy to believe every vain
+report he hears. He that goes with his belly stretching forth, is
+sociable, merry, and easy to be persuaded.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_VI' id="PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_VI"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Power of the Celestial Bodies over Men and
+Women</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Having spoken thus largely of Physiognomy, and the judgment
+given thereby concerning the dispositions and inclinations of men
+and women, it will be convenient here to show how all these things
+come to pass; and how it is that the secret inclinations and future
+fate of men and women may be known from the consideration
+<!-- Page 517 --><a name='Page_517' id="Page_517"></a> of the
+several parts of the bodies. They arise from the power and dominion
+of superior powers to understand the twelve signs of the Zodiac,
+whose signs, characters and significations are as
+follows:&mdash;</p>
+<center><img src='img/bw517.png' alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<p><i>Aries</i>, the Ram, which governs the head and face.</p>
+<p><i>Taurus</i>, the Bull, which governs the neck.</p>
+<p><i>Gemini</i>, the Twins, which governs the hands and arms.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 518 --><a name='Page_518' id="Page_518"></a>
+<i>Cancer</i>, the Crab, governs the breast and stomach.</p>
+<p><i>Leo</i>, the Lion, governs the back and heart</p>
+<p><i>Virgo</i>, the Virgin, governs the belly and bowels.</p>
+<p><i>Libra</i>, the Balance, governs the veins and loins.</p>
+<p><i>Scorpio</i>, the Scorpion, governs the secret parts.</p>
+<p><i>Sagittary</i>, the Centaur, governs the thighs.</p>
+<p><i>Capricorn</i>, the Goat, governs the knees.</p>
+<p><i>Aquarius</i>, the Water-Bearer, governs the legs and
+ankles.</p>
+<p><i>Pisces</i>, the Fish, governs the feet.</p>
+<p>It is here furthermore necessary to let the reader know, that
+the ancients have divided the celestial sphere into twelve parts,
+according to the number of these signs, which are termed houses; as
+in the first house, Aries, in the second Taurus, in the third
+Gemini, etc. And besides their assigning the twelve signs of the
+twelve houses, they allot to each house its proper business.</p>
+<p>To the first house they give the signification of life.</p>
+<p>The second house has the signification of wealth, substances, or
+riches.</p>
+<p>The third is the mansion of brethren.</p>
+<p>The fourth, the house of parentage.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 519 --><a name='Page_519' id="Page_519"></a> The fifth
+is the house of children.</p>
+<p>The sixth is the house of sickness or disease.</p>
+<p>The seventh is the house of wedlock, and also of enemies,
+because oftentimes a wife or husband proves the worst enemy.</p>
+<p>The eighth is the house of death.</p>
+<p>The ninth is the house of religion.</p>
+<p>The tenth is the signification of honours.</p>
+<p>The eleventh of friendship.</p>
+<p>The twelfth is the house of affliction and woe.</p>
+<p>Now, astrologically speaking, a house is a certain place in the
+heaven or firmament, divided by certain degrees, through which the
+planets have their motion, and in which they have their residence
+and are situated. And these houses are divided by thirty degrees,
+for every sign has so many degrees. And these signs or houses are
+called the houses of such and such planets as make their residence
+therein, and are such as delight in them, and as they are deposited
+in such and such houses are said to be either dignified or
+debilitated. For though the planets in their several revolutions go
+through all the houses, yet there are some houses which they are
+more properly said to delight in. As for instance, Aries and
+Scorpio are the houses of Mars; Taurus and Libra of Venus; Gemini
+and Virgo of Mercury; Sagittarius <!-- Page 520 --><a name=
+'Page_520' id="Page_520"></a> and Pisces are the houses of Jupiter;
+Capricorn and Aquarius are the houses of Saturn; Leo is the house
+of the Sun; and Cancer is the house of the Moon.</p>
+<p>Now to sum up the whole, and show how this concerns Physiognomy,
+is this:&mdash;as the body of man, as we have shown, is not only
+governed by the signs and planets, but every part is appropriated
+to one or another of them, so according to the particular influence
+of each sign and planet, so governing is the disposition,
+inclination, and nature of the person governed. For such and such
+tokens and marks do show a person to be born under such and such a
+planet; so according to the nature, power and influences of the
+planets, is the judgment to be made of that person. By which the
+reader may see that the judgments drawn from physiognomy are
+grounded upon a certain verity.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Aristotle the Famous
+Philosopher, by Anonymous
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+</pre>
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+</body>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Aristotle the Famous
+Philosopher, by Anonymous
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher
+       Containing his Complete Masterpiece and Family Physician; his
+       Experienced Midwife, his Book of Problems and his Remarks on
+       Physiognomy
+
+
+Author: Anonymous
+
+Release Date: June 24, 2004 [EBook #12699]
+Last Updated: February 18, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF ARISTOTLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE WORKS OF
+
+ARISTOTLE
+
+THE FAMOUS PHILOSOPHER
+
+Containing his Complete Masterpiece and
+Family Physician; his Experienced
+Midwife, his Book of Problems
+and his Remarks on
+Physiognomy
+
+COMPLETE EDITION, WITH ENGRAVINGS
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE MIDWIFE'S VADE-MECUM
+
+Containing
+
+PARTICULAR DIRECTIONS FOR MIDWIVES, NURSES, ETC.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SOME GENUINE RECIPES FOR CAUSING SPEEDY DELIVERY.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+APPROVED DIRECTIONS FOR NURSES.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: Medical Knowledge]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PART I.--BOOK I
+
+THE MASTERPIECE
+
+     _On marriage and at what age young men and virgins are capable of
+     it: and why so much desire it. Also, how long men and women are
+     capable of it._
+
+
+There are very few, except some professional debauchees, who will not
+readily agree that "Marriage is honourable to all," being ordained by
+Heaven in Paradise; and without which no man or woman can be in a
+capacity, honestly, to yield obedience to the first law of the creation,
+"Increase and Multiply." And since it is natural in young people to
+desire the embraces, proper to the marriage bed, it behoves parents to
+look after their children, and when they find them inclinable to
+marriage, not violently to restrain their inclinations (which, instead
+of allaying them, makes them but the more impetuous) but rather provide
+such suitable matches for them, as may make their lives comfortable;
+lest the crossing of those inclinations should precipitate them to
+commit those follies that may bring an indelible stain upon their
+families. The inclination of maids to marriage may be known by many
+symptoms; for when they arrive at puberty, which is about the fourteenth
+or fifteenth year of their age, then their natural purgations begin to
+flow; and the blood, which is no longer to augment their bodies,
+abounding, stirs up their minds to venery. External causes may also
+incline them to it; for their spirits being brisk and inflamed, when
+they arrive at that age, if they eat hard salt things and spices, the
+body becomes more and more heated, whereby the desire to veneral
+embraces is very great, and sometimes almost insuperable. And the use of
+this so much desired enjoyment being denied to virgins, many times is
+followed by dismal consequences; such as the green weesel colonet,
+short-breathing, trembling of the heart, etc. But when they are married
+and their veneral desires satisfied by the enjoyment of their husbands,
+these distempers vanish, and they become more gay and lively than
+before. Also, their eager staring at men, and affecting their company,
+shows that nature pushes them upon coition; and their parents
+neglecting to provide them with husbands, they break through modesty and
+satisfy themselves in unlawful embraces. It is the same with brisk
+widows, who cannot be satisfied without that benevolence to which they
+were accustomed when they had their husbands.
+
+At the age of 14, the menses, in virgins, begin to flow; then they are
+capable of conceiving, and continue generally until 44, when they cease
+bearing, unless their bodies are strong and healthful, which sometimes
+enables them to bear at 65. But many times the menses proceed from some
+violence done to nature, or some morbific matter, which often proves
+fatal. And, hence, men who are desirous of issue ought to marry a woman
+within the age aforesaid, or blame themselves if they meet with
+disappointment; though, if an old man, if not worn out with diseases and
+incontinency, marry a brisk, lively maiden, there is hope of him having
+children to 70 or 80 years.
+
+Hippocrates says, that a youth of 15, or between that and 17, having
+much vital strength, is capable of begetting children; and also that the
+force of the procreating matter increases till 45, 50, and 55, and then
+begins to flag; the seed, by degrees, becoming unfruitful, the natural
+spirits being extinguished, and the humours dried up. Thus, in general,
+but as to individuals, it often falls out otherwise. Nay, it is
+reported by a credible author, that in Swedland, a man was married at
+100 years of age to a girl of 30 years, and had many children by her;
+but his countenance was so fresh, that those who knew him not, imagined
+him not to exceed 50. And in Campania, where the air is clear and
+temperate, men of 80 marry young virgins, and have children by them;
+which shows that age in them does not hinder procreation, unless they be
+exhausted in their youths and their yards be shrivelled up.
+
+If any would know why a woman is sooner barren than a man, they may be
+assured that the natural heat, which is the cause of generation, is more
+predominant in the man than in the woman; for since a woman is more
+moist than a man, as her monthly purgations demonstrate, as also the
+softness of her body; it is also apparent that he does not much exceed
+her in natural heat, which is the chief thing that concocts the humours
+in proper aliment, which the woman wanting grows fat; whereas a man,
+through his native heat, melts his fat by degrees and his humours are
+dissolved; and by the benefit thereof are converted into seed. And this
+may also be added, that women, generally, are not so strong as men, nor
+so wise or prudent; nor have so much reason and ingenuity in ordering
+affairs; which shows that thereby the faculties are hindered in
+operations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+     _How to beget a male or female child; and of the Embryo and perfect
+     Birth; and the fittest time for the copula._
+
+
+When a young couple are married, they naturally desire children; and
+therefore adopt the means that nature has appointed to that end. But
+notwithstanding their endeavours they must know that the success of all
+depends on the blessing of the Gods: not only so, but the sex, whether
+male or female, is from their disposal also, though it cannot be denied,
+that secondary causes have influence therein, especially two. First, the
+general humour, which is brought by the arteria praeparantes to the
+testes, in form of blood, and there elaborated into seed, by the
+seminifical faculty residing in them. Secondly, the desire of coition,
+which fires the imagination with unusual fancies, and by the sight of
+brisk, charming beauty, may soon inflame the appetite. But if nature be
+enfeebled, some meats must be eaten as will conduce to afford such
+aliment as makes the seed abound, and restores the exhaustion of nature
+that the faculties may freely operate, and remove impediments
+obstructing the procreating of children. Then, since diet alters the
+evil state of the body to a better, those subject to barrenness must eat
+such meats as are juicy and nourish well, making the body lively and
+full of sap; of which faculty are all hot moist meats. For, according to
+Galen, seed is made of pure concocted and windy superfluity of blood,
+whence we may conclude, that there is a power in many things, to
+accumulate seed, and also to augment it; and other things of force to
+cause desire, as hen eggs, pheasants, woodcocks, gnat-snappers,
+blackbirds, thrushes, young pigeons, sparrows, partridges, capons,
+almonds, pine nuts, raisins, currants, strong wines taken sparingly,
+especially those made of the grapes of Italy. But erection is chiefly
+caused by scuraum, eringoes, cresses, crysmon, parsnips, artichokes,
+turnips, asparagus, candied ginger, acorns bruised to powder and drank
+in muscadel, scallion, sea shell fish, etc. But these must have time to
+perform their operation, and must be used for a considerable time, or
+you will reap but little benefit from them. The act of coition being
+over, let the woman repose herself on her right side, with her head
+lying low, and her body declining, that by sleeping in that posture,
+the cani, on the right side of the matrix, may prove the place of
+conception; for therein is the greatest generative heat, which is the
+chief procuring cause of male children, and rarely fails the
+expectations of those that experience it, especially if they do but keep
+warm, without much motion, leaning to the right, and drinking a little
+spirit of saffron and juice of hissop in a glass of Malaga or Alicant,
+when they lie down and arise, for a week.
+
+For a female child, let the woman lie on her left side, strongly
+fancying a female in the time of procreation, drinking the decoction of
+female mercury four days from the first day of purgation; the male
+mercury having the like operation in case of a male; for this concoction
+purges the right and left side of the womb, opens the receptacles, and
+makes way for the seminary of generation. The best time to beget a
+female is, when the moon is in the wane, in Libra or Aquaries. Advicenne
+says, that when the menses are spent and the womb cleansed, which is
+commonly in five or seven days at most, if a man lie with his wife from
+the first day she is purged to the fifth, she will conceive a male; but
+from the fifth to the eighth a female; and from the eighth to the
+twelfth a male again: but after that perhaps neither distinctly, but
+both in an hermaphrodite. In a word, they that would be happy in the
+fruits of their labour, must observe to use copulation in due distance
+of time, not too often nor too seldom, for both are alike hurtful; and
+to use it immoderately weakens and wastes the spirits and spoils the
+seed. And this much for the first particular.
+
+The second is to let the reader know how the child is formed in the
+womb, what accidents it is liable to there, and how nourished and
+brought forth. There are various opinions concerning this matter;
+therefore, I shall show what the learned say about it.
+
+Man consists of an egg, which is impregnated in the testicles of the
+woman, by the more subtle parts of the man's seed; but the forming
+faculty and virtue in the seed is a divine gift, it being abundantly
+imbued with vital spirit, which gives sap and form to the embryo, so
+that all parts and bulk of the body, which is made up in a few months
+and gradually formed into the likely figure of a man, do consist in, and
+are adumbrated thereby (most sublimely expressed, Psalm cxxxix.: "I will
+praise Thee, O Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.")
+
+Physicians have remarked four different times at which a man is framed
+and perfected in the womb; the first after coition, being perfectly
+formed in the week if no flux happens, which sometimes falls out
+through the slipperiness of the head of the matrix, that slips over like
+a rosebud that opens suddenly. The second time of forming is assigned
+when nature makes manifest mutation in the conception, so that all the
+substance seems congealed, flesh and blood, and happens twelve or
+fourteen days after copulation. And though this fleshy mass abounds with
+inflamed blood, yet it remains undistinguishable, without form, and may
+be called an embryo, and compared to seed sown in the ground, which,
+through heat and moisture, grows by degrees to a perfect form in plant
+or grain. The third time assigned to make up this fabric is when the
+principal parts show themselves plain; as the heart, whence proceed the
+arteries, the brain, from which the nerves, like small threads, run
+through the whole body; and the liver, which divides the chyle from the
+blood, brought to it by the vena porta. The two first are fountains of
+life, that nourish every part of the body, in framing which the faculty
+of the womb is bruised, from the conception of the eighth day of the
+first month. The fourth, and last, about the thirtieth day, the outward
+parts are seen nicely wrought, distinguished by joints, from which time
+it is no longer an embryo, but a perfect child.
+
+Most males are perfect by the thirtieth day, but females seldom before
+the forty-second or forty-fifth day, because the heat of the womb is
+greater in producing the male than the female. And, for the same reason,
+a woman going with a male child quickens in three months, but going with
+a female, rarely under four, at which time its hair and nails come
+forth, and the child begins to stir, kick and move in the womb, and then
+the woman is troubled with a loathing for meat and a greedy longing for
+things contrary to nutriment, as coals, rubbish, chalk, etc., which
+desire often occasions abortion and miscarriage. Some women have been so
+extravagant as to long for hob nails, leather, horse-flesh, man's flesh,
+and other unnatural as well as unwholesome food, for want of which thing
+they have either miscarried or the child has continued dead in the womb
+for many days, to the imminent hazard of their lives. But I shall now
+proceed to show by what means the child is maintained in the womb, and
+what posture it there remains in.
+
+The learned Hippocrates affirms that the child, as he is placed in the
+womb, has his hands on his knees, and his head bent to his feet, so that
+he lies round together, his hands upon his knees and his face between
+them, so that each eye touches each thumb, and his nose betwixt his
+knees. And of the same opinion in this matter was Bartholinus. Columbus
+is of opinion that the figure of the child in the womb is round, the
+right arm bowed, the fingers under the ear, and about the neck, the head
+bowed so that the chin touches the breast, the left arm bowed above both
+breast and face and propped up by the bending of the right elbow; the
+legs are lifted upwards, the right so much that the thigh touches the
+belly, the knee the navel, the heel touches the left buttock, and the
+foot is turned back and covers the secrets; the left thigh touches the
+belly, and the leg lifted up to the breast.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+     _The reason why children are like their parents; and that the
+     Mother's imagination contributes thereto; and whether the man or
+     the woman is the cause of the male or female child._
+
+
+In the case of similitude, nothing is more powerful than the imagination
+of the mother; for if she fix her eyes upon any object it will so
+impress her mind, that it oftentimes so happens that the child has a
+representation thereof on some part of the body. And, if in act of
+copulation, the woman earnestly look on the man, and fix her mind on
+him, the child will resemble its father. Nay, if a woman, even in
+unlawful copulation, fix her mind upon her husband, the child will
+resemble him though he did not beget it. The same effect has imagination
+in occasioning warts, stains, mole-spots, and dartes; though indeed they
+sometimes happen through frights, or extravagant longing. Many women, in
+being with child, on seeing a hare cross the road in front of them,
+will, through the force of imagination, bring forth a child with a hairy
+lip. Some children are born with flat noses and wry mouths, great
+blubber lips and ill-shaped bodies; which must be ascribed to the
+imagination of the mother, who has cast her eyes and mind upon some
+ill-shaped creature. Therefore it behoves all women with child, if
+possible, to avoid such sights, or at least, not to regard them. But
+though the mother's imagination may contribute much to the features of
+the child, yet, in manners, wit, and propension of the mind, experience
+tells us, that children are commonly of the condition with their
+parents, and possessed of similar tempers. But the vigour or disability
+of persons in the act of copulation many times cause it to be otherwise;
+for children begotten through the heat and strength of desire, must
+needs partake more of the nature and inclination of their parents, than
+those begotten at a time when desires are weaker; and, therefore, the
+children begotten by men in their old age are generally weaker than,
+those begotten by them in their youth. As to the share which each of the
+parents has in begetting the child, we will give the opinions of the
+ancients about it.
+
+Though it is apparent that the man's seed is the chief efficient being
+of the action, motion, and generation: yet that the woman affords seed
+and effectually contributes in that point to the procreation of the
+child, is evinced by strong reasons. In the first place, seminary
+vessels had been given her in vain, and genital testicles inverted, if
+the woman wanted seminal excrescence, for nature does nothing in vain;
+and therefore we must grant, they were made for the use of seed and
+procreation, and placed in their proper parts; both the testicles and
+the receptacles of seed, whose nature is to operate and afford virtue to
+the seed. And to prove this, there needs no stronger argument, say they,
+than that if a woman do not use copulation to eject her seed, she often
+falls into strange diseases, as appears by young men and virgins. A
+second reason they urge is, that although the society of a lawful bed
+consists not altogether in these things, yet it is apparent the female
+sex are never better pleased, nor appear more blythe and jocund, than
+when they are satisfied this way; which is an inducement to believe they
+have more pleasure and titulation therein than men. For since nature
+causes much delight to accompany ejection, by the breaking forth of the
+swelling spirits and the swiftness of the nerves; in which case the
+operation on the woman's part is double, she having an enjoyment both by
+reception and ejection, by which she is more delighted in.
+
+Hence it is, they say, that the child more frequently resembles the
+mother than the father, because the mother contributes more towards it.
+And they think it may be further instanced, from the endeared affection
+they bear them; for that, besides their contributing seminal matters,
+they feed and nourish the child with the purest fountain of blood, until
+its birth. Which opinion Galen affirms, by allowing children to
+participate most of the mother; and ascribes the difference of sex to
+the different operations of the menstrual blood; but this reason of the
+likeness he refers to the power of the seed; for, as the plants receive
+more nourishment from fruitful ground, than from the industry of the
+husbandman, so the infant receives more abundance from the mother than
+the father. For the seed of both is cherished in the womb, and then
+grows to perfection, being nourished with blood. And for this reason it
+is, they say, that children, for the most part, love their mothers best,
+because they receive the most of their substance from their mother; for
+about nine months she nourishes her child in the womb with the purest
+blood; then her love towards it newly born, and its likeness, do clearly
+show that the woman affords seed, and contributes more towards making
+the child than the man.
+
+But in this all the ancients were very erroneous; for the testicles, so
+called in women, afford not only seed, but are two eggs, like those of
+fowls and other creatures; neither have they any office like those of
+men, but are indeed the ovaria, wherein the eggs are nourished by the
+sanguinary vessels disposed throughout them; and from thence one or more
+as they are fecundated by the man's seed is separated and conveyed into
+the womb by the ovaducts. The truth of this is plain, for if you boil
+them the liquor will be of the same colour, taste and consistency, with
+the taste of birds' eggs. If any object that they have no shells, that
+signifies nothing: for the eggs of fowls while they are on the ovary,
+nay, after they are fastened into the uterus, have no shell. And though
+when they are laid, they have one, yet that is no more than a defence
+with which nature has provided them against any outward injury, while
+they are hatched without the body; whereas those of women being hatched
+within the body, need no other fence than the womb, by which they are
+sufficiently secured. And this is enough, I hope, for the clearing of
+this point.
+
+As for the third thing proposed, as whence grow the kind, and whether
+the man or the woman is the cause of the male or female infant--the
+primary cause we must ascribe to God as is most justly His due, who is
+the Ruler and Disposer of all things; yet He suffers many things to
+proceed according to the rules of nature by their inbred motion,
+according to usual and natural courses, without variation; though indeed
+by favour from on high, Sarah conceived Isaac; Hannah, Samuel; and
+Elizabeth, John the Baptist; but these were all extraordinary things,
+brought to pass by a Divine power, above the course of nature. Nor have
+such instances been wanting in later days; therefore, I shall wave them,
+and proceed to speak of things natural.
+
+The ancient physicians and philosophers say that since these two
+principles out of which the body of man is made, and which renders the
+child like the parents, and by one or other of the sex, viz., seed
+common to both sexes and menstrual blood, proper to the woman only; the
+similitude, say they, must needs consist in the force of virtue of the
+male or female, so that it proves like the one or the other, according
+to the quantity afforded by either, but that the difference of sex is
+not referred to the seed, but to the menstrual blood, which is proper to
+the woman, is apparent; for, were that force altogether retained in the
+seed, the male seed being of the hottest quality, male children would
+abound and few of the female be propagated; wherefore, the sex is
+attributed to the temperament or to the active qualities, which consists
+in heat and cold and the nature of the matter under them--that is, the
+flowing of the menstruous blood. But now, the seed, say they, affords
+both force to procreate and to form the child, as well as matter for its
+generation; and in the menstruous blood there is both matter and force,
+for as the seed most helps the maternal principle, so also does the
+menstrual blood the potential seed, which is, says Galen, blood well
+concocted by the vessels which contain it. So that the blood is not only
+the matter of generating the child, but also seed, it being impossible
+that menstrual blood has both principles.
+
+The ancients also say that the seed is the stronger efficient, the
+matter of it being very little in quantity, but the potential quality of
+it is very strong; wherefore, if these principles of generation,
+according to which the sex is made were only, say they, in the menstrual
+blood, then would the children be all mostly females; as were the
+efficient force in the seed they would be all males; but since both have
+operation in menstrual blood, matter predominates in quantity and in the
+seed force and virtue. And, therefore, Galen thinks that the child
+receives its sex rather from the mother than the father, for though his
+seed contributes a little to the natural principle, yet it is more
+weakly. But for likeliness it is referred rather to the father than to
+the mother. Yet the woman's seed receiving strength from the menstrual
+blood for the space of nine months, overpowers the man's in that
+particular, for the menstrual blood rather cherishes the one than the
+other; from which it is plain the woman affords both matter to make and
+force and virtue to perfect the conception; though the female's be fit
+nutriment for the male's by reason of the thinness of it, being more
+adapted to make up conception thereby. For as of soft wax or moist clay,
+the artificer can frame what he intends, so, say they, the man's seed
+mixing with the woman's and also with the menstrual blood, helps to
+make the form and perfect part of man.
+
+But, with all imaginary deference to the wisdom of our fathers, give me
+leave to say that their ignorance of the anatomy of man's body have led
+them into the paths of error and ran them into great mistakes. For their
+hypothesis of the formation of the embryo from commixture of blood being
+wholly false, their opinion in this case must of necessity be likewise.
+I shall therefore conclude this chapter by observing that although a
+strong imagination of the mother may often determine the sex, yet the
+main agent in this case is the plastic or formative principle, according
+to those rules and laws given us by the great Creator, who makes and
+fashions it, and therein determines the sex, according to the council of
+his will.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+     _That Man's Soul is not propagated by their parents, but is infused
+     by its Creator, and can neither die nor corrupt. At what time it is
+     infused. Of its immortality and certainty of its resurrection._
+
+
+Man's soul is of so divine a nature and excellency that man himself
+cannot comprehend it, being the infused breath of the Almighty, of an
+immortal nature, and not to be comprehended but by Him that gave it. For
+Moses, relating the history of man, tells us that "God breathed into his
+nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul." Now, as for
+all other creatures, at His word they were made and had life, but the
+creature that God had set over His works was His peculiar workmanship,
+formed by Him out of the dust of the earth, and He condescended to
+breathe into his nostrils the breath of life, which seems to denote both
+care and, if we may so term it, labour, used about man more than about
+all other living creatures, he only partaking and participating of the
+blessed divine nature, bearing God's image in innocence and purity,
+whilst he stood firm; and when, by his fall, that lively image was
+defaced, yet such was the love of the Creator towards him that he found
+out a way to restore him, the only begotten son of the Eternal Father
+coming into the world to destroy the works of the devil, and to raise up
+man from that low condition to which sin and his fall had reduced him,
+to a state above that of the angels.
+
+If, therefore, man would understand the excellency of his soul, let him
+turn his eyes inwardly and look unto himself and search diligently his
+own mind, and there he shall see many admirable gifts and excellent
+ornaments, that must needs fill him with wonder and amazement; as
+reason, understanding, freedom of will, memory, etc., that clearly show
+the soul to be descended from a heavenly original, and that therefore it
+is of infinite duration and not subject to annihilation.
+
+Yet for its many operations and offices while in the body it goes under
+several denominations: for when it enlivens the body it is called the
+soul; when it gives knowledge, the judgment of the mind; and when it
+recalls things past, the memory; when it discourses and discerns,
+reason; when it contemplates, the spirit; when it is the sensitive part,
+the senses. And these are the principal offices whereby the soul
+declares its powers and performs its actions. For being seated in the
+highest parts of the body it diffuses its force into every member. It is
+not propagated from the parents, nor mixed with gross matter, but the
+infused breath of God, immediately proceeding from Him; not passing from
+one to another as was the opinion of Pythagoras, who held a belief in
+transmigration of the soul; but that the soul is given to every infant
+by infusion, is the most received and orthodox opinion. And the learned
+do likewise agree that this is done when the infant is perfected in the
+womb, which happens about the twenty-fourth day after conception;
+especially for males, who are generally born at the end of nine months;
+but in females, who are not so soon formed and perfected, through defect
+of heat, until the fiftieth day. And though this day in either case
+cannot be truly set down, yet Hippocrates has given his opinion, that it
+is so when the child is formed and begins to move, when born in due
+season. In his book of the nature of infants, he says, if it be a male
+and be perfect on the thirtieth day, and move on the seventieth, he will
+be born in the seventh month; but if he be perfectly formed on the
+thirty-fifth day, he will move on the seventieth and will be born in the
+eighth month. Again, if he be perfectly formed on the forty-fifth day,
+he will move on the ninetieth and be born in the ninth month. Now from
+these paring of days and months, it plainly appears that the day of
+forming being doubled, makes up the day of moving, and the day, three
+times reckoned, makes up the day of birth. As thus, when thirty-five
+perfects the form, if you double it, makes seventy the day of motion;
+and three times seventy amounts to two hundred and ten days; while
+allowing thirty days to a month makes seven months, and so you must
+consider the rest. But as to a female the case is different; for it is
+longer perfecting in the womb, the mother ever going longer with a girl
+than with a boy, which makes the account differ; for a female formed in
+thirty days does not move until the seventieth day, and is born in the
+seventh month; when she is formed on the fortieth day, she does not move
+till the eightieth and is born in the eighth month; but, if she be
+perfectly formed on the forty-fifth day she moves on the ninetieth, and
+the child is born in the ninth month; but if she that is formed on the
+sixtieth day, moves on the one hundred and tenth day, she will be born
+in the tenth month. I treat the more largely of love that the reader may
+know that the reasonable soul is not propagated by the parents, but is
+infused by the Almighty, when the child has its perfect form, and is
+exactly distinguished in its lineaments.
+
+Now, as the life of every other creature, as Moses shows, is in the
+blood, so the life of man consists in the soul, which although subject
+to passion, by reason of the gross composures of the body, in which it
+has a temporary confinement, yet it is immortal and cannot in itself
+corrupt or suffer change, it being a spark of the Divine Mind. And that
+every man has a peculiar soul plainly appears by the vast difference
+between the will, judgment, opinions, manners, and affections in men.
+This David observes when he says: "God hath fashioned the hearts and
+minds of men, and has given to every one his own being and a soul of its
+own nature." Hence Solomon rejoiced that God had given him a soul, and a
+body agreeable to it. It has been disputed among the learned in what
+part of the body the soul resides; some are of opinion its residence is
+in the middle of the heart, and from thence communicates itself to every
+part, which Solomon (Prov. iv. 23) seems to confirm when he says: "Keep
+thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." But
+many curious physicians, searching the works of nature in man's anatomy,
+do affirm that its chief seat is in the brain, from whence proceed the
+senses, the faculties, and actions, diffusing the operations of the soul
+through all parts of the body, whereby it is enlivened with heat and
+force to the heart, by the arteries, corodities, or sleepy arteries,
+which part upon the throat; which, if they happen to be broken or cut,
+they cause barrenness, and if stopped an apoplexy; for there must
+necessarily be ways through which the spirits, animal and vital, may
+have intercourse and convey native heat from the soul. For though the
+soul has its chief seat in one place, it operates in every part,
+exercising every member which are the soul's instruments, by which she
+discovers her power. But if it happen that any of the original parts are
+out of tune, its whole work is confused, as appears in idiots and mad
+men; though, in some of them, the soul, by a vigorous exertion of its
+power, recovers its innate strength and they become right after a long
+despondency in mind, but in others it is not recovered again in this
+life. For, as fire under ashes, or the sun obscured from our sight by
+thick clouds, afford not their native lustre, so the soul, overwhelmed
+in moist or morbid matter, is darkened and reason thereby overclouded;
+and though reason shines less in children than it does in such as are
+arrived at maturity, yet no man must imagine that the soul of an infant
+grows up with the child, for then would it again decay; but it suits
+itself to nature's weakness, and the imbecility of the body wherein it
+is placed, that it may operate the better. And as the body is more
+capable of recovering its influence, so the soul does more and more
+exert its faculties, having force and endowment at the time it enters
+the form of a child in the womb; for its substance can receive nothing
+less. And thus much to prove that the soul does not come from the
+parents, but is infused by God. I shall next prove its immortality and
+demonstrate the certainty of our resurrection.
+
+
+
+OF THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
+
+That the soul of man is a Divine ray, infused by the Sovereign Creator,
+I have already proved, and now come to show that whatever immediately
+proceeds from Him, and participates of His nature, must be as immortal
+as its original; for, though all other creatures are endowed with life
+and motion, they yet lack a reasonable soul, and from thence it is
+concluded that their life is in their blood, and that being corruptible
+they perish and are no more; but man being endowed with a reasonable
+soul and stamped with a Divine image, is of a different nature, and
+though his body is corruptible, yet his soul being of an immortal nature
+cannot perish; but at the dissolution of the body returns to God who
+gave it, either to receive reward or punishment. Now, that the body can
+sin of itself is impossible, because wanting the soul, which is the
+principle of life, it cannot act nor proceed to anything either good or
+evil; for could it do so, it might even sin in the grave. But it is
+plain that after death there is a cessation; for as death leaves us so
+judgment will find us.
+
+Now, reason having evidently demonstrated the soul's immortality, the
+Holy Scriptures do abundantly give testimony of the truth of the
+resurrection, as the reader may see by perusing the 14th and 19th
+chapters of Job and 5th of John. I shall, therefore, leave the further
+discussion of this matter to divines, whose province it is, and return
+to treat of the works of nature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+     _Of Monsters and Monstrous Births; and the several reasons thereof,
+     according to the opinions of the Ancients. Also, whether the
+     Monsters are endowed with reasonable Souls; and whether the Devils
+     can engender; is here briefly discussed._
+
+
+By the ancients, monsters are ascribed to depraved conceptions, and are
+designated as being excursions of nature, which are vicious in one of
+these four ways: either in figure, magnitude, situation, or number.
+
+In figure, when a man bears the character of a beast, as did the beast
+in Saxony. In magnitude, when one part does not equalise with another;
+as when one part is too big or too little for the other parts of the
+body. But this is so common among us that I need not produce a
+testimony.
+
+[Illustration: There was a Monster at Ravenna in Italy of this kind, in
+the year 1512.]
+
+I now proceed to explain the cause of their generation, which is either
+divine or natural. The divine cause proceeds from God's permissive will,
+suffering parents to bring forth abominations for their filthy and
+corrupt affections, which are let loose unto wickedness like brute
+beasts which have no understanding. Wherefore it was enacted among the
+ancient Romans that those who were in any way deformed, should not be
+admitted into religious houses. And St. Jerome was grieved in his time
+to see the lame and the deformed offering up spiritual sacrifices to God
+in religious houses. And Keckerman, by way of inference, excludes all
+that are ill-shapen from this presbyterian function in the church. And
+that which is of more force than all, God himself commanded Moses not to
+receive such to offer sacrifice among his people; and he also renders
+the reason Leviticus, xxii. 28, "Lest he pollute my sanctuaries."
+Because of the outward deformity, the body is often a sign of the
+pollution of the heart, as a curse laid on the child for the
+incontinency of its parents. Yet it is not always so. Let us therefore
+duly examine and search out the natural cause of their generation, which
+(according to the ancients who have dived into the secrets of nature) is
+either in the mother or in the agent, in the seed, or in the womb.
+
+The matter may be in default two ways--by defect or by excess: by
+defect, when the child has only one arm; by excess, when it has four
+hands or two heads. Some monsters are begotten by a woman's unnatural
+lying with beasts; as in the year 1603, there was a monster begotten by
+a woman's generating with a dog; which from the navel upwards had the
+perfect resemblance of its mother: but from its navel downwards it
+resembled a dog.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The agent or womb may be in fault three ways; firstly, the formative
+faculty, which may be too strong or too weak, by which is procured a
+depraved figure; secondly, to the instrument or place of conception, the
+evil confirmation or the disposition whereof will cause a monstrous
+birth; thirdly, in the imaginative power at the time of conception;
+which is of such a force that it stamps the character of the thing
+imagined on the child. Thus the children of an adulteress may be like
+her husband, though begotten by another man, which is caused through the
+force of imagination that the woman has of her own husband at the act
+of coition. And I have heard of a woman, who, at the time of conception,
+beholding the picture of a blackamoor, conceived and brought forth an
+Ethiopian. I will not trouble you with more human testimonies, but
+conclude with a stronger warrant. We read (Gen. xxx. 31) how Jacob
+having agreed with Laban to have all the spotted sheep for keeping his
+flock to augment his wages, took hazel rods and peeled white streaks on
+them, and laid them before the sheep when they came to drink, which
+coupling together there, whilst they beheld the rods, conceived and
+brought forth young.
+
+[Illustration:
+    "Where children thus are born with hairy coats
+    Heaven's wrath unto the kingdom it denotes"]
+
+Another monster representing a hairy child. It was all covered with hair
+like a beast. That which made it more frightful was, that its navel was
+in the place where its nose should stand, and its eyes placed where the
+mouth should have been, and its mouth placed in the chin. It was of the
+male kind, and was born in France, in the year 1597, at a town called
+Arles in Provence, and lived a few days, frightening all that beheld it.
+It was looked upon as a forerunner of desolations which soon after
+happened to that kingdom, in which men to each other were more like
+brutes than human creatures.
+
+There was a monster born at Nazara in the year 1530. It had four arms
+and four legs.
+
+The imagination also works on the child, after conception, of which we
+have a pregnant instance.
+
+A worthy gentlewoman in Suffolk, who being with child and passing by a
+butcher who was killing his meat, a drop of blood sprung on her face,
+whereupon she said her child would have a blemish on its face, and at
+the birth it was found marked with a red spot.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Likewise in the reign of Henry III, there was a woman delivered of a
+child having two heads and four arms, and the bodies were joined at the
+back; the heads were so placed that they looked contrary ways; each had
+two distinct arms and hands. They would both laugh, both speak, and
+both cry, and be hungry together; sometimes the one would speak and the
+other keep silence, and sometimes both speak together. They lived
+several years, but one outlived the other three years, carrying the dead
+one (for there was no parting them) till the survivor fainted with the
+burden, and more with the stench of the dead carcase.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It is certain that monstrous births often happen by means of undue
+copulation; for some there are, who, having been long absent from one
+another, and having an eager desire for enjoyment, consider not as they
+ought, to do as their circumstances demand. And if it happen that they
+come together when the woman's menses are flowing, and notwithstanding,
+proceed to the act of copulation, which is both unclean and unnatural,
+the issue of such copulation does often prove monstrous, as a just
+punishment for doing what nature forbids. And, therefore, though men
+should be ever so eager for it, yet women, knowing their own condition,
+should at such times positively refuse their company. And though such
+copulations do not always produce monstrous birth, yet the children,
+thus begotten, are generally heavy, dull, and sluggish, besides
+defective in their understandings, lacking the vivacity and loveliness
+with which children begotten in proper season are endowed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In Flanders, between Antwerp and Mechlin, in a village called Uthaton, a
+child was born which had two heads, four arms, seeming like two girls
+joined together, having two of their arms lifted up between and above
+their heads, the thighs being placed as it were across one another,
+according to the figure on p. 39. How long they lived I had no account
+of.
+
+By the figure on p. 40 you may see that though some of the members are
+wanting, yet they are supplied by other members.
+
+It remains now that I make some inquiry whether those that are born
+monsters have reasonable souls, and are capable of resurrection. And
+here both divines and physicians are of opinion that those who,
+according to the order of generations deduced from our first parents,
+proceed by mutual means from either sex, though their outward shape be
+deformed and monstrous, have notwithstanding a reasonable soul, and
+consequently their bodies are capable of resurrection, as other men's
+and women's are; but those monsters that are not begotten by men, but
+are the product of women's unnatural lusts in copulating with other
+creatures shall perish as the brute beasts by whom they were begotten,
+not having a reasonable soul nor any breath of the Almighty infused into
+them; and such can never be capable of resurrection. And the same is
+also true of imperfect and abortive births.
+
+Some are of opinion that monsters may be engendered by some infernal
+spirit. Of this mind was Adigus Fariur, speaking of a deformed monster
+born at Craconia; and Hieronimus Cardamnus wrote of a maid that was got
+with child by the devil, she thinking it had been a fair young man. The
+like also is recorded by Vicentius, of the prophet Merlin, that he was
+begotten by an evil spirit. But what a repugnance it would be both to
+religion and nature, if the devils could beget men; when we are taught
+to believe that not any was ever begotten without human seed, except the
+Son of God. The devil then being a spirit and having no corporeal
+substance, has therefore no seed of generation; to say that he can use
+the act of generation effectually is to affirm that he can make
+something out of nothing, and consequently to affirm the devil to be
+God, for creation belongs to God only. Again, if the devil could assume
+to himself a human body and enliven the faculties of it, and cause it to
+generate, as some affirm he can, yet this body must bear the image of
+the devil. And it borders on blasphemy to think that God should so far
+give leave to the devil as out of God's image to raise his own
+diabolical offspring. In the school of Nature we are taught the
+contrary, viz., that like begets like; therefore, of a devil cannot man
+be born. Yet, it is not denied, but the devils, transforming themselves
+into human shapes, may abuse both men and women, and, with wicked
+people, use carnal copulation; but that any unnatural conjunction can
+bring forth a human creature is contrary to nature and all religion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+     _Of the happy state of matrimony, as it is appointed by God, the
+     true felicity that rebounds thereby to either sex; and to what end
+     it is ordained._
+
+
+Without doubt the uniting of hearts in holy wedlock is of all conditions
+the happiest; for then a man has a second self to whom he can reveal his
+thoughts, as well as a sweet companion in his labours, toils, trials,
+and difficulties. He has one in whose breast, as in a safe cabinet, he
+can confide his inmost secrets, especially where reciprocal love and
+inviolable faith is centred; for there no care, fear, jealousy, mistrust
+or hatred can ever interpose. For base is the man that hateth his own
+flesh! And truly a wife, if rightly considered, as Adam well observed,
+is or ought to be esteemed of every honest man as "Bone of his bone and
+flesh of his flesh," etc. Nor was it the least care of the Almighty to
+ordain so near a union, and that for two causes; the first, for the
+increase of posterity; the second, to restrain man's wandering desires
+and affections; nay, that they might be yet happier, when God has joined
+them together, he "blessed them," as in Gen. ii. An ancient writer,
+contemplating this happy state, says, in the economy of Xenophon, "that
+the marriage bed is not only the most pleasant, but also profitable
+course of life, that may be entered on for the preservation and increase
+of posterity. Wherefore, since marriage is the most safe, and delightful
+situation of man he does in no ways provide amiss for his own
+tranquillity who enters into it, especially when he comes to maturity of
+years."
+
+There are many abuses in marriage contrary to what is ordained, the
+which in the ensuing chapter I shall expose to view. But to proceed:
+Seeing our blessed Saviour and His holy apostles detested unlawful
+lusts, and pronounced those to be excluded the kingdom of heaven that
+polluted themselves with adultery and whoring, I cannot conceive what
+face people have to colour their impieties, who hating matrimony, make
+it their study how they may live licentiously: for, in so doing, they
+take in themselves torment, enmity, disquietude, rather than certain
+pleasure, not to mention the hazard of their immortal soul; and certain
+it is that mercenary love (or as the wise man called it harlot-smiles)
+cannot be true and sincere and therefore not pleasant, but rather a net
+laid to betray such as trust in them with all mischief, as Solomon
+observes of the young man void of understanding, who turned aside to the
+harlot's house, "as a bird to the snare of the fowler, or as an ox to
+the slaughter, till a dart was struck through his liver." Nor in this
+case can they have children, those endearing pledges of conjugal
+affection; or if they have, they will rather redound to their shame than
+comfort, bearing the odious brand of bastards. Harlots, likewise are
+like swallows, flying in the summer season of prosperity; but the black
+stormy weather of adversity coming, they take wing and fly into other
+regions--that is, seek other lovers; but a virtuous, chaste wife, fixing
+her entire love upon her husband, and submitting to him as her head and
+king, by whose directions she ought to steer in all lawful courses,
+will, like a faithful companion, share patiently with him in all
+adversities, run with cheerfulness through all difficulties and dangers,
+though ever so hazardous, to preserve and assist him, in poverty,
+sickness, or whatsoever misfortunes befall him, acting according to her
+duty in all things; but a proud, imperious harlot will do no more than
+she lists, in the sunshine of prosperity; and like a horse-leech, ever
+craving, and never satisfied; still seeming displeased, if all her
+extravagant cravings be not answered; not regarding the ruin and misery
+she brings on him by those means, though she seems to doat upon him,
+used to confirming her hypocrisy with crocodile tears, vows and
+swoonings, when her cully has to depart awhile, or seems but to deny
+immediate desires; yet this lasts no longer than she can gratify her
+appetite, and prey upon his fortune.
+
+Now, on the contrary, a loving, chaste and even-tempered wife, seeks
+what she may to prevent such dangers, and in every condition does all
+she can to make him easy. And, in a word, as there is no content in the
+embraces of a harlot, so there is no greater joy in the reciprocal
+affection and endearing embraces of a loving, obedient, and chaste wife.
+Nor is that the principal end for which matrimony was ordained, but that
+the man might follow the law of his creation by increasing his kind and
+replenishing the earth; for this was the injunction laid upon him in
+Paradise, before his fall. To conclude, a virtuous wife is a crown and
+ornament to her husband, and her price is above all rubies: but the
+ways of a harlot are deceitful.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+     _Of Errors in Marriages; Why they are, and the Injuries caused by
+     them._
+
+
+By errors in marriage, I mean the unfitness of the persons marrying to
+enter into this state, and that both with respect to age and the
+constitution of their bodies; and, therefore, those who design to enter
+into that condition ought to observe their ability and not run
+themselves into inconveniences; for those that marry too young may be
+said to marry unseasonably, not considering their inability, nor
+examining the forces of nature; for some, before they are ripe for the
+consummation of so weighty a matter, who either rashly, of their own
+accord, or by the instigation of procurers or marriage-brokers, or else
+forced thereto by their parents who covet a large dower take upon them
+this yoke to their prejudice; by which some, before the expiration of a
+year, have been so enfeebled, that all their vital moisture has been
+exhausted; which had not been restored again without great trouble and
+the use of medicines. Therefore, my advice is: that it is not convenient
+to suffer children, or such as are not of age, to marry, or get
+children.
+
+He that proposes to marry, and wishes to enjoy happiness in that state,
+should choose a wife descended from honest and temperate parents, she
+being chaste, well bred, and of good manners. For if a woman has good
+qualities, she has portion enough. That of Alcmena, in Plautus, is much
+to the purpose, where he brings in a young woman speaking thus:--
+
+    "I take not that to be my dowry, which
+    The vulgar sort do wealth and honour call;
+    That all my wishes terminate in this:----
+    I'll obey my husband and be chaste withall;
+    To have God's fear, and beauty in my mind,
+    To do those good who are virtuously inclined."
+
+And I think she was in the right, for such a wife is more precious than
+rubies.
+
+It is certainly the duty of parents to bring up their children in the
+ways of virtue, and to have regard to their honour and reputation; and
+especially to virgins, when grown to be marriageable. For, as has been
+noted, if through the too great severity of parents, they may be crossed
+in their love, many of them throw themselves into the unchaste arms of
+the first alluring tempter that comes in the way, being, through the
+softness and flexibility of their nature, and the strong desire they
+have after what nature strongly incites them to, easily induced to
+believe men's false vows of promised marriage, to cover their shame: and
+then too late, their parents repent of their severity which has brought
+an indelible stain upon their families.
+
+[Illustration:
+    Conception
+    First Month
+    Second Month
+    Third Month
+    Fourth Month]
+
+[Illustration:
+    Fifth Month
+    Sixth Month
+    Seventh Month
+    Eighth Month
+   Ninth Month]
+
+Another error in marriage is, the inequality of years in the parties
+married; such as for a young man, who, to advance his fortune, marries a
+woman old enough to be his grandmother: between whom, for the most part,
+strife, jealousies, and dissatisfaction are all the blessings which
+crown the genial bed, is being impossible for such to have any children.
+The like may be said, though with a little excuse, when an old doting
+widower marries a virgin in the prime of her youth and her vigour, who,
+while he vainly tries to please her, is thereby wedded to his grave.
+For, as in green youth, it is unfit and unseasonable to think of
+marriage, so to marry in old age is just the same; for they that enter
+upon it too soon are soon exhausted, and fall into consumptions and
+divers other diseases; and those who procrastinate and marry
+unseemingly, fall into the like troubles; on the other side having only
+this honour, if old men, they become young cuckolds, especially if their
+wives have not been trained up in the paths of virtue, and lie too much
+open to the importunity and temptation of lewd and debauched men. And
+thus much for the errors of rash and inconsiderate marriages.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+     _The Opinion of the Learned concerning Children conceived and born
+     within Seven Months; with Arguments upon the Subject to prevent
+     Suspicion of Incontinency, and bitter Contest on that Account. To
+     which are added Rules to Know the Disposition of Man's Body by the
+     Genital Parts._
+
+
+Many bitter quarrels happen between men and their wives upon the man's
+supposition that the child comes too soon, and by consequence, that he
+could not be the father; whereas, it is the want of understanding the
+secrets of nature which brings the man into that error; and which, had
+he known, might have cured him of his suspicion and jealousy.
+
+To remove which, I shall endeavour to prove, that it is possible, and
+has been frequently known, that children have been born at seven months.
+Paul, the Counsel, has this passage in the 19th Book of Pleadings, viz.:
+"It is now a received truth, that a perfect child may be born in the
+seventh month, by the authority of the learned Hippocrates; and
+therefore, we must believe that a child born at the end of the seventh
+month in lawful matrimony may be lawfully begotten."
+
+Galen is of opinion that there is no certain time set for the bearing of
+children; and that from Pliny's authority, who makes mention of a woman
+that went thirteen months with child; but as to what concerns the
+seventh month, a learned author says, "I know several married people in
+Holland that had twins born in the seventh month, who lived to old age,
+having lusty bodies and lively minds. Wherefore their opinion is absurd,
+who assert that a child at seven months cannot be perfect and long
+lived; and that it cannot in all parts be perfect until the ninth
+month." Thereupon the author proceeds to tell a passage from his own
+knowledge, viz.: "Of late there happened a great disturbance among us,
+which ended not without bloodshed; and was occasioned by a virgin, whose
+chastity had been violated, descending from a noble family of unspotted
+fame. Several charged the fact upon the Judge, who was president of a
+city in Flanders, who firmly denied it, saying he was ready to take his
+oath that he never had any carnal copulation with her, and that he would
+not father that, which was none of his; and farther argued, that he
+verily believed it was a child born in seven months, himself being many
+miles distant from the mother of it when it was conceived. Upon which
+the judges decreed that the child should be viewed by able physicians
+and experienced women, and that they should make their report. They
+having made diligent inquiry, all of them with one mind, concluded the
+child, without discussing who was the father, was born within the space
+of seven months, and that it was carried in the mother's womb but
+twenty-seven weeks and some odd days; but if she should have gone full
+nine months, the child's parts and limbs would have been more firm and
+strong, and the structure of the body more compact; for the skin was
+very loose, and the breast bone that defends the heart, and the gristles
+that lay over the stomach, lay higher than naturally they should be,
+not plain, but crooked and sharp, rigid or pointed, like those of a
+young chicken hatched in the beginning of spring. And being a female, it
+wanted nails upon the joints of the fingers; upon which, from the
+masculous cartilaginous matter of the skin, nails that are very smooth
+do come, and by degrees harden; she had, instead of nails, a thin skin
+or film. As for her toes, there were no signs of nails upon them,
+wanting the heat which was expanded to the fingers from the nearness of
+the heart. All this was considered, and above all, one gentlewoman of
+quality that assisted, affirming that she had been the mother of
+nineteen children, and that divers of them had been born and lived at
+seven months, though within the seventh month. For in such cases, the
+revolution of the month ought to be observed, which perfects itself in
+four bare weeks, or somewhat less than twenty-eight days; in which space
+of the revolution, the blood being agitated by the force of the moon,
+the courses of women flow from them; which being spent, and the matrix
+cleansed from the menstruous blood which happens on the fourth day,
+then, if a man on the seventh day lie with his wife, the copulation is
+most natural, and then the conception is best: and the child thus
+begotten may be born in the seventh month and prove very healthful. So
+that on this report, the supposed father was pronounced innocent; the
+proof that he was 100 miles distant all that month in which the child
+was begotten; as for the mother she strongly denied that she knew the
+father, being forced in the dark; and so, through fear and surprise, was
+left in ignorance."
+
+As for coition, it ought not to be used unless the parties be in health,
+lest it turn to the disadvantage of the children so begotten, creating
+in them, through the abundance of ill humours, divers languishing
+diseases. Wherefore, health is no better discerned than by the genitals
+of the man; for which reasons midwives, and other skilful women, were
+formerly wont to see the testicles of children, thereby to conjecture
+their temperature and state of body; and young men may know thereby the
+signs and symptoms of death; for if the cases of the testicles be loose
+and feeble, which are the proofs of life, are fallen, but if the secret
+parts are wrinkled and raised up, it is a sign that all is well, but
+that the event may exactly answer the prediction, it is necessary to
+consider what part of the body the disease possesseth; for if it chance
+to be the upper part that is afflicted, as the head or stomach, then it
+will not so then appear by the members, which are unconnected with such
+grievances; but the lower part of the body exactly sympathising with
+them, their liveliness, on the contrary, makes it apparent; for nature's
+force, and the spirits that have their intercourse, first manifest
+themselves therein; which occasions midwives to feel the genitals of
+children, to know in what part the gulf is residing, and whether life or
+death be portended thereby, the symptoms being strongly communicated to
+the vessels, that have their intercourse with the principal seat of
+life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+     _Of the Green-Sickness in Virgins, with its causes, signs and
+     cures; together with the chief occasions of Barrenness in Women,
+     and the Means to remove the Cause, and render them fruitful._
+
+
+The green-sickness is so common a complaint amongst virgins, especially
+those of a phlegmatic complexion, that it is easily discerned, showing
+itself by discolouring the face, making it look green, pale, and of a
+dusty colour, proceeding from raw and indigested humours; nor doth it
+only appear to the eye, but sensibly affects the person with difficulty
+of breathing, pains in the head, palpitation of the heart, with unusual
+beatings and small throbbings of the arteries in the temples, back and
+neck, which often cast them into fevers when the humour is over vicious;
+also loathing of meat and the distention of the hypochondriac part, by
+reason of the inordinate effluxion of the menstruous blood of the
+greater vessels; and from the abundance of humours, the whole body is
+often troubled with swellings, or at least the thighs, legs and ankles,
+all above the heels; there is also a weariness of the body without any
+reason for it.
+
+The Galenical physicians affirm, that this distemper proceeds from the
+womb; occasioned by the gross, vicious and rude humours arising from
+several inward causes; but there are also outward causes which have a
+share in the production of it; as taking cold in the feet, drinking of
+water, intemperance of diet, eating things contrary to nature, viz., raw
+or burnt flesh, ashes, coals, old shoes, chalk, wax, nutshells, mortar,
+lime, oatmeal, tobacco pipes, etc., which occasion both a suppression of
+the menses and obstructions through the whole body; therefore, the first
+thing necessary to vindicate the cause, is matrimonial conjunction, and
+such copulation as may prove satisfactory to her that is afflicted, for
+then the menses will begin to flow according to their natural and due
+course, and the humours being dispersed, will soon waste themselves; and
+then no more matter being admitted to increase them, they will vanish
+and a good temperament of body will return; but in case this best remedy
+cannot be had soon enough, then let blood in the ankles, and if she be
+about sixteen, you may likewise do it in the arm, but let her be bled
+sparingly, especially if the blood be good. If the disease be of any
+continuance, then it is to be eradicated by purging, preparation of the
+humour being first considered, which may be done by the virgin's
+drinking the decoction of guaiacum, with dittany of erete; but the best
+purge in this case ought to be made of aloes, agaric, senna, rhubarb;
+and for strengthening the bowels and removing obstructions, chaly-beate
+medicines are chiefly to be used. The diet must be moderate, and sharp
+things by all means avoided.
+
+And now, since barrenness daily creates discontent, and that discontent
+breeds indifference between man and wife, or, by immediate grief,
+frequently casts the woman into one or another distemper, I shall in the
+next place treat thereof.
+
+
+
+OF BARRENNESS.
+
+Formerly, before women came to the marriage-bed, they were first
+searched by the mid-wife, and those only which she allowed of as
+fruitful were admitted. I hope, therefore, it will not be amiss to show
+you how they may prove themselves and turn barren ground into fruitful
+soil. Barrenness is a deprivation of the life and power which ought to
+be in the seed to procreate and propagate; for which end men and women
+were made. Causes of barrenness may be over much cold or heat, drying up
+the seed and corrupting it, which extinguishes the life of the seed,
+making it waterish and unfit for generation. It may be caused also, by
+the not flowing or over-flowing of the courses by swellings, ulcers, and
+inflammation of the womb, by an excrescence of flesh growing about the
+mouth of the matrix, by the mouth of the matrix being turned up to the
+back or side by the fatness of the body, whereby the mouth of the matrix
+is closed up, being pressed with the omentum or caul, and the matter of
+the seed is turned to fat; if she be a lean and dry body, and though she
+do conceive, yet the fruit of her body will wither before it come to
+perfection, for want of nourishment. One main cause of barrenness is
+attributed to want of a convenient moderating quality, which the woman
+ought to have with the man; as, if he be hot, she must be cold; if he be
+dry, she must be moist; as, if they be both dry or both moist of
+constitution, they cannot propagate; and yet, simply considering of
+themselves, they are not barren, for she who was before as the barren
+fig-tree being joined to an apt constitution becomes as the fruitful
+vine. And that a man and woman, being every way of like constitution,
+cannot create, I will bring nature itself for a testimony, who hath made
+man of a better constitution than woman, that the quality of the one,
+may moderate the quality of the other.
+
+
+
+SIGNS OF BARRENNESS.
+
+If barrenness proceeds from overmuch heat, if she is a dry body, subject
+to anger, has black hair, quick pulse, and her purgations flow but
+little, and that with pain, she loves to play in the courts of Venus.
+But if it comes by cold, then the signs are contrary to the above
+mentioned. If through the evil quality of the womb, make a suffumigation
+of red styrax, myrrh, cassia-wood, nutmeg, and cinnamon; and let her
+receive the fumes into her womb, covering her very close; and if the
+odour so received passes through the body to the mouth and nostrils,
+she is fruitful. But if she feels not the fumes in her mouth and
+nostrils, it argues barrenness one of these ways--that the spirit of the
+seed is either extinguished through cold, or dissipated through heat. If
+any woman be suspected to be unfruitful, cast natural brimstone, such as
+is digged out of mines, into her urine, and if worms breed therein, she
+is not barren.
+
+
+
+PROGNOSTICS.
+
+Barrenness makes women look young, because they are free from those
+pains and sorrows which other women are accustomed to. Yet they have not
+the full perfection of health which other women enjoy, because they are
+not rightly purged of the menstruous blood and superfluous seed, which
+are the principal cause of most uterine diseases.
+
+First, the cause must be removed, the womb strengthened, and the spirits
+of the seed enlivened. If the womb be over hot, take syrup of succory,
+with rhubarb, syrup of violets, roses, cassia, purslain. Take of endive,
+water-lilies, borage flowers, of each a handful; rhubarb, mirobalans, of
+each three drachms; make a decoction with water, and to the straining of
+the syrup add electuary violets one ounce, syrup of cassia half an
+ounce, manna three drachms; make a potion. Take of syrup of mugwort one
+ounce, syrup of maiden-hair two ounces, pulv-elect triasand one drachm;
+make a julep. Take prus. salt, elect. ros. mesua, of each three drachms,
+rhubarb one scruple, and make a bolus; apply to the loins and privy
+parts fomentations of the juice of lettuce, violets, roses, malloes,
+vine leaves and nightshade; anoint the secret parts with the cooling
+unguent of Galen.
+
+If the power of the seed be extinguished by cold, take every morning two
+spoonfuls of cinnamon water, with one scruple of mithridate. Take syrup
+of calamint, mugwort and betony, of each one ounce; waters of
+pennyroyal, feverfew, hyssop and sage, of each two ounces; make a julep.
+Take oil of aniseed two scruples and a half; diacimini,
+diacliathidiamosei and diagla-ongoe, of each one drachm, sugar four
+ounces, with water of cinnamon, and make lozenges; take of them a drachm
+and a half twice a day, two hours before meals; fasten cupping glasses
+to the hips and belly. Take of styrax and calamint one ounce, mastick,
+cinnamon, nutmeg, lign, aloes, and frankincense, of each half ounce;
+musk, ten grains, ambergris, half a scruple; make a confection with
+rosewater, divide it into four equal parts; one part make a pomatum
+oderation to smell at if she be not hysterical; of the second, make a
+mass of pills, and let her take three every other night: of the third
+make a pessary, dip it in oil of spikenard, and put it up; of the
+fourth, make a suffumigation for the womb.
+
+If the faculties of the womb be weakened, and the life of the seed
+suffocated by over much humidity flowing to those parts: take of betony,
+marjoram, mugwort, pennyroyal and balm, of each a handful; roots of alum
+and fennel, of each two drachms; aniseed and cummin, of each one drachm,
+with sugar and water a sufficient quantity; make a syrup, and take three
+ounces every morning.
+
+Purge with the following things; take of the diagnidium, two grains,
+spicierum of castor, a scruple, pill foedit two scruples, with syrup of
+mugwort, make six pills. Take apeo, diagem. diamoser, diamb. of each one
+drachm; cinnamon, one drachm and a half; cloves, mace and nutmeg, of
+each half a drachm; sugar six ounces, with water of feverfew; make
+lozenges, to be taken every morning. Take of decoction of sarsaparilla
+and virga aurea, not forgetting sage, which Agrippa, wondering at its
+operation, has honoured with the name of _sacra herba_, a holy herb. It
+is recorded by Dodonoeus in the _History of Plants_, lib. ii. cap. 77,
+that after a great mortality among the Egyptians, the surviving women,
+that they might multiply quickly, were commanded to drink the juice of
+sage, and to anoint the genitals with oil of aniseed and spikenard. Take
+mace, nutmeg, cinnamon, styrax and amber, of each one drachm; cloves,
+laudanum, of each half a drachm; turpentine, a sufficient quantity;
+trochisks, to smooth the womb. Take roots of valerian and elecampane, of
+each one pound; galanga, two ounces; origan lavender, marjoram, betony,
+mugwort, bay leaves, calamint, of each a handful; make an infusion with
+water, in which let her sit, after she hath her courses.
+
+If barrenness proceed from dryness, consuming the matter of the seed;
+take every day almond milk, and goat's milk extracted with honey, but
+often of the root satyrion, candied, and electuary of diasyren. Take
+three wethers' heads, boil them until all the flesh comes from the
+bones, then take melilot, violets, camomiles, mercury, orchia with their
+roots, of each a handful; fenugreek, linseed, valerian roots, of each
+one pound; let all these be decocted in the aforesaid broth, and let the
+woman sit in the decoction up to the navel.
+
+If barrenness be caused by any proper effect of the womb, the cure is
+set down in the second book. Sometimes the womb proves barren where
+there is no impediment on either side, except only in the manner of the
+act; as when in the emission of the seed, the man is quick and the woman
+is slow, whereby there is not an emission of both seeds at the same
+instant as the rules of conception require. Before the acts of coition,
+foment the privy parts with the decoction of betony, sage, hyssop and
+calamint and anoint the mouth and neck of the womb with musk and civet.
+
+The cause of barrenness being removed, let the womb be strengthened as
+follows; Take of bay berries, mastic, nutmeg, frankincense, nuts,
+laudanum, giapanum, of each one drachm, styracis liquid, two scruples,
+cloves half a scruple, ambergris two grains, then make a pessary with
+oil of spikenard.
+
+Take of red roses, lapididis hoematis, white frankincense, of each half
+an ounce. Dragon's blood, fine bole, mastic, of each two drachms;
+nutmeg, cloves, of each one drachm; spikenard, half a scruple, with oil
+of wormwood; make a plaster for the lower part of the belly, then let
+her eat candied eringo root, and make an injection only of the roots of
+satyrion.
+
+The aptest time for conception is instantly after the menses have
+ceased, because then the womb is thirsty and dry, apt both to draw the
+seed and return it, by the roughness of the inward surface, and besides,
+in some, the mouth of the womb is turned into the back or side, and is
+not placed right until the last day of the courses.
+
+Excess in all things is to be avoided. Lay aside all passions of the
+mind, shun study and care, as things that are enemies to conception, for
+if a woman conceive under such circumstances, however wise the parents
+may be, the children, at best, will be but foolish; because the mental
+faculties of the parents, viz., the understanding and the rest (from
+whence the child derives its reason) are, as it were, confused through
+the multiplicity of cares and thought; of which we have examples in
+learned men, who, after great study and care, having connection with
+their wives, often beget very foolish children. A hot and moist air is
+most suitable, as appears by the women in Egypt, who often bring forth
+three or four children at one time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+     _Virginity, what it is, in what it consists, and how vitiated;
+     together with the Opinions of the Learned about the Change of Sex
+     in the Womb, during the Operation of Nature in forming the Body._
+
+
+There are many ignorant people that boast of their skill in the
+knowledge of virginity, and some virgins have undergone harsh censures
+through their ignorant conclusions; I therefore thought it highly
+necessary to clear up this point, that the towering imaginations of
+conceited ignorance might be brought down, and the fair sex (whose
+virtues are so illustriously bright that they excite our wonder and
+command our imitation), may be freed from the calumnies and detractions
+of ignorance and envy; and so their honour may continue as unspotted, as
+they have kept their persons uncontaminated and free from defilement.
+
+Virginity, in a strict sense, signifies the prime, the chief, the best
+of anything; and this makes men so desirous of marrying virgins,
+imagining some secret pleasure is to be enjoyed in their embraces, more
+than in those of widows, or of such as have been lain with before,
+though not many years ago, a very great personage thought differently,
+and to use his own expression:--"The getting a maidenhead was such a
+piece of drudgery, that it was fitter for a coal heaver than a
+prince."[1] But this was only his opinion, for I am sure that other men
+think differently.
+
+The curious inquirers into the secrets of Nature, have observed, that in
+young maidens in the _sinus pudoris_, or in what is called the neck of
+the womb, is that wonderful production usually called the _hymen_, but
+in French _bouton de rose_, or rosebud, because it resembles the
+expanded bud of a rose or a gilly flower. From this the word _defloro_,
+or, deflower, is derived, and hence taking away virginity is called
+deflowering a virgin, most being of the opinion that the virginity is
+altogether lost when this membrane is fractured and destroyed by
+violence; when it is found perfect and entire, however, no penetration
+has been effected; and in the opinion of some learned physicians there
+is neither hymen nor expanded skin which contains blood in it, which
+some people think, flows from the ruptured membrane at the first time of
+sexual intercourse.
+
+Now this _claustrum virginale_, or flower, is composed of four little
+buds like myrtle berries, which are full and plump in virgins, but hang
+loose and flag in women; and these are placed in the four angles of the
+_sinus pudoris_, joined together by little membranes and ligatures, like
+fibres, each of them situated in the testicles, or spaces between each
+bud, with which, in a manner, they are proportionately distended, and
+when once this membrane is lacerated, it denotes _Devirgination_. Thus
+many ignorant people, finding their wives defective in this respect on
+the first night, have immediately suspected their chastity, concluding
+that another man had been there before them, when indeed, such a rupture
+may happen in several ways accidentally, as well as by sexual
+intercourse, viz. by violent straining, coughing, or sneezing, the
+stoppage of the urine, etc., so that the entireness or the fracture of
+that which is commonly taken for a woman's virginity or maidenhead, is
+no absolute sign of immorality, though it is more frequently broken by
+copulation than by any other means.[2]
+
+And now to say something of the change of the sexes in the womb. The
+genital parts of the sexes are so unlike each other in substance,
+composition, situation, figure, action and use that nothing is more
+unlike to each other than they are, and the more, all parts of the body
+(the breasts excepted, which in women swell, because Nature ordained
+them for suckling the infant) have an exact resemblance to each other,
+so much the more do the genital parts of one sex differ, when compared
+with the other, and if they be thus different in form, how much more are
+they so in their use.
+
+The venereal feeling also proceeds from different causes; in men from
+the desire of emission, and in women from the desire of reception. All
+these things, then, considered I cannot but wonder, he adds, how any one
+can imagine that the female genital organs can be changed into the male
+organ, since the sexes can be distinguished only by those parts, nor
+can I well impute the reason for this vulgar error to anything but the
+mistake of inexpert midwives, who have been deceived by the faulty
+conformation of those parts, which in some males may have happened to
+have such small protrusions that they could not be seen, as appears by
+the example of a child who was christened in Paris under the name of
+_Ivan_, as a girl, and who afterwards turned out to be a boy, and on the
+other hand, the excessive tension of the clytoris in newly-born female
+infants may have occasioned similar mistakes. Thus far Pliny in the
+negative, and notwithstanding what he has said, there are others, such
+as Galen, who assert the affirmative. "A man," he says, "is different
+from a woman, only by having his genitals outside his body, whereas a
+woman has them inside her." And this is certain, that if Nature having
+formed a male should convert him into a female, she has nothing else to
+do but to turn his genitals inward, and again to turn a woman into a man
+by a contrary operation. This, however, is to be understood of the child
+whilst it is in the womb and not yet perfectly formed, for Nature has
+often made a female child, and it has remained so for a month or two, in
+its mother's womb; but afterwards the heat greatly increasing in the
+genital organs, they have protruded and the child has become a male, but
+nevertheless retained some things which do not befit the masculine sex,
+such as female gestures and movements, a high voice, and a more
+effeminate temper than is usual with men; whilst, on the other hand, the
+genitals have become inverted through cold humours, but yet the person
+retained a masculine air, both in voice and gesture. Now, though both
+these opinions are supported by several reasons, yet I think the latter
+are nearer the truth, for there is not that vast difference between the
+genitals of the two sexes as Pliny asserts; for a woman has, in a way,
+the same _pudenda_ as a man, though they do not appear outwardly, but
+are inverted for the convenience of generation; one being solid and the
+other porous, and that the principal reason for changing sexes is, and
+must be attributed to heat or cold, which operates according to its
+greater or lesser force.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Attributed to George IV (Translator).
+
+[2] A young man was once tried at Rutland Assizes for violating a
+virgin, and after close questioning, the girl swearing positively in the
+matter, and naming the time, place and manner of the action, it was
+resolved that she should be examined by a skilful surgeon and two
+midwives, who were to report on oath, which they did, and declared that
+the membranes were intact and unlacerated, and that, in their opinion,
+her body had not been penetrated. This had its due effect upon the jury,
+and they acquitted the prisoner, and the girl afterwards confessed that
+she swore it against him out of revenge, as he had promised to marry
+her, and had afterwards declined.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+     _Directions and Cautions for Midwives; and, first, what ought to be
+     the qualifications of a midwife._
+
+
+A midwife who wishes to acquit herself well in her employment, ought
+certainly not to enter upon it rashly or unadvisedly, but with all
+imaginable caution, remembering that she is responsible for any mischief
+which may happen through her ignorance or neglect. None, therefore,
+should undertake that duty merely because of their age or because they
+themselves have had many children, for, in such, generally, many things
+will be found wanting, which she should possess. She ought to be neither
+too old nor too young, neither very fat, nor so thin, as to be weak, but
+in a good habit of body; not subject to illness, fears, nor sudden
+frights; well-made and neat in her attire, her hands small and smooth,
+her nails kept well-trimmed and without any rings on her fingers whilst
+she is engaged in her work, nor anything upon her wrists that may
+obstruct her. And to these ought to be added activity, and a due amount
+of strength, with much caution and diligence, nor should she be given to
+drowsiness or impatience.
+
+She should be polite and affable in her manners, sober and chaste, not
+given to passion, liberal and compassionate towards the poor, and not
+greedy of gain when she attends the rich. She should have a cheerful and
+pleasant temper, so that she may be the more easily able to comfort her
+patients during labour. She must never be in a hurry, though her
+business may call her to some other case, lest she should thereby
+endanger the mother or the child.
+
+She ought to be wary, prudent, and intelligent, but above all, she ought
+to be possessed by the fear of God, which will give her both "knowledge
+and discretion," as the wise man says.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+     _Further Directions to Midwives, teaching them what they ought to
+     do, and what to avoid._
+
+
+Since the duties of a midwife have such a great influence on the
+well-doing or the contrary of both women and children, in the first
+place, she must be diligent in gaining all such knowledge as may be
+useful to her in her practice, and never to think herself so perfect,
+but that it may be possible for her to add to her knowledge by study and
+experience. She should, however, never try any experiments unless she
+has tried them, or knows that they can do no harm; practising them
+neither upon rich nor poor, but freely saying what she knows, and never
+prescribing any medicines which will procure abortion, even though
+requested; for this is wicked in the highest degree, and may be termed
+murder. If she be sent for to people whom she does not know, let her be
+very cautious before she goes, lest by attending an infectious woman,
+she runs the danger of injuring others, as sometimes happens. Neither
+must she make her dwelling a receiving-house for big-bellied women to
+discharge their load, lest it get her a bad name and she by such means
+loses her practice.
+
+In attending on women, if the birth happens to be difficult, she must
+not seem to be anxious, but must cheer the woman up and do all she can
+to make her labour easy. She will find full directions for this, in the
+second part of this book.
+
+She must never think of anything but doing well, seeing that everything
+that is required is in readiness, both for the woman and for receiving
+the child, and above all, let her keep the woman from becoming unruly
+when her pains come on, lest she endanger her own life, and the child's
+as well.
+
+She must also take care not to be hurried over her business but wait
+God's time for the birth, and she must by no means allow herself to be
+upset by fear, even if things should not go well, lest that should make
+her incapable of rendering that assistance which the woman in labour
+stands in need of, for where there is the most apparent danger, there
+the most care and prudence are required to set things right.
+
+And now, because she can never be a skilful midwife who knows nothing
+but what is to be seen outwardly, I do not think it will be amiss but
+rather very necessary, modestly to describe the generative parts of
+women as they have been anatomised by learned men, and to show the use
+of such vessels as contribute to generation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+     _The External, and Internal Organs of Generation in Women._
+
+
+If it were not for the public benefit, especially for that of the
+professors and practitioners of the art of midwifery, I would refrain
+from treating the secrets of Nature, because they may be turned to
+ridicule by lascivious and lewd people. But as it is absolutely
+necessary that they should be known for the public good, I will not omit
+them because some may make a wrong use of them. Those parts which can be
+seen at the lowest part of the stomach are the _fissure magna_, or the
+_great cleft_, with its _labia_ or lips, the _Mons Veneris_, or Mountain
+of Venus, and the hair. These together are called the _pudenda_, or
+things to be ashamed of because when they are exposed they cause a woman
+_pudor_, or shame. The _fissure magna_ reaches from the lower part of
+the _os pubis_, to within an inch of the _anus_, but it is less and
+closer in virgins than in those who have borne children, and has two
+lips, which grow thicker and fuller towards the pubis, and meeting on
+the middle of the _os pubis_, form that rising hill which is called the
+_Mons Veneris_, or the Hill of Venus.
+
+Next come the _Nymphae_ and the _Clitoris_, the former of which is a
+membrany and moist substance, spongy, soft and partly fleshy, of a red
+colour and in the shape of two wings, which are joined at an acute angle
+at their base, producing a fleshy substance there which covers the
+clitoris, and sometimes they extend so far, that an incision is required
+to make room for a man's instrument of generation.
+
+The _Clitoris_ is a substance in the upper part of the division where
+the two wings meet, and the seat of venereal pleasure, being like a
+man's _penis_ in situation, substance, composition and power of
+erection, growing sometimes to the length of two inches out of the body,
+but that never happens except through extreme lustfulness or some
+extraordinary accident. This _clitoris_ consists of two spongy and
+skinny bodies, containing a distinct original from the _os pubis_, its
+tip being covered with a tender skin, having a hole or passage like a
+man's yard or _penis_, although not quite through, in which alone, and
+in its size it differs from it.
+
+The next things are the fleshy knobs of the great neck of the womb, and
+these knobs are behind the wings and are four in number, resembling
+myrtle berries, and being placed quadrangularly one against the other,
+and here the orifice of the bladder is inserted, which opens into the
+fissures, to evacuate the urine, and one of these knobs is placed before
+it, and closes up the passage in order to secure it from cold, or any
+suchlike inconvenience.
+
+The lips of the womb, which appear next, disclose its neck, if they are
+separated, and two things may be observed in them, which are the neck
+itself and the _hymen_, or more properly, the _claustrum virginale_, of
+which I have spoken before. By the neck of the womb we must understand
+the channel that lies between the above-mentioned knobs and the inner
+bone of the womb, which receives the penis like a sheath, and so that it
+may be more easily dilated by the pleasure of procreation, the substance
+is sinewy and a little spongy. There are several folds or pleats in this
+cavity, made by tunicles, which are wrinkled like a full blown rose. In
+virgins they appear plainly, but in women who are used to copulation
+they disappear, so that the inner side of the neck of the womb appears
+smooth, but in old women it is more hard and gristly. But though this
+channel is sometimes crooked and sinks down yet at the times of
+copulation, labour, or of the monthly flow, it is erected or distended,
+which overtension occasions the pain in childbirth.
+
+The hymen, or _claustrum virginale_, is that which closes the neck of
+the womb, and is broken by the first act of copulation; its use being
+rather to check the undue menstrual flow in virgins, rather than to
+serve any other purpose, and usually when it is broken, either by
+copulation, or by any other means, a small quantity of blood flows from
+it, attended with some little pain. From this some observe that between
+the folds of the two tunicles, which constitute the neck of the womb
+there are many veins and arteries running along, and arising from, the
+vessels on both sides of the thighs, and so passing into the neck of the
+womb, being very large; and the reason for this is, that the neck of the
+bladder requires to be filled with great vigour, so as to be dilated, in
+order that it may lay hold of the penis better; for great heat is
+required in such motions, and that becomes more intense by the act of
+friction, and consumes a considerable amount of moisture, for supplying
+which large vessels are absolutely necessary.
+
+Another cause of the largeness of the vessels is, that menses make their
+way through them, which often occasions pregnant women to continue
+menstruating: for though the womb be shut up, yet the passages in the
+neck of the womb through which these vessels pass, are open. In this
+case, we may further observe, that as soon as the _pudenda_ are
+penetrated, there appear two little pits or holes which contain a
+secretion, which is expelled during copulation, and gives the woman
+great pleasure.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+     _A description of the Fabric of the Womb, the preparing Vessels and
+     Testicles in Women. Also of the Different and Ejaculatory Vessels._
+
+
+The womb is joined to its neck in the lower part of the _Hypogastrium_
+where the hips are the widest and broadest, as they are greater and
+broader there than those of men, and it is placed between the bladder
+and the straight gut, which keeps it from swaying, and yet gives it
+freedom to stretch and dilate, and again to contract, as nature
+requires. Its shape is somewhat round and not unlike a gourd, growing
+smaller and more acute towards one end, being knit together by its
+own ligaments; its neck likewise is joined by its own substance and by
+certain membranes that fasten into the _os sacrum_ and the share-bone.
+Its size varies much in different women, and the difference is
+especially great between those who have borne children and those who
+have had none. Its substance exceeds a thumb's breadth in thickness, and
+so far from decreasing conception, it rather increases; and in order to
+strengthen it it is interwoven with fibres which cross it from side to
+side, some of which are straight and some winding, and its proper
+vessels are veins, arteries and nerves. Amongst these there are two
+small veins which pass into the womb from the spermatic vessels, and two
+larger ones from the neck: the mouth of these veins pierces as far as
+the inward cavity.
+
+[Illustration: Position of a Child in the Womb just before delivery.]
+
+[Illustration: The action of quickening]
+
+The womb has two arteries on both sides of the spermatic vessels and the
+hypogastric, which accompany the veins; and besides these, there are
+several little nerves in the form of a net, which extend throughout it,
+from the bottom of the _pudenda_; their chief function is sensibility
+and pleasure, as they move in sympathy between the head and the womb.
+
+It may be further noted that the womb is occasionally moveable by means
+of the two ligaments that hang on either side of it, and often rises and
+falls. The neck of the womb is extremely sensitive, so that if it be at
+any time out of order through over fatness, moisture or relaxation, it
+thereby becomes subject to barrenness. With pregnant women, a glutinous
+matter is often found at the entrance to the womb so as to facilitate
+the birth; for at the time of delivery, the mouth of the womb is opened
+as wide as the size of the child requires, and dilates equally from top
+to bottom.
+
+The spermatic vessels in women, consist of two veins and two arteries,
+which differ from those of men only in size and the manner of their
+insertion; for the number of veins and arteries is the same as in men,
+the right vein issuing from the trunk of the hollow vein descending and
+besides them there are two arteries, which flow from the aorta.
+
+These vessels are narrower and shorter in women than in men; but it must
+be noticed that they are more intertwined and contorted than in men, and
+shrink together by reason of their shortness that they may, by their
+looseness, be better stretched out when necessary: and these vessels in
+women are carried in an oblique direction through the lesser bowels and
+testicles but are divided into two branches half way. The larger goes to
+the stones and forms a winding body, and wonderfully inoculates the
+lesser branches where it disperses itself, and especially at the higher
+part of the bottom of the womb, for its nourishment, and that part of
+the courses may pass through the vessels; and seeing that women's
+testicles are situated near the womb, for that cause those vessels do
+not fall from the peritoneum, nor do they make so much passage as in
+men, as they do not extend to the share-bone.
+
+The stones of woman, commonly called _testicles_, do not perform the
+same function as in men, for they are altogether different in position,
+size, temperature, substance, form and covering. They are situated in
+the hollow of the muscles of the loins, so that, by contracting greater
+heat, they may be more fruitful, their office being to contain the ova
+or eggs, one of which, being impregnated by the man's seed engenders the
+child. They are, however, different from those of the male in shape,
+because they are smaller and flatter at each end, and not so round or
+oval; the external superficies is also more unequal, and has the
+appearance of a number of knobs or kernels mixed together.
+
+There is a difference, also, in the substance, as they are much softer
+and more pliable, and not nearly so compact. Their size and temperature
+are also different for they are much colder and smaller than in men, and
+their covering or enclosure is likewise quite different; for as men's
+are wrapped in several covers, because they are very pendulous and would
+be easily injured unless they were so protected by nature, so women's
+stones, being internal and thus less subject to being hurt, are covered
+by only one membrane, and are likewise half covered by the peritoneum.
+
+The ejaculatory vessels are two small passages, one on either side,
+which do not differ in any respect from the spermatic veins in
+substance. They rise in one place from the bottom of the womb, and do
+not reach from their other extremity either to the stones or to any
+other part, but are shut up and impassable, and adhere to the womb as
+the colon does to the blind gut, and winding half way about; and though
+the testicles are not close to them and do not touch them, yet they are
+fastened to them by certain membranes which resemble the wing of a bat,
+through which certain veins and arteries passing from the end of the
+testicles may be said to have their passages going from the corners of
+the womb to the testicles, and these ligaments in women are the
+_cremasters_[3] in men, of which I shall speak more fully when I come to
+describe the male parts of generation.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] Muscles by which the testicles are drawn up.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+     _A Description of the Use and Action of the several Generative
+     Parts in Women._
+
+
+The external parts, commonly called the _pudenda_, are designed to cover
+the great orifice and to receive the man's penis or yard in the act of
+sexual intercourse, and to give passage to the child and to the urine.
+The use of the wings and knobs, like myrtle berries, is for the security
+of the internal parts, closing the orifice and neck of the bladder and
+by their swelling up, to cause titillation and pleasure in those parts,
+and also to obstruct the involuntary passage of the urine.
+
+The action of the clitoris in women is similar to that of the penis in
+men, viz., _erection_; and its lower end is the glans of the penis, and
+has the same name. And as the _glans_ of man are the seat of the
+greatest pleasure in copulation, so is this in the woman.
+
+The action and use of the neck on the womb is the same as that of the
+penis, viz., erection, brought about in different ways: first, in
+copulation it becomes erect and made straight for the passage of the
+penis into the womb; secondly, whilst the passage is filled with the
+vital blood, it becomes narrower for embracing the penis; and the uses
+of this erection are twofold:--first, because if the neck of the womb
+were not erected, the man's yard could find no proper passage to the
+womb, and, secondly, it hinders any damage or injury that might ensue
+through the violent striking of the _penis_ during the act of
+copulation.
+
+The use of the veins that pass through the neck of the womb, is to
+replenish it with blood and vigour, that so, as the moisture is consumed
+by the heat engendered by sexual intercourse, it may be renewed by those
+vessels; but their chief business is to convey nutriment to the womb.
+
+The womb has many properties belonging to it: first, the retention of
+the impregnated egg, and this is conception, properly so called;
+secondly, to cherish and nourish it, until Nature has fully formed the
+child, and brought it to perfection, and then it operates strongly in
+expelling the child, when the time of its remaining has expired,
+becoming dilated in an extraordinary manner and so perfectly removed
+from the senses that they cannot injuriously affect it, retaining within
+itself a power and strength to eject the foetus, unless it be rendered
+deficient by any accident; and in such a case remedies must be applied
+by skilful hands to strengthen it, and enable it to perform its
+functions; directions for which will be given in the second book.
+
+The use of the preparing vessels is this; the arteries convey the blood
+to the testicles; some part of it is absorbed in nourishing them, and in
+the production of these little bladders (which resemble eggs in every
+particular), through which the _vasa preparantia_ run, and which are
+absorbed in them; and the function of the veins is to bring back
+whatever blood remains from the above mentioned use. The vessels of this
+kind are much shorter in women than in men, because they are nearer to
+the testicles; this defect is, however, made good by the many intricate
+windings to which those vessels are subject; for they divide themselves
+into two branches of different size in the middle and the larger one
+passes to the testicles.
+
+The stones in women are very useful, for where they are defective, the
+work of generation is at an end. For though those bladders which are on
+the outer surface contain no seed, as the followers of Galen and
+Hippocrates wrongly believed, yet they contain several eggs, generally
+twenty in each testicle; one of which being impregnated by the animated
+part of the man's seed in the act of copulation, descends through the
+oviducts into the womb, and thus in due course of time becomes a living
+child.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+     _Of the Organs of Generation in Man._
+
+
+Having given a description of the organs of generation in women, with
+the anatomy of the fabric of the womb, I shall now, in order to finish
+the first part of this treatise, describe the organs of generation in
+men, and how they are fitted for the use for which Nature intended them.
+
+The instrument of generation in men (commonly called the yard, in Latin,
+_penis_, from _pendo_, to hang, because it hangs outside the belly), is
+an organic part which consists of skin, tendons, veins, arteries, sinews
+and great ligaments; and is long and round, and on the upper side
+flattish, seated under the _os pubis_, and ordained by Nature partly for
+the evacuation of urine, and partly for conveying the seed into the
+womb; for which purpose it is full of small pores, through which the
+seed passes into it, through the _vesicula seminalis_,[4] and discharges
+the urine when they make water; besides the common parts, viz., the two
+nervous bodies, the septum, the urethra, the glans, four muscles and the
+vessels. The nervous bodies (so called) are surrounded with a thick
+white, penetrable membrane, but their inner substance is spongy, and
+consists chiefly of veins, arteries, and nervous fibres, interwoven like
+a net. And when the nerves are filled with animal vigour and the
+arteries with hot, eager blood, the penis becomes distended and erect;
+also the neck of the _vesicula urinalis_,[5] but when the influx of
+blood ceases, and when it is absorbed by the veins, the penis becomes
+limp and flabby. Below those nervous bodies is the urethra, and whenever
+they swell, it swells also. The penis has four muscles; two shorter ones
+springing from the _Cox endix_ and which serve for erection, and on that
+account they are called _erectores_; two larger, coming from _sphincters
+ani_, which serve to dilate the urethra so as to discharge the semen,
+and these are called dilatantes, or wideners. At the end of the penis is
+the _glans_, covered with a very thin membrane, by means of which, and
+of its nervous substance, it becomes most extremely sensitive, and is
+the principal seat of pleasure in copulation. The outer covering of the
+_glans_ is called the _preputium_ (foreskin), which the Jews cut off in
+circumcision, and it is fastened by the lower part of it to the _glans_.
+The penis is also provided with veins, arteries and nerves.
+
+The _testiculi_, stones or testicles (so called because they testify one
+to be a man), turn the blood, which is brought to them by the spermatic
+arteries into seed. They have two sorts of covering, common and proper;
+there are two of the common, which enfold both the testes. The outer
+common coat, consists of the _cuticula_, or true skin, and is called the
+scrotum, and hangs from the abdomen like a purse; the inner is the
+_membrana carnosa_. There are also two proper coats--the outer called
+_cliotrodes_, or virginales; the inner _albugidia_; in the outer the
+cremaster is inserted. The _epididemes_, or _prostatae_ are fixed to the
+upper part of the testes, and from them spring the _vasa deferentia_, or
+_ejaculatoria_, which deposit the seed into the _vesicule seminales_
+when they come near the neck of the bladder. There are two of these
+_vesiculae_, each like a bunch of grapes, which emit the seed into the
+urethra in the act of copulation. Near them are the _prostatae_, about
+the size of a walnut, and joined to the neck of the bladder. Medical
+writers do not agree about the use of them, but most are of the opinion
+that they produce an oily and sloppy discharge to besmear the urethra so
+as to defend it against the pungency of the seed and urine. But the
+vessels which convey the blood to the testes, from which the seed is
+made, are the _arteriae spermaticae_ and there are two of them also.
+There are likewise two veins, which carry off the remaining blood, and
+which are called _venae spermaticae_.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] Seminal vesicle.
+
+[5] Urinary vesicle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+     _A word of Advice to both Sexes, consisting of several Directions
+     with regard to Copulation._
+
+
+As Nature has a mutual desire for copulation in every creature, for the
+increase and propagation of its kind, and more especially in man, the
+lord of creation and the masterpiece of Nature, in order that such a
+noble piece of divine workmanship should not perish, something ought to
+be said concerning it, it being the foundation of everything that we
+have hitherto been treating of, since without copulation there can be no
+generation. Seeing, therefore, so much depends upon it, I have thought
+it necessary, before concluding the first book, to give such directions
+to both sexes, for the performance of that act, as may appear
+efficacious to the end for which nature designed it, but it will be done
+with such caution as not to offend the chastest ear, nor to put the fair
+sex to the blush when they read it.
+
+In the first place, then, when a married couple from the desire of
+having children are about to make use of those means that Nature has
+provided for that purpose, it is well to stimulate the body with
+generous restoratives, that it may be active and vigorous. And the
+imagination should be charmed with sweet music, and if all care and
+thoughts of business be drowned in a glass of rosy wine, so that their
+spirit may be raised to the highest pitch of ardour, it would be as
+well, for troubles, cares or sadness are enemies to the pleasures of
+Venus. And if the woman should conceive when sexual intercourse takes
+place at such times of disturbance, it would have a bad effect upon the
+child. But though generous restoratives may be employed for invigorating
+nature, yet all excess should be carefully avoided, for it will check
+the briskness of the spirits and make them dull and languid, and as it
+also interferes with digestion, it must necessarily be an enemy _to_
+copulation; for it is food taken moderately and that is well digested,
+which enables a man to perform the dictates of Nature with vigour and
+activity, and it is also necessary, that in their mutual embraces they
+meet each other with equal ardour, for, if not, the woman either will
+not conceive, or else the child may be weak bodily, or mentally
+defective. I, therefore, advise them to excite their desires mutually
+before they begin their conjugal intercourse, and when they have done
+what nature requires, a man must be careful not to withdraw himself from
+his wife's arms too soon, lest some sudden cold should strike into the
+womb and occasion miscarriage, and so deprive them of the fruits of
+their labour.
+
+And when the man has withdrawn himself after a suitable time, the woman
+should quietly go to rest, with all calmness and composure of mind, free
+from all anxious and disturbing thoughts, or any other mental worry. And
+she must, as far as possible, avoid turning over from the side on which
+she was first lying, and also keep from coughing and sneezing, because
+as it violently shakes the body, it is a great enemy to conception.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+A
+
+PRIVATE LOOKING-GLASS
+
+FOR THE
+
+FEMALE SEX
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PART II
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+     _Treating of the several Maladies incident to the womb, with proper
+     remedies for the cure of each._
+
+
+The womb is placed in the _hypogastrium_, or lower part of the body, in
+the cavity called the _pelvis_, having the straight gut on one side to
+protect it against the hardness of the backbone, and the bladder on the
+other side to protect it against blows. Its form or shape is like a
+virile member, with this exception, that the man's is outside, and the
+woman's inside.
+
+It is divided into the neck and body. The neck consists of a hard fleshy
+substance, much like cartilage, and at the end of it there is a membrane
+placed transversely, which is called the hymen. Near the neck there is a
+prominent pinnacle, which is called the door of the womb, because it
+preserves the _matrix_ from cold and dust. The Greeks called it
+_clitoris_, and the Latins _praeputium muliebre_, because the Roman
+women abused these parts to satisfy their mutual unlawful lusts, as St.
+Paul says, Romans 1. 26.
+
+The body of the womb is where the child is conceived, and this is not
+altogether round, but dilates itself into two angles; the outward part
+is full of sinews, which are the cause of its movements, but inside it
+is fleshy. It is wrongly said, that in the cavity of the womb there are
+seven divided cells or receptacles for the male seed, but anatomists
+know that there are only two, and also that those two are not divided by
+a partition, but only by a line or suture running through the middle of
+it.
+
+At the bottom of the cavity there are little holes called
+_cotyledones_, which are the ends of certain veins or arteries, and
+serve breeding women to convey nourishment to the child, which is
+received by the umbilical and other veins, to carry the courses to the
+_matrix_.
+
+As to menstruation, it is defined as a monthly flow of bad and useless
+blood, and of the super-abundance of it, for it is an excrement in
+quality, though it is pure and incorrupt, like the blood in the veins.
+And that the menstruous blood is pure in itself, and of the same quality
+as that in the veins, is proved in two ways.--First, from the final
+object of the blood, which is the propagation and preservation of
+mankind, that man might be conceived; and that, being begotten, he might
+be comforted and preserved both in and out of the womb, and all allow
+that it is true that a child in the matrix is nourished by the blood.
+And it is true that when it is out of it, it is nourished by the same;
+for the milk is nothing but the menstruous blood made white in the
+breast. Secondly, it is proved to be true by the way it is produced, as
+it is the superfluity of the last aliment of the fleshy parts.
+
+The natural end of man and woman's being is to propagate. Now, in the
+act of conception one must be an active agent and the other passive, for
+if both were similarly constituted, they could not propagate. Man,
+therefore, is hot and dry, whilst woman is cold and moist: he is the
+agent, and she the passive or weaker vessel, that she may be subject to
+the office of the man. It is necessary that woman should be of a cold
+constitution, because a redundancy of Nature for the infant that depends
+on her is required of her; for otherwise there would be no surplus of
+nourishment for the child, but no more than the mother requires, and the
+infant would weaken the mother, and like as in the viper, the birth of
+the infant would be the death of the parent.
+
+The monthly purgations continue from the fifteenth to the forty-sixth or
+fiftieth year; but a suppression often occurs, which is either natural
+or morbid: the courses are suppressed naturally during pregnancy, and
+whilst the woman is suckling. The morbid suppression remains to be
+spoken of.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+     _Of the Retention of the Courses._
+
+
+The suppression of the menstrual periods, is an interruption of that
+accustomed evacuation of blood, which comes from the matrix every month,
+and the part affected is the womb.
+
+
+
+CAUSE.
+
+The cause of this suppression is either external or internal. The
+external cause may be heat or dryness of air, want of sleep, too much
+work, violent exercise, etc., whereby the substance is so consumed, and
+the body so exhausted that nothing is left over to be got rid of, as is
+recorded of the Amazons who, being active and constantly in motion, had
+their courses very little, if at all. Or it may be brought about by cold
+which is very frequent, as it vitiates and thickens the blood, and binds
+up the passages, so that it cannot flow out.
+
+The internal cause is either instrumental or material; in the womb or in
+the blood. In the womb, it may be in various ways; by humours, and
+abscesses and ulcers, by the narrowness of the veins and passages, or by
+the adipose membrane in fat bodies, pressing on the neck of the matrix,
+but then they must have hernia, zirthilis, for in men the membrane does
+not reach so low; by too much cold or heat, the one vitiating the
+action, and the other consuming the matter through the wrong formation
+of the uterine parts; by the neck of the womb being turned aside, and
+sometimes, though rarely, by a membrane or excrescence of the flesh
+growing at the mouth or neck of the womb. The blood may be in fault in
+two ways, in quantity and in quality; in quantity, when it is so
+consumed that no surplus is left over, as in viragoes or virile women,
+who, through their heat and natural strength, consume it all in their
+last nourishment; as Hippocrates writes of Prethusa, for when her
+husband praised her overmuch, her courses were suppressed, her voice
+changed and she got a beard with a manly face. But I think, rather that
+these must be _Gynophagi_, or woman-eaters, rather than women-breeders,
+because they consume one of the principles of generation, which gives a
+being to the world, viz., the menstruous blood. The blood may likewise
+be lost, and the courses checked by nosebleeding, by bleeding piles, by
+dysentery, commonly called the bloody flux, by many other discharges,
+and by chronic diseases. Secondly, the matter may be vitiated in
+quality, and if it be sanguineous, sluggish, bilious or melancholy, and
+any of these will cause an obstruction in the veins.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+Signs which manifest the disease are pains in the head, neck, back and
+loins; weariness of the whole body (but especially of the hips and legs,
+because the womb is near those parts); palpitation of the heart. The
+following are particular signs:--If the suppression arises from a cold,
+the woman becomes heavy, sluggish, pale and has a slow pulse; Venus'
+combats are neglected, the urine is thick, the blood becomes watery and
+great in quantity, and the bowels become constipated. If it arises from
+heat, the signs are just the opposite. If the retention be natural and
+arises from conception, this may be known by drinking hydromel, i.e.,
+water and honey, after supper, before going to bed, by the effect which
+it has; for if after taking it, she feels a heating pain about the navel
+and the lower parts of the abdomen, it is a sign that she has conceived,
+and that the suppression is natural.
+
+
+
+PROGNOSTICS.
+
+The whole body is affected by any disorder of the womb, and especially
+the heart, the liver and the brain, and there is a singular sympathy
+between the womb and those three organs. Firstly, the womb communicates
+with the heart by the mediation of those arteries which come from the
+aorta. Hence, when menstruation is suppressed, fainting, swooning, a
+very low pulse, and shortness of breath will ensue. Secondly, it
+communicates with the liver by the veins derived from the hollow vein.
+Obstructions, jaundice, dropsy, induration of the spleen will follow.
+Thirdly, it communicates with the brain by the nerves and membranes of
+the back; hence arise epilepsy, madness, fits of melancholy, pains in
+the back of the head, unaccountable fears and inability to speak. I may,
+therefore, well agree with Hippocrates that if menstruation be
+suppressed, many dangerous diseases will follow.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+In the cure of this, and of all the other following cases, I shall
+observe the following order:--The cures will be taken from surgical,
+pharmaceutical and diuretical means. The suppression has a plethoric
+effect, and must be removed by the evacuation; therefore we begin with
+bleeding. In the middle of the menstrual period, open the liver vein,
+and two days before, open the saphena in both feet; if the repletion is
+not very great apply cupping glasses to the legs and thighs, although
+there may be no hope of removing the suppression. As in some women, the
+cotyledones are so closed up that nothing but copulation will open them,
+yet it will be well to relieve the woman as much as possible by opening
+the hemoroid veins by applying a leech. After bleeding let the place be
+prepared and made flexible with syrup of stychas, calamint, betony,
+hyssop, mugwort, horehound, fumitary, maidenhair. Bathe the parts with
+camomiles, pennyroyal, savias, bay-leaves, juniper-berries, rue,
+marjoram, feverfew. Take a handful each of nep, maidenhair, succory and
+betony leaves and make a decoction, and take three ounces of it, syrup
+of maidenhair, mugwort and succory, half an ounce of each. After she
+comes out of her bath, let her drink it off. Purge with _Pill agaric,
+fleybany, corb, feriae_. In this case, Galen recommends _pilulae of
+caberica coloquintida_; for, as they are good for purging the bad
+humours, so also they open the passages of the womb, and strengthen it
+by their aromatic qualities.
+
+If the stomach be over-loaded, let her take an emetic, yet such a one as
+may work both ways, lest if it only works upwards, it should check the
+humours too much. Take two drachms of trochisks of agaric, infuse this
+in two ounces of oxymel in which dissolve one scruple and a half of
+_electuary dissarum_, and half an ounce of _benedic laxit_. Take this as
+a purge.
+
+After the humour has been got rid of, proceed to more suitable and
+stronger remedies. Take a drachm and a half of trochisk of myrrh; ten
+grains of musk with the juice of smallage; make twelve pills and take
+six every morning, or after supper, on going to bed. Take half an ounce
+of cinnamon, two drachms each of smirutium, or rogos, valerin
+aristolochia; two scruples each of astrumone root and saffron; two
+drachms of spec. diambia; four scruples of trochisk of myrrh; two
+scruples tartari vitriolari; make half into a powder; make lozenges with
+mugwort water and sugar, and take one drachm of them every morning; or
+mix a drachm of the powder with one drachm of sugar, and take it in
+white wine. Take two drachms each of prepared steel and spec. hair; one
+scruple each of borax and spec. of myrrh, with savine juice; make it up
+into eighty-eight lozenges and take three every other day before dinner.
+Take one scruple of castor, half a drachm of wild carrot seed with syrup
+of mugwort, and make four pills, take them in the morning fasting, for
+three days following, before the usual time of purging. Take five
+drachms each of agaric, aristolochia, and juice of horehound; six
+drachma each of rhubarb, spikenard, aniseed, guidanum, asafoetida,
+mallow-root, gentian, of the three peppers and of liquorice: make an
+electuary with honey, and take three drachms for a dose. For phlegmatic
+constitutions nothing can be better than the decoction of guaiacum wood
+with a little disclaim, taken fasting in the morning, for twelve days
+consecutively, without producing sweating.
+
+Treat the lower parts of the body to suffumigating, pessaries, ointments
+and injections; for fumigating use cinnamon, nutmeg, the berries of the
+bay tree, mugwort, galbanum, molanthium, amber, etc. Make pessaries of
+figs and the bruised leaves of dog's mercury, rolled up in lint, and if
+a stronger one is required, make one of myrrh, opopanax, ammoniac,
+galbanum, sagepanum, mithridate, agaric, coloquintida, tec. Make
+injections of a decoction of origane mugwort, dog's mercury, betony, and
+eggs; inject into the womb with a female syringe. Take half an ounce
+each of oil of almonds, lilies, capers, camomiles; two drachms each of
+laudanum and oil of myrrh; make a salve with wax, with which anoint the
+place; make injections of fenugreek, camomiles, melilot, dill, marjoram,
+pennyroyal, feverfew, juniper berries and calamint; but if the
+suppression arises from a lack of matter, then the courses ought not to
+be brought on until the spirits be raised and the amount of blood
+increased; or if it arises from affections of the womb itself, as dropsy
+or inflammation, then particular care must be used; but I will not lay
+stress on this here, but will mention the remedies in their order.
+
+If the retention comes from repletion or fullness, if the air be hot and
+dry, take moderate exercise before meals, and very light diet and
+drinks, and with your food take garden savory--thyme and origane, if it
+arises from emptiness and defect of matter: if the weather be moist and
+moderately hot, avoid exercise and late hours; let your food be
+nourishing and easy of digestion, such as raw eggs, lamb, chickens,
+almonds, milk and the like.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+     _Of Excessive Menstruation._
+
+
+The learned say, that truth is manifested by comparing contraries, and
+so, as I have above spoken of the suppression of menstruation, it is now
+necessary that I should treat of excessive menstruation, which is no
+less dangerous than the former. This immoderate monthly flow is defined
+as a sanguineous discharge, as it consists merely of blood, wherein it
+differs from the false courses or whites, of which I shall speak further
+on. Secondly, it is said to proceed from the womb; for there are two
+ways in which the blood issues forth; one by the internal veins of the
+body of the womb (and this is properly called the monthly flow), the
+other is by those veins which terminate in the neck of the matrix, which
+Aetius calls haemorrhoids of the womb. In quantity, Hippocrates said, it
+should be about eighteen ounces, and they should last about three days:
+and when the faculties of the body are weakened by their flow, we may
+take it that the discharge is inordinate. In bodies which abound in
+gross humours, this immoderate flow sometimes unburdens nature of her
+load and ought not to be checked without a physician's advice.
+
+
+
+CAUSE.
+
+The cause is either internal or external. The internal cause is
+threefold; in the substance, the instrument or the power. The matter,
+which is the blood, may be vitiated in two ways; first, by the heat of
+the constitution, climate or season, heating the blood, whereby the
+passages are dilated, and the power weakened so that it cannot retain
+the blood. Secondly, by falls, blows, violent motions, rupture of the
+veins, etc. The external cause may be the heat of the air, heavy
+burdens, unnatural childbirth, etc.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+In this excessive flow the appetite is lessened, conception is checked
+and all the functions weakened; the feet swell, the colour of the face
+changes, and the whole body is weakened. If the flow comes from the
+rupture of a vein, the body is sometimes cold, the blood flows out in
+streams, suddenly, and causes great pain. If it arises from heat, and
+the orifice of the vein is dilated, there is little or no pain, but yet
+the blood flows faster than it does when caused by erosion, but not so
+fast as it does in a rupture. If caused by erosion, the woman feels a
+scalding of the passage, and it differs from the other two, in so much
+as it does not flow so quickly or so freely as they do. If it is caused
+by weakness of the womb, the woman feels a dislike for sexual
+intercourse. Lastly, if it proceeds from the defective quality of the
+blood let some of it drop into a cloth, and when it is dry, you may
+judge, of the quality by the colour. If it be passionate it will be
+yellow; if melancholy, it will be black, and if phlegmatic, it will be
+waterish and whitish.
+
+
+
+PROGNOSTICS.
+
+If convulsions are joined to the flow, it is dangerous, because that
+intimates that the noble parts are affected, convulsions caused by
+emptiness are deadly. If they continue long, they will be very difficult
+to cure, and it was one of the miracles which our Saviour Christ
+wrought, to cure a woman of this disease of twelve years standing.
+
+To conclude, if the flow be excessive, many diseases will follow, which
+will be almost impossible to cure; the blood, being consumed together
+with the innate heat, either morbid, dropsical, or paralytical diseases
+will follow.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+The cure consists in three particulars. First, in expelling and
+carrying away the blood. Secondly, in connecting and removing the
+fluxibility of the matter. Thirdly, in incorporating the veins and
+faculties. For the first, to get rid of the superfluous blood, open a
+vein in the arm, and draw off as much blood as the strength of the
+patient will allow; not all at one time, but at intervals, for by those
+means the spirits are less weakened, and the reaction so much the
+greater.
+
+Apply cupping glasses to the breasts and also over the liver, and to
+correct the flexibility of the matter, purgative means, moderated by
+astringents, may be employed.
+
+If it is caused by erosion, and salt phlegm, prepare with syrup of
+violets, wormwood, roses, citron peel, succory, etc. Then make the
+following purge:--mirabolans, half an ounce; trochisks of agaric, one
+drachm; make a decoction with the plantain-water, and add syrup of roses
+lax. three ounces, and make a draught.
+
+If caused by any mental excitement, prepare the body by syrup of roses,
+myrtles, sorrel and parsley, mixed with plantain-water, knot-grass and
+endive. Then purge with the following draught:--Take one drachm each of
+the void of mirabolans, and rhubarb, cinnamon fifteen grains; infuse for
+a night in endive water; add to the strained water half an ounce of pulp
+of tamarinds and of cassia, and make a draught. If the blood be
+waterish as it is in dropsical subjects and flows out easily on account
+of its thinness, it will be a good plan to draw off the water by purging
+with agaric, elaterium and coloquintida. Sweating is also useful in this
+case, as by it the noxious matter is carried off, and the motion of the
+blood to other parts. To produce sweating, employ cardus water, and
+mithridate, or a decoction of guaiacum and sarsaparilla. Gum guaiacum is
+also a great producer of perspiration, and sarsaparilla pills, taken
+every night before going to bed are also highly to be recommended. If
+the blood pours out, without any evil quality in itself, then
+strengthening means only should be employed, which is a thing to be done
+in cases of inordinate discharge.
+
+Take one scruple of ol. ammoniac, one drachm of treacle, half an ounce
+of conserve of roses and make an electuary with syrup of myrtle, or if
+the discharge be of long standing take two drachms of matrix, one drachm
+of olilanum troch. de carbara, a scruple of balustium; make into a
+powder and form into pills with syrup of quinces, and take one before
+every meal. Take two scruples each of troch. dechambede, scoriaferri,
+coral and frankincense; pound these to a fine powder, and make into
+lozenges with sugar and plantain water. Asses' dung is also approved
+of, whether taken inwardly with syrup of quinces or applied outwardly
+with steeled water. Galen by sending the juice of it into the womb by
+means of a syringe for four days consecutively, cured this immediate
+flow, which could not be checked in any other way. Let the patient take
+one scruple and a half of pilon in water before going to bed; make a
+fumigation for the womb of mastic, frankincense and burnt frogs, adding
+the hoof of a mule. Take an ounce each of the juice of knot-grass,
+comfoly and quinces; a drachm of camphor; dip a piece of silk or cotton
+into it and apply it to the place. Take half an ounce each of oil of
+mastic, myrtle, and quinces; a drachm each of fine bole and troch.
+decardas, and a sufficient quantity of dragon's blood, make an ointment
+and apply it before and behind. Take an ounce and a half each of
+plantain, shepherd's purse and red rose leaves; an ounce of dried mint,
+and three ounces of bean flour; boil all these in plantain water and
+make two plasters:--apply one before and one behind. If the blood flows
+from those veins which are terminated at the neck of the matrix, then it
+is not called an undue discharge of the _menses_, but haemorrhoids of
+the womb. The same remedy, however, will serve for both, only the
+instrumental cure will be a little different; for in uterine
+haemorrhoids, the ends of the veins hang over like teats, which must
+be removed by cutting, and then the veins closed with aloes, fine bole,
+burnt alum, myrrh, mastic, with comfoly-juice and knot grass, laid upon
+it like a plaster.
+
+[Illustration: _Position of the Embryos in a plural conception_]
+
+[Illustration: Process of Delivery.]
+
+The air should be cold and dry, and all motion of the body should be
+prohibited. Her diet should consist of pheasants, partridges, grouse,
+rabbits, calves' feet, etc., and her drink should be mixed with the
+juice of pomegranates and quinces.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+     _Of the Weeping of the Womb._
+
+
+The weeping of the womb is an unnatural flow of blood, coming from it in
+drops, like tears, and causing violent pains in it, and occurring at no
+fixed period or time. By some it is supposed to be produced by the
+excessive flow of the courses, as they flow copiously and freely; this
+is continued, though only little at a time, and accompanied by great
+pain and difficulty of passing it, and on this account it is compared
+to the strangury.
+
+The cause is in the power, instrument or matter; in the power, on
+account of its being enfeebled so that it cannot expel the blood, and
+which, remaining there, makes that part of the womb grow hard, and
+distends the vessels, and from that, pains in the womb arise. In the
+instrument, from the narrowness of the passage. Lastly, it may be the
+matter of the blood which is at fault, and which may be in too great
+quantities; or the quality may be bad, so that it is thick and gross and
+cannot flow out as it ought to do, but only in drops. The signs will
+best be ascertained by the patient's own account, but there will be
+pains in the head, stomach and back, with inflammation, difficulty of
+breathing and excoriation of the matrix. If the patient's strength will
+permit it, first open a vein in the arm, rub the upper parts and let a
+cord be fastened tightly round the arm, so that the force of the blood
+may be carried backward; then apply such things as may relax the womb,
+and assuage the heat of the blood, as poultices made of bran, linseed,
+mallows, dog's mercury and artiplex. If the blood be viscous and thick,
+add mugwort, calamint, dictain and betony to it, and let the patient
+take about the size of a nutmeg of Venic treacle, and syrup of mugwort
+every morning; make an injection of aloes, dog's mercury, linseed,
+groundsel, mugwort, fenugreek, with sweet almond oil.
+
+Sometimes it is caused by wind, and then bleeding must not be had
+recourse to, but instead take one ounce of syrup of feverfew; half an
+ounce each of honey, syrup of roses, syrup of stachus; an ounce each of
+calamint water, mugwort, betony and hyssop, and make a julep. If the
+pain continues, use this purge:--Take a drachm of spec. Hitrae, half an
+ounce of diacatholicon, one ounce of syrup of roses and laxative, and
+make a draught with a decoction of mugwort and the four cordial flowers.
+If it proceeds from weakness, she must be strengthened, but if from
+grossness of blood, let the quality of it be altered, as I have shown in
+the preceding chapter. Lastly, if her bowels are confined, move them by
+an injection of a decoction of camomiles, betony, feverfew, mallows,
+linseed, juniper-berries, cumminseed, aniseed, melilot, and add to it
+half an ounce of diacatholicon; two drachms of hiera piera, an ounce
+each of honey and oil and a drachm and a half of sol. nitre. The patient
+must abstain from salt, acid and windy food.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+     _The false Courses, or Whites._
+
+
+From the womb, not only the menstruous blood proceeds, but many
+evacuations, which were summed up by the ancients under the title of
+_rhoos gunaikeios_,[6] which is the distillation of a variety of corrupt
+humours through the womb, which flow from the whole body or a part of
+it, varying both in courses and colour.
+
+
+
+CAUSE.
+
+The cause is either promiscuously in the whole body, by a cacochymia; or
+weakness of it, or in some of its parts, as in the liver, which by a
+weakness of the blood producing powers, cause a production of corrupt
+blood, which then is reddish. Sometimes, when the fall is sluggish in
+its action, and does not get rid of those superfluities engendered in
+the liver, the matter is yellowish. Sometimes it is in the spleen when
+it does not cleanse the blood of the dregs and rejected particles, and
+then the matter which flows forth is blackish. It may also come from a
+cold in the head, or from any other decayed or corrupted member, but if
+the discharge be white, the cause lies either in the stomach or loins.
+In the stomach, by some crude substance there, and vitiated by grief,
+melancholy or some other mental disturbance; for otherwise, if the
+matter were only crude phlegm and noways corrupt, being taken into the
+liver it might be converted into the blood; for phlegm in the ventricle
+is called nourishment half digested; but being corrupt, though sent into
+the liver it cannot be turned into nutriment, for the second decoction
+in the stomach cannot correct that which the first corrupted; and
+therefore the liver sends it to the womb, which can neither digest nor
+reject it, and so it is voided out with the same colour which it had in
+the ventricle. The cause may also be in the veins being overheated
+whereby the spermatical matter flows out because of its thinness. The
+external causes may be moistness of the air, eating bad food, anger,
+grief, sloth, too much sleep, costiveness.
+
+The signs are bodily disturbances, shortness of breathing, and foul
+breath, a distaste for food, swollen eyes and feet, and low spirits;
+discharges of different colours, as red, black, green, yellow and white
+from the womb. It differs from the flowing of the courses and from too
+abundant menstruation, in so far as it keeps no certain period, and is
+of many colours, all of which spring from blood.
+
+If the flux be phlegmatic, it will last long and be hard to cure, but if
+sickness or diarrhoea supervene, it carries off the humour and cures the
+disease. If it is abundant it does not last so long, but it is more
+dangerous, for it will cause a cleft in the neck of the womb, and
+sometimes also an excoriation of the matrix; if melancholy, it must be
+dangerous and obstinate. The flux of the haemorrhoids, however, assists
+the cure.
+
+If the matter which flows out be reddish, open a vein in the arm; if
+not, apply ligatures to the arms and shoulders. Galen boasts that he
+cured the wife of Brutus, who was suffering from this disease, by
+rubbing the upper part with honey.
+
+If it is caused by the brain, take syrup of betony and marjoram. Give as
+a purgative _Pill. coch._ or _Agaric_; make nasalia of sage, or hyssop
+juice, betony, flagella, with one drop of oil of _Elect. Dianth. Rosat.
+Diambrae, diamosci dulus_, one drachm of each, and make lozenges to be
+taken every morning and evening. _Auri Alexandrina_, half a drachm at
+night on going to bed. If these things have no effect, try suffumigation
+and plasters, as they are prescribed above.
+
+If it arises from crudities of the stomach or from a cold, disordered
+liver, take a decoction of _lignum sanctum_ every morning, purge with
+_pill de agaric, de hermadact, de hiera, diacolinthis, foetid-agrigatio_;
+take two drachms of elect. aromet-roses, one scruple each of dried
+citron peel, nutmeg, long pepper; one drachm of draglanga; half a
+scruple each of _fantalum album_, ling, aloes; six ounces of sugar, with
+mint water: make lozenges of it, and take them before meals. If there be
+repletion besides the rigidity of the liver, purging by means of an
+emetic is to be recommended, for which take three drachms of the
+electuary diasatu. Galen allows diuretical remedies, such as _aqua
+petrofolma_.
+
+If the discharge be angry, treat it with syrup of roses, violets, endive
+and succory; give a purge of mirabolans, manna, rhubarb, and cassia.
+Take two drachms of rhubarb, one of aniseed, and one scruple and a half
+of cinnamon; infuse them into six ounces of syrup of prunes, and add one
+ounce of strained manna, and take it in the morning as required. Take
+one drachm each of the following drugs: _diatonlanton, diacorant,
+diarthod, abbaris, dyacydomei_, four ounces of sugar, and make into
+lozenges with plantain water. If the gall be sluggish, and does not stir
+the bowels, give warm injections of a decoction of the four mollifying
+herbs, with honey of roses and aloes.
+
+If the flow be bilious, treat the patient with syrup of maiden-hair;
+epithynium, polypody, borage, buglos, fumitary, hart's tongue and
+syrups, bisantius, which must be made without vinegar, else it will
+assist the disease instead of nature, for melancholy is increased by the
+use of vinegar, and both Hippocrates, Silvius and Avenzoar reject it as
+injurious for the womb, and therefore not to be used internally in
+uterine diseases. _Pilulae sumariae, pilulae lud. delupina, lazuli
+diosena_ and _confetio hamec_ are purges of bile. Take two ounces of
+pounded prunes, one drachm of senna, a drachm and a half each of
+epithimium, polypody and fumitary, and an ounce of sour dates, and make
+a decoction with endive water; take four ounces of it and add three
+drachms of hamesech and three of manna. Or take a scruple each of _pil.
+indic. foetid, agarici, trochis ati_; one scruple of rhubarb pills, six
+grains of lapis lazuli, make into pills with epithimium, and take them
+once a week. Take three drachms of elect. loetificans. Galen three
+drachms, a drachm each of _diamargaritum, calimi, diamosci dulus_; a
+drachm of conserve of borage, violets and burglos; one drachm of candied
+citron peel, seven ounces of sugar, and make into lozenges with rose
+water.
+
+Lastly let the womb be cleansed of all corrupt matter, and then be
+strengthened. In order to purify it, make injections of the decoction of
+betony, feverfew, spikenard, bismust, mercury and sage, and add two
+ounces each of sugar and sweet almond oil; pessaries may also be made of
+silk or cotton, softened in the juice of the above mentioned herbs.
+
+You must prepare trochisks, thus, to strengthen the womb. Take one ounce
+each of mugwort, feverfew, myrrh, amber, mace, storax, ling aloes and
+red roses, and make lozenges or troches with mucilage of tragacanth;
+throw one of them on to hot coals and fumigate the womb with red wine,
+in which mastic, fine bole, malustia and red roots have been decocted;
+anoint the matrix with oil of quinces and myrtles, and apply a plaster
+to it, for the womb; and let the woman take _diamosdum dulco_, _aract_,
+and _slemoticum_ every morning.
+
+A drying diet is recommended as best, because in these cases the body
+abounds with phlegmatic and crude humours. On this account, Hippocrates
+advises the patient to go to bed supperless. Her food should consist of
+partridges, pheasant and grouse, roasted rather than boiled, too much
+sleep must be prohibited whilst moderate exercise is very advisable.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] The female flowing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+     _The Suffocation of the Mother._
+
+
+This, which if simply considered, will be found to be merely the cause
+of an effect, is called in English, "the suffocation of the mother," not
+because the womb is strangled, but because by its retraction towards the
+midriff and stomach, which presses it up, so that the instrumental cause
+of respiration, the midriff, is suffocated, and acting with the brain,
+cause the animating faculty, the efficient cause of respiration, also to
+be interrupted, when the body growing cold, and the action weakened, the
+woman falls to the ground as if she were dead.
+
+Some women remain longer in those hysterical attacks than others, and
+Rabbi Moses mentions some who lay in the fit for two days. Rufus writes
+of one who continued in it for three days and three nights, and revived
+at the end of the three days. And I will give you an example so that we
+may take warning by the example of other men. Paroetus mentions a
+Spanish woman who was suddenly seized with suffocation of the womb, and
+was thought to be dead. Her friends, for their own satisfaction, sent
+for a surgeon in order to have her opened, and as soon as he began to
+make an incision, she began to move, and come to herself again with
+great cries, to the horror and surprise of all those present.
+
+In order that the living may be distinguished from the dead, old writers
+prescribe three experiments. The first is, to lay a feather on the
+mouth, and by its movements you may judge whether the patient be alive
+or dead; the second is, to place a glass of water on the breast, and if
+it moves, it betokens life; the third is, to hold a bright, clean,
+looking-glass to the mouth and nose, and if the glass be dimmed with a
+little moisture on it, it betokens life. These three experiments are
+good, but you must not depend upon them too much, for though the feather
+and the glass do not move, and the looking-glass continues bright and
+clear, yet it is not a necessary consequence that she is dead. For the
+movement of the lungs, by which breathing is produced, may be checked,
+so that she cannot breathe, and yet internal heat may remain, which is
+not evident by the motion of the breast or lungs, but lies hidden in the
+heart and arteries.
+
+Examples of this we find in flies and swallows, who seem dead to all
+outward appearances, breathless and inanimate, and yet they live by that
+heat which is stored up in the heart and inward arteries. At the
+approach of summer, however, the internal heat, being restored to the
+outer parts, they are then brought to life again, out of their sleeping
+trance.
+
+Those women, therefore, who apparently die suddenly, and from no visible
+cause, should not be buried until the end of three days, lest the living
+be buried instead of the dead.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+The part affected is the womb, of which there are two motions--natural
+and symptomatic. The natural motion is, when the womb attracts the male
+seed, or expels the infant, and the symptomatical motion, of which we
+are speaking, is a convulsive drawing up of the womb.
+
+The cause is usually in the retention of the seed, or in the suppression
+of the menses, which causes a repletion of the corrupt humours of the
+womb, from which a windy refrigeration arises, which produces a
+convulsion of the ligaments of the womb. And just as it may arise from
+humidity or repletion, so also, as it is a convulsion, it may be caused
+by dryness or emptiness. Lastly also, it may arise from abortion or from
+difficult childbirth.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+On the approach of suffocation of the womb the face becomes pale, there
+is a weakness of the legs, shortness of breathing, frigidity of the
+whole body, with a spasm in the throat, and then the woman falls down,
+bereft of sense and motion; the mouth of the womb is closed up, and
+feels hard when touched with the finger. When the paroxysm or the fit is
+over, she opens her eyes, and as she feels an oppression of the stomach,
+she tries to vomit. And lest any one should be deceived into taking one
+disease for another, I will show how it may be distinguished from those
+diseases which most resemble it.
+
+It differs from apoplexy, as it comes without the patient crying out; in
+hysterical fits also the sense of feeling is not altogether destroyed
+and lost, as it is in apoplexy; and it differs from epilepsy, as the
+eyes are not distorted, and there is spongy froth from the mouth. That
+convulsive motion also, which is frequently accompanied by symptoms of
+suffocation, is not universal, as it is in epilepsy, but there is some
+convulsion, but that without any violent agitation. In syncope both
+breathing and the pulse fail, the face grows pale, and the woman faints
+suddenly; but in hysterical attacks there are usually both breathing
+and pulse, though these are indistinct; the face is red and she has a
+forewarning of the approaching fit. It cannot, however, be denied that
+syncope may accompany this feeling of suffocation. Lastly, it can be
+distinguished from lethargy by the pulse, which is rapid in the former,
+but weak in the latter.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+In the cure of this affection, two things must be taken care of:--_In
+the first place_, nature must be stimulated to expel these hurtful
+humours which obscure the senses, so that the woman may be brought back
+from that sleepy fit. _Secondly_, during the intervals of the attack,
+proper remedies must be employed, in order to remove the cause.
+
+To stimulate nature, apply cupping-glasses to the hips and navel: apply
+ligatures to the thighs, rub the extremities with salt, mustard and
+vinegar, and shout and make a great noise in her ears. Hold asafoetida
+to the nose, or sacopenium steeped in vinegar; make her sneeze by
+blowing castor-powder, white pepper and hellebore up her nose; hold
+burnt feathers, hair, leather, or anything else with a strong, stinking
+smell under her nose, for bad odours are unpleasant to nature, and the
+animal spirits so strive against them, that the natural heat is restored
+by their means. The brain is sometimes so oppressed, that it becomes
+necessary to burn the outer skin of the head with hot oil, or with a hot
+iron, and strong injections and suppositories are useful. Take a handful
+each of sage, calamint, horehound, feverfew, marjoram, betony and
+hyssop; half an ounce of aniseed; two drachma each of coloquintida,
+white hellebore and salgem; boil these in two quarts of water till
+reduced to half; add two ounces of castor oil and two drachms of hiera
+piera and make an injection of it. Or take two ounces of boiled honey,
+half a scruple of spurge, four grains of coloquint, two grains of
+hellebore and drachm of salt; make a suppository. Hippocrates mentions a
+hysterical woman who could only be relieved of the paroxysms by pouring
+cold water on her: yet this is a strange cure, and should only be
+administered in the heat of summer, when the sun is in the tropic of
+Cancer.
+
+If it be caused by the retention and corruption of the seed, let the
+mid-wife take oil of lilies, marjoram and bay leaves, and dissolve two
+grains of civet in them, and the same quantity of musk, and at the
+moment of the paroxysm let her dip her finger into the mixture and put
+it into the neck of the womb, and tickle and rub it with it.
+
+When the fit is over, proceed to remove the cause. If it arises from
+suppression of the menses, look in Chapter XI, p. 102, for the cure. If
+it arises from the retention of the seed, a good husband will administer
+the cure, but those who cannot honourably obtain that remedy, must use
+such means as will dry up and diminish the seed, as diaciminum,
+diacalaminthes, etc. The seed of the agnus castus is highly valued as a
+draught, whether taken inwardly, applied outwardly or used as a
+suffumigation. It was held in high esteem by the Athenian women, for by
+its means they remained as pure vessels and preserved their chastity, by
+only strewing it on the bed on which they lay, and hence the name of
+_agnus castus_, which was given to it, as denoting its effects. Make an
+issue on the inside of each leg, four inches below the knee, and then
+make lozenges of two scruples of agric, half a scruple each of wild
+carrot seed and ligne aloes; three drachms of washed turpentine, and
+make a bolus with a conserve of flowers. Eight drachms of castor taken
+in white wine are very useful in this case, or you may make pills of it
+with dog's tooth, and take them on going to bed. Take an ounce of white
+briony root dried and cut up like carrots, put it into a little wine and
+place it on the fire, and drink when warm. Take one scruple each of
+myrrh, castor and asafoetida; four grains each of saffron and rue-seed,
+and make eight pills and take two every night on going to bed.
+
+Galen, from his own experience, recommends powdered agaric, of which he
+frequently gave one scruple in white wine. Put a head of bruised garlic
+on the navel at bed time, and fasten it with a swathing band. Make a
+girdle for the waist of galbanum, and also a plaster for the stomach,
+and put civet and musk on one part of it, which must be applied to the
+navel. Take two drachms each of pulvis benedict, and of troches of
+agaric, a sufficient quantity of mithridate, and make two pessaries, and
+that will purge the matrix of wind and phlegm; foment the private parts
+with salad oil in which some feverfew and camomiles have been boiled.
+Take a handful of roseleaves and two scruples of cloves, sew them in a
+little cloth and boil them for ten minutes in malmsey; then apply them,
+as hot as they can be borne, to the mouth of the womb, but do not let
+the smell go up her nose. A dry diet must still be adhered to and the
+moderate use of Venus is advisable. Let her eat aniseed biscuits
+instead of bread, and roast meat instead of boiled.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+     _Of the Descending or Falling of the Womb._
+
+
+The descent of the womb is caused by a relaxation of the ligatures,
+whereby the matrix is carried backward, and in some women it protrudes
+to the size of an egg, and there are two kinds of this, distinguished by
+a descending and a precipitation. The descending of the womb is, when it
+sinks down to the entrance of the private parts, and appears either very
+little or not at all, to the eye. Its precipitation is when it is turned
+inside out like a purse, and hangs out between the thighs, like a
+cupping glass.
+
+
+
+CAUSE.
+
+This is either external or internal. The external cause is difficult
+childbirth, violent pulling away, or inexperience in drawing away the
+child, violent coughing, sneezing, falls, blows, and carrying heavy
+burdens. The internal cause, is generally the flow of too much moisture
+into these parts, which hinders the operation of the womb, whereby the
+ligaments by which the womb is supported are relaxed. The particular
+cause, however, lies in the retention of the _semen_, or in the
+suppression of the monthly courses.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+The principal gut and the bladder are often so crushed, that the passage
+of both evacuations is hindered. If the urine flows out white and thick,
+and the midriff is interfered with, the loins suffer, the private parts
+are in pain, and the womb descends to them, or else comes clean out.
+
+
+
+PROGNOSTICS.
+
+If an old woman is thus affected, the cure is very difficult, because it
+weakens the womb, and therefore, though it may be put back into its
+proper place, yet it is apt to get displaced again, by a very slight
+amount of illness. And also with younger women, if this disease is
+inveterate, and if it is caused by putrefaction of the nerves, it is
+incurable.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+The womb, being placed by nature between the straight gut and the
+bladder, ought not to be put back again until the powers of both are
+excited. Now that nature is relieved of her burden, let the woman be
+laid on her back so that her legs may be higher than her head; let her
+feet be drawn up towards her private parts, and her knees spread open.
+Then apply oil of sweet almonds and lilies, or a decoction of mallows,
+beet, fenugreek and linseed, to the swelling; when the inflammation is
+reduced, let the midwife rub her hand with oil of mastic, and restore
+the womb to its proper place. When the matrix is up, the patient's
+position must be changed. Her legs must be put out quite straight and
+laid together, and apply six cupping glasses to her breast and navel.
+Boil feverfew, mugwort, red rose leaves and comfrey in red wine; make a
+suffumigation for the matrix, and apply sweet scents to her nose. When
+she comes out of her bath, give her an ounce of syrup of feverfew with a
+drachm of dog's tooth (_mithridate_). Take three drachms each of
+laudanum and mastic, and make a plaster for the navel of it, and then
+make pessaries of asafoetida, saffron, comfrey, and mastic, adding a
+little castor oil.--Parius in such cases makes his pessaries only of
+cork, shaped like a small egg; he covered them with wax and mastic
+dissolved together, and fastening them to a thread, he put them into the
+womb.
+
+The immediate danger being now removed and the matrix returned to its
+natural place the remote cause must be got rid of. If she be of full
+habit of body open a vein, after preparing her with syrup of betony,
+calamint, hyssop and feverfew. Give a purge, and if the stomach be
+oppressed with any crude matter relieve it by emetics and by sudorifics
+of lignum sanctum and sassafras taken twenty days consecutively, which
+dry up the superfluous moisture, and consequently suppress the cause of
+the disease.
+
+The air should be hot and dry, and her diet hot and attenuating. Let her
+abstain from dancing, jumping, sneezing, as well as from all mental and
+bodily emotions, eat sparingly, not drink much, and be moderate in her
+sleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+     _Of the Inflammation of the Womb._
+
+
+The phlegmon, or inflammation of the matrix, is a humour which affects
+the whole womb, and is accompanied by unnatural heat, by obstruction and
+by an accumulation of corrupt blood.
+
+
+
+CAUSE.
+
+The cause of this affection is suppression of the courses, fullness of
+body, the immoderate use of sexual intercourse, frequent handling the
+genitals, difficult child-birth, violent motions of the body, falls,
+blows, to which may be added, the use of strong pessaries, whereby the
+womb is frequently inflamed, cupping glasses, also, fastened to the
+_pubis_ and _hypogastrium_, draw the humours of the womb.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+The signs are pains in the lower parts of the body and head, humours,
+sickness, coldness in the knees, throbbing in the neck, palpitation of
+the heart. Often, also, there is shortness of breath because of the
+heart which is close to the midriff, and the breasts sympathising with
+the swollen and painful womb. Besides this, if the front of the matrix
+be inflamed, the privates suffer, and the urine is suppressed, or only
+flows with difficulty. If the hinder part be inflamed, the loins and
+back suffer, and the bowels are very costive; if the right side be
+inflamed, the right hip suffers, and the right leg is heavy and moves
+slowly, so that at times she seems almost lame. If, however, the left
+side of the womb be inflamed, then the left hip suffers and the left leg
+is weaker than the right. If the neck of the womb is affected, by
+putting her finger in, the midwife feels that its mouth is contracted
+and closed up, and that it is hard round it.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+In the cure, first of all, let the humours which flow to the womb be
+expelled. To effect this, after the bowels have been loosened by cooling
+clysters bleeding will be necessary. Therefore, open a vein in the arm,
+if she is not with child; the day after strike the saphena in both feet,
+fasten ligatures and cupping glasses to the arm, and rub the upper part.
+Purge gently with cassia, rhubarb, senna and myrobalan. Take one drachm
+of senna, a scruple of aniseed, myrobalan, half an ounce, with a
+sufficient quantity of barley water. Make a decoction and dissolve syrup
+of succory in it, and two ounces of rhubarb; pound half an ounce of
+cassia with a few drops of oil of aniseed and make a draught. At the
+commencement of the disease, anoint the private parts and loins with oil
+of roses and quinces: make plasters of plantain, linseed, barley meal,
+melilot, fenugreek, white of eggs, and if the pain be intense, a little
+laudanum; foment the genitals with a decoction of poppy-heads, purslace,
+knot-grass and water-lilies. Make injections of goat's milk, rose water,
+clarified whey and honey of roses. When the disease is on a decline, use
+injections of sage, linseed, mugwort, pennyroyal, horehound, fenugreek,
+and anoint the lower parts of the stomach with oil of camomiles and
+violets.
+
+Take four ounces each of lily and mallow roots, a handful of dog's
+mercury, a handful and a half each of mugwort, feverfew, camomile
+flowers and melilot, bruise the herbs and roots, and boil them in a
+sufficient quantity of milk; then add two ounces each of fresh butter,
+oil of camomiles and lilies, with a sufficient quantity of bran, make
+two plasters, and apply one before and the other behind.
+
+If the tumour cannot be removed, but seems inclined to suppurate, take
+three drachms each of fenugreek, mallow roots, boiled figs, linseed,
+barley meal, dove's dung and turpentine; half a drachm of deer's suet,
+half a scruple of opium and make a plaster of wax.
+
+Take bay leaves, sage, hyssop, camomiles, and mugwort, and make an
+infusion in water.
+
+Take half a handful of wormwood and betony and half a pint each of white
+wine and milk, boil them until reduced to half; then take four ounces of
+this decoction and make an injection, but you must be careful that the
+humours are not brought down into the womb. Take three drachms each of
+roast figs, and bruised dog's mercury; three drachms each of turpentine
+and duck's grease, and two grains of opium; make a pessary with wax.
+
+The room must be kept cool, and all motions of the body, especially of
+the lower parts, must be prohibited. Wakefulness is to be recommended,
+for humours are carried inward by sleep, and thus inflammation is
+increased. Eat sparingly, and drink only barley water or clarified whey,
+and eat chickens and chicken broth, boiled with endive, succory, sorrel,
+bugloss and mallows.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+     _Of Scirrhous Tumours, or Hardness of the Womb._
+
+
+A _scirrhus_, or a hard unnatural swelling of the matrix is generally
+produced by neglected, or imperfectly cured phlegm, which, insensibly,
+hinders the functions of the womb, and predisposes the whole body to
+listlessness.
+
+
+
+CAUSE.
+
+One cause of this disease may be ascribed to want of judgment on the
+part of the physician, as many empirics when attending to inflammation
+of the womb, chill the humour so much that it can neither pass backward
+nor forward, and hence, the matter being condensed, turns into a hard,
+stony substance. Other causes may be suppression of the menses,
+retention of the _Lochein_, commonly called the after purging; eating
+decayed meat, as in the disordered longing after the _pleia_ to which
+pregnant women are often subject. It may, however, also proceed from
+obstructions and ulcers in the matrix or from some evil affections of
+the stomach or spleen.
+
+If the bottom of the womb be affected, she feels, as it were, a heavy
+burden representing a mole,[7] yet differing from it, in that the
+breasts are attenuated, and the whole body grows less. If the neck of
+the womb be affected, no outward humours will appear; its mouth is
+retracted and feels hard to the touch, nor can the woman have sexual
+intercourse without great pain.
+
+
+
+PROGNOSTICS.
+
+Confirmed scirrhus is incurable, and will turn to cancer or incurable
+dropsy, and when it ends in cancer it proves fatal, because as the
+innate heat of these parts is almost smothered, it can hardly be
+restored again.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+Where there is repletion, bleeding is advisable, therefore open a vein
+in one arm and in both feet, more especially if the menses are
+suppressed.
+
+Treat the humours with syrup of borage, succory made with a poultice,
+and then take the following pills, according to the patient's strength.
+
+Hiera piera six drachms, two and a half drachms each of black hellebore
+and polypody; a drachm and a half each of agaric, lapis lazuli, sal
+Indiae, coloquintida, mix them and make two pills. After purging,
+mollify the hardness as follows:--the privy parts and the neck of the
+womb with an ointment of decalthea and agrippa; or take two drachms each
+of opopanax, bdellium, ammoniac and myrrh, and half a drachm of saffron;
+dissolve the gum in oil of lilies and sweet almond and make an ointment
+with wax and turpentine. Apply diacatholicon ferellia below the navel,
+and make infusions of figs, mugwort, mallows, pennyroyal, althea, fennel
+roots, melilot, fenugreek and the four mollifying herbs, with oil of
+dill, camomiles and lilies dissolved in it. Take three drachms of gum
+bdellium, put the stone pyrites on the coals, and let her take the fumes
+into her womb. Foment the privy parts with a decoction of the roots and
+leaves of dane wort. Take a drachm each of gum galbanum and opopanax,
+half an ounce each of juice of dane wort and mucilage of fenugreek, an
+ounce of calve's marrow, and a sufficient quantity of wax, and make a
+pessary. Or make a pessary of lead only, dip it in the above mentioned
+things, and put it up.
+
+The atmosphere must be kept temperate, and gross and salt meats such as
+pork, bull beef, fish and old cheese, must be prohibited.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[7] _Mole_: "A somewhat shapeless, compact fleshy mass occurring in the
+uterus, due to the retention and continued life of the whole or a part
+of the foetal envelopes, after the death of the foetus (a _maternal or
+true mole_); or being some other body liable to be mistaken for this, or
+perhaps a polypus or false mole." (_Whitney's Century Dictionary_.)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+     _Of Dropsy of the Womb._
+
+
+Uterine dropsy is an unnatural swelling, caused by the collection of
+wind or phlegm in the cavity, membranes or substance of the womb, on
+account of the want of innate heat and of sufficient alimentation, and
+so it turns into an excrescence. The causes are, too much cold and
+moisture of the milt and liver, immoderate drinking, eating
+insufficiently cooked meat, all of which by causing repletion, overpower
+the natural heat. It may likewise be caused by undue menstruation, or by
+any other immoderate evacuation. To these may be added abortions,
+subcutaneous inflammations and a hardened swelling of the womb.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+The signs of this affection are as follows:--The lower parts of the
+stomach, with the genitals, are swollen and painful; the feet swell, the
+natural colour of the face is lost, the appetite becomes depraved, and
+there is a consequent heaviness of the whole body. If the woman turns
+over in bed a noise like flowing water is heard, and sometimes water is
+discharged from the womb. If the swelling is caused by wind and the
+stomach feels hot, it sounds like a drum; the bowels rumble, and the
+wind escapes through the neck of the womb with a murmuring noise. This
+affection may be distinguished from true conception in many ways, as
+will be shown in the chapter on _conception_. It is distinguished from
+common dropsy, by the lower parts of the stomach being most swollen.
+Again, it does not appear so injurious in this blood-producing
+capability, nor is the urine so pale, nor the face so altered. The upper
+parts are also not so reduced, as in usual dropsy.
+
+
+
+PROGNOSTICS.
+
+This affection foretells the ruin of the natural functions, by that
+peculiar sympathy it has with the liver, and that, therefore,
+_kathydria_, or general dropsy will follow.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+In the cure of this disease, imitate the practice of Hippocrates, and
+first mitigate the pain with fomentations of melilot, dog's mercury,
+mallows, linseed, camomiles and althoea. Then let the womb be prepared
+with syrup of stoebis, hyssop, calamint, mugwort, with distilled water,
+a decoction of elder, marjoram, sage, origan, spearage, pennyroyal, and
+betony. Purge with senna, agaric, rhubarb, and claterium. Take spicierum
+hier, a scruple each of rhubarb, agaric lozenges, and make into pills
+with iris juice.
+
+When diseases arise from moistness, purge with pills, and in those
+affections which are caused by emptiness or dryness, purge by means of a
+draught. Apply cupping glasses to the stomach and also to the navel,
+especially if the swelling be flatulent. Put a seton on to the inside of
+each leg, the width of a hand below the knee. Take two drachms each of
+sparganium, diambrae, diamolet, diacaliminti, diacinamoni, myrrh
+lozenges, and a pound of sugar; make these into lozenges with betony
+water, and take them two hours before meals. Apply a little bag of
+camomiles, cummin and melilot boiled in oil of rue, to the bottom of the
+stomach as hot as it can be borne; anoint the stomach and the privates
+with unguent agripp, and unguent aragon. Mix iris oil with it, and cover
+the lower part of the stomach with a plaster of bay berries, or a
+cataplasm made of cummin, camomiles, briony root, adding cows' and
+goats' dung.
+
+Our modern medical writers ascribe great virtues to tobacco-water,
+injected into the womb by means of a clyster. Take a handful each of
+balm of southernwood, origanum, wormwood, calamint, bay berries and
+marjoram, and four drachms of juniper berries; make a decoction of these
+in water, and use this for fomentations and infusions. Make pessaries of
+storax, aloes, with the roots of dictam, aristolochia and gentian, but
+instead of this you may use the pessary prescribed at the end of Chapter
+XVII. Let her take aromatic electuary, disatyrion and candied eringo
+roots, every morning.
+
+The air must be hot and dry, moderate exercise is to be taken and too
+much sleep prohibited. She may eat the flesh of partridges, larks,
+grouse, hares, rabbits, etc., and let her drink diluted urine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+     _Of Moles[8] and False Conceptions._
+
+
+This disease may be defined as an inarticulate shapeless piece of flesh,
+begotten in the womb as if it were true conception. In this definition
+we must note two things: (1) because a mole is said to be inarticulate
+or jointless, and without shape, it differs from monstrosities which are
+both _formata_ and _articulata_; (2) it is said to be, as it were a true
+conception, which makes a difference between a true conception, and a
+mole, and this difference holds good in three ways. First, in its genus,
+because a mole cannot be said to be an animal: secondly, in the species,
+because it has not a human figure and has not the character of a man;
+thirdly, in the individual, for it has no affinity to the parent, either
+in the whole body, or in any particular part of it.
+
+
+
+CAUSE.
+
+There is a great difference of opinion amongst learned writers as to the
+cause of this affection. Some think, that if the woman's seed goes into
+the womb, and not the man's, that the mole is produced thereby. Others
+declare that it springs from the menstruous blood, but if these two
+things were granted, then virgins, by having their courses or through
+nocturnal pollutions, might be liable to the same things, which none
+have ever been yet. The true cause of this fleshy mole is due both to
+the man and from the menstruous blood in the woman both mixing together
+in the cavity of the womb. Nature finding herself weak there (and yet
+wishing to propagate her species), labours to bring forth a defective
+conception rather than nothing and instead of a living creature produces
+a lump of flesh.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+The signs of a mole are these. The _menses_ are suppressed, the appetite
+becomes depraved, the breasts swell and the stomach becomes inflated and
+hard. So far the symptoms in a pregnant woman and in one that has a mole
+are the same, but now this is how they differ. The first sign of
+difference is in the movements of a mole. It may be felt moving in the
+womb before the third month, whereas an infant cannot be so felt; yet
+this motion cannot proceed from any intelligent power in the mole, but
+from the capabilities of the womb, and of the seminal vigour,
+distributed through the substance of the mole, for it does not live an
+animal, but a vegetable life, like a plant. _Secondly_, in a mole the
+stomach swells suddenly, but in true conception it is first contracted,
+and then rises by degrees. _Thirdly_, if the stomach is pressed with the
+hand, the mole gives way, and returns to its former position as soon as
+the hand is removed. But a child in the womb does not move immediately
+though pressed with the hand, and when the hand is removed it returns
+slowly or not at all. _Lastly_, no child continues in the womb more than
+eleven months, but a mole continues for four or five years, more or
+less, sometimes according as it is fastened to the matrix; and I have
+known a mole pass away in four or five months. If, however, it remains
+until the eleventh month, the woman's legs grow weak and the whole body
+wastes away, but the stomach still increases, which makes some women
+think that they are dropsical, though there is no reason for it, for in
+dropsy the legs swell and grow big, but in a mole they wither and fall
+away.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+In the school of Hippocrates we are taught that bleeding causes
+abortion, by taking all the nourishment which should preserve the life
+of the embryo. In order, therefore, that this faulty conception may be
+deprived of that nourishing sap by which it lives, open the liver vein
+and saphena in both feet, apply cupping glasses to the loins and sides
+of the stomach, and when that has been done, let the uterine parts be
+first softened, and then the expulsive powers be stimulated to get rid
+of the burden.
+
+In order to relax the ligatures of the mole, take three handfuls of
+mallows with their roots, two handfuls each of camomiles, melilot,
+pellitory of the wall, violet leaves, dog's mercury, fennel roots,
+parsley, and one pound each of linseed and fenugreek; boil them in oil
+and let the patient sit in it up to her navel. When she comes out of her
+bath, she should anoint her private parts and loins with the following
+ointment:--"Take one ounce each of oil of camomiles, lilies and sweet
+almonds: half an ounce each of fresh butter, laudanum and ammoniac, and
+make an ointment with oil of lilies. Or, instead of this, you may use
+unguentum agrippae or dialthea. Take a handful of dog's mercury and
+althea roots; half a handful of flos brochae ursini; six ounces of
+linseed and barley meal. Boil all these together in honey and water and
+make a plaster, and make pessaries of gum galbanum, bdellium, ammoniac,
+figs, pig's fat and honey.
+
+After the ligaments of the mole are loosened, let the expulsive powers
+be stimulated to expel the mole, and for doing this, all those drugs may
+be used which are adapted to bring on the courses. Take one ounce of
+myrrh lozenges, half an ounce each of castor, astrolachia, gentian and
+dittany and make them into a powder, and take one drachm in four ounces
+of mugwort water. Take calamint, pennyroyal, betony, hyssop, sage,
+horehound, valerian, madder and savine; make a decoction in water and
+take three ounces of it, with one and a half ounces of feverfew. Take
+three scruples each of mugwort, myrrh, gentian and pill. coch.; a drachm
+each of rue, pennyroyal and opopanax, and the same of asafoetida,
+cinnamon, juniper-berries and borage, and make into pills with savine
+juice, to be taken every morning. Make an infusion of hyssop, bay
+leaves, bay berries, calamint, camomiles, mugwort and savine. Take two
+scruples each of sacopenium, mugwort, savine, cloves, nutmeg, bay
+berries; one drachm of galbanum; one scruple each of hiera piera and
+black hellebore, and make a pessary with turpentine.
+
+But if these medicaments are not procurable, then the mole must be
+pulled out by means of an instrument called the _pes gryphis_,[9] which
+may be done without much danger if it be performed by a skilful surgeon.
+After she has been delivered of the mole (because the woman will have
+lost much blood already), let the flow of blood be stopped as soon as
+possible.
+
+Apply cupping glasses to the shoulders and ligatures to the arms, and if
+this be not effective, open the liver vein in the arm.
+
+The atmosphere of the room must be kept tolerably dry and warm, and she
+must be put on a dry diet, to soothe the system; she must, however,
+drink white wine.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] _Mole_: "A somewhat shapeless, compact fleshy mass occurring in the
+uterus, due to the retention and continued life of the whole or a part
+of the foetal envelopes, after the death of the foetus (_a maternal or
+true mole_); or being some other body liable to be mistaken for this, or
+perhaps a polypus or false mole." (_Whitney's Century Dictionary_.)
+
+[9] _Griffin's claw_, a peculiar hooked instrument.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+     _Of Conception and its Signs, and How a Woman may know whether it
+     be Male or Female._
+
+
+Ignorance often makes women the murderesses of the fruit of their own
+body, for many, having conceived and finding themselves out of order,
+and not rightly knowing the cause, go to the shop of their own conceit
+and take whatever they think fit, or else (as the custom is) they send
+to the doctor for a remedy, and he, not perceiving the cause of their
+trouble, for nothing can be diagnosed accurately by the urine,
+prescribes what he thinks best; perhaps some diuretic or cathartic,
+which destroy the embryo. Therefore Hippocrates says, it is necessary
+that women should be instructed in the signs of conception, so that the
+parent as well as the child may be saved from danger. I shall,
+therefore, lay down some rules, by which every woman may know whether
+she is pregnant or not, and the signs will be taken from the woman, from
+her urine, from the child and from experiments.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+The first day after conception, she feels a slight quivering and
+chilliness throughout her body; there is a tickling of the womb and a
+little pain in the lower parts of her stomach. Ten or twelve days after
+she feels giddy and her eyes dim and with circles round them; the
+breasts swell and grow hard, with some pain and pricking in them, whilst
+the stomach rises and sinks again by degrees, and there is a hardness
+about the navel. The nipples grow red, the heart beats unusually
+strongly, the natural appetite abates, and the woman has a craving after
+strange food. The neck of the womb is contracted, so that it can
+scarcely be felt when the finger is put in. And the following is an
+infallible sign; she is alternately in high spirits and melancholy; the
+monthly courses cease without any apparent cause, the evacuations from
+the bowels are retained unusually long, by the womb pressing on the
+large gut, and her desire for sexual intercourse is diminished. The
+surest sign is taken from the infant, which begins to move in the womb
+in the third or fourth month, and not in the manner of a mole, mentioned
+above, from side to side like a stone, but gently, as may be perceived
+by applying the hand cold upon the stomach.
+
+
+
+SIGNS TAKEN FROM THE URINE.
+
+The best writers affirm that the water of a pregnant woman is white and
+has little specks in it, like those in a sunbeam, ascending and
+descending in it, of an opal colour, and when the sediment is disturbed
+by shaking the urine, it looks like carded wool. In the middle of
+gestation it turns yellow, then red and lastly black, with a red film.
+At night on going to bed, let her drink water and honey, and if
+afterwards she feels a beating pain in her stomach and about the navel,
+she has conceived. Or let her take the juice of cardius, and if she
+brings it up again, that is a sign of conception. Throw a clean needle
+into the woman's urine, put it into a basin and let it stand all night.
+If it is covered with red spots in the morning, she has conceived, but
+if it has turned black and rusty, she has not.
+
+
+
+SIGNS TAKEN FROM THE SEX, TO SHOW WHETHER IT BE A MALE OR FEMALE.
+
+If it is a male, the right breast swells first, the right eye is
+brighter than the left, the face is high-coloured, because the colour is
+such as the blood is, and as the male is conceived of purer blood and of
+more perfect seed than the female, red specks in the urine, and making a
+sediment, show that a male has been conceived, but if they are white, a
+female. Put the urine of the woman into a glass bottle, let it stand
+tightly stoppered for two days, then strain it through a fine cloth,
+and you will find little animals in it. If they are red, it is a male,
+but if white, it is a female.
+
+The belly is rounder and lies higher with a boy than with a girl, and
+the right breast is harder and plumper than the left, and the right
+nipple redder, and the woman's colour is clearer than when she has
+conceived a girl.
+
+To conclude, the most certain sign to give credit to, is the motion of
+the child, for the male moves in the third month, and the female not
+until the fourth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+     _Of Untimely Births._
+
+
+When the fruit of the womb comes forth before the seventh month (that
+is, before it comes to maturity), it is said to be abortive; and, in
+effect, the children prove abortive, that is, do not live, that are born
+in the eighth month. Why children born in the seventh or ninth month
+should live, and not those born in the eighth, may seem strange, and yet
+it is true. The cause of it is ascribed by some to the planet under
+which the child is born; for every month, from conception to birth, is
+governed by its own planet, and in the eighth month Saturn predominates,
+which is dry and cold; and coldness, being an utter enemy to life,
+destroys the natural constitution of the child. Hippocrates gives a
+better reason, viz.:--The infant, being every way perfect and complete
+in the seventh month, wants more air and nourishment than it had before,
+and because it cannot obtain this, it tries for a passage out. But if it
+have not sufficient strength to break the membranes and to come out as
+ordained by nature, it will continue in the womb until the ninth month,
+so that by that time it may be again strengthened. But if it returns to
+the attempt in the eighth month and be born, it cannot live, because the
+day of its birth is either past or is to come. For in the eighth month
+Avicunus says, it is weak and infirm, and therefore on being brought
+into the cold air, its vitality must be destroyed.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+Untimely births may be caused by cold, for as it causes the fruit of the
+tree to wither and fall before it is ripe, so it nips the fruit of the
+womb before it comes to perfection, or makes it abortive;--sometimes by
+humidity, which weakens its power, so that the fruit cannot be retained
+until the proper time. It may be caused by dryness or emptiness, which
+rob the child of its nourishment, or by an alvine discharge, by bleeding
+or some other evacuation, by inflammation of the womb, and other severe
+disease. Sometimes it is caused by joy, anger, laughter and especially
+by fear, for then the heat forsakes the womb, and goes to the heart, and
+so the cold sinks into the womb, whereby the ligaments are relaxed, and
+so abortion follows. On this account, Plato recommended that the woman
+should avoid all temptations to excessive joy and pleasure, as well as
+all occasions for fear and grief. Abortion may also be caused by the
+pollution of the air by filthy odours, and especially by the smell of
+the smouldering wick of a candle, and also by falls, blows, violent
+exercise, jumping, dancing, etc.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+Signs of coming abortion are a falling away of the breast, with a flow
+of watery milk, pains in the womb, heaviness in the head, unusual
+weariness in the hips and thighs, and a flowing of the courses. Signs
+denoting that the fruit is dead in the womb are sunken eyes, pains in
+the head, frights, paleness of the face and lips, gnawing at the
+stomach, no movements of the infant; coldness and looseness of the
+mouth of the womb. The stomach falls down, whilst watery and bloody
+discharges come from the womb.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+     _Directions for Pregnant Women._
+
+
+The prevention of untimely births consists in removing the
+aforementioned causes, which must be effected both before and after
+conception.
+
+Before conception, if the body be too hot, dry or moist, employ such
+treatment as to counteract the symptoms; if the blood be vitiated purify
+it, if plethoric, open the liver vein; if gross, reduce it; if too thin
+strengthen and nourish it. All the diseases of the womb must be removed
+as I have shown.
+
+After conception, let the atmosphere be kept temperate, do not sleep too
+much, avoid late hours, too much bodily exercise, mental excitement,
+loud noises and bad smells, and sweet smells must also be avoided by
+those who are hysterical. Refrain from all things that may provoke
+either urine or menstruation, also salt, sour, and windy food, and keep
+to a moderate diet.
+
+If the bowels are confined, relieve the stomach with injections made of
+a decoction of mallows and violets, with sugar and salad oil; or make a
+broth with borage, buglos, beetroot, and mallows, and add a little manna
+to it. If, on the other hand, she be troubled with looseness of the
+bowels, do not check it with medical advice, for all the uterine fluxes
+have some bad qualities in them, which must be evacuated before the
+discharge is stopped.
+
+A cough is another thing to which pregnant women are frequently liable,
+and which causes them to run great danger of miscarrying, by the shock
+and continual drain upon the vein. To prevent this shave off the hair
+from the coronal commissures, and apply the following plaster to the
+place.
+
+Take half an ounce of resin, a drachm of laudanum, a drachm each of
+citron peel, lignaloes and galbanum, with a sufficient quantity of
+liquid and dry styrax. Dissolve the gum in vinegar and make a plaster,
+and at night let her inhale the fumes of these lozenges, thrown upon
+bright coals. Take also a drachm and a half each of frankincense, styrax
+powder and red roses: eight drachms of sandrich, a drachm each of
+mastic, benjamin and amber; make into lozenges with turpentine, and
+apply a cautery to the nape of the neck. And every night let her take
+the following pills:--Half an ounce each of hypocistides, terrae
+sigilatae and fine bole; two drachms each of bistort, alcatia, styrax
+and calamint, and one drachm of cloves, and make into pills with syrup
+of myrtles.
+
+In pregnant women, a corrupt matter is generated which, flowing to the
+ventricle, spoils the appetite and causes sickness. As the stomach is
+weak, and cannot digest this matter, it sometimes sends it to the bowels
+which causes a flux of the stomach, which greatly adds to the weakness
+of the womb. To prevent all these dangers the stomach must be
+strengthened by the following means:--Take one drachm each of lignaloes
+and nutmeg; a scruple each of mace, cloves, mastic, laudanum; an ounce
+of oil of spikenard; two grains of musk, half an ounce each of oil of
+mastic, quinces and wormwood, and make into an ointment for the stomach,
+to be applied before meals. Instead of this, however, you may use
+cerocum stomachile Galeni. Take half an ounce each of conserve of
+borage, buglos and atthos; two drachms each of confection of hyacinths,
+candied lemon peel, specierum, diamarg, pulo. de genunis: two scruples
+each of nutmeg and diambra; two drachma each of peony roots and
+diacoratum, and make into an electuary with syrup of roses, which she
+must take twice a day before meals. Another affection which troubles a
+pregnant woman is swelling of the legs, which happens during the first
+three months, by the superfluous humours descending from the stomach and
+liver. To cure this, take two drachms of oil of roses, and one drachm
+each of salt and vinegar; shake them together until the salt is
+dissolved, and anoint the legs with it hot, rubbing it well in with the
+hand. It may be done without danger during the fourth, fifth and sixth
+months of pregnancy; for a child in the womb is compared to an apple on
+the tree. For the first three months it is a weak and tender subject,
+like the apple, to fall away; but afterwards, when the membranes become
+strengthened, the fruit remains firmly fastened to the womb, and not
+subject to mischances, and so it remains, until the seventh month, until
+when it is near the time, the ligaments are again relaxed (like the
+apple that is almost ripe).
+
+They grow looser every day, until the appointed time for delivery; if,
+therefore, the body is in real need of purging, the woman may do it
+without danger in the fourth, fifth or sixth month, but neither before
+nor after that unless in the case of some violent illness, in which it
+is possible that both mother and child may perish. Apply plasters and
+ointments to the loins in order to strengthen the fruit in the womb.
+Take one drachm each of gum Arabic, galangale, bistort, hypocistid and
+storax, a drachm and a half each of fine bole, nutmeg, mastic, balaust,
+dragon's blood and myrtle berries, and a sufficient quantity of wax and
+turpentine and make into a plaster. Apply it to the loins in the winter,
+and remove it every twenty-four hours, lest the loins should become
+overheated by it. In the interim, anoint the private parts and loins
+with _countess' balsam_ but if it be summer time and the loins hot, the
+following plaster will be more suitable. Take a pound of red roses, two
+drachms each of mastic and red Sanders, one drachm each of bole ammoniac
+and red coral, two drachms and a half each of pomegranate seed and
+prepared coriander seed, two scruples of barberries, one ounce each of
+oil of mastic and of quinces, and plantain-juice.
+
+Anoint the loins also with sandalwood ointment, and once a week wash
+them with two parts of rose-water and one of white wine mixed together
+and warmed at the fire. This will assuage the heat of the loins, get rid
+of the oil of the plaster from the pores of the skin, and cause the
+fresh ointment or plaster to penetrate more easily, and to strengthen
+the womb. Some think that a load-stone laid upon the navel, keeps a
+woman from abortion. The same thing is also stated of the stone called
+_aetites_ or eagle-stone, if it is hung round the neck. Samian stone has
+the same virtue.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+     _Directions for Women when they are taken in Labour, to ensure
+     their safe Delivery, and Directions for Midwives._
+
+
+Having thus given the necessary directions to pregnant women, how to
+manage their health during their pregnancy, I will now add what is
+necessary for them to do, in order that they may be safely delivered.
+
+When the time of birth draws near, the woman must be sure to send for a
+skilful midwife, and that rather too soon than too late. She must have a
+pallet bed ready to place it near the fire, so that the midwife and
+those who are to help her, may be able to pass round it, and give
+assistance on either side, as may be required. A change of linen must be
+in readiness, and a small stool to rest her feet against, as she will
+have more power when her legs are bent, than when they are straight.
+
+When everything is thus ready, and when the woman feels the pains coming
+on, if the weather be not cold, she should walk about the room, rest on
+the bed occasionally, waiting for the breaking of the waters, which is a
+fluid contained in one of the outward membranes, and which flows out
+thence, when the membrane is broken by the struggles of the child. There
+is no special time for this discharge, though it generally takes place
+about two hours before the birth. Movements will also cause the womb to
+open and dilate, and when lying long in bed will be uncomfortable. If
+she be very weak she may take some mild cordial to give her strength, if
+her pain will permit her; and if the labour be tedious, she may be
+revived with chicken or mutton broth, or she may take a poached egg; but
+she must be very careful not to eat to excess.
+
+There are many postures in which women are delivered; some sitting in a
+chair, supported by others, or resting on the bed; some again upon their
+knees and resting on their arms; but the safest and most commodious way,
+is in the bed, and then the midwife ought to observe the following
+rules:--Let her lay the woman upon her back, with her head a little
+raised by means of a pillow, with similar supports for her loins and
+buttocks, which latter should also be raised, for if she lies low, she
+cannot be delivered so easily. Then let her keep her knees and thighs as
+far apart as she can, her legs bent inward towards each other, and her
+buttocks, the soles of her feet and her heels being placed upon a small
+rest, placed for the purpose, so that she may be able to strain the
+stronger. In case her back should be very weak, a swathing band should
+be placed under it, the band being doubled four times and about four
+inches broad. This must be held by two persons who must raise her up a
+little every time her pains come on, with steady hands and in even time,
+but if they be not exact in their movements, they had better leave her
+alone. At the same time two women must hold her shoulders so that she
+may strain out the foetus more easily; and to facilitate this let one
+stroke or press the upper part of her stomach gently and by degrees. The
+woman herself must not be nervous or downhearted, but courageous, and
+forcing herself by straining and holding her breath.
+
+When delivery is near, the midwife must wait patiently until the child's
+head, or some limb, bursts the membranes, for if the midwife through
+ignorance, or through haste to go to some other woman, as some have
+done, tears the membrane with her nails, she endangers both the woman
+and the child; for by lying dry and lacking that slipperiness which
+should make it easy, it comes forth with severe pains.
+
+When the head appears, the midwife must hold it gently between her
+hands, and draw the child, whenever the woman's pains are upon her, but
+at no other times; slipping her forefingers under its armpits by
+degrees, and not using a rough hand in drawing it out, lest the tender
+infant might become deformed by such means. As soon as the child is
+taken out, which is usually with its face downwards,--it should be laid
+upon its back, that it may receive external respiration more freely;
+then cut the navel string about three inches from the body, tying the
+end which adheres to it with a silk string, as closely as you can; then
+cover the child's head and stomach well, allowing nothing to touch its
+face.
+
+When the child has been thus brought forth, if it be healthy lay it
+aside, and let the midwife attend to the patient by drawing out the
+afterbirth; and this she may do by wagging and stirring it up and down,
+and afterwards drawing it out gently. And if the work be difficult, let
+the woman hold salt in her hands, close them tightly and breathe hard
+into them, and by that she will know whether the membranes are broken or
+not. It may also be known by making her strain or vomit; by putting her
+fingers down her throat, or by straining or moving her lower parts, but
+let all be done immediately. If this should fail, let her take a draught
+of elder water, or the yolk of a new laid egg, and smell a piece of
+asafoetida, especially if she is troubled with a windy colic. If she
+happen to take cold, it is a great obstruction to the afterbirth; in
+such cases the midwife ought to chafe the woman's stomach gently, so as
+to break, not only the wind, but also to force the secundine to come
+down. But if these should prove ineffectual, the midwife must insert her
+hand into the orifice of the womb and draw it out gently.
+
+Having thus discussed common births, or such as are generally easy, I
+shall now give directions in cases of extremity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+     _What ought to be done in cases of extremity, especially in women
+     who, in labour, are attacked by a flux of blood, convulsions and
+     fits of wind._
+
+
+If the woman's labour be hard and difficult, greater care must be taken
+than at other times. And, first of all, the situation of the womb and
+her position in lying must be across the bed, and she must be held by
+strong persons to prevent her from slipping down or moving during the
+surgeon's operations. Her thighs must be put as far apart as possible,
+and held so, whilst her head must rest upon a bolster, and her loins be
+supported in the same manner. After her rump and buttocks have been
+raised, be careful to cover her stomach, belly and thighs with warm
+clothes, to keep them from the cold.
+
+When the woman is in this position, let the operator put up his or her
+hand, if the neck of the womb be dilated, and remove the coagulated
+blood that obstructs the passage of the birth; and by degrees make way
+gently, let him remove the infant tenderly, having first anointed his
+hand with butter or some harmless salve. And if the waters have not come
+down, they may then be let out without difficulty. Then, if the infant
+should attempt to come out head foremost, or crosswise, he should turn
+it gently, to find the feet. Having done this, let him draw out one and
+fasten it with ribbon and then put it up again, and by degrees find the
+other, bringing them as close together and as even as possible, and
+between whiles let the woman breathe, and she should be urged to strain
+so as to help nature in the birth, that it may be brought forth. And to
+do this more easily, and that the hold may be surer, wrap a linen cloth
+round the child's thighs, taking care to bring it into the hand face
+downwards.
+
+In case of flux of blood, if the neck of the womb be open, it must be
+considered whether the infant or the _secundine_, generally called the
+afterbirth, comes first, and as the latter happens to do so
+occasionally, it stops the mouth of the womb and hinders the birth, and
+endangers both the woman's and the child's life. In this case the
+afterbirth must be removed by a quick turn. They have deceived many
+people, who, feeling their softness, have supposed that the womb was not
+dilated, and by that means the woman and child, or at least the latter,
+have been lost. When the afterbirth has been removed, the child must be
+sought for and drawn out, as directed above; and if the woman or the
+child die in such a case, the midwife or the surgeon are blameless
+because they have used their best endeavours.
+
+If it appears upon examination that the afterbirth comes first, let the
+woman be delivered as quickly as possible, because a great flow of blood
+will follow, for the veins are opened, and on this account two things
+have to be considered.
+
+_First_:--The manner in which the afterbirth advances, whether it be
+much or little. If the former, and the head of the child appears first,
+it may be guided and directed towards the neck of the womb, as in the
+case of natural birth, but if there appears any difficulty in the
+delivery, the best way is to look for the feet, and draw it out by them;
+but if the latter, the afterbirth may be put back with a gentle hand,
+and the child taken out first. But if the afterbirth has come so far
+forward that it cannot be put back, and the child follows it closely,
+then the afterbirth must be removed very carefully, and as quickly as
+may be, and laid aside without cutting the entrail that is fastened to
+it; for you may be guided to the infant by it, which must be drawn out
+by the feet, whether it be alive or dead, as quickly as possible; though
+this is not to be done except in cases of great necessity, for in other
+cases the afterbirth ought to come last.
+
+In drawing out a dead child, these directions should be carefully
+followed by the surgeon, viz.--If the child be found to be dead, its
+head appearing first, the delivery will be more difficult; for it is an
+evident sign that the woman's strength is beginning to fail her, that,
+as the child is dead and has no natural power, it cannot be assisting in
+its own delivery in any way. Therefore the most certain and the safest
+way for the surgeon is, to put up his left hand, sliding it into the
+neck of the womb, and into the lower part of it towards the feet, as
+hollow in the palm as he can, and then between the head of the infant
+and the neck of the womb. Then, having a forceps in the right hand, slip
+it up above the left hand, between the head of the child and the flat of
+the hand, fixing it in the bars of the temple near the eye. As these
+cannot be got at easily in the occipital bone, be careful still to keep
+the hand in its place, and gently move the head with it, and so with the
+right hand and the forceps draw the child forward, and urge the woman to
+exert all her strength, and continue drawing whenever her pains come on.
+When the head is drawn out, he must immediately slip his hand under the
+child's armpits, and take it quite out, and give the woman a piece of
+toasted white bread, in a quarter of a pint of Hippocras wine.
+
+If the former application fails let the woman take the following potion
+hot when she is in bed, and remain quiet until she begins to feel it
+operating.
+
+Take seven blue figs, cut them into pieces and add five grains each of
+fenugreek, motherwort and rue seed, with six ounces each of water of
+pennyroyal and motherwort; reduce it to half the quantity by boiling and
+after straining add one drachm of troches of myrrh and three grains of
+saffron; sweeten the liquor with loaf sugar, and spice it with
+cinnamon.--After having rested on this, let her strain again as much as
+possible, and if she be not successful, make a fumigation of half a
+drachm each of castor, opopanax, sulphur and asafoetida, pounding them
+into a powder and wetting the juice of rue, so that the smoke or fumes
+may go only into the matrix and no further.
+
+If this have not the desired effect, then the following plaster should
+be applied:--Take an ounce and a half of balganum, two drachms of
+colocynth, half an ounce each of the juice of motherwort and of rue, and
+seven ounces of virgin bees' wax: pound and melt them together,
+spreading them on a cere-cloth so that they may spread from the navel to
+the os pubis and extending to the flanks, at the same time making a
+pessary of wood, enclosing it in a silk bag, and dipping it in a
+decoction of one drachm each of sound birthwort, savin colocinthis,
+stavescare and black hellebore, with a small sprig or two of rue.
+
+But if these things have not the desired effect, and the woman's danger
+increases, let the surgeon use his instruments to dilate and widen the
+womb, for which purpose the woman must be placed on a chair, so that she
+may turn her buttocks as far from its back as possible, at the same time
+drawing up her legs as close as she can and spreading her thighs open as
+wide as possible; or if she is very weak it may be better to lay her on
+the bed with her head downwards, her buttocks raised and both legs drawn
+up. Then the surgeon may dilate the womb with his speculum matrices and
+draw out the child and the afterbirth together, if it be possible, and
+when this is done, the womb must be well washed and anointed, and the
+woman put back to bed and comforted with spices and cordials. This
+course must be adopted in the case of dead children and moles,
+afterbirths and false births, which will not come out of themselves, at
+the proper time. If the aforementioned instrument will not widen the
+womb sufficiently, then other instruments, such as the drake's bill, or
+long pincers, ought to be used.
+
+If any inflammation, swelling or congealed blood happens to be
+contracted in the womb under the film of these tumours, either before or
+after the birth, let the midwife lance it with a penknife or any
+suitable instrument, and squeeze out the matter, healing it with a
+pessary dipped in oil of red roses.
+
+If the child happens at any time to be swollen through cold or violence,
+or has contracted a watery humour, if it is alive, such means must be
+used as are least injurious to the child or mother; but if it be dead,
+the humours must be let out by incisions, to facilitate the birth.
+
+If, as often happens, the child is presented feet foremost, with the
+hands spreading out from the hips, the midwife must in such a case be
+provided with the necessary ointments to rub and anoint the child with,
+to help it coming forth, lest it should turn into the womb again,
+holding both the infant's arms close to the hips at the same time, that
+it may come out in this manner; but if it proves too big, the womb must
+be well anointed. The woman should also take a sneezing powder, to make
+her strain; the attendant may also stroke her stomach gently to make the
+birth descend, and to keep it from returning.
+
+It happens occasionally, that the child presenting itself with the feet
+first, has its arms extended above its head; but the midwife must not
+receive it so, but put it back into the womb, unless the passage be
+extraordinarily wide, and then she must anoint both the child and the
+womb, and it is not safe to draw it out, which must, therefore, be done
+in this manner.--The woman must lie on her back with her head low and
+her buttocks raised; and then the midwife must compress the stomach and
+the womb with a gentle hand, and by that means put the child back,
+taking care to turn the child's face towards the mother's back, raising
+up its thighs and buttocks towards the navel, so that the birth may be
+more natural.
+
+If the child happens to come out with one foot, with the arm extended
+along the side and the other foot turned backwards; then the woman must
+be immediately put to bed and laid in the above-described position; when
+the midwife must immediately put back the foot which appears so, and the
+woman must rock herself from side to side, until she finds that the
+child has turned, but she must not alter her position nor turn upon her
+face. After this she may expect her pains and must have great assistance
+and cordials so as to revive and support her spirits.
+
+At other times it happens that the child lies across in the womb, and
+falls upon its side; in this case the woman must not be urged in her
+labour; therefore, the midwife when she finds it so, must use great
+diligence to reduce it to its right form, or at least to such a form in
+the womb as may make the delivery possible and most easy by moving the
+buttocks and guiding the head to the passage; and if she be successful
+in this, let the woman rock herself to and fro, and wait with patience
+till it alters its way of lying.
+
+Sometimes the child hastens simply by expanding its legs and arms; in
+which, as in the former case, the woman must rock herself, but not with
+violence, until she finds those parts fall to their proper station; or
+it may be done by a gentle compression of the womb; but if neither of
+them avail, the midwife must close the legs of the infant with her hand,
+and if she can get there, do the like by the arms, and so draw it forth;
+but if it can be reduced of itself to the posture of a proper birth it
+is better.
+
+If the infant comes forward, both knees forward, and the hands hanging
+down upon the thighs, then the midwife must put both knees upward, till
+the feet appear; taking hold of which with her left hand let her keep
+her right hand on the side of the child, and in that posture endeavour
+to bring it forth. But if she cannot do this, then also the woman must
+rock herself until the child is in a more convenient posture for
+delivery.
+
+Sometimes it happens that the child presses forward with one arm
+extended on its thighs, and the other raised over its head, and the feet
+stretched out at length in the womb. In such case, the midwife must not
+attempt to receive the child in that posture, but must lay the woman on
+the bed in the manner aforesaid, making a soft and gentle compression on
+her belly, oblige the child to retire; which if it does not, then must
+the midwife thrust it back by the shoulder, and bring the arm that was
+stretched above the head to its right station; for there is most danger
+in these extremities; and, therefore, the midwife must anoint her hands
+and the womb of the woman with sweet butter, or a proper pomatum, and
+thrust her hand as near as she can to the arm of the infant, and bring
+it to the side. But if this cannot be done, let the woman be laid on the
+bed to rest a while; in which time, perhaps, the child may be reduced to
+a better posture; which the midwife finding, she must draw tenderly the
+arms close to the hips and so receive it.
+
+If an infant come with its buttocks foremost, and almost double, then
+the midwife must anoint her hand and thrust it up, and gently heaving up
+the buttocks and back, strive to turn the head to the passage, but not
+too hastily, lest the infant's retiring should shape it worse: and
+therefore, if it cannot be turned with the hand, the woman must rock
+herself on the bed, taking such comfortable things as may support her
+spirits, till she perceives the child to turn.
+
+If the child's neck be bowed, and it comes forward with its shoulders,
+as it sometimes doth, with the hands and feet stretched upwards, the
+midwife must gently move the shoulders, that she may direct the head to
+the passage; and the better to effect it, the woman must rock herself as
+aforesaid.
+
+These and other like methods are to be observed in case a woman hath
+twins, or three children at a birth, which sometimes happens: for as
+the single birth hath but one natural and many unnatural forms, even so
+it may be in a double and treble birth.
+
+Wherefore, in all such cases the midwife must take care to receive the
+first which is nearest the passage; but not letting the other go, lest
+by retiring it should change the form; and when one is born, she must be
+speedy in bringing forth the other. And this birth, if it be in the
+natural way, is more easy, because the children are commonly less than
+those of single birth, and so require a less passage. But if this birth
+come unnaturally, it is far more dangerous than the other.
+
+In the birth of twins, let the midwife be very careful that the
+secundine be naturally brought forth, lest the womb, being delivered of
+its burden, fall, and so the secundine continue longer there than is
+consistent with the woman's safety.
+
+But if one of the twins happens to come with the head, and the other
+with the feet foremost, then let the midwife deliver the natural birth
+first; and if she cannot turn the other, draw it out in the posture in
+which it presses forward; but if that with its feet downward be
+foremost, she may deliver that first, turning the other aside. But in
+this case the midwife must carefully see that it be not a monstrous
+birth, instead of twins, a body with two heads, or two bodies joined
+together, which she may soon know if both the heads come foremost, by
+putting up her hand between them as high as she can; and then, if she
+finds they are twins she may gently put one of them aside to make way
+for the other, taking the first which is most advanced, leaving the
+other so that it do not change its position. And for the safety of the
+other child, as soon as it comes forth out of the womb, the midwife must
+tie the navel-string, as has before been directed, and also bind, with a
+large, long fillet, that part of the navel which is fastened to the
+secundine, the more readily to find it.
+
+The second infant being born, let the midwife carefully examine whether
+there be not two secundines, for sometimes it falls out, that by the
+shortness of the ligaments it retires back to the prejudice of the
+woman. Wherefore, lest the womb should close, it is most expedient to
+hasten them forth with all convenient speed.
+
+If two infants are joined together by the body, as sometimes it
+monstrously falls out, then, though the head should come foremost, yet
+it is proper, if possible, to turn them and draw them forth by the feet,
+observing, when they come to the hips, to draw them out as soon as may
+be. And here great care ought to be used in anointing and widening the
+passage. But these sort of births rarely happening, I need to say the
+less of them, and, therefore, shall show how women should be ordered
+after delivery.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+     _How child-bearing Women ought to be ordered after Delivery._
+
+
+If a woman has had very hard labour, it is necessary that she should be
+wrapped up in a sheep's skin, taken off before it is cold, applying the
+fleshy side to her veins and belly, or, for want of this, the skin of a
+hare or coney, flayed off as soon as killed, may be applied to the same
+parts, and in so doing, a dilation being made in the birth, and the
+melancholy blood being expelled in these parts, continue these for an
+hour or two.
+
+Let the woman afterwards be swathed with fine linen cloth, about a
+quarter of a yard in breadth, chafing the belly before it is swathed,
+with oil of St. John's wort; after that raise up the matrix with a linen
+cloth, many times folded: then with a linen pillar or quilt, cover the
+flanks, and place the swathe somewhat above the haunches, winding it
+pretty stiff, applying at the same time a linen cloth to her nipples; do
+not immediately use the remedies to keep back the milk, by reason the
+body, at such a time, is out of frame; for there is neither vein nor
+artery which does not strongly beat; and remedies to drive back the
+milk, being of a dissolving nature, it is improper to apply them to the
+breasts during such disorder, lest by doing so, evil humours be
+contracted in the breast. Wherefore, twelve hours at least ought to be
+allowed for the circulation and settlement of the blood, and what was
+cast on the lungs by the vehement agitation during labour, to retire to
+its proper receptacles.
+
+Some time after delivery, you may take a restrictive of the yolks of two
+eggs, and a quarter of a pint of white wine, oil of St. John's wort, oil
+of roses, plantain and roses water, of each an ounce, mix them together,
+fold a linen cloth and apply it to the breast, and the pains of those
+parts will be greatly eased.
+
+She must by no means sleep directly after delivery; but about four hours
+after, she may take broth, caudle or such liquid victuals as are
+nourishing; and if she be disposed to sleep it may be very safely
+permitted. And this is as much, in the case of a natural birth, as ought
+immediately to be done.
+
+But in case of an extremity or an unnatural birth, the following rules
+ought to be observed:--
+
+In the first place, let the-woman keep a temperate diet, by no means
+overcharging herself after such an extraordinary evacuation, not being
+ruled by giving credit to unskilful nurses, who admonish them to feed
+heartily, the better to repair the loss of blood. For that blood is not
+for the most part pure, but such as has been retained in the vessels or
+membrane better voided, for the health of the woman, than kept, unless
+there happen an extraordinary flux of the blood. For if her nourishment
+be too much, which curding, very often turns to imposthumes.
+
+Therefore, it is requisite, for the first five days especially, that she
+take moderately panado broth, poached eggs, jelly of chickens or calves'
+feet or fresh barley broth; every day increasing the quantity a little.
+
+And if she intend to be a nurse to the child, she may take something
+more than ordinary, to increase the milk by degrees, which must be of no
+continuance, but drawn off by the child or otherwise. In this case
+likewise, observe to let her have coriander or fennel seeds boiled in
+barley broth; but by all means, for the time specified, let her abstain
+from meat. If no fever trouble her, she may drink now and then a small
+quantity of pure white wine or of claret, as also syrup of maidenhead or
+any other syrup that is of an astringent quality, taken in a little
+water well boiled.
+
+After the fear of fever or contraction of humour in the breast is over,
+she may be nourished more plentifully with the broth of capons, pullets,
+pigeons, mutton, veal, etc., which must not be until after eight days
+from the time of delivery; at which time the womb, unless some accident
+binds, has purged itself. It will then likewise be expedient to give
+cold meats, but let it be sparingly, so that she may the better gather
+strength. And let her, during the time, rest quietly and free from
+disturbance, not sleeping in the day time, if she can avoid it.
+
+Take of both mallows and pellitory of the wall a handful; camomile and
+melilot flowers, of each a handful; aniseed and fennel of each two
+ounces; boil them in a decoction of sheep's head and take of this three
+quarts, dissolving in it common honey, coarse sugar and fresh butter and
+administer it clysterwise; but if it does not penetrate well take an
+ounce of catholicon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+     _Acute Pains after Delivery._
+
+
+These pains frequently afflict the woman no less than the pain of her
+labour, and are, by the more ignorant, many times taken the one for the
+other; and sometimes they happen both at the same instant; which is
+occasioned by a raw, crude and watery matter in the stomach, contracted
+through ill digestion; and while such pains continue, the woman's
+travail is retarded.
+
+Therefore, to expel fits of the cholic, take two ounces of oil of sweet
+almonds, and an ounce of cinnamon water, with three or four drops of
+syrup of ginger; then let the woman drink it off.
+
+If this does not abate the pain, make a clyster of camomile,
+balm-leaves, oil of olives and new milk, boiling the former in the
+latter. Administer it as is usual in such cases. And then, fomentation
+proper for dispelling the wind will not be amiss.
+
+If the pain produces a griping in the guts after delivery, then take of
+the root of great comfrey, one drachm, nutmeg and peach kernels, of each
+two scruples, yellow amber, eight drachms, ambergris, one scruple;
+bruise them together, and give them to the woman as she is laid down, in
+two or three spoonfuls of white wine; but if she be feverish, then let
+it be in as much warm broth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+FAMILY PHYSICIAN
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BEING
+
+CHOICE AND APPROVED
+
+REMEDIES
+
+FOR SEVERAL DISEASES
+
+INCIDENTAL TO HUMAN BODIES
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+_For the Apoplexy._
+
+Take man's skull prepared, and powder of male peony, of each an ounce
+and a half, contrayerva, bastard dittany, angelica, zedvary, of each two
+drachms, mix and make a powder, add thereto two ounces of candied
+orange and lemon peel, beat all together to a powder, whereof you may
+take half a drachm or a drachm.
+
+
+
+_A Powder for the Epilepsy or Falling Sickness._
+
+Take of opopanax, crude antimony, castor, dragon's blood, peony seeds,
+of each an equal quantity; make a subtle powder; the dose, half a drachm
+of black cherry water. Before you take it, the stomach must be prepared
+with some proper vomit, as that of Mynficht's emetic tartar, from four
+grains to six; if for children, salts of vitrol, from a scruple to half
+a drachm.
+
+
+
+_For a Headache of Long Standing._
+
+Take the juice or powder in distilled water of hog lice and continue it.
+
+
+
+_For Spitting of Blood._
+
+Take conserve of comfrey and of hips, of each an ounce and a half;
+conserve of red roses, three ounces; dragon's blood, a drachm; spices of
+hyacinths, two scruples; red coral, a drachm; mix and with syrup of
+poppies make a soft electuary. Take the quantity of a walnut, night and
+morning.
+
+
+
+_For a Looseness._
+
+Take Venice treacle and diascordium, of each half a drachm, in warm ale
+or water gruel, or what you like best, at night, going to bed.
+
+
+
+_For the Bloody Flux._
+
+First take a drachm of powder of rhubarb in a sufficient quantity of
+conserve of red roses, in the morning early; then at night, take of
+tornified or roasted rhubarb, half a drachm; diascordium, a drachm and a
+half; liquid laudanum cyclomated, a scruple: mix and make into a bolus.
+
+
+
+_For an Inflammation of the Lungs._
+
+Take of cherious water, ten ounces; water of red poppies, three ounces;
+syrup of poppies, an ounce; pearl prepared, a drachm; make julep, and
+take six spoonfuls every fourth hour.
+
+
+
+_An Ointment for the Pleurisy._
+
+Take oil of violets or sweet almonds, an ounce of each, with wax and a
+little saffron, make an ointment, warm it and bathe it upon the parts
+affected.
+
+
+
+_An Ointment for the Itch._
+
+Take sulphur vive in powder, half an ounce, oil of tartar per deliquim,
+a sufficient quantity, ointment of roses, four ounces; make a liniment,
+to which add a scruple of rhodium to aromatize, and rub the parts
+affected with it.
+
+
+
+_For Running Scab._
+
+Take two pounds of tar, incorporate it into a thick mass with
+well-sifted ashes; boil the mass in fountain-water, adding leaves of
+ground-ivy, white horehound, fumitory roots, sharp-pointed dock and of
+flocan pan, of each four handfuls; make a bath to be used with care of
+taking cold.
+
+
+
+_For Worms in Children._
+
+Take wormseed, half a drachm, flour of sulphur, a drachm; mix and make a
+powder. Give as much as will lie on a silver threepence, night and
+morning, in grocer's treacle or honey, or to grown up people, you may
+add a sufficient quantity of aloe rosatum and so make them up into
+pills; three or four may be taken every morning.
+
+
+
+_For Fevers in Children._
+
+Take crab-eyes, a drachm, cream of tartar, half a drachm; white
+sugar-candy finely powdered, weight of both; mix all well together and
+give as much as will lie on a silver threepence, in a spoonful of
+barley-water or sack whey.
+
+
+
+_A Quieting Night-Draught, when the Cough is Violent._
+
+Take water of green wheat, six ounces, syrup diascordium, three ounces,
+take two or three spoonfuls going to bed every night or every other
+night.
+
+
+
+_An Electuary for the Dropsy._
+
+Take best rhubarb, one drachm, gum lac, prepared, two drachms,
+zyloaloes, cinnamon, long birthwort, half an ounce each, best English
+saffron, half a scruple; with syrup of chicory and rhubarb make an
+electuary. Take the quantity of a nutmeg or small walnut every morning
+fasting.
+
+
+
+_For a Tympany Dropsy._
+
+Take roots of chervil and candied eringo roots, half an ounce of each,
+roots of butcher-broom, two ounces, grass-roots, three ounces, shavings
+of ivory and hartshorn, two drachms and a half each; boil them in two or
+three pounds of spring water. Whilst the strained liquor is hot, pour it
+upon the leaves of watercresses and goose-grass bruised, of each a
+handful, adding a pint of Rhenish wine. Make a close infusion for two
+hours, then strain out the liquor again, and add to it three ounces of
+magirtral water and earth worms and an ounce and a half of the syrup of
+the five opening roots. Make an apozen, whereof take four ounces twice a
+day.
+
+
+
+_For an Inward Bleeding._
+
+Take leaves of plantain and stinging nettles, of each three handfuls,
+bruise them well and pour on them six ounces of plantain water,
+afterwards make a strong expression and drink the whole off. _Probatum
+est._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
+
+     _Worthy of Notice._
+
+
+WHEN YOU FIND
+
+A red man to be faithful, a tall man to be wise, a fat man to be swift
+of foot, a lean man to be a fool, a handsome man not to be proud, a poor
+man not to be envious, a knave to be no liar, an upright man not too
+bold and hearty to his own loss, one that drawls when he speaks not to
+be crafty and circumventing, one that winks on another with his eyes not
+to be false and deceitful, a sailor and hangman to be pitiful, a poor
+man to build churches, a quack doctor to have a good conscience, a
+bailiff not to be a merciless villain, an hostess not to over-reckon
+you, and an usurer to be charitable----
+
+THEN SAY,
+
+     _Ye have found a prodigy._
+
+Men acting contrary to the common course of nature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE
+
+EXPERIENCED MIDWIFE
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+I have given this Part the title of The Experienced Midwife, because it
+is chiefly designed for those who profess Midwifery, and contains
+whatever is necessary for them to know in the practice thereof; and
+also, because it is the result of many years' experience, and that in
+the most difficult cases, and is, therefore, the more to be depended
+upon.
+
+A midwife is the most necessary and honourable office, being indeed a
+helper of nature; which therefore makes it necessary for her to be well
+acquainted with all the operations of nature in the work of generation,
+and instruments with which she works. For she that knows not the
+operations of nature, nor with what tool she works, must needs be at a
+loss how to assist therein. And seeing the instruments of operation,
+both in men and women, are those things by which mankind is produced, it
+is very necessary that all midwives should be well acquainted with them,
+that they may better understand their business, and assist nature, as
+there shall be occasion.
+
+The first thing then necessary as introductory to this treatise, is an
+anatomical description of the several parts of generation both in men
+and women; but as in the former part of this work I have treated at
+large upon these subjects, being desirous to avoid tautology, I shall
+not here repeat anything of what was then said, but refer the reader
+thereto, as a necessary introduction to what follows. And though I shall
+be necessitated to speak plainly so that I may be understood, yet I
+shall do it with that modesty that none shall have need to blush unless
+it be from something in themselves, rather than from what they shall
+find here; having the motto of the royal garter for my defence, which
+is:--"Honi soit qui mal y pense,"--"Evil be to him that evil thinks."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+A
+
+GUIDE TO CHILDBEARING
+
+WOMEN
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+SECTION I.--_Of the Womb._
+
+In this chapter I am to treat of the womb, which the Latins call
+_matrix_. Its parts are two; the mouth of the womb and the bottom of it.
+The mouth is an orifice at the entrance into it, which may be dilated
+and shut together like a purse; for though in the act of copulation it
+is big enough to receive the glans of the yard, yet after conception, it
+is so close and shut, that it will not admit the point of a bodkin to
+enter; and yet again, at the time of a woman's delivery, it is opened to
+such an extraordinary degree, that the child passeth through it into the
+world; at which time this orifice wholly disappears, and the womb seems
+to have but one great cavity from the bottom to the entrance of the
+neck. When a woman is not with child, it is a little oblong, and of
+substance very thick and close; but when she is with child it is
+shortened, and its thickness diminished proportionably to its
+distension; and therefore it is a mistake of anatomists who affirm, that
+its substance waxeth thicker a little before a woman's labour; for any
+one's reason will inform him, that the more distended it is, the thinner
+it must be; and the nearer a woman is to the time of her delivery the
+shorter her womb must be extended. As to the action by which this inward
+orifice of the womb is opened and shut, it is purely natural; for were
+it otherwise, there could not be so many bastards begotten as there are,
+nor would any married women have so many children. Were it in their own
+power they would hinder conception, though they would be willing enough
+to use copulation; for nature has attended that action with so pleasing
+and delightful sensations, that they are willing to indulge themselves
+in the use thereof notwithstanding the pains they afterwards endure, and
+the hazard of their lives that often follows it. And this comes to pass,
+not so much from an inordinate lust in woman, as that the great Director
+of Nature, for the increase and multiplication of mankind, and even all
+other species in the elementary world, hath placed such a magnetic
+virtue in the womb, that it draws the seed to it, as the loadstone draws
+iron.
+
+The Author of Nature has placed the womb in the belly, that the heat
+might always be maintained by the warmth of the parts surrounding it; it
+is, therefore, seated in the middle of the hypogastrium (or lower parts
+of the belly between the bladder and the belly, or right gut) by which
+also it is defended from any hurt through the hardness of the bones, and
+it is placed in the lower part of the belly for the convenience of
+copulation, and of a birth being thrust out at full time.
+
+It is of a figure almost round, inclining somewhat to an oblong, in part
+resembling a pear; for being broad at the bottom, it gradually
+terminates in the point of the orifice which is narrow.
+
+The length, breadth and thickness of the womb differ according to the
+age and disposition of the body. For in virgins not ripe it is very
+small in all its dimensions, but in women whose terms flow in great
+quantities, and such as frequently use copulation, it is much larger,
+and if they have had children, it is larger in them than in such as have
+had none; but in women of a good stature and well shaped, it is (as I
+have said before), from the entry of the privy parts to the bottom of
+the womb usually about eight inches; but the length of the body of the
+womb alone, does not exceed three; the breadth thereof is near about the
+same, and of the thickness of the little finger, when the womb is not
+pregnant, but when the woman is with child, it becomes of a prodigious
+greatness, and the nearer she is to delivery, the more the womb is
+extended.
+
+It is not without reason then, that nature (or the God of Nature) has
+made the womb of a membranous substance; for thereby it does the easier
+open to conceive, is gradually dilated by the growth of the foetus or
+young one, and is afterwards contracted or closed again, to thrust forth
+both it and the after-burden, and then to retire to its primitive seat.
+Hence also it is enabled to expel any noxious humours, which may
+sometimes happen to be contained within it.
+
+Before I have done with the womb, which is the field of generation, and
+ought, therefore, to be the more particularly taken care of (for as the
+seeds of plants can produce no plants, nor sprig unless grown in ground
+proper to excite and awaken their vegetative virtue so likewise the seed
+of man, though potentially containing all the parts of the child, would
+never produce so admissible an effect, if it were not cast into that
+fruitful field of nature, the womb) I shall proceed to a more particular
+description of its parts, and the uses for which nature has designed
+them.
+
+The womb, then, is composed of various similar parts, that is of
+membranes, veins, arteries and nerves. Its membranes are two and they
+compose the principal parts of the body, the outermost of which ariseth
+from the peritoneum or caul, and is very thin, without it is smooth, but
+within equal, that it may the better cleave to the womb, as it is
+fleshier and thicker than anything else we meet with within the body,
+when the woman is not pregnant, and is interwoven with all sorts of
+fibres or small strings that it may the better suffer the extension of
+the child, and the water caused during pregnancy, and also that it may
+the easier close again after delivery.
+
+The veins and arteries proceed both from the hypogastric and the
+spermatic vessels, of which I shall speak by and by; all these are
+inserted and terminated in the proper membranes of the womb. The
+arteries supply it with food and nourishment, which being brought
+together in too great a quantity, sweats through the substance of it,
+and distils as it were a dew at the bottom of the cavity; from thence
+proceed the terms in ripe virgins, and the blood which nourisheth the
+embryo in breeding women. The branches which issue from the spermatic
+vessels, are inserted on each side of the bottom of the womb, and are
+much less than those which proceed from the hypogastrics, those being
+greater and bedewing the whole substance of it. There are some other
+small vessels, which arising the one from the other are conducted to the
+internal orifice, and by these, those that are pregnant purge away the
+superfluity of the terms when they happen to have more than is used in
+the nourishment of the infant: by which means nature has taken so much
+care of the womb, that during pregnancy it shall not be obliged to open
+itself for passing away those excrementitious humours, which, should it
+be forced to do, might often endanger abortion.
+
+As touching the nerves, they proceed from the brain, which furnishes all
+the inner parts of the lower belly in them, which is the true reason it
+hath so great a sympathy with the stomach, which is likewise very
+considerably furnished from the same part; so that the womb cannot be
+afflicted with any pain, but that the stomach is immediately sensible
+thereof, which is the cause of those loathings or frequent vomitings
+which happen to it.
+
+But beside all these parts which compose the womb, it has yet four
+ligaments, whose office it is, to keep it firm in its place, and prevent
+its constant agitation, by the continual motion of the intestines which
+surround it, two of which are above and two below. Those above are
+called the broad ligaments, because of their broad and membranous
+figure, and are nothing else but the production of the peritoneum which
+growing out of the sides of the loins towards the veins come to be
+inserted in the sides of the bottom of the womb, to hinder the body from
+bearing too much on the neck, and so from suffering a precipitation as
+will sometimes happen when the ligaments are too much relaxed; and do
+also contain the testicles, and as well, safely conduct the different
+vessels, as the ejaculatories, to the womb. The lowermost are called
+round ligaments, taking their origin from the side of the womb near the
+horn, from whence they pass the groin, together with the production of
+the peritoneum, which accompanies them through the rings of the oblique
+and transverse muscles of the belly, by which they divide themselves
+into many little branches resembling the foot of a goose, of which some
+are inserted into the os pubis, the rest are lost and confounded with
+the membranes which women and children feel in their thighs. These two
+ligaments are long, round and nervous, and pretty big in their
+beginning near the matrix, hollow in their rise, and all along the os
+pubis, where they are a little smaller and become flat, the better to be
+inserted in the manner aforesaid. It is by their means the womb is
+hindered from rising too high. Now, although the womb is held in its
+natural situation by means of these four ligaments, it has liberty
+enough to extend itself when pregnant, because they are very loose, and
+so easily yield to its distension. But besides these ligaments, which
+keep the womb, as it were, in a poise, yet it is fastened for greater
+security by its neck, both to the bladder and rectum, between which it
+is situated. Whence it comes to pass, that if at any time the womb be
+inflamed, it communicates the inflammation to the neighbouring part.
+
+Its use or proper action in the work of generation, is to receive and
+retain the seed, and deduce from it power and action by its heat, for
+the generation of the infant; and it is, therefore, absolutely necessary
+for the conservation of the species. It also seems by accident to
+receive and expel the impurities of the whole body, as when women have
+abundance of whites, and to purge away, from time to time, the
+superfluity of the blood, as when a woman is not with child.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_Of the difference between the ancient and modern Physicians,
+    touching the woman's contributing seed for the Formation of the
+    Child._
+
+Our modern anatomists and physicians are of different sentiments from
+the ancients touching the woman's contributing seed for the formation of
+the child, as well as the man; the ancients strongly affirming it, but
+our modern authors being generally of another judgment. I will not make
+myself a party to this controversy, but set down impartially, yet
+briefly, the arguments on each side, and leave the judicious reader to
+judge for himself.
+
+Though it is apparent, say the ancients, that the seed of man is the
+principal efficient and beginning of action, motion and generation, yet
+the woman affords seed, and contributes to the procreation of the child,
+it is evident from hence, that the woman had seminal vessels, which had
+been given her in vain if she wanted seminal excretions; but since
+nature forms nothing in vain, it must be granted that they were formed
+for the use of the seed and procreation, and fixed in their proper
+places, to operate and contribute virtue and efficiency to the seed; and
+this, say they, is further proved from hence, that if women at years of
+maturity use not copulation to eject their seed, they often fall into
+strange diseases, as appears by young women and virgins, and also it
+appears that, women are never better pleased than when they are often
+satisfied this way, which argues, that the pleasure and delight, say
+they, is double in women to what it is in men, for as the delight of men
+in copulation consists chiefly in the emission of the seed, so women are
+delighted, both in the emission of their own and the reception of the
+man's.
+
+But against this, all our modern authors affirm that the ancients are
+very erroneous, inasmuch as the testicles in women do not afford seed,
+but are two eggs, like those of a fowl or other creatures; neither have
+they any such offices as in men, but are indeed an ovarium, or
+receptacle for eggs, wherein these eggs are nourished, by the sanguinary
+vessels dispersed through them; and from hence one or more, as they are
+fecundated by the man's seed, are conveyed into the womb by the
+oviducts. And the truth of this, say they, is so plain, that if you boil
+them, the liquor shall have the same taste, colour and consistency with
+the taste of bird's eggs. And if it be objected that they have no
+shells, the answer is easy; for the eggs of fowls while they are in the
+ovary, nay, after they have fallen into the uterus, have no shell: and
+though they have one when they are laid, yet it is no more than a fence
+which nature has provided for them against outward injuries, they being
+hatched without the body, but those of women being hatched within the
+body have no need of any other fence than the womb to secure them.
+
+They also further say, that there are in the generation of the foetus,
+or young ones, two principles, _active_ and _passive_; the _active_ is
+the man's seed elaborated in the testicles out of the arterial blood and
+animal spirits; the _passive_ principle is the ovum or egg, impregnated
+by the man's seed; for to say that women have true seed, say they, is
+erroneous. But the manner of conception is this; the most spirituous
+part of the man's seed, in the act of copulation, reaching up to the
+ovarium or testicles of the woman (which contains divers eggs, sometimes
+fewer) impregnates one of them; which, being conveyed by the oviducts to
+the bottom of the womb, presently begins to swell bigger and bigger, and
+drinks in the moisture that is so plentifully sent hither, after the
+same manner that the seed in the ground suck the fertile moisture
+thereof, to make them sprout.
+
+But, notwithstanding what is here urged by modern anatomists, there are
+some late writers of the opinion of the ancients, viz., that women both
+have, and emit seed in the act of copulation; and even women themselves
+take it ill to be thought merely passive in the act wherein they make
+such vigorous exertions; and positively affirm, that they are sensible
+of the emission of their seed in that action, and that in it a great
+part of the delight which they take in that act, consists. I shall not,
+therefore, go about to take away any of their happiness from them, but
+leave them in possession of their imaginary felicity.
+
+Having thus laid the foundation of this work, I will now proceed to
+speak of conception, and of those things which are necessary to be
+observed by women from the time of their conception, to the time of
+their delivery.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+     _Of Conception; what it is; how women are to order themselves after
+     Conception._
+
+
+SECTION I.--_What Conception is, and the qualifications requisite
+    thereto._
+
+Conception is nothing but an action of the womb, by which the prolific
+seed is received and retained, that an infant may be engendered and
+formed out of it. There are two sorts of conception: the one according
+to nature, which is followed by the generation of the infant in the
+womb; the other false and wholly against nature, in which the seed
+changes into water, and produces only false conceptions, moles, or other
+strange matter. Now, there are three things principally necessary in
+order to a true conception, so that generation may follow, viz., without
+diversity of sex there can be no conception; for, though some will have
+a woman to be an animal that can engender of herself, it is a great
+mistake; there can be no conception without a man discharge his seed
+into the womb. What they allege of pullets laying eggs without a cock's
+treading them is nothing to the purpose, for those eggs should they be
+set under a hen, will never become chickens because they never received
+any prolific virtue from the male, which is absolutely necessary to this
+purpose, and is sufficient to convince us, that diversity of the sex is
+necessary even to those animals, as well as to the generation of man.
+But diversity of sex, though it be necessary to conception, yet it will
+not do alone; there must also be a congression of the different sexes;
+for diversity of sex would profit little if copulation did not follow. I
+confess I have heard of subtle women, who, to cover their sin and
+shame, have endeavoured to persuade some peasants that they were never
+touched by man to get them with child; and that one in particular
+pretended to conceive by going into a bath where a man had washed
+himself a little before and spent his seed in it, which was drawn and
+sucked into her womb, as she pretended. But such stories as these are
+only for such who know no better. Now that these different sexes should
+be obliged to come to the touch, which we call copulation or coition,
+besides the natural desire of begetting their like, which stirs up men
+and women to it, the parts appointed for generation are endowed by
+nature with a delightful and mutual itch, which begets in them a desire
+to the action; without which, it would not be very easy for a man, born
+for the contemplation of divine mysteries, to join himself, by the way
+of coition, to a woman, in regard to the uncleanness of the part and the
+action. And, on the other side, if the woman did but think of those
+pains and inconveniences to which they are subject by their great
+bellies, and those hazards of life itself, besides the unavoidable pains
+that attend their delivery, it is reasonable to believe they would be
+affrighted from it. But neither sex makes these reflections till after
+the action is over, considering nothing beforehand but the pleasure of
+the enjoyment, so that it is from this voluptuous itch that nature
+obliges both sexes to this congression. Upon which the third thing
+followeth of course, viz., the emission of seed into the womb in the act
+of copulation. For the woman having received this prolific seed into her
+womb, and retained it there, the womb thereupon becomes depressed, and
+embraces the seed so closely, that being closed the point of a needle
+cannot enter into it without violence. And now the woman may be said to
+have conceived, having reduced by her heat from power into action, the
+several faculties which are contained in the seed, making use of the
+spirits with which the seed abounds, and which are the instruments which
+begin to trace out the first lineaments of the parts, and which
+afterwards, by making use of the menstruous blood flowing to it, give
+it, in time, growth and final perfection. And thus much shall suffice to
+explain what conception is. I shall next proceed to show
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_How a Woman ought to order herself after Conception._
+
+My design in this treatise being brevity, I shall bring forward a little
+of what the learned have said of the causes of twins, and whether there
+be any such things as superfoetations, or a second conception in a woman
+(which is yet common enough), and as to twins, I shall have occasion to
+speak of them when I come to show you how the midwife ought to proceed
+in the delivery of the women that are pregnant with them. But having
+already spoken of conception, I think it now necessary to show how such
+as have conceived ought to order themselves during their pregnancy, that
+they may avoid those inconveniences, which often endanger the life of
+the child and many times their own.
+
+A woman, after conception, during the time of her being with child,
+ought to be looked upon as indisposed or sick, though in good health;
+for child bearing is a kind of nine months' sickness, being all that
+time in expectation of many inconveniences which such a condition
+usually causes to those that are not well governed during that time; and
+therefore, ought to resemble a good pilot, who, when sailing on a rough
+sea and full of rocks, avoids and shuns the danger, if he steers with
+prudence, but if not, it is a thousand to one but he suffers shipwreck.
+In like manner, a woman with child is often in danger of miscarrying and
+losing her life, if she is not very careful to prevent those accidents
+to which she is subject all the time of her pregnancy. All which time
+her care must be double, first of herself, and secondly of the child
+she goes with for otherwise, a single error may produce a double
+mischief; for if she receives a prejudice, the child also suffers with
+her. Let a woman, therefore, after conception, observe a good diet,
+suitable to her temperament, custom, condition and quality; and if she
+can, let the air where she ordinarily dwells be clear and well tempered,
+and free from extremes, either of heat or cold; for being too hot, it
+dissipateth the spirits too much and causes many weaknesses; and by
+being too cold and foggy, it may bring down rheums and distillations on
+the lungs, and so cause her to cough, which, by its impetuous motion,
+forcing downwards, may make her miscarry. She ought alway to avoid all
+nauseous and ill smells; for sometimes the stench of a candle, not well
+put out, may cause her to come before time; and I have known the smell
+of charcoal to have the same effect. Let her also avoid smelling of rue,
+mint, pennyroyal, castor, brimstone, etc.
+
+But, with respect to their diet, women with child have generally so
+great loathings and so many different longings, that it is very
+difficult to prescribe an exact diet for them. Only this I think
+advisable, that they may use those meats and drinks which are to them
+most desirable, though, perhaps, not in themselves so wholesome as some
+others, and, it may be not so pleasant; but this liberty must be made
+use of with this caution, that what they desire be not in itself
+unwholesome; and also that in everything they take care of excess. But,
+if a child-bearing woman finds herself not troubled with such longings
+as we have spoken of, let her take simple food, and in such quantity as
+may be sufficient for herself and the child, which her appetite may in a
+great measure regulate; for it is alike hurtful to her to fast too long
+as to eat too much; and therefore, rather let her eat a little and
+often; especially let her avoid eating too much at night, because the
+stomach being too much filled, compresseth the diaphragm, and thereby
+causeth difficulty of breathing. Let her meat be easy of digestion, such
+as the tenderest parts of beef, mutton, veal, fowls, pullets, capons,
+pigeons and partridges, either boiled or roasted, as she likes best, new
+laid eggs are also very good for her; and let her put into her broth
+those herbs that purify it, as sorrel, lettuce, succory and borage; for
+they will purge and purify the blood. Let her avoid whatever is hot
+seasoned, especially pies and baked meats, which being of hot digestion,
+overcharge the stomach. If she desire fish let it be fresh, and such as
+is taken out of rivers and running streams. Let her eat quinces and
+marmalade, to strengthen her child: for which purpose sweet almonds,
+honey, sweet apples, and full ripe grapes, are also good. Let her
+abstain from all salt, sour, bitter and salt things, and all things that
+tend to provoke the terms--such as garlic, onions, mustard, fennel,
+pepper and all spices except cinnamon, which in the last three months is
+good for her. If at first her diet be sparing, as she increases in
+bigness, let her diet be increased, for she ought to consider that she
+has a child as well as herself to nourish. Let her be moderate in her
+drinking; and if she drinks wine, let it be rather claret than white
+(for it will breed good blood, help the digestion, and comfort the
+stomach, which is weakly during pregnancy); but white wine being
+diuretic, or that which provokes urine, ought to be avoided. Let her be
+careful not to take too much exercise, and let her avoid dancing, riding
+in a coach, or whatever else puts the body into violent motion,
+especially in the first month. But to be more particular, I shall here
+set down rules proper for every month for the child-bearing woman to
+order herself, from the time she first conceived, to the time of her
+delivery.
+
+
+
+_Rules for the First Two Months._
+
+As soon as a woman knows, or has reason to believe, that she has
+conceived, she ought to abstain from all violent motions and exercise;
+whether she walks afoot, or rides on horseback or in a coach, it ought
+to be very gently. Let her also abstain from Venery (for which, after
+conception, she has usually no great inclination), lest there be a mole
+or superfoetation, which is the adding of one embryo to another. Let her
+beware not to lift her arms too high, nor carry great burdens, nor
+repose herself on hard and uneasy seats. Let her use moderately good,
+juicy meat and easy of digestion, and let her wines be neither too
+strong nor too sharp, but a little mingled with water; or if she be very
+abstemious, she may use water wherein cinnamon has been boiled. Let her
+avoid fastings, thirst, watchings, mourning, sadness, anger, and all
+other perturbations of the mind. Let no one present any strange or
+unwholesome thing to her, nor so much as name it, lest she should desire
+it and not be able to get it, and so either cause her to miscarry, or
+the child to have some deformity on that account. Let her belly be kept
+loose with prunes, raisins or manna in her broth, and let her use the
+following electuary, to strengthen the womb and the child--
+
+"Take conserve of borage, buglos and roses, each two ounces; an ounce of
+balm; an ounce each of citron peel and shreds, candied mirobalans, an
+ounce each; extract of wood aloes a scruple; prepared pearl, half a
+drachm; red coral and ivory, of each a drachm; precious stones each a
+scruple; candied nutmegs, two drachms, and with syrup of apples and
+quinces make an electuary."
+
+
+
+_Let her observe the following rules._
+
+"Take pearls prepared, a drachm; red coral and ivory prepared, each half
+a drachm, precious stones, each a scruple; yellow citron peel, mace,
+cinnamon, cloves, each half a drachm; saffron, a scruple; wood aloes,
+half a scruple; ambergris, six drachms; and with six ounces of sugar
+dissolved in rosewater make rolls." Let her also apply strengtheners of
+nutmeg, mace and mastich made up in bags, to the navel, or a toast
+dipped in malmsey, or sprinkled with powdered mint. If she happens to
+desire clay, chalk, or coals (as many women with child do), give her
+beans boiled with sugar, and if she happens to long for anything that
+she cannot obtain, let her presently drink a large draught of pure cold
+water.
+
+
+
+_Rules for the Third Month._
+
+In this month and the next, be sure to keep from bleeding; for though it
+may be safe and proper at other times, yet it will not be so at the end
+of the fourth month; and yet if blood abound, or some incidental disease
+happens which requires evacuation, you may use a cupping glass, with
+scarification, and a little blood may be drawn from the shoulders and
+arms, especially if she has been accustomed to bleed. Let her also take
+care of lacing herself too straitly, but give herself more liberty than
+she used to do; for inclosing her belly in too strait a mould, she
+hinders the infant from taking its free growth, and often makes it come
+before its time.
+
+
+
+_Rules for the Fourth Month._
+
+In this month also you ought to keep the child-bearing woman from
+bleeding, unless in extraordinary cases, but when the month is passed,
+blood-letting and physic may be permitted, if it be gentle and mild, and
+perhaps it may be necessary to prevent abortion. In this month she may
+purge, in an acute disease, but purging may only be used from the
+beginning of this month to the end of the sixth; but let her take care
+that in purging she use no vehement medicine, nor any bitter, as aloes,
+which is disagreeable and hurtful to the child, and opens the mouth of
+the vessels; neither let her use coloquintida, scammony nor turbith; she
+may use cassia, manna, rhubarb, agaric and senna but dyacidodium
+purgans is best, with a little of the electuary of the juice of roses.
+
+
+
+_Rules for the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Months._
+
+In these months, child-bearing women are troubled with coughs, colds,
+heart-beating, fainting, watching, pains in the loins and hips, and
+bleeding. The cough is from a sharp vapour that comes to the jaws and
+rough artery from the terms, or the thin part of that blood got less
+into the reins of the breast; this endangers abortion, and strength
+fails from watching: therefore, purge the humours that come to the
+breast, with rhubarb and agaric, and strengthen the head as in a
+catarrh, and give sweet lenitives as in a cough. Palpitation and
+faintness arises from vapours that go to it by the arteries, or from
+blood that abounds and cannot get out of the womb, but ascends and
+oppresses the heart; and in this case cordials should be used both
+inwardly and outwardly. Watching, is from sharp dry vapours that trouble
+the animal spirits, and in this case use frictions, and let the woman
+wash her feet at bed-time, and let her take syrup of poppies, dried
+roses, emulsions of sweet almonds, and white poppy seed. If she be
+troubled with pains in her loins and hips, as in those months she is
+subject to be, from the weight of her child as it grows big and heavy,
+and so stretches the ligaments of the womb and part adjacent, let her
+hold it up with swathing bands about her neck. About this time also the
+woman often happens to have a flux of blood, either at the nose, womb or
+haemorrhoids, from plenty of blood, or from the weakness of the child
+that takes it not in, or else from evil humour in the blood, that stirs
+up nature and sends it forth. And sometimes it happens that the vessels
+of the womb may be broken, either by some violent motion, fall, cough or
+trouble of the mind (for any of these will work that effect), and this
+is so dangerous, that in such a case the child cannot be well, but if it
+be from blood only, the danger is less, provided it flows by the veins
+of the neck of the womb, for then it prevents plethora and takes not
+away the nourishment of the child; but if it proceeds from the weakness
+of the child, that draws it not in, abortion of the child often follows,
+or hard travail, or else she goes beyond her time. But if it flows from
+the inward veins of the womb, there is more danger by the openness of
+the womb, if it come from evil blood; the danger is alike from
+cacochymy, which is like to fall upon both. If it arises from plethora,
+open a vein, but with great caution, and use astringents, of which the
+following will do well:--Take prepared pearls, a scruple; red coral, two
+scruples; mace, nutmeg, each a drachm; cinnamon, half a drachm; make a
+powder, or with white sugar make rolls. Or give this powder in
+broth:--"Take red coral, a drachm; half a drachm precious stones; red
+sander, half a drachm; bole, a drachm; scaled earth and tormental roots,
+each two scruples, with sugar of roses and Manus Christi; with pearl,
+five drachms; make a powder." You may also strengthen the child at the
+navel, and if there be a cacochymy, alter the humours, and if you can do
+it safely, evacuate; you may likewise use amulets on her hands and about
+her neck. In a flux of haemorrhoids, wear off the pain, and let her
+drink hot wine with a toasted nutmeg. In these months the belly is also
+subject to be bound, but if it be without any apparent disease, the
+broth of a chicken or veal, sodden with oil, or with the decoction of
+mallows or marsh-mallows, mercury or linseed, put up in a clyster, will
+not be amiss, but in less quantity than is given in other cases:--viz.
+of the decoction, five ounces, of common oil, three ounces, of sugar,
+two ounces, and of cassia fistula, one ounce. But if she will not take a
+clyster, one or two yolks of new laid eggs, or a little peas-pottage
+warm, a little salt and sugar, and supped a little before meat, will be
+very convenient. But if her belly be distended and stretched with wind a
+little fennel seed and aniseed reduced to a powder and mixed with honey
+and sugar made after the manner of an electuary, will be very well Also,
+if thighs and feet swell let them be anointed with erphodrinum (which is
+a liquid medicine) made with vinegar and rose-water, mingled with salt.
+
+
+
+_Rules for the Eighth Month._
+
+The eighth month is commonly called the most dangerous; therefore the
+greatest care and caution ought to be used, the diet better in quality,
+but no more, nor indeed, so much in quantity as before, but as she must
+abate her diet, she must increase her exercise; and because then women
+with child, by reason that sharp humours alter the belly, are accustomed
+to weaken their spirits and strength, they may well take before meat, an
+electuary of diarrhoden, or aromaticum rosatum or diamagarton; and
+sometimes they may lick a little honey. As they will loathe, nauseate
+their meat, they may take green ginger, candied with sugar, and the
+rinds of citron and oranges candied; and let them often use honey for
+strengthening the infant. When she is not very far from her labour, let
+her eat every day seven roasted figs before her meat, and sometimes let
+her lick a little honey. But let her beware of salt and powdered meat,
+for it is neither good for her nor the child.
+
+
+
+_Rules for the Ninth Month._
+
+In the ninth month let her have a care of lifting any great weight, but
+let her move a little more, to dilate the parts, and stir up natural
+heat. Let her take heed of stooping, and neither sit too much nor lie on
+her sides, neither ought she to bend herself much enfolded in the
+umbilical ligaments, by which means it often perisheth. Let her walk and
+stir often, and let her exercise be, rather to go upwards than
+downwards. Let her diet, now especially, be light and easy of digestion
+and damask prunes with sugar, or figs with raisins, before meat, as also
+the yolks of eggs, flesh and broth of chickens, birds, partridges and
+pheasants; astringent and roasted meats, with rice, hard eggs, millet
+and such like other things are proper. Baths of sweet water, with
+emollient herbs, ought to be used by her this month with some
+intermission, and after the baths let her belly be anointed with oil of
+sweet roses and of violets; but for her privy parts, it is better to
+anoint them with the fat of hens, geese or ducks, or with oil of
+lilies, and the decoction of linseed and fenugreek, boiled with oil of
+linseed and marshmallows, or with the following liniment:--
+
+Take mallows and marshmallows, cut and shred, of each one ounce; of
+linseed, one ounce; let them be boiled from twenty ounces of water to
+ten; then let her take three ounces of the boiled broth, of oil of
+almonds and oil of flower-de-luce, of each one ounce; of deer's suet,
+three ounces. Let her bathe with this, and anoint herself with it, warm.
+
+If for fourteen days before the birth, she do every morning and evening
+bathe and moisten her belly with muscadine and lavender water, the child
+will be much strengthened thereby. And if every day she eat toasted
+bread, it will hinder anything from growing to the child. Her privy
+parts must be gently stroked down with this fomentation.
+
+"Take three ounces of linseed, and one handful each of mallows and
+marshmallows sliced, then let them be put into a bag and immediately
+boiled." Let the woman with child, every morning and evening, take the
+vapour of this decoction in a hollow stool, taking great heed that no
+wind or air come to her in-parts, and then let her wipe the part so
+anointed with a linen cloth, and she may anoint the belly and groins as
+at first.
+
+When she has come so near to her time, as to be ten or fourteen days
+thereof, if she begins to feel any more than ordinary pain let her use
+every day the following:--"Take mallows and marshmallows, of each a
+handful; camomiles, hard mercury, maidenhair, of each a handful; of
+linseed, four ounces; let them be boiled in a sufficient quantity of
+water as to make a bath therewith." But let her not sit too hot upon the
+seat, nor higher than a little above her navel; nor let her sit upon it
+longer than about half an hour, lest her strength languish and decay,
+for it is better to use it often than to stay too long in it.
+
+And thus have I shown how a child-bearing woman ought to govern herself
+each month during her pregnancy. How she must order herself at her
+delivery, shall be shown in another chapter, after I have first shown
+the intended midwife how the child is first formed in the womb, and the
+manner of its decumbiture there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+     _Of the Parts proper to a Child in the womb; How it is formed
+     there, and the manner of its Situation therein._
+
+
+In the last chapter I treated of conception, showed what it was, how
+accomplished and its signs, and how she who has conceived ought to order
+herself during the time of her pregnancy. Now, before I come to speak of
+her delivery, it is necessary that the midwife be first made acquainted
+with the parts proper to a child in the womb, and also that she be shown
+how it is formed, and the manner of its situation and decumbiture there;
+which are so necessary to her, that without the knowledge thereof, no
+one can tell how to deliver a woman as she ought. This, therefore, shall
+be the work of this chapter. I shall begin with the first of these.
+
+
+
+SECTION I.--_Of the Parts proper to a Child in the Womb._
+
+In this section, I must first tell you what I mean by the parts proper
+to a child in the womb; and they are only those that either help or
+nourish it; and whilst it is lodged in that dark repository of nature,
+and that help to clothe and defend it there and are cast away, as of no
+more use, after it is born, and these are two, viz., the umbilicars, or
+navel vessels, and the secundinum. By the first it is nourished, and by
+the second clothed and defended from wrong. Of each of these I shall
+speak distinctly; and first,
+
+
+
+_Of the Umbilicars, or Navel Vessels._
+
+These are four in number, viz.:--one vein, two arteries, and the vessel
+which is called the urachos.
+
+(1) The vein is that on which the infant is nourished, from the time of
+its conception till the time of its delivery; till being brought into
+the light of the world, it has the same way of concocting the food we
+have. This vein ariseth from the liver of the child, and is divided into
+two parts when it has passed the navel; and these two are divided and
+subdivided, the branches being upheld by the skin called _chorion_ (of
+which I speak by and by), and are joined to the veins of the mother's
+womb, from whence they have their blood for the nourishment of the
+child.
+
+(2) The arteries are two on each side which proceed from the back
+branches of the great artery of the mother, and the vital blood is
+carried by those to the child being ready concocted by the mother.
+
+(3) A nervous or sinewy production is led from the bottom of the
+bladder of the infant to the navel, and this is called _urachos_, and
+its use is, to convey the urine of the infant from the bladder to the
+alantois. Anatomists do very much vary in their opinion concerning this,
+some denying any such thing to be in the delivery of the woman, and
+others on the contrary affirming it; but experience has testified there
+is such a thing, for Bartholomew Carbrolius, the ordinary doctor of
+anatomy to the College of Physicians at Montpellier in France, records
+the history of a maid, whose water being a long time stopped, at last
+issued out through the navel. And Johannes Fernelius speaks of the same
+thing that happened to a man of thirty years of age, who having a
+stoppage at the neck of the bladder, his urine issued out of his navel
+for many months together, and that without any prejudice at all to his
+health, which he ascribes to the ill lying of his navel, whereby the
+urachos was not well dried. And Volchier Coitas quotes such another
+instance in a maid of thirty-four at Nuremburg in Germany. These
+instances, though they happen but seldom, are sufficient to prove that
+there is such a thing as anurachos in men.
+
+These four vessels before mentioned, viz., one vein, two arteries and
+the urachos, join near the navel, and are united by a skin which they
+have from the chorion and so become like a gut or rope, and are
+altogether void of sensibility, and this is that which women call the
+navel-string. The vessels are thus joined together, that so they may
+neither be broken, severed nor entangled; and when the infant is born
+are of no use save only to make up the ligament which stops the hole of
+the navel and for some other physical use, etc.
+
+
+
+_Of the Secundine or After-birth._
+
+Setting aside the name given to this by the Greeks and Latins, it is
+called in English by the name of secundine, after-birth or after-burden;
+which are held to be four in number.
+
+(1) The _first_ is called placenta, because it resembles the form of a
+cake, and is knit both to the navel and chorion, and makes up the
+greatest part of the secundine or after-birth. The flesh of it is like
+that of the melt or spleen, soft, red and tending something to
+blackness, and hath many small veins and arteries in it: and certainly
+the chief use of it is, for containing the child in the womb.
+
+(2) The _second_ is the chorion. This skin and that called the amnios,
+involve the child round, both above and underneath, and on both sides,
+which the alantois does not. This skin is that which is most commonly
+called the secundine, as it is thick and white garnished with many small
+veins and arteries, ending in the placenta before named, being very
+light and slippery. Its use is, not only to cover the child round about,
+but also to receive, and safely bind up the roots of the veins and
+arteries or navel vessels before described.
+
+(3) The _third_ thing which makes up the secundine in the alantois, of
+which there is a great dispute amongst anatomists. Some say there is
+such a thing, and others that there is not. Those who will have it to be
+a membrane, say it is white, soft and exceedingly thin, and just under
+the placenta, where it is knit to the urachos, from which it receives
+the urine; and its office is to keep it separate from the sweat, that
+the saltness of it may not offend the tender skin of the child.
+
+(4) The _fourth_, and last covering of the child is called amnios; and
+it is white, soft and transparent, being nourished by some very small
+veins and arteries. Its use is, not only to enwrap the child, but also
+to retain the sweat of the child.
+
+Having thus described the parts proper to a child in the womb, I will
+next proceed to speak of the formation of the child therein, as soon as
+I have explained the hard terms of the section, that those for whose
+help it is designed, may understand what they read. A _vein_ is that
+which receives blood from the liver, and distributes in several branches
+to all parts of the body. _Nerve_ is the same with _sinew_, and is that
+by which the brain adds sense and motion to the body. _Placenta_,
+properly signifies _sugar_ cake; but in this section it is used to
+signify a spongy piece of flesh resembling a cake, full of veins and
+arteries, and is made to receive a mother's blood appointed for the
+infant's nourishment in the womb. The _chorion_ is an outward skin which
+compasseth the child in the womb. The _amnios_ is the inner skin which
+compasseth the child in the womb. The _alantois_ is the skin that holds
+the urine of the child during the time that it abides in the womb. The
+_urachos_ is the vessel that conveys the urine from the child in the
+womb to the _alantois_. I now proceed to
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_Of the Formation of the Child in the Womb._
+
+To speak of the formation of the child in the womb, we must begin where
+nature begins, and, that is at the act of coition, in which the womb
+having received the generative seed (without which there can be no
+conception), the womb immediately shuts up itself so close that the
+point of a needle cannot enter the inward orifice; and this it does,
+partly to hinder the issuing out of the seed again, and partly to
+cherish it by an inward heat, the better to provoke it to action; which
+is one reason why women's bellies are so lank at their first conception.
+The woman having thus conceived, the first thing which is operative in
+conception is the spirit whereof the seed is full, which, nature
+quickening by the heat of the womb, stirs up the action. The internal
+spirits, therefore, separate the parts that are less pure, which are
+thick, cold and clammy, from those that are more pure and noble. The
+less pure are cast to the outside, and with these seed is circled round
+and the membrane made, in which that seed that is most pure is wrapped
+round and kept close together, that it may be defended from cold and
+other accidents, and operate the better.
+
+The first thing that is formed is the amnios; the next the chorion; and
+they enwrap the seed round like a curtain. Soon after this (for the seed
+thus shut up in the woman lies not idle), the navel vein is bred, which
+pierceth those skins, being yet very tender, and carries a drop of blood
+from the veins of the mother's womb to the seed; from which drop the
+vena cava, or chief vein, proceeds, from which all the rest of the veins
+which nourish the body spring; and now the seed hath something to
+nourish it, whilst it performs the rest of nature's work, and also blood
+administered to every part of it, to form flesh.
+
+This vein being formed, the navel arteries are soon after formed; then
+the great artery, of which all the others are but branches; and then the
+heart, for the liver furnisheth the arteries with blood to form the
+heart, the arteries being made of seed, but the heart and the flesh, of
+blood. After this the brain is formed, and then the nerves to give sense
+and motion to the infant. Afterwards the bones and flesh are formed; and
+of the bones, first of all, the vertebrae or chine bones, and then the
+skull, etc. As to the time in which this curious part of nature's
+workmanship is formed, having already in Chapter II of the former part
+of this work spoken at large upon this point, and also of the
+nourishment of the child in the womb, I shall here only refer the reader
+thereto, and proceed to show the manner in which the child lies in the
+womb.
+
+
+
+SECT. III.--_Of the manner of the Child's lying in the Womb._
+
+This is a thing so essential for a midwife to know, that she can be no
+midwife who is ignorant of it; and yet even about this authors
+extremely differ; for there are not two in ten that agree what is the
+form that the child lies in the womb, or in what fashion it lies there;
+and yet this may arise in a great measure from the different times of
+the women's pregnancy; for near the time of its deliverance out of those
+winding chambers of nature it oftentimes changes the form in which it
+lay before, for another.
+
+I will now show the several situations of the child in the mother's
+womb, according to the different times of pregnancy, by which those that
+are contrary to nature, and are the chief cause of ill labours, will be
+more easily conceived by the understanding midwife. It ought, therefore,
+in the first place to be observed, that the infant, as well male as
+female, is generally situated in the midst of the womb; for though
+sometimes, to appearance a woman's belly seems higher on one side than
+the other, yet it is so with respect to the belly only, and not to her
+womb, in the midst of which it is always placed.
+
+But, in the second place, a woman's great belly makes different figures,
+according to the different times of pregnancy; for when she is young
+with child, the embryo is always found of a round figure, a little long,
+a little oblong, having the spine moderately turned inwards, and the
+thighs folded, and a little raised, to which the legs are so raised,
+that the heels touch the buttocks; the arms are bending, and the hands
+placed upon the knees, towards which part of the body, the head is
+turned downwards towards the inward orifice of the womb, tumbling as it
+were over its head so that then the feet are uppermost, and the face
+towards the mother's great gut; and this turning of the infant in this
+manner, with its head downwards, towards the latter end of a woman's
+reckoning, is so ordered by nature, that it may be thereby the better
+disposed of its passage into the world at the time of its mother's
+labour, which is not then far off (and indeed some children turn not at
+all until the very time of birth); for in this posture all its joints
+are most easily extended in coming forth; for by this means its arms and
+legs cannot hinder its birth, because they cannot be bent against the
+inner orifice of the womb and the rest of the body, being very supple,
+passeth without any difficulty after the head, which is hard and big;
+being passed the head is inclined forward, so that the chin toucheth the
+breast, in which posture, it resembles one sitting to ease nature, and
+stooping down with the head to see what comes from him. The spine of the
+back is at that time placed towards the mother's, the head uppermost,
+the face downwards; and proportionately to its growth, it extends its
+members by little and little, which were exactly folded in the first
+month. In this posture it usually keeps until the seventh or eighth
+month, and then by a natural propensity and disposition of the upper
+first. It is true there are divers children, that lie in the womb in
+another posture, and come to birth with their feet downwards, especially
+if there be twins; for then, by their different motions they do so
+disturb one another, that they seldom come both in the same posture at
+the time of labour, but one will come with the head, and another with
+the feet, or perhaps lie across; but sometimes neither of them will come
+right. But, however the child may be situated in the womb, or in
+whatever posture it presents itself at the time of birth, if it be not
+with its head forwards, as I have before described, it is always against
+nature, and the delivery will occasion the more pain and danger, and
+require greater care and skill from the midwife, than when the labour is
+more natural.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+     _A Guide for Women in Travail, showing what is to be done when they
+     fall in Labour, in order to their Delivery._
+
+
+The end of all that we have been treating of is, the bringing forth of a
+child into the world with safety both to the mother and the infant, as
+the whole time of a woman's pregnancy may be termed a kind of labour;
+for, from the time of the conception to the time of her delivery, she
+labours under many difficulties, is subject to many distempers, and in
+continual danger, from one affection or other, till the time of birth
+comes; and when that comes, the greatest labour and travail come along
+with it, insomuch that then all the other labours are forgotten, and
+that only is called the time of her labours, and to deliver her safely
+is the principal business of the midwife; and to assist therein, shall
+be the chief design of this chapter. The time of the child's being ready
+for its birth, when nature endeavours to cast it forth, is that which is
+properly the time of a woman's labour; nature then labouring to be eased
+of its burden. And since many child-bearing women, (especially the first
+child) are often mistaken in their reckoning and so, when they draw near
+their time take every pain they meet with for their labour, which often
+proves prejudicial and troublesome to them, when it is not so, I will in
+the first section of this chapter, set down some signs, by which a woman
+may know when the true time of her labour is come.
+
+
+
+SECTION I.--_The Signs of the true Time of a Woman's Labour._
+
+When women with child, especially of their first, perceive any
+extraordinary pains in the belly, they immediately send for their
+midwife, as taking it for their labour; and then if the midwife be not a
+skilful and experienced woman, to know the time of labour, but takes it
+for granted without further inquiry (for some such there are), and so
+goes about to put her into labour before nature is prepared for it, she
+may endanger the life of both mother and child, by breaking the amnios
+and chorion. These pains, which are often mistaken for labour, are
+removed by warm clothes laid to the belly, and the application of a
+clyster or two, by which those pains which precede a true labour, are
+rather furthered than hindered. There are also other pains incident to a
+woman in that condition from the flux of the belly, which are easily
+known by the frequent stools that follow them.
+
+The signs, therefore, of labour, some few days before, are that the
+woman's belly, which before lay high, sinks down, and hinders her from
+walking so easily as she used to do; also there flow from the womb slimy
+humours, which nature has appointed to moisten and smooth the passage
+that its inward orifice may be the more easily dilated when there is
+occasion; which beginning to open at this time, suffers that slime to
+flow away, which proceeds from the Glandules called _prostata_. These
+are signs preceding the labour; but when she is presently falling into
+labour, the signs are, great pains about the region of the reins and
+loins, which coming and retreating by intervals, are answered in the
+bottom of the belly by congruous throes, and sometimes the face is red
+and inflamed, the blood being much heated by the endeavours a woman
+makes to bring forth her child; and likewise, because during these
+strong throes her respiration is intercepted, which causes the blood to
+have recourse to her face; also her privy parts are swelled by the
+infant's head lying in the birth, which, by often thrusting, causes
+those parts to descend outwards. She is much subject to vomiting, which
+is a good sign of good labour and speedy delivery, though by ignorant
+people thought otherwise; for good pains are thereby excited and
+redoubled; which vomiting is excited by the sympathy there is between
+the womb and the stomach. Also, when the birth is near, women are
+troubled with a trembling in the thighs and legs, not with cold, like
+the beginning of an ague fit, but with the heat of the whole body,
+though it must be granted, this does not happen always. Also, if the
+humours which then flow from the womb are discoloured with the blood,
+which the midwives call _shows_, it is an infallible mark of the birth
+being near. And if then the midwife puts up her fingers into the neck of
+the womb, she will find the inner orifice dilated; at the opening of
+which the membranes of the infant, containing the waters, present
+themselves and are strongly forced down with each pain she hath; at
+which time one may perceive them sometimes to resist, and then again
+press forward the finger, being more or less hard and extended,
+according as the pains are stronger or weaker. These membranes, with the
+waters in them, when they are before the head of the child, midwives
+call _the gathering of the waters_, resemble to the touch of the fingers
+those eggs which have no shell, but are covered only with a simple
+membrane. After this, the pains still redoubling the membranes are
+broken by a strong impulsation of these waters, which flow away, and
+then the head of the infant is presently felt naked, and presents
+itself at the inward orifice of the womb. When these waters come thus
+away, then the midwife may be assured the birth is very near, this being
+the most certain sign that can be; for the _amnios alantois_, which
+contained these waters, being broken by the pressing forward of the
+birth, the child is no better able to subsist long in the womb
+afterwards than a naked man in a heap of snow. Now, these waters, if the
+child comes presently after them, facilitate the labour by making the
+passage slippery; and therefore, let no midwife (as some have foolishly
+done) endeavour to force away the water, for nature knows best when the
+true time of birth is, and therefore retains the waters till that time.
+But if by accident the water breaks away too long before the birth, then
+such things as will hasten it, may be safely administered, and what
+these are, I will show in another section.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_How a Woman ought to be ordered when the time of her labour
+    is come._
+
+When it is known that the true time of her labour is come by the signs
+laid down in the foregoing, of which those most to be relied upon are
+pains and strong throes in the belly, forcing downwards towards the
+womb, and a dilation of the inward orifice, which may be perceived by
+touching it with the finger, and the gathering of the waters before the
+head of the child, and thrusting down the membranes which contain them;
+through which, between the pains, one may in some manner with the finger
+discover the part which presents itself (as we have said before),
+especially if it be the head of the child, by its roundness and
+hardness; I say, if these things concur and are evident, the midwife may
+be sure it is the time of the woman's labour, and care must be taken to
+get all those things that are necessary to comfort her at that time. And
+the better to help her, be sure to see that she is not tightly laced;
+you must also give her one strong clyster or more, if there be occasion,
+provided it be done at the beginning, and before the child be too
+forward, for it will be difficult for her to receive them afterwards.
+The benefit accruing therefrom will be, that they excite the gut to
+discharge itself of its excrements, so that the rectum being emptied
+there may be the more space for the dilation of the passage; likewise to
+cause the pains to bear the more downward, through the endeavours she
+makes when she is at stool, and in the meantime, all other necessary
+things for her labour should be put in order, both for the mother and
+the child. To this end, some get a midwife's; but a pallet bed, girded,
+is much the best way, placed near the fire, if the season so require,
+which pallet ought to be so placed, that there may be easy access to it
+on every side, that the woman may be the more easily assisted, as there
+is occasion.
+
+If the woman abounds with blood, to bleed her a little more may not be
+improper, for thereby she will both breathe the better, and have her
+breasts more at liberty, and likewise more strength to bear down her
+pains; and this may be done without danger because the child being about
+ready to be born, has no more need of the mother's blood for its
+nourishment; besides, this evacuation does many times prevent her having
+a fever after delivery. Also, before her delivery, if her strength will
+permit, let her walk up and down her chamber; and that she may have
+strength so to do, it will be necessary to give her good strengthening
+things, such as jelly, broth, new laid eggs, or some spoonfuls of burnt
+wine; and let her by all means hold out her pains, bearing them down as
+much as she can, at the time when they take her; and let the midwife
+from time to time touch the inward orifice with her finger, to know
+whether the waters are ready to break and whether the birth will follow
+soon after. Let her also anoint the woman's privities with emollient
+oil, hog's grease, and fresh butter, if she find they are hard to be
+dilated. Let the midwife, likewise, all the time be near the labouring
+woman, and diligently observe her gestures, complaints, and pains, for
+by this she may guess pretty well how far her labour advanceth, because
+when she changeth her ordinary groans into loud cries, it is a sign that
+the child is near the birth; for at the time her pains are greater and
+more frequent. Let the woman likewise, by intervals, rest herself upon
+the bed to regain her strength, but not too long, especially if she be
+little, short and thick, for such women have always worse labour if they
+lie long on their beds in their travail. It is better, therefore, that
+she walk about her chamber as long as she can, the woman supporting her
+under the arms, if it be necessary; for by this means, the weight of the
+child causes the inward orifices of the womb to dilate the sooner than
+in bed, and if her pains be stronger and more frequent, her labour will
+not be near so long. Let not the labouring woman be concerned at those
+qualms and vomitings which, perhaps, she may find come upon her, for
+they will be much for her advantage in the issue, however uneasy she may
+be for a time, as they further her pains and throes by provoking
+downward.
+
+When the waters of the child are ready and gathered (which may be
+perceived through the membranes presenting themselves to the orifice)
+to the bigness of the whole dilatation, the midwife ought to let them
+break of themselves, and not, like some hasty midwives, who being
+impatient of the woman's long labour, break them, intending thereby to
+hasten their business, when instead thereof, they retard it; for by the
+too hasty breaking of these waters (which nature designed to make the
+child slip more easy), the passage remains dry by which means the pains
+and throes of the labouring woman are less efficacious to bring forth
+the infant than they would otherwise have been. It is, therefore, much
+the better way to let the waters break of themselves; after which the
+midwife may with ease feel the child by that part which first presents,
+and thereby discern whether it comes right, that is, with the head
+foremost, for that is the proper and most natural way of the birth. If
+the head comes right, she will find it big, round, hard and equal; but
+if it be any other part, she will find it rugged, unequal, soft and
+hard, according to the nature of the part it is. And this being the true
+time when a woman ought to be delivered, if nature be not wanting to
+perform its office, therefore, when the midwife finds the birth thus
+coming forward let her hasten to assist and deliver it, for it
+ordinarily happens soon after, if it be natural.
+
+But if it happens, as it sometimes may, that the waters break away too
+long before the birth, in such a case, those things which hasten nature
+may safely be administered. For which purpose make use of pennyroyal,
+dittany, juniper berries, red coral, betony and feverfew, boiled in
+white wine, and give a drachm of it, or it would be much better to take
+the juice of it when it is in its prime, which is in May, and having
+clarified it, make it into a syrup with double its weight of sugar, and
+keep it all the year, to use when occasion calls for it; mugwort used in
+the same manner is also good in this case; also a drachm of cinnamon
+powder given inwardly profits much in this case; and so does tansey
+broiled and applied to the privities; or an oil of it, so, made and
+used, as you were taught before. The stone _aetites_ held to the
+privities, is of extraordinary virtue, and instantly draws away, both
+child and after-burden; but great care must be taken to remove it
+presently, or it will draw forth womb and all; for such is the magnetic
+virtue of this stone that both child and womb follow it as readily as
+iron doth the load-stone or the load-stone the north star.
+
+There are many things that physicians affirm are good in this case;
+among which are an ass's or horse's hoof, hung near the privities; a
+piece of red coral hung near the said place. A load-stone helps very
+much, held in the woman's left hand; or the skin cut off a snake, girt
+about the middle, next to the skin. These things are mentioned by
+Mizaldus, but setting those things aside, as not so certain,
+notwithstanding Mizaldus quotes them, the following prescriptions are
+very good to speedy deliverance to women in travail.
+
+(1) A decoction of white wine made in savory, and drank.
+
+(2) Take wild tansey, or silver weed, bruise it, and apply to the
+woman's nostrils.
+
+(3) Take date stones, and beat them to powder, and let her take half a
+drachm of them in white wine at a time.
+
+(4) Take parsley and bruise it and press out the juice, and dip a linen
+cloth in it, and put it so dipped into the mouth of the womb; it will
+presently cause the child to come away, though it be dead, and it will
+bring away the after-burden. Also the juice of the parsley is a thing of
+so great virtue (especially stone parsley) that being drank by a woman
+with child, it cleanseth not only the womb, but also the child in the
+womb, of all gross humours.
+
+(5) A scruple of castorum in powder, in any convenient liquor, is very
+good to be taken in such a case, and so also is two or three drops of
+castorum in any convenient liquor; or eight or nine drops of spirits of
+myrrh given in any convenient liquor, gives speedy deliverance.
+
+(6) Give a woman in such a case another woman's milk to drink; it will
+cause speedy delivery, and almost without pain.
+
+(7) The juice of leeks, being drunk with warm water, highly operates to
+cause speedy delivery.
+
+(8) Take peony seeds and beat them into a powder, and mix the powder
+with oil, with which oil anoint the privities of the woman and child; it
+will give her deliverance speedily, and with less pain than can be
+imagined.
+
+(9) Take a swallow's nest and dissolve it in water, strain it, and drink
+it warm, it gives delivery with great speed and much ease.
+
+Note this also in general, that all that move the terms are good for
+making the delivery easy, such as myrrh, white amber in white wine, or
+lily water, two scruples or a drachm; or cassia lignea, dittany, each a
+drachm; cinnamon, half a drachm, saffron, a scruple; give a drachm, or
+take borax mineral, a drachm, and give it in sack; or take cassia
+lignea, a drachm; dittany, amber, of each a drachm; cinnamon, borax, of
+each a drachm and a half; saffron, a scruple, and give her half a
+drachm; or give her some drops of oil of hazel in convenient liquor; or
+two or three drops of oil of cinnamon in vervain water. Some prepare
+the secundine thus:--Take the navel-string and dry it in an oven, take
+two drachms of the powder, cinnamon a drachm, saffron half a scruple,
+with the juice of savin make trochisks; give two drachms; or wash the
+secundine in wine and bake it in a pot; then wash it in endive water and
+wine, take half a drachm of it; long pepper, galangal, of each half a
+drachm; plantain and endive seed, of each half a drachm; lavender seed,
+four scruples; make a powder, or take laudanum, two drachms; storax,
+calamite, benzoin, of each half a drachm; musk, ambergris each six
+grains, make a powder or trochisks for a fume. Or use pessaries to
+provoke the birth; take galbanum dissolved in vinegar, an ounce; myrrh,
+two drachms, with oil of oat make a pessary.
+
+
+
+_An Ointment For the Navel._
+
+Take oil of keir, two ounces, juice of savine an ounce, of leeks and
+mercury, each half an ounce; boil them to the consumption of the juice;
+add galbanum dissolved in vinegar, half an ounce, myrrh, two drachms,
+storax liquid a drachm, round bitwort, sowbread, cinnamon, saffron, a
+drachm, with wax make an ointment and apply it.
+
+If the birth be retarded through the weakness of the mother, refresh
+her by applying wine and soap to the nose, confect. alkermas. diamarg.
+
+These things may be applied to help nature in her delivery when the
+child comes to the birth the right way, and yet the birth be retarded;
+but if she finds the child comes the wrong way, and that she is not able
+to deliver the woman as she ought to be, by helping nature, and saving
+both mother and child (for it is not enough to lay a woman if it might
+be done any other way with more safety and ease, and less hazard to
+woman and child), then let her send speedily for the better and more
+able to help; and not as I once knew a midwife do, who, when a woman she
+was to deliver had hard labour, rather than a man-midwife should be sent
+for, undertook to deliver the woman herself (though told it was a man's
+business), and in her attempting it, brought away the child, but left
+the head in the mother's womb; and had not a man midwife been presently
+sent for, the mother had lost her life as well as the child; such
+persons may rather be termed butchers than midwives. But supposing the
+woman's labour to be natural, I will next show what the midwife ought to
+do, in order of her delivery.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+     _Of Natural Labour; What it is and what the Midwife is to do in
+     such Labour._
+
+
+SECTION I.--_What Natural Labour is._
+
+There are four things which denominate a woman's natural labour; the
+first is, that it be at the full time, for if a woman comes before her
+time, it cannot be termed natural labour, neither will it be so easy as
+though she had completed her nine months. The second thing is, that it
+be speedy, and without any ill accident; for when the time of her birth
+come, nature is not dilatory in the bringing it forth, without some ill
+accident intervene, which renders it unnatural.
+
+The third is, that the child be alive; for all will grant, that the
+being delivered of a dead child is very unnatural. The fourth is, that
+the child come right, for if the position of the child in the womb be
+contrary to that which is natural, the event will prove it so, by making
+that which should be a time of life, the death both of the mother and
+the child.
+
+Having thus told you what I mean by natural labour, I shall next show
+how the midwife is to proceed therein, in order to the woman's
+delivery. When all the foregoing requisites concur, and after the
+waters be broken of themselves, let there rather a quilt be laid upon
+the pallet bedstead than a feather bed, having there-on linen and cloths
+in many folds, with such other things as are necessary, and that may be
+changed according to the exigency requiring it, so that the woman may
+not be incommoded with the blood, waters and other filth which are
+voided in labour. The bed ought to be ordered, that the woman being
+ready to be delivered, should lie on her back upon it, having her body
+in a convenient posture; this is, her head and breast a little raised,
+so that she may be between lying and sitting, for being so placed, she
+is best capable of breathing, and, likewise, will have more strength to
+bear her pains than if she lay otherwise, or sunk down in her bed. Being
+so placed, she must spread her thighs abroad, folding her legs a little
+towards her buttocks, somewhat raised by a little pillow underneath, to
+the end that her rumps should have more liberty to retire back; and let
+her feet be stayed against some firm thing; besides this, let her take
+firm hold of some of the good women attending her, with her hands, that
+she may the better stay herself during her pains. She being thus placed
+at her bed, having her midwife at hand, the better to assist as nature
+may require, let her take courage, and help her pains as best she can,
+bearing them down when they take her, which she must do by holding her
+breath, and forcing them as much as possible, in like manner as when she
+goes to stool, for by such straining, the diaphragm, or midriff, being
+strongly thrust downward, necessarily forces down the womb and the child
+in it. In the meantime, let the midwife endeavour to comfort her all she
+can, exhorting her to bear her labour courageously, telling her it will
+be quickly over, and that there is no fear but that she will have a
+speedy delivery. Let the midwife also, having no rings on her fingers,
+anoint them with oil of fresh butter, and therewith dilate gently the
+inward orifice of the womb putting her finger ends into the entry
+thereof, and then stretch them one from the other, when her pains take
+her; by this means endeavouring to help forward the child, and thrusting
+by little and little, the sides of the orifice towards the hinder part
+of the child's head, anointing it with fresh butter if it be necessary.
+
+When the head of the infant is a little advanced into the inward
+orifice, the midwife's phrase is:--"It is crowned"; because it girds and
+surrounds it just as a crown; but when it is so far that the extremities
+begin to appear without the privy parts, then they say, "The infant is
+in the passage"; and at this time the woman feels herself as if it were
+scratched, or pricked with pins, and is ready to imagine that the
+midwife hurts her, when it is occasioned by the violent distension of
+those parts and the laceration which sometimes the bigness of the
+child's head causeth there. When things are in this posture, let the
+midwife seat herself conveniently to receive the child, which will come
+quickly, and with her finger ends (which she must be sure to keep close
+pared) let her endeavour to thrust the crowning of the womb (of which I
+have spoken before), back over the head of the child, and as soon as it
+is advanced as far as the ears, or thereabouts, let her take hold of the
+two sides with her two hands, that when a good pain comes she may
+quickly draw forth the child, taking care that the navel-string be not
+entangled about the neck or any part, as sometimes it is, lest thereby
+the after-burden be pulled with violence, and perhaps the womb also, to
+which it is fastened, and so either cause her to flood or else break the
+strings, both which are of bad consequence to the woman, whose delivery
+may thereby be rendered the more difficult. It must also be carefully
+observed that the head be not drawn forth straight, but shaking it a
+little from one side to the other, that the shoulders may sooner and
+easier take their places immediately after it is past, without losing
+time, lest the head being past, the child be stopped there by the
+largeness of the shoulders, and so come in danger of being suffocated
+and strangled in the passage, as it sometimes happens, for the want of
+care therein. But as soon as the head is born, if there be need, she may
+slide her fingers under the armpits, and the rest of the body will
+follow without any difficulty.
+
+As soon as the midwife hath in this manner drawn forth the child, let
+her put it on one side, lest the blood and water which follows
+immediately, should do it any injury by running into its mouth and nose,
+as they would do, if it lay on its back; and so endanger the choking of
+it. The child being thus born, the next thing requisite is, to bring
+away the after-burden, but before that let the midwife be very careful
+to examine whether there be more children in the womb; for sometimes a
+woman may have twins that expected it not; which the midwife may easily
+know by the continuance of the pains after the child is born, and the
+bigness of the mother's belly. But the midwife may be sure of it, if she
+puts her hand up to the entry of the womb, and finds there another
+watery gathering, and the child in it presenting to the passage, and if
+she find it so, she must have a care of going to fetch the after-birth,
+till the woman be delivered of all the children she is pregnant with.
+Wherefore the first string must be cut, being first tied with a thread
+three or four times double, and fasten the other end with string to the
+woman's thighs, to prevent the inconvenience it may cause by hanging
+between the thighs; and then removing the child already born, she must
+take care to deliver her of the rest, observing all the circumstances as
+with the first; after which, it will be necessary to fetch away the
+after-birth, or births. But of that I shall treat in another section,
+and first show what is to be done to the new-born infant.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_Of the Cutting of the Child's Navel String._
+
+Though this is accounted by many but as a trifle, yet great care is to
+be taken about it, and it shows none of the least art and skill of a
+midwife to do it as it should be; and that it may be so done, the
+midwife should observe: (1) The time. (2) The place. (3) The manner. (4)
+The event.
+
+(1) The time is, as soon as ever the infant comes out of the womb,
+whether it brings part of the after-burden with it or not; for
+sometimes the child brings into the world a piece of the amnios upon its
+head, and is what mid wives call the _caul_, and ignorantly attribute
+some extraordinary virtue to the child so born; but this opinion is only
+the effect of their ignorance; for when a child is born with such a
+crown (as some call it) upon its brows, it generally betokens weakness
+and denotes a short life. But to proceed to the matter in hand. As soon
+as the child comes into the world, it should be considered whether it is
+weak or strong; and if it be weak, let the midwife gently put back part
+of the natural and vital blood into the body of the child by its navel;
+for that recruits a weak child (the vital and natural spirits being
+communicated by the mother to the child by its navel-string), but if the
+child be strong, the operation is needless. Only let me advise you, that
+many children that are born seemingly dead, may soon be brought to life
+again, if you squeeze six or seven drops of blood out of that part of
+the navel-string which is cut off, and give it to the child inwardly.
+
+(2) As to the place in which it should be cut, that is, whether it
+should be cut long or short, it is that which authors can scarcely agree
+in, and which many midwives quarrel about; some prescribing it to be cut
+at four fingers' breadth, which is, at best, but an uncertain rule,
+unless all fingers were of one size. It is a received opinion, that the
+parts adapted to the generation are contracted and dilated according to
+the cutting of the navel-string, and this is the reason why midwives are
+generally so kind to their own sex, that they leave a longer part of the
+navel-string of a male than female, because they would have the males
+well provided for the encounters of Venus; and the reason they give, why
+they cut that of the female shorter is, because they believe it makes
+them more acceptable to their husbands. Mizaldus was not altogether of
+the opinion of these midwives, and he, therefore, ordered the navel
+string to be cut long both in male and female children; for which he
+gives the following reason, that the instrument of generation follows
+the proportion of it; and therefore, if it be cut too short in a female,
+it will be a hindrance to her having children. I will not go about to
+contradict the opinions of Mizaldus; these, experience has made
+good:--That one is, that if the navel-string of a child, after it be
+cut, be suffered to touch the ground, the child will never hold its
+water, either sleeping or waking, but will be subjected to an
+involuntary making of water all its lifetime. The other is, that a piece
+of a child's navel-string carried about one, so that it touch his skin,
+defends him that wears it from the falling sickness and convulsions.
+
+(3) As to the manner it must be cut, let the midwife take a brown
+thread, four or five times double, of an ell long, or thereabouts, tied
+with a single knot at each of the ends, to prevent their entangling; and
+with this thread so accommodated (which the woman must have in readiness
+before the woman's labour, as also a good pair of scissors, that no time
+may be lost) let her tie the string within an inch of the belly with a
+double knot, and turning about the end of the thread, let her tie two
+more on the other side of the string, reiterating it again, if it be
+necessary; then let her cut off the navel-string another inch below the
+ligatures, towards the after-birth, so that there only remains but two
+inches of the string, in the midst of which will be the knot we speak
+of, which must be so close knit, as not to suffer a drop of blood to
+squeeze out of the vessels, but care must be taken, not to knit it so
+strait, as to out it in two, and therefore the thread must be pretty
+thick and pretty strait cut, it being better too strait than too loose;
+for some children have miserably lost their lives, with all their blood,
+before it was discovered, because the navel-string was not well tied,
+therefore great care must be taken that no blood squeeze through; for if
+there do, a new knot must be made with the rest of the string. You need
+not fear to bind the navel-string very hard because it is void of sense,
+and that part which you leave, falls off in a very few days, sometimes
+in six or seven, or sooner, but never tarries longer than eight or nine.
+When you have thus cut the navel-string, then take care the piece that
+falls off touch not the ground, for the reason I told you Mizaldus gave,
+which experience has justified.
+
+(4) The last thing I mentioned, was the event or consequence, or what
+follows cutting the navel-string. As soon as it is cut, apply a little
+cotton or lint to the place to keep it warm, lest the cold enter into
+the body of the child, which it most certainly will do, if you have not
+bound it hard enough. If the lint or cotton you apply to it, be dipped
+in oil of roses, it will be the better, and then put another small rag
+three or four times double upon the belly; upon the top of all, put
+another small bolster, and then swathe it with a linen swathe, four
+fingers broad, to keep it steady, lest by moving too much, or from being
+continually stirred from side to side, it comes to fall off before the
+navel-string, which you left remaining, is fallen off.
+
+It is the usual custom of midwives to put a piece of burnt rag to it,
+which we commonly call tinder; but I would rather advise them to put a
+little ammoniac to it, because of its drying qualities.
+
+
+
+SECT. III.--_How to bring away the After-burden._
+
+A woman cannot be said to be fairly delivered, though the child be born,
+till the after-burden be also taken from her; herein differing from most
+animals, who, when they have brought forth their young, cast forth
+nothing else but some water, and the membranes which contained them. But
+women have an after-labour, which sometimes proves more dangerous than
+the first; and how to bring it safely away without prejudice to her,
+shall be my business to show in this section.
+
+As soon as the child is born, before the midwife either ties or cuts the
+navel-string, lest the womb should close, let her take the string and
+wind it once or twice about one or two fingers on her left hand joined
+together, the better to hold it, with which she may draw it moderately,
+and with the right hand, she may only take a single hold of it, above
+the left, near the privities, drawing likewise with that very gently,
+resting the while the forefinger of the same hand, extended and
+stretched forth along the string towards the entrance of the vagina,
+always observing, for the greater facility, to draw it from the side
+where the burden cleaves least; for in so doing, the rest will separate
+the better; and special care must be taken that it be not drawn forth
+with too much violence, lest by breaking the string near the burden, the
+midwife be obliged to put the whole hand into the womb to deliver the
+woman; and she need to be a very skilful person that undertakes it, lest
+the womb, to which the burden is sometimes very strongly fastened, be
+drawn away with it, as has sometimes happened. It is, therefore, best to
+use such remedies as may assist nature. And here take notice, that what
+brings away the birth, will also bring away the after-birth. And
+therefore, for effecting this work, I will lay down the following rules.
+
+(1) Use the same means of bringing away the after-birth, that you made
+use of to bring away the birth; for the same care and circumspection are
+needful now that there were then.
+
+(2) Considering that the labouring woman cannot but be much spent by
+what she has already undergone in bringing forth the infant, be
+therefore sure to give her something to comfort her. And in this case
+good jelly broths, also a little wine and toast in it, and other
+comforting things, will be necessary.
+
+(3) A little hellebore in powder, to make her sneeze, is in this case
+very proper.
+
+(4) Tansey, and the stone aetites, applied as before directed, are also
+of good use in this case.
+
+(5) If you take the herb vervain, and either boil it in wine, or a syrup
+with the juice of it, which you may do by adding to it double its weight
+of sugar (having clarified the juice before you boil it), a spoonful of
+that given to the woman is very efficacious to bring away the secundine;
+and feverfew and mugwort have the same operation taken as the former.
+
+(6) Alexanders[10] boiled in wine, and the wine drank, also sweet
+servile, sweet cicily, angelica roots, and musterwort, are excellent
+remedies in this case.
+
+(7) Or, if this fail, the smoke of marigolds, received up a woman's
+privities by a funnel, have been known to bring away the after-birth,
+even when the midwife let go her hold.
+
+(8) Boil mugwort in water till it be very soft, then take it out, and
+apply it in the manner of a poultice to the navel of the labouring
+woman, and it instantly brings away the birth. But special care must be
+taken to remove it as soon as they come away, lest by its long tarrying
+it should draw away the womb also.
+
+
+
+SECT. IV.--_Of Laborious and Difficult Labours and how the Midwife is
+    to proceed therein._
+
+There are three sorts of bad labours, all painful and difficult, but not
+all properly unnatural. It will be necessary, therefore, to distinguish
+these.
+
+The _first_ of these labours is that when the mother and child suffer
+very much extreme pain and difficulty, even though the child come right;
+and this is distinguishably called the laborious labour.
+
+The _second_ is that which is difficult and differs not much from the
+former, except that, besides those extraordinary pains, it is generally
+attended with some unhappy accident, which, by retarding the birth,
+causes the difficulty; but these difficulties being removed, it
+accelerates the birth, and hastens the delivery.
+
+Some have asked, what is the reason that women bring forth their
+children with so much pain? I answer, the sense of feeling is
+distributed to the whole body by the nerves, and the mouth of the womb
+being so narrow, that it must of necessity be dilated at the time of the
+woman's delivery, the dilating thereof stretches the nerves, and from
+thence comes the pain. And therefore the reason why some women have more
+pain in their labour than others, proceeds from their having the mouth
+of the matrix more full of nerves than others. The best way to remove
+those difficulties that occasion hard pains and labour, is to show first
+from whence they proceed. Now the difficulty of labour proceeds either
+from the mother, or child, or both.
+
+From the mother, by reason of the indisposition of the body, or from
+some particular part only, and chiefly the womb, as when the woman is
+weak, and the mother is not active to expel the burden, or from
+weakness, or disease, or want of spirits; or it may be from strong
+passion of the mind with which she was once possessed; she may also be
+too young, and so may have the passage too narrow; or too old, and then,
+if it be her first child, because her pains are too dry and hard, and
+cannot be easily dilated, as happens also to them which are too lean;
+likewise those who are small, short or deformed, as crooked women who
+have not breath enough to help their pains, and to bear them down,
+persons that are crooked having sometimes the bones of the passage not
+well shaped. The colic also hinders labour, by preventing the true
+pains; and all great and active pains, as when the woman is taken with a
+great and violent fever, a great flooding, frequent convulsions, bloody
+flux, or any other great distemper. Also, excrements retained cause
+great difficulty, and so does a stone in the bladder: or when the
+bladder is full of urine, without being able to void it, or when the
+woman is troubled with great and painful piles. It may also be from the
+passages, when the membranes are thick, the orifice too narrow, and the
+neck of the womb not sufficiently open, the passages strained and
+pressed by tumours in the adjacent parts, or when the bones are too
+firm, and will not open, which very much endangers the mother and the
+child; or when the passages are not slippery, by reason of the waters
+having broken too soon, or membranes being too thin. The womb may also
+be out of order with regard to its bad situation or conformation, having
+its neck too narrow, hard and callous, which may easily be so naturally,
+or may come by accident, being many times caused by a tumour, an
+imposthume, ulcer or superfluous flesh.
+
+As to hard labour occasioned by the child, it is when the child happens
+to stick to a mole, or when it is so weak it cannot break the membranes;
+or if it be too big all over, or in the head only; or if the natural
+vessels are twisted about its neck; when the belly is hydropsical; or
+when it is monstrous, having two heads, or joined to another child,
+also, when the child is dead or so weak that it can contribute nothing
+to its birth; likewise when it comes wrong, or there are two or more.
+And to all these various difficulties there is oftentimes one more, and
+that is, the ignorance of the midwife, who for want of understanding in
+her business, hinders nature in her work instead of helping her.
+
+Having thus looked into the cause of hard labour, I will now show the
+industrious midwife how she may minister some relief to the labouring
+woman under these difficult circumstances. But it will require judgment
+and understanding in the midwife, when she finds a woman in difficult
+labour, to know the particular obstruction, or cause thereof, that so a
+suitable remedy may be applied; as for instance, when it happens by the
+mother's being too young and too narrow, she must be gently treated, and
+the passages anointed with oil, hog's lard, or fresh butter, to relax
+and dilate them the easier, lest there should happen a rupture of any
+part when the child is born; for sometimes the peritoneum breaks, with
+the skin from the privities to the fundament.
+
+But if the woman be in years with her first child, let her lower parts
+be anointed to mollify the inward orifice, which in such a case being
+more hard and callous, does not easily yield to the distention of
+labour, which is the true cause why such women are longer in labour, and
+also why their children, being forced against the inward orifice of the
+womb (which, as I have said, is a little callous) are born with great
+bumps and bruises on their heads.
+
+Those women who are very small and mis-shaped, should not be put to bed,
+at least until the waters are broken, but rather kept upright and
+assisted to walk about the chamber, by being supported under the arms;
+for by that means, they will breathe more freely, and mend their pains
+better than on the bed, because there they lie all of a heap. As for
+those that are very lean, and have hard labour from that cause, let them
+moisten the parts with oil and ointments, to make them more smooth and
+slippery, that the head of the infant, and the womb be not so compressed
+and bruised by the hardness of the mother's bones which form the
+passage. If the cause be weakness, she ought to be strengthened, the
+better to support her pains, to which end give her good jelly broths,
+and a little wine with a toast in it. If she fears her pains, let her be
+comforted, assuring her that she will not endure any more, but be
+delivered in a little time. But if her pains be slow and small, or none
+at all, they must be provoked by frequent and pretty strong clysters;
+let her walk about her chamber, so that the weight of the child may help
+them forward. If she flood or have strong convulsions she must then be
+helped by a speedy delivery; the operation I shall relate in this
+section of unnatural labours. If she be costive, let her use clysters,
+which may also help to dispel colic, at those times very injurious
+because attended with useless pains, and because such bear not downward,
+and so help not to forward the birth. If she find an obstruction or
+stoppage of the urine, by reason of the womb's bearing too much on the
+bladder, let her lift up her belly a little with her hands, and try if
+by that she receives any benefit; if she finds she does not, it will be
+necessary to introduce a catheter into her bladder, and thereby draw
+forth her urine. If the difficulty be from the ill posture of the woman,
+let her be placed otherwise, in a posture more suitable and convenient
+for her; also if it proceeds from indispositions of the womb, as from
+its oblique situation, etc., it must be remedied, as well as it can be,
+by the placing her body accordingly; or, if it be a vicious
+conformation, having the neck too hard, too callous, too straight, it
+must be anointed with oil and ointments, as before directed. If the
+membranes be so strong that the waters do not break in due time, they
+may be broken with the fingers, if the midwife be first well assured
+that the child is come forward into the passage, and ready to follow
+presently after; or else, by the breaking of the waters too soon, the
+child may be in danger of remaining dry a long time; to supply which
+defect, you may moisten the parts with fomentations, decoctions, and
+emollient oils; which yet is not half so well as when nature does her
+work in her own time, with the ordinary slime and waters. The membranes
+sometimes do press forth with the waters, three or four fingers' breadth
+out of the body before the child resembling a bladder full of water; but
+there is no great danger in breaking them, if they be not already
+broken; for when the case is so, the child is always in readiness to
+follow, being in the passage, but let the midwife be very careful not to
+pull it with her hand, lest the after-burden be thereby loosened before
+its time, for it adheres thereto very strongly. If the navel-string
+happen to come first, it must presently be put up again, and kept so, if
+possible, or otherwise, the woman must be immediately delivered. But if
+the after-burden should come first, it must not be put up again by any
+means; for the infant having no further occasion for it, it would be but
+an obstacle if it were put up; in this case, it must be cut off, having
+tied the navel-string, and afterwards draw forth the child with all
+speed that may be, lest it be suffocated.
+
+
+
+SECT. V.--_Of Women labouring of a dead Child._
+
+When the difficulty of labour arises from a dead child, it is a great
+danger to a mother and great care ought to be taken therein; but before
+anything be done, the midwife ought to be well assured that the child is
+dead indeed, which may be known by these signs.
+
+(1) The breast suddenly slacks, or falls flat, or bags down. (2) A great
+coldness possesses the belly of the mother, especially about the navel.
+(3) Her urine is thick, with a filthy stinking settling at the bottom.
+(4) No motion of the child can be perceived; for the trial whereof, let
+the midwife put her hand into warm water, and lay it upon the belly, for
+that, if it is alive, will make it stir. (5) She is very subject to
+dreams of dead men, and affrighted therewith. (6) She has extraordinary
+longings to eat such things as are contrary to nature. (7) Her breath
+stinks, though not used so to do. (8) When she turns herself in her bed,
+the child sways that way like a lump of lead.
+
+These things being carefully observed, the midwife may make a judgment
+whether the child be alive or dead, especially if the woman take the
+following prescription:--"Take half a pint of white wine and burn it,
+and add thereto half an ounce of cinnamon, but no other spices
+whatever, and when she has drunk it, if her travailing pains come upon
+her, the child is certainly dead; but if not, the child may possibly be
+either weak or sick, but not dead. This will bring her pains upon her if
+it be dead, and will refresh the child and give her ease if it be
+living; for cinnamon refresheth and strengtheneth the child.
+
+Now, if upon trial it be found the child is dead, let the mother do all
+she can to forward the delivery, because a dead child can in no wise be
+helpful therein. It will be necessary, therefore, that she take some
+comfortable things to prevent her fainting, by reason of the putrid
+vapours arising from the dead child. And in order to her delivery let
+her take the following herbs boiled in white wine (or at least as many
+of them as you can get), viz., dittany, betony, pennyroyal, sage,
+feverfew, centaury, ivy leaves and berries. Let her also take sweet
+basil in powder, and half a drachm at a time in white wine; let her
+privities also be anointed with the juice of the garden tansey. Or take
+the tansey in the summer when it can most plentifully be had, and before
+it runs up to flower, and having bruised it well, boil it in oil until
+the juice of it be consumed. If you set it in the sun, after you have
+mixed it with oil, it will be more effectual. This, an industrious
+midwife, who would be prepared against all events, ought to have always
+by her. As to the manner of her delivery, the same methods must be used
+as are mentioned in the section of natural labour. And here again, I
+cannot but commend the stone aetites, held near the privities, whose
+magnetic virtue renders it exceedingly necessary on this occasion, for
+it draws the child any way with the same facility that the load-stone
+draws iron.
+
+Let the midwife also make a strong decoction of hyssop with water, and
+let the woman drink it very hot, and it will in a little time bring away
+the dead child.
+
+If, as soon as she is delivered of the dead child, you are in doubt that
+part of the afterbirth is left behind in the body (for in such cases as
+these many times it rots, and comes away piece-meal), let her continue
+drinking the same decoction until her body be cleansed.
+
+A decoction made of herbs, muster-wort, used as you did the decoction of
+hyssop, works the effect. Let the midwife also take the roots of
+pollodum and stamp them well; warm them a little and bind them on the
+sides of her feet, and it will soon bring away the child either dead or
+alive.
+
+The following medicines also are such as stir up the expulsive faculty,
+but in this case they must be stronger, because the motion of the child
+ceases.
+
+Take savine, round birthwort, trochisks of myrrh, castor, cinnamon and
+saffron, each half a drachm; make a powder, give a drachm.
+
+Or she may purge first, and then apply an emollient, anointing her about
+the womb with oil of lilies, sweet almonds, camomiles, hen and
+goose-grease. Also foment to get out the child, with a decoction of
+mercury, orris, wild cucumbers, saecus, broom flowers. Then anoint the
+privities and loins with ointment of sow-bread. Or, take coloquintida,
+agaric, birthwort, of each a drachm; make a powder, add ammoniacum
+dissolved in wine, ox-gall, each two drachms. Or make a fume with an
+ass's hoof burnt, or gallianum, or castor, and let it be taken in with a
+funnel.
+
+To take away pains and strengthen the parts, foment with the decoction
+of mugwort, mallows, rosemary, with wood myrtle, St. John's wort, each
+half an ounce, spermaceti two drachms, deer's suet, an ounce; with wax
+make an ointment. Or take wax six ounces, spermaceti an ounce; melt
+them, dip flux therein, and lay it all over her belly.
+
+If none of these things will do, the last remedy is to try surgery, and
+then the midwife ought without delay to send for an expert and able
+man-midwife, to deliver her by manual operation, of which I shall treat
+more at large in the next chapter.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[10] Horse-parsley.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+     _Of Unnatural Labour._
+
+
+In showing the duty of a midwife, when the child-bearing woman's labour
+is unnatural, it will be requisite to show, in the first place, what I
+mean by unnatural labour, for that women do bring forth in pain and
+sorrow is natural and common to all. Therefore, that which I call
+unnatural is, when the child comes to the birth in a contrary posture to
+that which nature ordained, and in which the generality of the children
+come into the world.
+
+The right and natural birth is when the child comes with its head first;
+and yet this is too short a definition of a natural birth; for if any
+part of the head but the crown comes first, so that the body follows not
+in a straight line, it is a wrong and difficult birth, even though the
+head comes first. Therefore, if the child comes with its feet first, or
+with the side across, it is quite contrary to nature, or to speak more
+plainly, that which I call unnatural.
+
+Now, there are four general ways a child may come wrong. (1) When any of
+the foreparts of the body first present themselves. (2) When by an
+unhappy transposition, any of the hinder parts of the body first present
+themselves. (3) When either of the sides, or, (4) the feet present
+themselves first. To these, the different wrong postures that a child
+can present itself in, may be reduced.
+
+
+
+SECTION I.--_How to deliver a Woman of a Dead Child by Manual
+   Operation._
+
+When manual operation is necessary, let the operator acquaint the woman
+of the absolute necessity there is for such an operation; and that, as
+the child has already lost its life, there is no other way left for the
+saving hers. Let him also inform her, for her encouragement, that he
+doubts not, with the divine blessing, to deliver her safely, and that
+the pains arising therefrom will not be so great as she fears. Then let
+him stir up the woman's pains by giving her some sharp clyster, to
+excite her throes to bear down, and bring forth the child. And if this
+prevails not, let him proceed with the manual operation.
+
+First, therefore, let her be placed across the bed that he may operate
+the easier; and let her lie on her back, with her hips a little higher
+than her head, or at least the body equally placed, when it is necessary
+to put back or turn the infant to give it a better posture. Being thus
+situated, she must fold her legs so as her heels be towards her
+buttocks, and her thighs spread, and so held by a couple of strong
+persons, there must be others also to support her under her arms, that
+the body may not slide down when the child is drawn forth; for which
+sometimes great strength is required. Let the sheets and blankets cover
+her thighs for decency's sake, and with respect to the assistants, and
+also to prevent her catching cold; the operator herein governing himself
+as well with respect to his convenience, and the facility and surety of
+the operation, as to other things. Then let him anoint the entrance to
+the womb with oil or fresh butter, if necessary, that with so more ease
+he may introduce his hand, which must also be anointed, and having by
+the signs above mentioned, received satisfaction that the child is dead,
+he must do his endeavours to fetch it away as soon as he possibly can.
+If the child offer the head first, he must gently put it back until he
+hath liberty to introduce his hand quite into the womb; then sliding it
+along, under the belly, to find the feet, let him draw it forth by
+them, being very careful to keep the head from being locked into the
+passage; and that it be not separated from the body; which may be
+effected the more easily, because the child being very rotten and
+putrefied, the operator need not be so mindful to keep the breast and
+face downwards as he is in living births. But if notwithstanding all
+these precautions, by reason of the child's putrefaction, the head
+should be separated and left behind in the womb, it must be drawn forth
+according to the directions which have been given in the third section
+of this chapter. But when the head, coming first, is so far advanced
+that it cannot well be put back, it is better to draw it forth so, than
+to torment the woman too much by putting it back to turn it, and bring
+it by the feet; but the head being a part round and slippery, it may
+also happen that the operator cannot take hold of it with his fingers by
+reason of its moisture, nor put them up to the side of it, because the
+passage is filled with its bigness; he must, therefore, take a proper
+instrument, and put it up as far as he can without violence, between the
+womb and the child's head (for the child being dead before, there can be
+no danger in the operation), and let him fasten it there, giving it hold
+upon one of the bones of the skull, that it may not slide, and after it
+is well fixed in the head, he may therewith draw it forth, keeping the
+ends of the fingers of his left hand flat upon the opposite side, the
+better to help to disengage it, and by wagging it a little, to conduct
+it directly out of the passage, until the head be quite born; and then,
+taking hold of it with his hands only, the shoulders being drawn into
+the passage, and so sliding the fingers of both hands under the armpits,
+the child may be quite delivered, and then the after-burden fetched, to
+finish the operation, being careful not to pluck the navel-string too
+hard lest it break, as often happens when it is corrupt.
+
+If the dead child comes with the arm up to the shoulders so extremely
+swelled that the woman must suffer too great violence to have it put
+back, it is then (being first well assured the child is dead) best to
+take it off by the shoulder joints, by twisting three or four times
+about, which is very easily done by reason of the softness and
+tenderness of the body. After the arm is so separated, and no longer
+possesses the passage, the operator will have more room to put up his
+hand into the womb, to fetch the child by the feet and bring it away.
+
+But although the operator is sure the child is dead in the womb, yet he
+must not therefore presently use instruments because they are never to
+be used but when hands are not sufficient, and there is no other remedy
+to prevent the woman's danger, or to bring forth the child any other
+way; and the judicious operator will choose that way which is the least
+hazardous, and most safe.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_How a Woman must be Delivered when the Child's Feet come
+   first._
+
+There is nothing more obvious to those whose business it is to assist
+labouring women, than that the several unnatural postures in which
+children present themselves at the birth are the occasions of most of
+the bad labours and ill accidents that happen to them in that condition.
+
+And since midwives are often obliged, because of their unnatural
+situations, to draw the children forth by the feet, I conceive it to be
+most proper first to show how a child must be brought forth that
+presents itself in that posture, because it will be a guide to several
+of the rest.
+
+I know indeed in this case it is the advice of several authors to change
+the figure, and place the head so that it may present to the birth, and
+this counsel I should be very much inclined to follow, could they but
+also show how it may be done. But it will appear very difficult, if not
+impossible to be performed, if we would avoid the danger that by such
+violent agitations both the mother and the child must be put into, and
+therefore my opinion is, that it is better to draw forth by the feet,
+when it presents itself in that posture, than to venture a worse
+accident by turning it.
+
+As soon, therefore, as the waters are broken, and it is known that the
+child come thus and that the womb is open enough to admit the midwife's
+or operator's hand into it, or else by anointing the passage with oil or
+hog's grease, to endeavour to dilate it by degrees, using her fingers to
+this purpose, spreading them one from the other, after they are together
+entered, and continue to do so until they be sufficiently dilated, then
+taking care that her nails be well pared, no rings on her fingers and
+her hands well anointed with oil or fresh butter, and the woman placed
+in the manner directed in the former section, let her gently introduce
+her hand into the entrance of the womb, where finding the child's feet,
+let her draw it forth in the manner I shall presently direct; only let
+her first see whether it presents one foot or both, and if but one foot,
+she ought to consider whether it be the right foot or the left, and also
+in what fashion it comes; for by that means she will soon come to know
+where to find the other, which as soon as she knows and finds, let her
+draw it forth with the other; but of this she must be specially careful,
+viz., that the second be not the foot of another child; for if so, it
+may be of the utmost consequence, for she may sooner split both mother
+and child, than draw them forth. But this may be easily prevented if she
+but slide the hand up by the first leg and thigh to the waist, and there
+finding both thighs joined together, and descending from one and the
+same body. And this is also the best means to find the other foot, when
+it comes but with one.
+
+As soon as the midwife has found both the child's feet, she may draw
+them forth, and holding them together, may bring them little by little
+in this manner, taking afterwards hold of the arms and thighs, as soon
+as she can come at them, drawing them so till the hips come forth. While
+this is doing, let her observe to wrap the parts in a single cloth, so
+that her hands being always greasy slide not in the infant's body, which
+is very slippery, because of the vicious humours which are all over it;
+which being done, she may take hold under the hips, so as to draw it
+forth to the beginning of the breast; and let her on both sides with her
+hand bring down the child's hand along its body, which she may easily
+find; and then let her take care that the belly and face of the child be
+downwards; for if they should be upwards, there would be the same danger
+of its being stopped by the chin, over the share-bone, and therefore, if
+it be not so she must turn it to that posture; which may easily be done
+if she takes a proper hold of the body when the breasts and arms are
+forth, in the manner we have said, and draw it, turning it in proportion
+on that side it most inclines to, till it be turned with the face
+downwards, and so, having brought it to the shoulders, let her lose no
+time, desiring the woman at the same time to bear down, that so drawing
+the head at that instant may take its place, and not be stopped in the
+passage, though the midwife takes all possible care to prevent it. And
+when this happens, she must endeavour to draw forth the child by the
+shoulders (taking care that she separate not the body from the head, as
+I have known it done by the midwife), discharging it by little and
+little from the bones in the passage with the fingers of each hand,
+sliding them on each side opposite the other, sometimes above and
+sometimes under, till the work be ended; endeavouring to dispatch it as
+soon as possible, lest the child be suffocated, as it will unavoidably
+be, if it remain long in that posture; and this being well and
+carefully effected, she may soon after fetch away the after-birth, as I
+have before directed.
+
+
+
+SECT. III.--_How to bring away the Head of the Child, when separated
+    from the Body, and left behind in the Womb._
+
+Though the utmost care be taken in bringing away the child by the feet,
+yet if it happen to be dead, it is sometimes so putrid and corrupt, that
+with the least pull the head separates from the body and remains alone
+in the womb, and cannot be brought away but with a manual operation and
+great difficulty, it being extremely slippery, by reason of the place
+where it is, and from the roundness of its figure, on which no hold can
+well be taken; and so very great is the difficulty in this case that
+sometimes two or three very able practitioners in midwifery have, one
+after the other, left the operation unfinished, as not able to effect
+it, after the utmost industry, skill and strength; so that the woman,
+not being able to be delivered, perished. To prevent which fatal
+accident, let the following operation be observed.
+
+When the infant's head separates from the body, and is left alone
+behind, whether owing to putrefaction or otherwise, let the operator
+immediately, without any delay, while the womb is yet open, direct up
+his right hand to the mouth of the head (for no other hole can there be
+had), and having found it let him put one or two of his fingers into it,
+and the thumb under its chin; then let him draw it little by little,
+holding it by the jaws; but if that fails, as sometimes it will when
+putrefied, then let him pull off the right hand and slide up his left,
+with which he must support the head, and with the right hand let him
+take a narrow instrument called a _crochet_, but let it be strong and
+with a single branch, which he must guide along the inside of his hand,
+with the point of it towards it, for fear of hurting the womb; and
+having thus introduced it, let him turn it towards the head to strike
+either in an eyehole, or the hole of the ear, or behind the head, or
+else between the sutures, as he finds it most convenient and easy; and
+then draw forth the head so fastened with the said instrument, still
+helping to conduct it with his left hand; but when he hath brought it
+near the passage, being strongly fastened to the instrument, let him
+remember to draw forth his hand, that the passage not being filled with
+it, may be larger and easier, keeping still a finger or two on the side
+of the head, the better to disengage it.
+
+There is also another method, with more ease and less hardship than the
+former; let the operator take a soft fillet or linen slip, of about four
+fingers' breadth, and the length of three quarters of an ell or
+thereabouts, taking the two ends with the left hand, and the middle with
+the right, and let him so put it up with his right, as that it may be
+beyond the head, to embrace it as a sling does a stone, and afterwards
+draw forth the fillet by the two ends together; it will thus be easily
+drawn forth, the fillet not hindering the least passage, because it
+takes up little or no space.
+
+When the head is fetched out of the womb care must be taken that not the
+least part of it be left behind, and likewise to cleanse the womb of the
+after-burden, if yet remaining. If the burden be wholly separated from
+the side of the womb, that ought to be first brought away, because it
+may also hinder the taking hold of the head. But if it still adheres to
+the womb, it must not be meddled with till the head be brought away; for
+if one should endeavour to separate it from the womb, it might then
+cause a flooding, which would be augmented by the violence of the
+operation, the vessels to which it is joined remaining for the most part
+open as long as the womb is distended, which the head causeth while it
+is retained in it, and cannot be closed until this strange body be
+voided, and this it doth by contracting and compressing itself
+together, as has been more fully before explained. Besides, the
+after-birth remaining thus cleaving to the womb during the operation,
+prevents it from receiving easily either bruise or hurt.
+
+
+
+SECT. IV.--_How to deliver a Woman when the child's head is presented to
+    the birth._
+
+Though some may think it a natural labour when the child's head come
+first, yet, if the child's head present not the right way, even that is
+an unnatural labour; and therefore, though the head comes first, yet if
+it be the side of the head instead of the crown, it is very dangerous
+both to the mother and the child, for the child's neck would be broken,
+if born in that manner, and by how much the mother's pains continue to
+bear the child, which is impossible unless the head be rightly placed,
+the more the passages are stopped. Therefore, as soon as the position of
+the child is known, the woman must be laid with all speed, lest the
+child should advance further than this vicious posture, and thereby
+render it more difficult to thrust it back, which must be done, in order
+to place the head right in the passage, as it ought to be.
+
+To this purpose, therefore, place the woman so that her buttocks may be
+a little higher than her head and shoulders, causing her to lean a
+little to the opposite side to the child's ill posture; then let the
+operator slide up his hand, well anointed with oil, by the side of the
+child's head; to bring it right gently, with his fingers between the
+head and the womb; but if the head be so engaged that it cannot be done
+that way, he must then put up his hand to the shoulders, that by so
+thrusting them back a little into the womb, sometimes on the one side,
+and sometimes on the other, he may, little by little, give a natural
+position. I confess it would be better if the operator could put back
+the child by its shoulders with both hands, but the head takes up so
+much room, that he will find much ado to put up one, with which he must
+perform this operation, and, with the help of the finger-ends of the
+other hand put forward the child's birth as in natural labour.
+
+Some children present their face first, having their hands turned back,
+in which posture it is extremely difficult for a child to be born; and
+if it continues so long, the face will be swelled and become black and
+blue, so that it will at first appear monstrous, which is occasioned as
+well by the compression of it in that place, as by the midwife's fingers
+in handling it, in order to place it in a better posture. But this
+blackness will wear away in three or four days' time, by anointing it
+often with oil of sweet almonds. To deliver the birth, the same
+operation must be used as in the former, when the child comes first with
+the side of the head; only let the midwife or operator work very gently
+to avoid as much as possible the bruising the face.
+
+
+
+SECT. V.--_How to Deliver a Woman when the Child presents one or both
+    Hands together with the Head._
+
+Sometimes the infant will present some other part together with its
+head; which if it does, it is usually with one or both of its hands; and
+this hinders the birth, because the hands take up part of that passage
+which is little enough for the head alone; besides that, when this
+happens, they generally cause the head to lean on one side; and
+therefore this position may be well styled unnatural. When the child
+presents thus, the first thing to be done after it is perceived, must
+be, to prevent it from coming down more, or engaging further in the
+passage; and therefore, the operator having placed the woman on the bed,
+with her head lower than her buttocks, must guide and put back the
+infant's hand with his own as much as may be, or both of them, if they
+both come down, to give way to the child's head; and this being done,
+if the head be on one side, it must be brought into its natural posture
+in the middle of the passage, that it may come in a straight line, and
+then proceed as directed in the foregoing section.
+
+
+
+SECT. VI.--_How a Woman ought to be delivered, when the Hands and Feet
+    of the Infant come together._
+
+There are none but will readily grant, that when the hands and feet of
+an infant present together, the labour must be unnatural, because it is
+impossible a child should be born in that manner. In this case,
+therefore, when the midwife guides her hand towards the orifice of the
+womb she will perceive only many fingers close together, and if it be
+not sufficiently dilated, it will be a good while before the hands and
+feet will be exactly distinguished; for they are sometimes so shut and
+pressed together, that they seem to be all of one and the same shape,
+but where the womb is open enough to introduce the hand into it, she
+will easily know which are the hands and which are the feet; and having
+taken particular notice thereof, let her slide up her hand and presently
+direct it towards the infant's breast, which she will find very near,
+and then let her gently thrust back the body towards the bottom of the
+womb, leaving the feet in the same place where she found them. And then,
+having placed the woman in a convenient posture, that is to say, her
+buttocks a little raised above her breast (and which situation ought
+also to be observed when the child is to be put back into the womb), let
+the midwife afterwards take hold of the child by the feet, and draw it
+forth, as is directed in the second section.
+
+This labour, though somewhat troublesome, yet is much better than when
+the child presents only its hands; for then the child must be quite
+turned about before it can be drawn forth; but in this they are ready,
+presenting themselves, and there is little to do, but to lift and thrust
+back the upper part of the body, which is almost done of itself, by
+drawing it by the feet alone.
+
+I confess there are many authors that have written of labours, who would
+have all wrong births reduced to a natural figure, which is, to turn it
+that it may come with the head first. But those that have written thus,
+are such as never understood the practical part, for if they had the
+least experience therein, they would know that it is impossible; at
+least, if it were to be done, that violence must necessarily be used in
+doing it, that would probably be the death both of mother and child in
+the operation. I would, therefore, lay down as a general rule, that
+whenever a child presents itself wrong to the birth, in what posture so
+ever, from the shoulders to the feet, it is the way, and soonest done,
+to draw it out by the feet; and that it is better to search for them, if
+they do not present themselves, than to try and put them in their
+natural posture, and place the head foremost; for the great endeavours
+necessary to be used in turning the child in the womb, do so much weaken
+both the mother and the child, that there remains not afterwards
+strength enough to commit the operation to the work of nature; for,
+usually, the woman has no more throes or pains fit for labour after she
+has been so wrought upon; for which reason it would be difficult and
+tedious at best; and the child, by such an operation made very weak,
+would be in extreme danger of perishing before it could be born. It is,
+therefore, much better in these cases to bring it away immediately by
+the feet, searching for them as I have already directed, when they do
+not present themselves; by which the mother will be prevented a tedious
+labour, and the child be often brought alive into the world, who
+otherwise could hardly escape death.
+
+
+
+SECT. VII.--_How a Woman should be delivered that has twins, which
+    present themselves in different postures._
+
+We have already spoken something of the birth of twins in the chapter of
+natural labour, for it is not an unnatural labour barely to have twins,
+provided they come in the right position to the birth. But when they
+present themselves in different postures, they come properly under the
+denomination of unnatural labours; and if when one child presents itself
+in a wrong figure, it makes the labour dangerous and unnatural, it must
+needs make it much more so when there are several, and render it not
+only more painful to the mother and children, but to the operator also;
+for they often trouble each other and hinder both their births. Besides
+which the womb is so filled with them, that the operator can hardly
+introduce his hand without much violence, which he must do, if they are
+to be turned or thrust back, to give them a better position.
+
+When a woman is pregnant with two children, they rarely present to the
+birth together, the one being generally more forward than the other; and
+that is the reason that but one is felt, and that many times the midwife
+knows not that there are twins until the first is born, and that she is
+going to fetch away the afterbirth. In the first chapter, wherein I
+treated of natural labour, I have showed how a woman should be delivered
+of twins, presenting themselves both right; and before I close the
+chapter of unnatural labour, it only remains that I show what ought to
+be done when they either both come wrong or one of them only, as for the
+most part it happens; the first generally coming right, and the second
+with the feet forward, or in some worse posture. In such a case, the
+birth of the first must be hastened as much as possible and to make way
+for the second, which is best brought away by the feet, without
+endeavouring to place it right, because it has been, as well as the
+mother, already tired and weakened by the birth of the first, and there
+would be greater danger to its death, than likelihood of its coming out
+of the womb that way.
+
+But if, when the first is born naturally, the second should likewise
+offer its head to the birth, it would then be best to leave nature to
+finish what she has so well begun, and if nature should be too slow in
+her work, some of those things mentioned in the fourth chapter to
+accelerate the birth, may be properly enough applied, and if, after
+that, the second birth should be delayed, let a manual operation be
+delayed no longer, but the woman being properly placed, as has been
+before directed, let the operator direct his hand gently into the womb
+to find the feet, and so draw forth the second child, which will be the
+more easily effected, because there is a way made sufficiently by the
+birth of the first; and if the waters of the second child be not broke,
+as it often happens, yet, intending to bring it by its feet, he need not
+scruple to break the membranes with his fingers; for though, when the
+birth of a child is left to the operation of nature, it is necessary
+that the waters should break of themselves, yet when the child is
+brought out of the womb by art, there is no danger in breaking them,
+nay, on the contrary it becomes necessary; for without the waters are
+broken, it will be almost impossible to turn the child.
+
+But herein principally lies the care of the operator, that he be not
+deceived, when either the hands or feet of both children offer
+themselves together to the birth; in this case he ought well to consider
+the operation, of whether they be not joined together, or any way
+monstrous, and which part belongs to one child and which to the other;
+so that they may be fetched one after the other, and not both together,
+as may be, if it were not duly considered, taking the right foot of one
+and the left of the other, and so drawing them together, as if they
+both belonged to one body, because there is a left and a right, by which
+means it would be impossible to deliver them. But a skilful operator
+will easily prevent this, if, after having found two or three of several
+children presenting together in the passage, and taking aside two of the
+forwardest, a right and a left, and sliding his arm along the legs and
+thighs up to the wrist, if forward, or to the buttocks, if backwards, he
+finds they both belong to one body; of which being thus assured, he may
+begin to draw forth the nearest, without regarding which is the
+strongest or weakest, bigger or less, living or dead, having first put
+aside that part of the other child which offers to have the more way,
+and so dispatch the first as soon as may be, observing the same rules as
+if there were but one, that is keeping the breast and face downwards,
+with every circumstance directed in that section where the child comes
+with its feet first, and not fetch the burden till the second child is
+born. And therefore, when the operator hath drawn forth one child, he
+must separate it from the burden, having tied and cut the navel-string,
+and then fetch the other by the feet in the same manner, and afterwards
+bring away the after-burden with the two strings as hath been before
+showed. If the children present any other part but the feet, the
+operator may follow the same method as directed in the foregoing
+section, where the several unnatural positions are fully treated of.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+     _Directions for Child-bearing Women in their Lying-in._
+
+
+SECTION I.--_How a Woman newly Delivered ought to be ordered._
+
+As soon as she is laid in her bed, let her be placed in it conveniently
+for ease and rest, which she stands in great need of to recover herself
+of the great fatigue she underwent during her travail, and that she may
+lie the more easily let her hands and body be a little raised, that she
+may breathe more freely, and cleanse the better, especially of that
+blood which then comes away, that so it may not clot, which being
+retained causeth great pain.
+
+Having thus placed her in bed, let her take a draught of burnt white
+wine, having a drachm of spermaceti melted therein. The best vervain is
+also singularly good for a woman in this condition, boiling it in what
+she either eats or drinks, fortifying the womb so exceedingly that it
+will do it more good in two days, than any other thing does in double
+that time, having no offensive taste. And this is no more than what she
+stands in need of; for her lower parts being greatly distended until the
+birth of the infant, it is good to endeavour the prevention of an
+inflammation there. Let there also be outwardly applied, all over the
+bottom of her belly and privities, the following anodyne and
+cataplasm:--Take two ounces of oil of sweet almonds, and two or three
+new laid eggs, yolks and whites, stirring them together in an earthen
+pipkin over hot embers till they come to the consistence of a poultice;
+which being spread upon a cloth, must be applied to those parts
+indifferently warm, having first taken away the closures (which were put
+to her presently after her delivery), and likewise such clots of blood
+as were then left. Let this lie on for five or six hours, and then renew
+it again when you see cause.
+
+Great care ought to be taken at first, that if her body be very weak,
+she be not kept too hot, for extremity of heat weakens nature and
+dissolves the strength; and whether she be weak or strong, be sure that
+no cold air comes near her at first; for cold is an enemy to the
+spermatic parts; if it get into the womb it increases the after pains,
+causes swelling in the womb and hurts the nerves. As to her diet, let it
+be hot, and let her eat but little at a time. Let her avoid the light
+for the first three days, and longer if she be weak, for her labour
+weakens her eyes exceedingly, by a harmony between the womb and them.
+Let her also avoid great noise, sadness and trouble of mind.
+
+If the womb be foul, which may easily be perceived by the impurity of
+the blood (which will then easily come away in clots or stinking, or if
+you suspect any of the after-burden to be left behind, which may
+sometimes happen), make her drink a feverfew, mugwort, pennyroyal and
+mother of thyme, boiled in white wine and sweetened with sugar.
+
+Panado and new laid eggs are the best meat for her at first, of which
+she may eat often, but not too much at a time. And let her nurse use
+cinnamon in all her meats and drinks, for it generally strengthens the
+womb.
+
+Let her stir as little as may be until after the fifth, sixth, or
+seventh day after her delivery, if she be weak; and let her talk as
+little as possible, for that weakens her very much.
+
+If she goes not well to stool, give a clyster made only of the
+decoction of mallows and a little brown sugar.
+
+When she hath lain in a week or more, let her use such things as close
+the womb, of which knot-grass and comfrey are very good, and to them you
+may add a little polypodium, for it will do her good, both leaves and
+root being bruised.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_How to remedy those Accidents which a Lying-in Woman is
+    subject to._
+
+I. The first common and usual accident that troubles women in their
+lying-in is after-pains. They proceed from cold and wind contained in
+the bowels, with which they are easily filled after labour, because then
+they have more room to dilate than when the child was in the womb, by
+which they were compressed; and also, because nourishment and matter,
+contained as well in them as in the stomach, have been so confusedly
+agitated from side to side during the pains of labour, by the throes
+which always must compress the belly, that they could not be well
+digested, whence the wind is afterwards generated and, by consequence,
+the gripes which the woman feels running into her belly from side to
+side, according as the wind moves more or less, and sometimes likewise
+from the womb, because of the compression and commotion which the
+bowels make. This being generally the case, let us now apply a suitable
+remedy.
+
+1. Boil an egg soft, and pour out the yolk of it, with which mix a
+spoonful of cinnamon water, and let her drink it; and if you mix in it
+two grains of ambergris, it will be better; and yet vervain taken in
+anything she drinks, will be as effectual as the other.
+
+2. Give a lying-in woman, immediately after delivery, oil of sweet
+almonds and syrup of maiden-hair mixed together. Some prefer oil of
+walnuts, provided it be made of nuts that are very good; but it tastes
+worse than the other at best. This will lenify the inside of the
+intestines by its unctuousness, and by that means bring away that which
+is contained in them more easily.
+
+3. Take and boil onions well in water, then stamp them with oil of
+cinnamon, spread them on a cloth, and apply them to the region of the
+womb.
+
+4. Let her be careful to keep her belly warm, and not to drink what is
+too cold; and if the pain prove violent, hot cloths from time to time
+must be laid on her belly, or a pancake fried in walnut oil may be
+applied to it, without swathing her belly too strait. And for the better
+evacuating the wind out of the intestines, give her a clyster, which
+may be repeated as often as necessity requires.
+
+5. Take bay-berries, beat them to a powder, put the powder upon a
+chafing-dish of coals, and let her receive the smoke of them up her
+privities.
+
+6. Take tar and bear's grease, of each an equal quantity, boil them
+together, and whilst it is boiling, add a little pigeon's dung to it.
+Spread some of this upon a linen cloth, and apply it to the veins of the
+back of her that is troubled with afterpains, and it will give her
+speedy ease.
+
+Lastly, let her take half a drachm of bay-berries beaten into a powder,
+in a drachm of muscadel or teat.
+
+II. Another accident to which women in child-bed are subject is
+haemorrhoids or piles, occasioned through the great straining in
+bringing the child into the world. To cure this,
+
+1. Let her be let blood in the saphoena vein.
+
+2. Let her use polypodium in her meat, and drink, bruised and boiled.
+
+3. Take an onion, and having made a hole in the middle, of it, fill it
+full of oil, roast it and having bruised it all together, apply it to
+the fundament.
+
+4. Take a dozen of snails without shells, if you can get them, or else
+so many shell snails, and pull them out, and having bruised them with a
+little oil, apply them warm as before.
+
+5. If she go not well to stool, let her take an ounce of cassia fistula
+drawn at night, going to bed; she needs no change of diet after.
+
+III. Retention of the menses is another accident happening to women in
+child-bed, and which is of so dangerous a consequence, that, if not
+timely remedied, it proves mortal. When this happens,
+
+1. Let the woman take such medicines as strongly provoke the terms, such
+as dittany, betony, pennyroyal, feverfew, centaury, juniper-berries,
+peony roots.
+
+2. Let her take two or three spoonfuls of briony water each morning.
+
+3. Gentian roots beaten into a powder, and a drachm of it taken every
+morning in wine, are an extraordinary remedy.
+
+4. The roots of birthwort, either long or round, so used and taken as
+the former, are very good.
+
+5. Take twelve peony seeds, and beat them into a very fine powder, and
+let her drink them in a draught of hot cardus posset, and let her sweat
+after. And if the last medicine do not bring them down the first time
+she takes it, let her take as much more three hours after, and it seldom
+fails.
+
+IV. Overflowing of the menses is another accident incidental to
+child-bed women. For which,
+
+1. Take shepherd's purse, either boiled in any convenient liquor, or
+dried and beaten into a powder, and it will be an admirable remedy to
+stop them, this being especially appropriated to the privities.
+
+2. The flower and leaves of brambles or either of them, being dried and
+beaten into a powder, and a drachm of them taken every morning in a
+spoonful of red wine, or in a decoction of leaves of the same (which,
+perhaps, is much better), is an admirable remedy for the immoderate
+flowing of the term in women.
+
+V. Excoriations, bruises, and rents in the lower part of the womb are
+often occasioned by the violent distention and separation of the
+caruncles in a woman's labour. For the healing whereof,
+
+As soon as the woman is laid, if there be only simple contusions and
+excoriations, then let the anodyne cataplasm, formerly directed, be
+applied to the lower parts to ease the pain, made of the yolks and
+whites of new laid eggs, and oil of roses, boiled a little over warm
+embers, continually stirring it until it be mixed, and then spread on a
+fine cloth; it must be applied very warm to the bearing place for five
+or six hours, and when it is taken away, lay some fine rags, dipped in
+oil of St. John's wort twice or thrice a day; also foment the parts with
+barley water and honey of roses, to cleanse them from the excrements
+which pass. When the woman makes water, let them be defended with fine
+rags, and thereby hinder the urine from causing smart or pain.
+
+VI. The curding and clotting of the milk is another accident that
+happens to women in child-bed, for in the beginning of child-bed, the
+woman's milk is not purified because of the great commotions her body
+suffered during her labour, which affected all the parts, and it is then
+affected with many humours. Now this clotting of the milk does, for the
+most part, proceed from the breasts not being fully drawn, and that,
+either because she has too much milk, and that the infant is too small
+and weak to suck it all, or because she doth not desire to be a nurse,
+for the milk in those cases remaining in the breasts after concoction,
+without being drawn, loses its sweetness and the balsamic qualities it
+had, and by reason of the heat it requires, and the too long stay it
+makes there, is sours, curds and clots, in like manner as we see rennet
+put into ordinary milk to turn it into curds. The curding of the milk
+may also be caused by having taken a great cold, and not keeping the
+breasts well covered.
+
+But from what cause so ever this curding of the milk proceeds, the most
+certain remedy is, to draw the breasts until it is emitted and dried.
+But in regard that the infant by reason of weakness, cannot draw
+strength enough, the woman being hard marked when her milk is curded, it
+will be most proper to get another woman to draw her breasts until the
+milk comes freely, and then she may give her child suck. And that she
+may not afterwards be troubled with a surplus of milk, she must eat such
+diet as give but little nourishment, and keep her body open.
+
+But if the case be such that the woman neither can nor will be a nurse,
+it is necessary to apply other remedies for the curing of this
+distemper; for then it will be best not to draw the breasts, for that
+will be the way to bring more milk into them. For which purpose it will
+be necessary to empty the body by bleeding the arms, besides which, let
+the humours be drawn down by strong clysters and bleeding at the foot;
+nor will it be amiss to purge gently, and to digest, dissolve and
+dissipate the curded milk, four brans dissolved in a decoction of sage,
+milk, smallage and fennel, mixing with it oil of camomile, with which
+oil let the breasts be well anointed. The following liniment is also
+good to scatter and dissipate the milk.
+
+
+
+_A Liniment to Scatter and Dissipate the Milk._
+
+That the milk flowing back to the breast may without offence be
+dissipated, you must use this ointment:--"Take pure wax, two ounces,
+linseed, half a pound; when the wax is melted, let the liniment be made,
+wherein linen cloths must be clipped, and, according to their largeness,
+be laid upon the breasts; and when it shall be dispersed, and pains no
+more, let other linen cloths be laid in the distilled water of acorns,
+and put upon them.
+
+_Note._--That the cloths dipped into distilled water of acorns must be
+used only by those who cannot nurse their own children; but if a
+swelling in the breast of her who gives such do arise, from abundance of
+milk, threatens an inflammation, let her use the former ointment, but
+abstain from using the distilled water of acorns.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+     _Directions for the Nurses, in ordering Newly-born Children._
+
+
+When the child's navel-string hath been cut according to the rules
+prescribed, let the midwife presently cleanse it from the excrements and
+filth it brings into the world with it; of which some are within the
+body, as the urine in the bladder, and the excrements found in the guts;
+and the others without, which are thick, whitish and clammy, proceeding
+from the sliminess of the waters. There are sometimes children covered
+all over with this, that one would think they were rubbed over with soft
+cheese, and some women are of so easy a belief, that they really think
+it so, because they have eaten some while they were with child. From
+these excrements let the child be cleansed with wine and water a little
+warmed, washing every part therewith, but chiefly the head because of
+the hair, also the folds of the groin, and the cods or privities; which
+parts must be gently cleansed with a linen rag, or a soft sponge dipped
+in lukewarm wine. If this clammy or viscous excrement stick so close
+that it will not easily be washed off from those places, it may be
+fetched off with oil of sweet almond, or a little fresh butter melted
+with wine, and afterwards well dried off; also make tents of fine rags,
+and wetting them in this liquor, clear the ears and nostrils; but for
+the eyes, wipe them only with a dry, soft rag, not dipping it in the
+wine, lest it should make them smart.
+
+The child being washed, and cleansed from the native blood and
+impurities which attend it into the world, it must in the next place be
+searched to see whether all things be right about it, and that there is
+no fault nor dislocation; whether its nose be straight, or its tongue
+tied, or whether there be any bruise or tumour of the head; or whether
+the mold be not over shot; also whether the scrotum (if it be a male) be
+not blown up and swelled, and, in short, whether it has suffered any
+violence by its birth, in any part of its body, and whether all the
+parts be well and duly shaped; that suitable remedies may be applied if
+anything be found not right. Nor is it enough to see that all be right
+without, and that the outside of the body be cleansed, but she must also
+observe whether it dischargeth the excrements contained within, and
+whether the passage be open; for some have been born without having been
+perforated. Therefore, let her examine whether the conduits of the urine
+and stool be clear, for want of which some have died, not being able to
+void their excrements, because timely care was not taken at first. As to
+the urine all children, as well males as females, do make water as soon
+as they are born, if they can, especially if they feel the heat of the
+fire, and also sometimes void the excrements, but not so soon as the
+urine. If the infant does not ordure the first day, then put into its
+fundament a small suppository, to stir it up to be discharged, that it
+may not cause painful gripes, by remaining so long in the belly. A sugar
+almond may be proper for this purpose, anointed all over with a little
+boiled honey; or else a small piece of castile-soap rubbed over with
+fresh butter; also give the child for this purpose a little syrup of
+roses or violets at the mouth, mixed with some oil of sweet almonds,
+drawn without a fire, anointing the belly also, with the same oil or
+fresh butter.
+
+The midwife having thus washed and cleansed the child, according to the
+before mentioned directions, let her begin to swaddle it in swathing
+clothes, and when she dresses the head, let her put small rags behind
+the ears, to dry up the filth which usually engenders there, and so let
+her do also in the folds of the armpits and groins, and so swathe it;
+then wrap it up warm in a bed with blankets, which there is scarcely any
+woman so ignorant but knows well enough how to do; only let me give
+them this caution, that they swathe not the child too tightly in its
+blankets, especially about the breast and stomach, that it may breathe
+the more freely, and not be forced to vomit up the milk it sucks,
+because the stomach cannot be sufficiently distended to contain it;
+therefore let its arms and legs be wrapped in its bed, stretched and
+straight and swathed to keep them so, viz., the arms along its sides,
+and its legs equally both together with a little of the bed between
+them, that they may not be galled by rubbing each other; then let the
+head be kept steady and straight, with a stay fastened each side of the
+blanket, and then wrap the child up in a mantle and blankets to keep it
+warm. Let none think this swathing of the infant is needless to set
+down, for it is necessary it should be thus swaddled, to give its little
+body a straight figure, which is most proper and decent for a man, and
+to accustom him to keep upon his feet, who otherwise would go upon all
+fours, as most animals do.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+SECTION I.--_Of Gripes and Pains in the, Bellies of Young Children._
+
+This I mention first, as it is often the first and most common distemper
+which happens to little infants, after their birth; many children being
+so troubled therewith, that it causes them to cry day and night and at
+last die of it. The cause of it for the most part comes from the sudden
+change of nourishment, for having always received it from the umbilical
+vessel whilst in the mother's womb, they come on a sudden not only to
+change the manner of receiving it, but the nature and quality of what
+they received, as soon as they are born; for instead of purified blood
+only, which was conveyed to them by means of the umbilical vein, they
+are now obliged to be nourished by their mother's milk, which they suck
+with their mouths, and from which are engendered many excrements,
+causing gripes and pains; and not only because it is not so pure as the
+blood with which it was nourished in the womb, but because the stomach
+and the intestines cannot make a good digestion, being unaccustomed to
+it. It is sometimes caused also by a rough phlegm, and sometimes by
+worms; for physicians affirm that worms have been bred in children even
+in their mother's belly.
+
+_Cure_. The remedy must be suited to the cause. If it proceed from the
+too sudden change of nourishment, the remedy must be to forbear giving
+the child suck for some days, lest the milk be mixed with phlegm, which
+is then in the stomach corrupt; and at first it must suck but little,
+until it is accustomed to digest it. If it be the excrements in the
+intestines, which by their long stay increase their pains, give them at
+the month a little oil of sweet almonds and syrup of roses; if it be
+worms, lay a cloth dipped in oil of wormwood mixed with ox-gall, upon
+the belly, or a small cataplasm, mixed with the powder of rue, wormwood,
+coloquintida, aloes, and the seeds of citron incorporated with ox-gall
+and the powder of lupines. Or give it oil of sweet almonds and syrup of
+roses; if it be worms, lay a cloth, dipped in oil of wormwood mixed with
+ox-gall, upon the belly, or a small cataplasm mixed with the powder of
+rue, wormwood, coloquintida, aloes, and the seeds of citron incorporated
+with ox-gall and the powder of lupines. Or give it oil of sweet almonds
+with sugar-candy, and a scruple of aniseed; it purgeth new-born babes
+from green cholera and stinking phlegm, and, if it be given with
+sugar-pap, it allays the griping pains of the belly. Also anoint the
+belly with oil of dill, or lay pelitory stamped with oil of camomile to
+the belly.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_Of Weakness In Newly-born Infants._
+
+Weakness is an accident that many children bring into the world along
+with them, and is often occasioned by the labour of the mother; by the
+violence and length whereof they suffer so much, that they are born with
+great weakness, and many times it is difficult to know whether they are
+alive or dead, their body appearing so senseless, and their face so blue
+and livid, that they seem to be quite choked; and even after some hours,
+then-showing any signs of life is attended with weakness, that it looks
+like a return from death, and that they are still in a dying condition.
+
+_Cure_. Lay the infant speedily in a warm blanket, and carry it to the
+fire, and then let the midwife take a little wine in her mouth and spout
+it into its mouth, repeating it often, if there be occasion. Let her
+apply linen dipped in urine to the breast and belly, and let the face be
+uncovered, that it may breathe the more freely; also, let the midwife
+keep its mouth a little open, cleanse the nostrils with small linen
+tents[11] dipt in white wine, that so it may receive the smell of it;
+and let her chafe every part of its body well with warm cloths, to bring
+back its blood and spirits, which being retired inwards through
+weakness, often puts him in danger of being choked. By the application
+of these means, the infant will gradually recover strength, and begin to
+stir its limbs by degrees, and at length to cry; and though it be but
+weakly at first, yet afterwards, as it breathes more freely, its cry
+will become more strong.
+
+
+
+SECT. III.--_Of the Fundament being closed up in a newly-born Infant._
+
+Another defect that new-born infants are liable to is, to have their
+fundaments closed up, by which they can neither evacuate the new
+excrements engendered by the milk they suck, nor that which was amassed
+in their intestines before birth, which is certainly mortal without a
+speedy remedy. There have been some female children who have their
+fundaments quite closed, and yet have voided the excrements of the guts
+by an orifice which nature, to supply the defect, had made within the
+neck of the womb.
+
+_Cure_. Here we must take notice, that the fundament is closed two ways;
+either by a single skin, through which one may discover some black and
+blue marks, proceeding from the excrements retained, which, if one touch
+with the finger, there is a softness felt within, and thereabout it
+ought to be pierced; or else it is quite stopped by a thick, fleshy
+substance, in such sort that there appears nothing without, by which its
+true situation may be known. When there is nothing but the single skin
+which makes the closure, the operation is very easy, and the children
+may do very well; for then an aperture or opening may be made with a
+small incision-knife, cross-ways, that it may the better receive a round
+form, and that the place may not afterwards grow together, taking care
+not to prejudice the sphincter or muscle of the rectum. The incision
+being thus made, the excrements will certainly have issue. But if, by
+reason of their long stay in the belly, they become so dry that the
+infant cannot void them, then let a clyster be given to moisten and
+bring them away; afterwards put a linen tent into the new-made
+fundament, which at first had best be anointed with honey of roses, and
+towards the end, with a drying, cicatrizing ointment, such as unguentum
+album or ponphilex, observing to cleanse the infant of its excrement,
+and dry it again as soon and as often as it evacuates them, that so the
+aperture may be prevented from turning into a malignant ulcer.
+
+But if the fundament be stopped up in such a manner, that neither mark
+nor appearance of it can be seen or felt, then the operation is much
+more difficult, and, even when it is done, the danger is much greater
+that the infant will not survive it. Then, if it be a female, and it
+sends forth its excrements by the way I mentioned before, it is better
+not to meddle than, by endeavouring to remedy an inconvenience, run an
+extreme hazard of the infant's death. But when there is no vent for the
+excrements, without which death is unavoidable, then the operation is
+justifiable.
+
+_Operation_. Let the operator, with a small incision-knife that hath but
+one edge, enter into the void place, and turning the back of it upwards,
+within half a finger's breadth of the child's rump, which is the place
+where he will certainly find the intestines, let him thrust it forward,
+that it may be open enough to give free vent to matter there contained,
+being especially careful of the sphincter; after which, let the wound
+be dressed according to the method directed.
+
+
+
+SECT. IV.--_Of the Thrush, or Ulcers In the Mouth of the Infant._
+
+The thrush is a distemper that children are very subject to, and it
+arises from bad milk, or from foul humour in the stomach; for sometimes,
+though there be no ill humour in the milk itself, yet it may corrupt the
+child's stomach because of its weakness or some other indisposition; in
+which, acquiring an acrimony, instead of being well digested, there
+arise from it thrice biting vapours, which forming a thick viscosity, do
+thereby produce this distemper.
+
+_Cure_. It is often difficult, as physicians tell us, because it is
+seated in hot and moist places, where the putrefaction is easily
+augmented; and because the remedies applied cannot lodge there, being
+soon washed with spittle. But if it arises from too hot quality in the
+nurse's milk, care must be taken to temper and cool, prescribing her
+cool diet, bleeding and purging her also, if there be occasion.
+
+Take lentils, husked, powder them, and lay a little of them upon the
+child's gums. Or take bdellium flowers, half an ounce, and with oil of
+roses make a liniment. Also wash the child's mouth with barley and
+plantain-water, and honey of roses, mixing with them a little verjuice
+of lemons, as well to loosen and cleanse the vicious humours which
+cleave to the inside of the infant's mouth, as to cool those parts which
+are already over-heated. It may be done by means of a small fine rag,
+fastened to the end of a little stick, and dipped therein, wherewith the
+ulcers may be gently rubbed, being careful not to put the child in too
+much pain, lest an inflammation make the distemper worse. The child's
+body must also be kept open, that the humours being carried to the lower
+parts, the vapours may not ascend, as is usual for them to do when the
+body is costive, and the excrements too long retained.
+
+If the ulcers appear malignant, let such remedies be used as do their
+work speedily, that the evil qualities that cause them, being thereby
+instantly corrected, their malignity may be prevented; and in this case,
+touch the ulcers with plantain water, sharpened with spirits of vitriol;
+for the remedy must be made sharp, according to the malignity of the
+distemper. It will be necessary to purge these ill humours out of the
+whole habit of the child, by giving half an ounce of succory and
+rhubarb.
+
+
+
+SECT. V.--_Of Pains in the Ears, Inflammation, Moisture, etc._
+
+The brain in infants is very moist, and hath many excrements which
+nature cannot send out at the proper passages; they get often to the
+ears, and there cause pains, flux of blood, with inflammation and matter
+with pain; this in children is hard to be known as they have no other
+way to make it known but by constant crying; you will perceive them
+ready to feel their ears themselves, but will not let others touch them,
+if they can prevent; and sometimes you may discern the parts about the
+ears to be very red.
+
+These pains, if let alone, are of dangerous consequences, because they
+may bring forth watchings and epilepsy; for the moisture breeds worms
+there, and fouls the spongy bones, and by degrees causes incurable
+deafness.
+
+_Cure_. Allay the pain with all convenient speed, but have a care of
+using strong remedies. Therefore, only use warm milk about the ears,
+with the decoction of poppy tops, or oil of violets; to take away the
+moisture, use honey of roses, and let aqua mollis be dropped into the
+ears; or take virgin honey, half an ounce; red wines two ounces; alum,
+saffron, saltpetre, each a drachm, mix them at the fire; or drop in
+hemp seed oil with a little wine.
+
+
+
+SECT. VI.--_Of Redness and Inflammation of the Buttocks, Groin and the
+    Thighs of a Young Child._
+
+If there be no great care taken to change and wash the child's bed as
+soon as it is fouled with the excrements, and to keep the child very
+clean, the acrimony will be sure to cause redness, and beget a smarting
+in the buttocks, groin and thighs of the child, which, by reason of the
+pain, will afterwards be subject to inflammations, which follow the
+sooner, through the delicacy and tenderness of their skin, from which
+the outward skin of the body is in a short time separated and worn away.
+
+_Cure_. First, keep the child cleanly, and secondly, take off the
+sharpness of its urine. As to keeping it cleanly, she must be a sorry
+nurse who needs to be taught how to do it; for if she lets it but have
+dry, warm and clean beds and cloths, as often and as soon as it has
+fouled and wet them, either by its urine or its excrements, it will be
+sufficient. And as to taking off the sharpness of the child's urine,
+that must be done by the nurse's taking a cool diet, that her milk may
+have the same quality; and, therefore, she ought to abstain from all
+things that may tend to heat it.
+
+But besides these, cooling and drying remedies are requisite to be
+applied to the inflamed parts; therefore let the parts be bathed in
+plantain-water, with a fourth of lime water added to it, each time the
+child's excrements are wiped off; and if the pain be very great, let it
+only be fomented with lukewarm milk. The powder of a post to dry it, or
+a little mill-dust strewed upon the parts affected, may be proper
+enough, and is used by many women. Also, unguentum album, or
+diapompholigos, spread upon a small piece of leather in form of a
+plaster, will not be amiss.
+
+But the chief thing must be, the nurse's taking great care to wrap the
+inflamed parts with fine rags when she opens the child, that these parts
+may not gather and be pained by rubbing together.
+
+
+
+SECT. VII.--_Of Vomiting in Young Children._
+
+Vomiting in young children proceeds sometimes from too much milk, and
+sometimes from bad milk, and as often from a moist, loose stomach; for
+as dryness retains so looseness lets go. This is, for the most part,
+without danger in children; for they that vomit from their birth are
+the lustiest; for the stomach not being used to meat, and milk being
+taken too much, crudities are easily bred, or the milk is corrupted; and
+it is better to vomit these up than to keep them in; but if vomiting
+last long, it will cause an atrophy or consumption, for want of
+nourishment.
+
+_Cure_. If this be from too much milk, that which is emitted is yellow
+and green, or otherwise ill-coloured and stinking; in this case, mend
+the milk, as has been shown before; cleanse the child with honey of
+roses, and strengthen its stomach with syrup of milk and quinces, made
+into an electuary. If the humours be hot and sharp, give the syrup of
+pomegranates, currants and coral, and apply to the belly the plaster of
+bread, the stomach cerate, or bread dipped in hot wine; or take oil of
+mastich, quinces, mint, wormwood, each half an ounce; of nutmegs by
+expression, half a drachm; chemical oil of mint, three drops. Coral hath
+an occult property to prevent vomiting, and is therefore hung about the
+neck.
+
+
+
+SECT. VIII--_Of Breeding Teeth in Young Children._
+
+This is a very great and yet necessary evil in all children, having
+variety of symptoms joined with it. They begin to come forth, not all
+at once, but one after the other, about the sixth or seventh month; the
+fore-teeth coming first, then the eye-teeth, and last of all the
+grinders. The eye-teeth cause more pain to the child than any of the
+rest, because they have a deep root, and a small nerve which has
+communication with that which makes the eye move.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In the breeding of the teeth, first they feel an itching in their gums,
+then they are pierced as with a needle, and pricked by the sharp bones,
+whence proceed great pains, watching, inflammation of the gums, fever,
+looseness and convulsions, especially when they breed their eye-teeth.
+
+The signs when children breed their eye-teeth are these:
+
+1. It is known by the time, which is usually about the seventh month.
+
+2. Their gums are swelled, and they feel a great heat there with an
+itching, which makes them put their fingers into their mouths to rub
+them; a moisture also distils from the gums into the mouth, because of
+the pain they feel there.
+
+3. They hold the nipple faster than before.
+
+4. The gums are white when the teeth begin to come, and the nurse, in
+giving them suck, finds the mouth hotter, and that they are much
+changed, crying every moment, and cannot sleep, or but very little at a
+time.
+
+The fever that follows breeding of teeth comes from choleric humours,
+inflamed by watching, pain and heat. And the longer teeth are breeding,
+the more dangerous it is; so that many in the breeding of them, die of
+fevers and convulsions.
+
+_Cure_. Two things are to be regarded:--one is, to preserve the child
+from the evil accidents that may happen to it by reason of the great
+pain; the other, to assist as much as may be, the cutting of the teeth,
+when they can hardly cut the gums themselves.
+
+For the first of these, viz., the preventing of those accidents to the
+child, the nurse ought to take great care to keep a good diet, and to
+use all things that may cool and temper her milk, that so a fever may
+not follow the pain of the teeth. And to prevent the humour falling too
+much upon the inflamed gums, let the child's belly be always kept loose
+by gentle clysters, if he be bound; though oftentimes there is no need
+of them, because they are at those times usually troubled with a
+looseness; and yet, for all that, clysters may not be improper.
+
+As to the other, which is to assist it cutting the teeth, that the nurse
+must do from time to time by mollifying and loosening them, and by
+rubbing them with her finger dipped in butter or honey; or let the child
+have a virgin-wax candle to chew upon; or anoint the gums with the
+mucilage of quince made with mallow-water, or with the brains of a hare;
+also foment the cheeks with the decoction of althoea, and camomile
+flowers and dill, or with the juice of mallows and fresh butter. If the
+gums are inflamed, add juice of nightshade and lettuce. I have already
+said, the nurse ought to take a temperate diet; I shall now only add,
+that barley-broth, water-gruel, raw eggs, prunes, lettuce and endive,
+are good for her; but let her avoid salt, sharp, biting and peppered
+meats, and wine.
+
+
+
+SECT. IX.--_Of the Flux of the Belly, or Looseness in Infants._
+
+It is very common for infants to have the flux of the belly, or
+looseness, especially upon the least indisposition; nor is it to be
+wondered at, seeing their natural moistness contributes so much thereto;
+and even if it be extraordinarily violent, such are in a better state of
+health than those that are bound. The flux, if violent, proceeds from
+divers causes, as 1. From breeding of the teeth, and is then commonly
+attended with a fever in which the concoction is hindered, and the
+nourishment corrupted. 2. From watching. 3. From pain. 4. From stirring
+up of the humours by a fever. 5. When they suck or drink too much in a
+fever. Sometimes they have a flux without breeding of teeth, from inward
+cold in the guts or stomach that obstructs concoction. If it be from the
+teeth, it is easily known; for the signs of breeding in teeth will
+discover it. If it be from external cold, there are signs of other
+causes. If from a humour flowing from the head there are signs of a
+catarrh, and the excrements are frothy. If crude and raw humours are
+voided, and there be wind, belching, and phlegmatic excrements, or if
+they be yellow, green and stink, the flux is from a hot and sharp
+humour. It is best in breeding of teeth when the belly is loose, as I
+have said before; but if it be too violent, and you are afraid it may
+end in a consumption, it must be stopped; and if the excrements that are
+voided be black, and attended with a fever, it is very bad.
+
+_Cure_. The remedy in this case, is principally in respect to the nurse,
+and the condition of the milk must be chiefly observed; the nurse must
+be cautioned that she eat no green fruit, nor things of hard concoction.
+If the child suck not, remove the flux with such purges as leave a
+cooling quality behind them, as syrup of honey or roses, or a clyster.
+Take the decoction of millium, myrobolans, of each two or three ounces,
+with an ounce or two of syrup of roses, and make a clyster. After
+cleansing, if it proceed from a hot cause, give syrup of dried roses,
+quinces, myrtles and a little sanguis draconis. Also anoint with oil of
+roses, myrtles, mastich, each two drachms; with oil of myrtles and wax
+make an ointment. Or take red roses and moulin, of each a handful;
+cypress roots two drachms; make a bag, boil it in red wine and apply it
+to the belly. Or use the plaster bread or stomach ointment. If the cause
+be cold, and the excrements white give syrup of mastich and quinces,
+with mint-water. Use outwardly, mint, mastich, cummin; or take rose
+seeds, an ounce, cummin, aniseed, each two drachms; with oil of mastich,
+wormwood and wax, make an ointment.
+
+
+
+SECT. X.--_Of the Epilepsy and Convulsions in Children._
+
+This is a distemper that is often fatal to young children, and
+frequently proceeds from the brain, originating either from the parents,
+or from vapours, or bad humours that twitch the membranes of the brain;
+it is also sometimes caused by other distempers and by bad diet;
+likewise, the toothache, when the brain consents, causes it, and so does
+a sudden fright. As to the distemper itself, it is manifest and well
+enough known where it is; and as to the cause whence it comes, you may
+know by the signs of the disease, whether it comes from bad milk, or
+worms, or teeth; if these are all absent, it is certain that the brain
+is first affected; if it come with the small-pox or measles, it ceaseth
+when they come forth, if nature be strong enough.
+
+_Cure_. For the remedy of this grievous, and often mortal distemper,
+give the following powder to prevent it, to a child as soon as it is
+born:--Take male peony roots, gathered in the decrease of the moon, a
+scruple; with leaf gold make a powder; or take peony roots, a drachm;
+peony seeds, mistletoe of the oak, elk's hoof, man's skull, amber, each
+a scruple; musk, two grains; make a powder. The best part of the cure is
+taking care of the nurse's diet, which must be regular, by all means. If
+it be from corrupt milk, provoke a vomit; to do which, hold down the
+tongue, and put a quill dipped in sweet almonds, down the throat. If it
+come from the worms, give such things as will kill the worms. If there
+be a fever, with respect to that also, give coral smaragad and elk's
+hoof. In the fit, give epileptic water, as lavender water, and rub with
+oil of amber, or hang a peony root, and elk's hoof smaragad, about the
+child's neck.
+
+As to a convulsion, it is when the brain labours to cast out that which
+troubles it; the mariner is in the marrow of the back, and fountain of
+the nerves; it is a stubborn disease, and often kills.
+
+Wash the body, when in the fit, with decoction of althoea, lily roots,
+peony and camomile flowerets, and anoint it with man's and goose's
+grease, oils of worms, orris, lilies, foxes, turpentine, mastich, storax
+and calamint. The sun flower is also very good, boiled in water, to wash
+the child.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[11] Tent (_surgical_). A bunch of some fibre such as sponge or
+horsehair introduced into an opening, natural or artificial, to keep it
+open, or increase its calibre.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PROPER AND SAFE REMEDIES
+
+FOR
+
+CURING ALL THOSE DISTEMPERS
+
+THAT ARE PECULIAR
+
+TO THE FEMALE SEX
+
+AND ESPECIALLY THOSE OBSERVATIONS
+
+TO BEARING OF CHILDREN
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BOOK II
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Having finished the first part of this book, and wherein, I hope, amply
+made good my promise to the reader, I am now come to treat only of those
+distempers to which they are more subject when in a breeding condition,
+and those that keep them from being so; together with such proper and
+safe remedies as may be sufficient to repel them. And since amongst all
+the diseases to which human nature is subject, there is none that more
+diametrically opposes the very end of our creation, and the design of
+nature in the formation of different sexes, and the power thereby given
+us for the work of generation, than that of sterility or barrenness
+which, where it prevails, renders the most accomplished midwife but a
+useless person, and destroys the design of our book; I think, therefore,
+that barrenness is an effect that deserves our first and principal
+consideration.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+     _Of Barrenness; its several Kinds; with the proper Remedies for it;
+     and the Signs of Insufficiency both in Men and Women._
+
+
+SECTION I.--_Of Barrenness in General._
+
+Barrenness is either natural or artificial.
+
+Natural barrenness is when a woman is barren, though the instruments of
+generation are perfect both in herself and in her husband, and no
+preposterous or diabolical course used to it, and neither age, nor
+disease, nor any defect hindering, and yet the woman remains naturally
+barren.
+
+Now this may proceed from a natural cause, for if the man and woman be
+of one complexion, they seldom have children, and the reason is clear,
+for the universal course of nature being formed of a composition of
+contraries, cannot be increased by a composition of likes; and,
+therefore, if the constitution of the woman be hot and dry, as well as
+the man's there can be no conception; and if, on the contrary, the man
+should be of a cold and moist constitution, as well as the woman, the
+effect would be the same; and this barrenness is purely natural. The
+only way to help this is, for people, before they marry, to observe each
+others constitution and complexion, if they design to have children. If
+their complexions and constitutions be alike, they are not fit to come
+together, for discordant natures only, make harmony in the work of
+generation.
+
+Another natural cause of barrenness, is want of love between man and
+wife. Love is that vivid principle that ought to inspire each organ in
+the act of generation, or else it will be spiritless and dull; for if
+their hearts be not united in love, how should their seed unite to cause
+Conception? And this is sufficiently evinced, in that there never
+follows conception on a rape. Therefore, if men and women design to have
+children, let them live so, that their hearts as well as their bodies
+may be united, or else they may miss their expectations.
+
+A third cause of natural barrenness, is the letting virgins blood in the
+arm before their natural courses are come down, which is usually in the
+fourteenth and fifteenth year of their age; sometimes, perhaps before
+the thirteenth, but never before the twelfth. And because usually, they
+are out of order, and indisposed before their purgations come down,
+their parents run to the doctor to know what is the matter; and he, if
+not skilled, will naturally prescribe opening a vein in the arm,
+thinking fullness of blood the cause; and thus she seems recovered for
+the present: and when the young virgin happens to be in the same
+disorder, the mother applies again to the surgeon, who uses the same
+remedy; and by these means the blood is so diverted from its proper
+channel, that it comes not down the womb as usual, and so the womb dries
+up, and she is for ever barren. To prevent this, let no virgin blood in
+the arm before her courses come down well; for that will bring the blood
+downwards, and by that means provoke the _menstrua_ to come down.
+
+Another cause of natural barrenness, is debility in copulation. If
+persons perform not that act with all the bent and ardour that nature
+requires, they may as well let it alone; for frigidity and coldness
+never produces conception. Of the cure of this we will speak by and by,
+after I have spoken of accidental barrenness, which is occasioned by
+some morbific matter or infirmity in the body, either of the man or of
+the woman, which being removed they become fruitful. And since, as I
+have before noted, the first and great law of creation, was to increase
+and multiply, and barrenness is in direct opposition to that law, and
+frustrates the end of our creation, and often causes man and wife to
+have hard thoughts one of another, I shall here, for the satisfaction of
+well meaning people, set down the signs and causes of insufficiency both
+in men and women; premising first that when people have no children,
+they must not presently blame either party, for neither may be in fault.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_Signs and Causes of Insufficiency in Men._
+
+One cause may be in some viciousness of the yard, as if the same be
+crooked, or any ligaments thereof distorted and broken, whereby the ways
+and passages, through which the seed should flow, come to be stopped or
+vitiated.
+
+Another cause may be, too much weakness of the yard, and tenderness
+thereof, so that it is not strong enough erected to inject seed into the
+womb; for the strength and stiffness of the yard very much conduces to
+conception, by reason of the forcible injection of the seed.
+
+Also, if the stones have received any hurt, so that they cannot exercise
+the proper gift in producing seed, or if they be oppressed with an
+inflammation, tumour, wound or ulcer, or drawn up within the belly, and
+not appearing outwardly.
+
+Also, a man may be barren by reason of the defect of seed, as first, if
+he cast forth no seed at all, or less in substance than is needful. Or,
+secondly, if the seed be vicious, or unfit for generation; as on the one
+side, it happens in bodies that are gross and fat, the matter of it
+being defective; and on the other side, too much leanness, or continual
+wasting or consumption of the body, destroys seed; nature turning all
+the matter and substance thereof into the nutriment of the body.
+
+Too frequent copulation is also one great cause of barrenness in men;
+for it attracteth the seminal moisture from the stones, before it is
+sufficiently prepared and concocted. So if any one, by daily
+copulation, do exhaust and draw out all their moisture of the seed, then
+do the stones draw the moist humours from the superior veins unto
+themselves; and so, having but a little blood in them, they are forced
+of necessity to cast it out raw and unconcocted, and thus the stones are
+violently deprived of the moisture of their veins, and the superior
+veins, and all the other parts of the body, of their vital spirits;
+therefore it is no wonder that those who use immoderate copulation are
+very weak in their bodies, seeing their whole body is deprived of the
+best and purest blood, and of the spirit, insomuch that many who have
+been too much addicted to that pleasure, have killed themselves in the
+very act.
+
+Gluttony, drunkenness, and other excesses, do so much hinder men from
+fruitfulness, that it makes them unfit for generation.
+
+But among other causes of barrenness of men, this also is one, and makes
+them almost of the nature of eunuchs, and that is the incision or the
+cutting of the veins behind their ears, which in case of distempers is
+oftentimes done; for, according to the opinions of most physicians and
+anatomists, the seed flows from the brain by those veins behind the
+ears, more than any part of the body. From whence it is very probable,
+that the transmission of the seed is hindered by the cutting of the
+veins behind the ears, so that it cannot descend to the testicles, or
+may come thither very crude and raw.
+
+
+
+SECT. III.--_Signs and Causes of Insufficiency or Barrenness in Women._
+
+Although there are many causes of the barrenness of women, yet the chief
+and principal are internal, respecting either the privy parts, the womb
+or menstruous blood.
+
+Therefore, Hippocrates saith (speaking as well of easy as difficult
+conception in women) the first consideration is to be had of their
+species; for little women are more apt to conceive than great, slender
+than gross, white and fair than ruddy and high coloured, black than wan,
+those that have their veins conspicuous, than others; but to be very
+fleshy is evil, and to have great swelled breasts is good.
+
+The next thing to be considered is, the monthly purgations, whether they
+have been duly every month, whether they flow plentifully, are of a good
+colour, and whether they have been equal every month.
+
+Then the womb, or place of conception, is to be considered. It ought to
+be clean and sound, dry and soft, not retracted or drawn up; not prone
+or descending downward; nor the mouth thereof turned away, nor too
+close shut up. But to speak more particularly:--
+
+The first parts to be spoken of are the _pudenda_, or privities, and the
+womb; which parts are shut and enclosed either by nature or against
+nature; and from hence, such women are called _imperforate_; as in some
+women the mouth of their womb continues compressed, or closed up, from
+the time of their birth until the coming down of their courses, and
+then, on a sudden, when their terms press forward to purgation, they are
+molested with great and unusual pains. Sometimes these break of their
+own accord, others are dissected and opened by physicians; others never
+break at all, which bring on disorders that end in death.
+
+All these _Aetius_ particularly handles, showing that the womb is shut
+three manner of ways, which hinders conception. And the first is when
+the _pudenda_ grow and cleave together. The second is, when these
+certain membranes grow in the middle part of the matrix within. The
+third is, when (though the lips and bosom of the _pudenda_ may appear
+fair and open), the mouth of the womb may be quite shut up. All which
+are occasions of barrenness, as they hinder the intercourse with man,
+the monthly courses, and conception.
+
+But amongst all causes of barrenness in women, the greatest is in the
+womb, which is the field of generation; and if this field is corrupt, it
+is in vain to expect any fruit, be it ever so well sown. It may be unfit
+for generation by reason of many distempers to which it is subject; as
+for instance, overmuch heat and overmuch cold; for women whose wombs are
+too thick and cold, cannot conceive, because coldness extinguishes the
+heat of the human seed. Immoderate moisture of the womb also destroys
+the seed of man, and makes it ineffectual, as corn sown in ponds and
+marshes; and so does overmuch dryness of the womb, so that the seed
+perisheth for want of nutriment. Immoderate heat of the womb is also a
+cause of barrenness for it scorcheth up the seed as corn sown in the
+drought of summer; for immoderate heat burns all parts of the body, so
+that no conception can live in the womb.
+
+When unnatural humours are engendered, as too much phlegm, tympanies,
+wind, water, worms, or any other evil humour abounding contrary to
+nature, it causes barrenness as do all terms not coming down in due
+order.
+
+A woman may also have accidental causes of barrenness (at least such as
+may hinder her conception), as sudden frights, anger, grief and
+perturbation of mind; too violent exercises, as leaping, dancing,
+running, after copulation, and the like. But I will now add some signs,
+by which these things may be known.
+
+If the cause of barrenness be in the man, through overmuch heat in the
+seed, the woman may easily feel that in receiving it.
+
+If the nature of the woman be too hot, and so unfit for conception, it
+will appear by her having her terms very little, and the colour
+inclining to yellowness; she is also very hasty, choleric and crafty;
+her pulse beats very swift, and she is very desirous of copulation.
+
+To know whether the fault is in the man or in the woman, sprinkle the
+man's urine upon a lettuce leaf, and the woman's urine upon another, and
+that which dries away first is unfruitful. Also take five wheaten corns
+and seven beans, put them into an earthen pot, and let the party make
+water therein; let this stand seven days, and if in that time they begin
+to sprout, then the party is fruitful; but if they sprout not, then the
+party is barren, whether it be the man or the woman; this is a certain
+sign.
+
+There are some that make this experiment of a woman's fruitfulness; take
+myrrh, red storax and some odoriferous things, and make a perfume of
+which let the woman receive into the neck of the womb through a funnel;
+if the woman feels the smoke ascend through her body to the nose, then
+she is fruitful; otherwise she is barren. Some also take garlic and
+beer, and cause the woman to lie upon her back upon it, and if she feel
+the scent thereof in her nose, it is a sign of her being fruitful.
+
+Culpepper and others also give a great deal of credit to the following
+experiment. Take a handful of barley, and steep half of it in the urine
+of a man, and the other half in the urine of the woman, for the space of
+twenty-four hours; then take it out, and put the man's by itself, and
+the woman's by itself; set it in a flower-pot, or some other thing,
+where let it dry; water the man's every morning with his own urine, and
+the woman's with hers, and that which grows first is the most fruitful;
+but if they grow not at all, they are both naturally barren.
+
+_Cure_. If the barrenness proceeds from stoppage of the menstrua, let
+the woman sweat, for that opens the parts; and the best way to sweat is
+in a hot-house. Then let the womb be strengthened by drinking a draught
+of white wine, wherein a handful of stinking arrach, first bruised, has
+been boiled, for by a secret magnetic virtue, it strengthens the womb,
+and by a sympathetic quality, removes any disease thereof. To which add
+also a handful of vervain, which is very good to strengthen both the
+womb and the head, which are commonly afflicted together by sympathy.
+Having used these two or three days, if they come not down, take of
+calamint, pennyroyal, thyme, betony, dittany, burnet, feverfew, mugwort,
+sage, peony roots, juniper berries, half a handful of each, or as many
+as can be got; let these be boiled in beer, and taken for her drink.
+
+Take one part of gentian-root, two parts of centaury, distil them with
+ale in an alembic after you have bruised the gentian-roots and infused
+them well. This water is an admirable remedy to provoke the terms. But
+if you have not this water in readiness, take a drachm of centaury, and
+half a drachm of gentian-roots bruised, boiled in posset drink, and
+drink half a drachm of it at night going to bed. Seed of wild navew
+beaten to powder, and a drachm of it taken in the morning in white wine,
+also is very good; but if it answers not, she must be let blood in the
+legs. And be sure you administer your medicines a little before the full
+of the moon, by no means in the wane of the moon; if you do, you will
+find them ineffectual.
+
+If barrenness proceed from the overflowing of the menstrua, then
+strengthen the womb as you were taught before; afterwards anoint the
+veins of the back with oil of roses, oil of myrtle and oil of quinces
+every night, and then wrap a piece of white baise about your veins, the
+cotton side next to the skin and keep the same always to it. But above
+all, I recommend this medicine to you. Take comfrey-leaves or roots, and
+clown woundwort, of each a handful; bruise them well, and boil them in
+ale, and drink a good draught of it now and then. Or take cinnamon,
+cassia lignea, opium, of each two drachms; myrrh, white pepper,
+galbanum, of each one drachm; dissolve the gum and opium in white wine;
+beat the rest into powder and make pills, mixing them together exactly,
+and let the patient take two each night going to bed; but let the pills
+not exceed fifteen grains.
+
+If barrenness proceed from a flux in the womb, the cure must be
+according to the cause producing it, or which the flux proceeds from,
+which may be known by signs; for a flux of the womb, being a continual
+distillation from it for a long time together, the colour of what is
+voided shows what humour it is that offends; in some it is red, and that
+proceeds from blood putrified, in some it is yellow, and that denotes
+choler; in others white and pale, and denotes phlegm. If pure blood
+comes out, as if a vein were opened, some corrosion or gnawing of the
+womb is to be feared. All these are known by the following signs:
+
+The place of conception is continually moist with the humours, the face
+ill-coloured, the party loathes meat and breathes with difficulty, the
+eyes are much swollen, which is sometimes without pain. If the offending
+humour be pure blood, then you must let blood in the arm, and the
+cephalic vein is fittest to draw back the blood; then let the juice of
+plantain and comfrey be injected into the womb. If phlegm be a cause,
+let cinnamon be a spice used in all her meats and drinks, and let her
+take a little Venice treacle or mithridate every morning. Let her boil
+burnet, mugwort, feverfew and vervain in all her broths. Also, half a
+drachm of myrrh, taken every morning, is an excellent remedy against
+this malady. If choler be the cause, let her take burrage, buglos, red
+roses, endive and succory roots, lettuce and white poppy-seed, of each a
+handful; boil these in white wine until one half be wasted; let her
+drink half a pint every morning to which half pint add syrup of chicory
+and syrup of peach-flowers, of each an ounce, with a little rhubarb, and
+this will gently purge her. If it proceed from putrified blood, let her
+be bled in the foot, and then strengthen the womb, as I have directed in
+stopping the menstrua.
+
+If barrenness be occasioned by the falling out of the womb, as sometimes
+it happens, let her apply sweet scents to the nose, such as civet,
+galbanum, storax, calamitis, wood of aloes; and such other things as
+are of that nature; and let her lay stinking things to the womb, such as
+asafoetida, oil of amber, or the smoke of her own hair, being burnt; for
+this is a certain truth, that the womb flies from all stinking, and to
+all sweet things. But the most infallible cure in this case is; take a
+common burdock leaf (which you may keep dry, if you please, all the
+year), apply this to her head and it will draw the womb upwards. In fits
+of the mother, apply it to the soles of the feet, and it will draw the
+womb downwards. But seed beaten into a powder, draws the womb which way
+you please, accordingly as it is applied.
+
+If barrenness in the woman proceed from a hot cause, let her take whey
+and clarify it; then boil plantain leaves and roots in it, and drink it
+for her ordinary drink. Let her inject plantain juice into her womb with
+a syringe. If it be in the winter, when you cannot get the juice, make a
+strong decoction of the leaves and roots in water, and inject that up
+with a syringe, but let it be blood warm, and you will find this
+medicine of great efficacy. And further, to take away barrenness
+proceeding from hot causes, take of conserve of roses, cold lozenges,
+make a tragacanth, the confections of trincatelia; and use, to smell to,
+camphor, rosewater and saunders. It is also good to bleed the basilica
+or liver vein, and take four or five ounces of blood, and then take this
+purge; take electuarium de epithymo de succo rosarum, of each two
+drachms and a half; clarified whey, four ounces; mix them well together,
+and take it in the morning fasting; sleep after it about an hour and a
+half, and fast for four hours after; and about an hour before you eat
+anything, drink a good draught of whey. Also take lilywater, four
+ounces; mandragore water, one ounce; saffron, half a scruple; beat the
+saffron to a powder, and mix it with waters, drink them warm in the
+morning; use these eight days together.
+
+
+
+_Some apparent Remedy against Barrenness and to cause Fruitfulness._
+
+Take broom flowers, smallage, parsley seed, cummin, mugwort, feverfew,
+of each half a scruple; aloes, half an ounce; Indian salt, saffron, of
+each half a drachm; beat and mix them together, and put it to five
+ounces of feverfew water warm; stop it up, and let it stand and dry in a
+warm place, and this do, two or three times, one after the other; then
+make each drachm into six pills, and take one of them every night before
+supper.
+
+For a purging medicine against barrenness, take conserve of benedicta
+lax, a quarter of an ounce; depsillo three drachms, electuary de
+rosarum, one drachm; mix them together with feverfew water, and drink it
+in the morning betimes. About three days after the patient hath taken
+this purge, let her be bled, taking four or five ounces from the median,
+or common black vein in the foot; and then give for five successive
+days, filed ivory, a drachm and a half, in feverfew water; and during
+the time let her sit in the following bath an hour together, morning and
+night. Take mild yellow sapes, daucas, balsam wood and fruit, ash-keys,
+of each two handfuls, red and white behen, broom flowers, of each a
+handful; musk, three grains; amber, saffron, of each a scruple; boiled
+in water sufficiently; but the musk, saffron, amber and broom flowers
+must be put into the decoction, after it is boiled and strained.
+
+
+
+_A Confection very good against Barrenness._
+
+Take pistachia, eringoes, of each half an ounce; saffron, one drachm;
+lignum aloes, galengal, mace, coriophilla, balm flowers, red and white
+behen, of each four scruples; syrup of confected ginger, twelve ounces;
+white sugar, six ounces, decoct all these in twelve ounces of balm
+water, and stir them well together; then put in it musk and amber, of
+each a scruple; take thereof the quantity of a nutmeg three times a day;
+in the morning, an hour before noon and an hour after supper.
+
+But if the cause of barrenness, either in man or woman, be through
+scarcity or diminution of the natural seed, then such things are to be
+taken as do increase the seed, and incite to stir up to venery, and
+further conception; which I shall here set down, and then conclude the
+chapter concerning barrenness.
+
+For this, yellow rape seed baked in bread is very good; also young, fat
+flesh, not too much salted; also saffron, the tails of stincus, and long
+pepper prepared in wine. But let such persons eschew all sour, sharp,
+doughy and slimy meats, long sleep after meat, surfeiting and
+drunkenness, and so much as they can, keep themselves from sorrow,
+grief, vexation and anxious care.
+
+These things following increase the natural seed, stir up the venery and
+recover the seed again when it is lost, viz., eggs, milk, rice, boiled
+in milk, sparrows' brains, flesh, bones and all; the stones and pizzles
+of bulls, bucks, rams and bears, also cocks' stones, lambs' stones,
+partridges', quails' and pheasants' eggs. And this is an undeniable
+aphorism, that whatever any creature is addicted unto, they move or
+incite the man or the woman that eats them, to the like, and therefore
+partridges, quails, sparrows, etc., being extremely addicted to venery,
+they work the same effect on those men and women that eat them. Also,
+take notice, that in what part of the body the faculty that you would
+strengthen, lies, take that same part of the body of another creature,
+in whom the faculty is strong, as a medicine. As for instance, the
+procreative faculty lies in the testicles; therefore, cocks' stones,
+lambs' stones, etc., are proper to stir up venery. I will also give you
+another general rule; all creatures that are fruitful being eaten, make
+them fruitful that eat them, as crabs, lobsters, prawns, pigeons, etc.
+The stones of a fox, dried and beaten to a powder, and a drachm taken in
+the morning in sheep's milk, and the stones of a boar taken in like
+manner, are very good. The heart of a male quail carried about a man,
+and the heart of a female quail carried about a woman, causes natural
+love and fruitfulness. Let them, also, that would increase their seed,
+eat and drink of the best, as much as they can; for _sine Cerere el
+Libero, friget Venus_, is an old proverb, which is, "without good meat
+and drink, Venus will be frozen to death."
+
+Pottages are good to increase the seed; such as are made of beans, peas,
+and lupins, mixed with sugar. French beans, wheat sodden in broth,
+aniseed, also onions, stewed garlic, leeks, yellow rapes, fresh mugwort
+roots, eringo roots confected, ginger connected, etc. Of fruits, hazel
+nuts, cyprus nuts, pistachio, almonds and marchpanes thereof. Spices
+good to increase seed are cinnamon, galengal, long pepper, cloves,
+ginger, saffron and asafoetida, a drachm and a half taken in good wine,
+is very good for this purpose.
+
+The weakness and debility of a man's yard, being a great hindrance to
+procreation let him use the following ointment to strengthen it: Take
+wax, oil of beaver-cod, marjoram, gentle and oil of costus, of each a
+like quantity, mix them into an ointment, and put it to a little musk,
+and with it anoint the yard, cods, etc. Take of house emmets, three
+drachms, oil of white safannum, oil of lilies, of each an ounce; pound
+and bruise the ants, and put them to the oil and let them stand in the
+sun six days; then strain out the oil and add to it euphorbium one
+scruple, pepper and rue, of each one drachm, mustard seed half a drachm,
+set this altogether in the sun two or three days, then anoint the
+instrument of generation therewith.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+     _The Diseases of the Womb._
+
+
+I have already said, that the womb is the field of generation; and if
+this field be corrupted, it is vain to expect any fruit, although it be
+ever so well sown. It is, therefore, not without reason that I intend in
+this chapter to set down the several distempers to which the womb is
+obnoxious, with proper and safe remedies against them.
+
+
+
+SECTION I.--_Of the Hot Distemper of the Womb._
+
+The distemper consists in excess of heat; for as heat of the womb is
+necessary for conception, so if it be too much, it nourisheth not the
+seed, but it disperseth its heat, and hinders the conception. This
+preternatural heat is sometimes from the birth, and causeth barrenness,
+but if it be accidental, it is from hot causes, that bring the heat and
+the blood to the womb; it arises also from internal and external
+medicines, and from too much hot meat, drink and exercise. Those that
+are troubled with this distemper have but few courses, and those are
+yellow, black, burnt or sharp, have hair betimes on their privities, are
+very prone to lust, subject to headache, and abound with choler, and
+when the distemper is strong upon them, they have but few terms, which
+are out of order, being bad and hard to flow, and in time they become
+hypochondriacal, and for the most part barren, having sometimes a
+phrenzy of the womb.
+
+_Cure_. The remedy is to use coolers, so that they offend not the
+vessels that most open for the flux of the terms. Therefore, take the
+following inwardly; succory, endive, violets, water lilies, sorrel,
+lettuce, saunders and syrups and conserve made thereof. Also take a
+conserve of succory, violets, water-lilies, burrage, each an ounce;
+conserve of roses, half an ounce, diamargation frigid, diatriascantal,
+each half a drachm; and with syrup of violets, or juice of citrons, make
+an electuary. For outward applications, make use of ointment of roses,
+violets, water-lilies, gourd, Venus navel, applied to the back and
+loins.
+
+Let the air be cool, her garments thin, and her food endive, lettuce,
+succory and barley. Give her no hot meats, nor strong wine, unless mixed
+with water. Rest is good for her, but she must abstain from copulation,
+though she may sleep as long as she pleases.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_Of the Cold Distempers of the Womb._
+
+This distemper is the reverse of the foregoing, and equally an enemy to
+generation, being caused by a cold quality abounding to excess, and
+proceeds from a too cold air, rest, idleness and cooling medicines. It
+may be known by an aversion to venery, and taking no pleasure in the act
+of copulation when the seed is spent; the terms are phlegmatic, thick
+and slimy, and do not flow as they should; the womb is windy and the
+seed crude and waterish. It is the cause of obstructions and barrenness,
+and is hard to be cured.
+
+_Cure_. Take galengal, cinnamon, nutmeg mace, cloves, ginger, cububs,
+cardamom, grains of paradise, each an ounce and a half, galengal, six
+drachms, long pepper, half an ounce, Zedoary five drachms; bruise them
+and add six quarts of wine, put them into a cellar nine days, daily
+stirring them; then add of mint two handfuls, and let them stand
+fourteen days, pour off the wine and bruise them, and then pour on the
+wine again, and distil them. Also anoint with oil of lilies, rue,
+angelica, cinnamon, cloves, mace and nutmeg. Let her diet and air be
+warm, her meat of easy concoction, seasoned with ant-seed, fennel and
+thyme; and let her avoid raw fruits and milk diets.
+
+
+
+SECT. III.--_Of the Inflation of the Womb._
+
+The inflation of the womb is a stretching of it by wind, called by some
+a windy mole; the wind proceeds from a cold matter, whether thick or
+thin, contained in the veins of the womb, by which the heat thereof is
+overcome, and which either flows thither from other parts, or is
+gathered there by cold meats and drinks. Cold air may be a producing
+cause of it also, as women that lie in are exposed to it. The wind is
+contained either in the cavity of the vessels of the womb, or between
+the tumicle, and may be known by a swelling in the region of the womb,
+which sometimes reaches to the navel, loins and diaphragm, and rises and
+abates as the wind increaseth or decreaseth. It differs from the dropsy,
+in that it never swells so high. That neither physician nor midwife may
+take it for dropsy, let them observe the signs of the woman with the
+child laid down in a former part of this work; and if any sign be
+wanting, they may suspect it to be an inflation; of which it is a
+further sign, that in conception the swelling is invariable; also if you
+strike upon the belly, in an inflation, there will be noise, but not so
+in case there be a conception. It also differs from a mole, because in
+that there is a weight and hardness of the belly, and when the patient
+moves from one side to the other she feels a great weight which moveth,
+but not so in this. If the inflation continue without the cavity of the
+womb, the pain is greater and more extensive, nor is there any noise,
+because the wind is more pent up.
+
+_Cure_. This distemper is neither of a long continuance nor dangerous,
+if looked after in time; and if it be in the cavity of the womb it is
+more easily expelled. To which purpose give her diaphnicon, with a
+little castor and sharp clysters that expel the wind. If this distemper
+happen to a woman in travail let her not purge after delivery, nor
+bleed, because it is from a cold matter; but if it come after
+child-bearing, and her terms come down sufficiently, and she has
+fullness of blood, let the saphoena vein be opened, after which, let her
+take the following electuary: take conserve of betony and rosemary, of
+each an ounce and a half; candied eringoes, citron peel candied, each
+half an ounce; diacimium, diagenel, each a drachm; oil of aniseed, six
+drops, and with syrup of citrons make an electuary. For outward
+application make a cataplasm of rue, mugwort, camomile, dill, calamint,
+new pennyroyal, thyme, with oil of rue, keir and camomile. And let the
+following clyster to expel the wind be put into the womb: Take agnus
+castus, cinnamon, each two drachms, boil them in wine to half a pint.
+She may likewise use sulphur, Bath and Spa waters, both inward and
+outward, because they expel the wind.
+
+
+
+SECT. IV.--_Of the Straitness of the Womb and its Vessels._
+
+This is another effect of the womb, which is a very great obstruction to
+the bearing of children, hindering both the flow of the menses and
+conception, and is seated in the vessel of the womb, and the neck
+thereof. The causes of this straitness are thick and rough humours, that
+stop the mouths of the veins and arteries. These humours are bred either
+by gross or too much nourishment, when the heat of the womb is so weak
+that it cannot attenuate the humours, which by reason thereof, either
+flow from the whole body, or are gathered into the womb. Now the vessels
+are made straiter or closer several ways; sometimes by inflammation,
+scirrhous or other tumours; sometimes by compressions, scars, or by
+flesh or membranes that grow after a wound. The signs by which this is
+known are, the stoppage of the terms, not conceiving, and condities
+abounding in the body which are all shown by particular signs, for if
+there is a wound, or the secundine be pulled out by force phlegm comes
+from the wound; if stoppage of the terms be from an old obstruction of
+humours, it is hard to be cured; if it be only from the disorderly use
+of astringents, it is more curable; if it be from a scirrhous, or other
+tumours that compress or close the vessel, the disease is incurable.
+
+_Cure_. For the cure of that which is curable, obstructions must be
+taken away, phlegm must be purged, and she must be let blood, as will be
+hereafter directed in the stoppage of the terms. Then use the following
+medicines: Take of aniseed and fennel seed, each a drachm; rosemary,
+pennyroyal, calamint, betony flowers, each an ounce; castus, cinnamon,
+galengal, each half an ounce; saffron half a drachm, with wine. Or take
+asparagus roots, parsley roots, each an ounce; pennyroyal, calamint,
+each a handful; wallflowers, gilly-flowers, each two handfuls; boil,
+strain and add syrup of mugwort, an ounce and a half. For a fomentation,
+take pennyroyal, mercury, calamint, marjoram, mugwort, each two
+handfuls, sage, rosemary bays, camomile-flowers, each a handful, boil
+them in water and foment the groin and the bottom of the belly; or let
+her sit up to the navel in a bath, and then anoint about the groin with
+oil of rue, lilies, dill, etc.
+
+
+
+SECT. V.--_Of the falling of the Womb._
+
+This is another evil effect of the womb which is both very troublesome,
+and also a hindrance to conception. Sometimes the womb falleth to the
+middle of the thighs, nay, almost to the knees, and may be known then by
+its hanging out. Now, that which causeth the womb to change its place
+is, that the ligaments by which it is bound to the other parts, are not
+in order; for there are four ligaments, two above, broad and membranous,
+round and hollow; it is also bound to the great vessels by veins and
+arteries, and to the back by nerves; but the place is changed when it is
+drawn another way, or when the ligaments are loose, and it falls down by
+its own weight. It is drawn on one side when the menses are hindered
+from flowing, and the veins and arteries are full, namely, those that go
+to the womb. If it be a mole on one side, the liver and spleen cause it;
+by the liver vein on the right side, and the spleen on the left, as they
+are more or less filled. Others are of opinion, it comes from the
+solution of the connexion of the fibrous neck and the parts adjacent;
+and that it is from the weight of the womb descending; this we deny not,
+but the ligaments must be loose or broken. But women with a dropsy could
+not be said to have the womb fallen down, if it came only from
+looseness; but in them it is caused by the saltness of the water, which
+dries more than it moistens. Now, if there be a little tumour, within or
+without the privities, it is nothing else but a descent of the womb, but
+if there be a tumour like a goose's egg and a hole at the bottom and
+there is at first a great pain in the parts to which the womb is
+fastened, as the loins, the bottom of the belly, and the os sacrum, it
+proceeds from the breaking or stretching of the ligaments; and a little
+after the pain is abated, and there is an impediment in walking, and
+sometimes blood comes from the breach of the vessels, and the excrements
+and urine are stopped, and then a fever and convulsion ensueth,
+oftentimes proving mortal, especially if it happen to women with child.
+
+_Cure_. For the cure of this distemper, first put up the womb before the
+air alter it, or it be swollen or inflamed; and for this purpose give a
+clyster to remove the excrements, and lay her upon her back, with her
+legs abroad, and her thighs lifted up and her head down; then take the
+tumour in your hand and thrust it in without violence; if it be swelled
+by alteration and cold, foment it with the decoction of mallows,
+althoea, lime, fenugreek, camomile flowers, bay-berries, and anoint it
+with oil of lilies, and hen's grease. If there be an inflammation, do
+not put it up, but fright it in, by putting a red-hot iron before it
+and making a show as if you intended to burn it; but first sprinkle upon
+it the powder of mastich, frankincense and the like; thus, take
+frankincense, mastich, each two drachms; sarcocol steeped in milk,
+drachm; mummy, pomegranate flowers, sanguisdraconis, each half a drachm.
+When it is put up, let her lie with her legs stretched, and one upon the
+other, for eight or ten days, and make a pessary in the form of a pear,
+with cork or sponge, and put it into the womb, dipped in sharp wine, or
+juice of acacia, with powder of sanguis, with galbanum and bdellium.
+Apply also a cupping-glass, with a great flame, under the navel or paps,
+or both kidneys, and lay this plaster to the back; take opopanax, two
+ounces, storax liquid, half an ounce; mastich, frankincense, pitch,
+bole, each two drachms; then with wax make a plaster; or take laudanum,
+a drachm and a half; mastich, and frankincense, each half a drachm, wood
+aloes, cloves, spike, each a drachm; ash-coloured ambergris, four
+grains: musk, half a scruple; make two round plasters to be laid on each
+side of the navel; make a fume of snails' skins salted, or of garlic,
+and let it be taken in by the funnel. Use also astringent fomentations
+of bramble leaves, plantain, horse-tails, myrtles, each two handfuls;
+wormseed, two handfuls; pomegranate flowers, half an ounce; boil them in
+wine and water. For an injection take comfrey root, an ounce;
+rupturewort, two drachms; yarrow, mugwort, each half an ounce; boil them
+in red wine, and inject with a syringe. To strengthen the womb, take
+hartshorn, bays, of each half a drachm; myrrh half a drachm; make a
+powder of two doses, and give it with sharp wine. Or you may take
+Zedoary, parsnip seed, crabs' eyes prepared, each a drachm, nutmeg, half
+a drachm; and give a drachm, in powder; but astringents must be used
+with great caution, lest by stopping the courses a worse mischief
+follow. To keep in its place, make rollers and ligatures as for a
+rupture; and put pessaries into the bottom of the womb, that may force
+it to remain. Let the diet be such as has drying, astringent and glueing
+qualities, as rice, starch, quinces, pears and green cheese; but let the
+summer fruits be avoided; and let her wine be astringent and red.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+     _Of Diseases Relating to Women's Monthly Courses._
+
+
+SECTION I.--_Of Women's Monthly Courses in General._
+
+That divine Providence, which, with a wisdom peculiar to itself, has
+appointed woman to conceive by coition with man, and to bear and bring
+forth children, has provided for nourishment of children during their
+recess in the womb of their mother, by that redundancy of the blood
+which is natural to all women; and which, flowing out at certain periods
+of time (when they are not pregnant) are from thence called _terms_ and
+_menses_, from their monthly flux of excrementitious and unprofitable
+blood. Now, that the matter flowing forth is excrementitious, is to be
+understood only with respect to the redundancy and overplus thereof,
+being an excrement only with respect to its quantity; for as to its
+quality, it is as pure and incorrupt as any blood in the veins; and this
+appears from the final cause of it, which is the propagation and
+conservation of mankind, and also from the generation of it, being
+superfluity of the last aliment of the fleshy parts. If any ask, if the
+menses be not of hurtful quality, how can they cause such venomous
+effects; if they fall upon trees and herbs, they make the one barren
+and mortify the other: I answer, this malignity is contracted in the
+womb, for the woman, wanting native heat to digest the superfluity,
+sends it to the matrix, where seating itself till the mouth of the womb
+be dilated, it becomes corrupt and mortified; which may easily be,
+considering the heat and moistness of the place; and so this blood being
+out of its proper vessels, offends in quality.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_Of the Terms coming out of order, either before or after the
+usual Time._
+
+Having, in the former part of this work, treated, of the suppression and
+overflowing of the monthly terms, I shall content myself with referring
+the reader thereto, and proceed to speak of their coming out of order,
+either before or after the usual time.
+
+Both these proceed from an ill constitution of body. Everything is
+beautiful in its order, in nature as well as in morality; and if the
+order of nature be broken, it shows the body to be out of order. Of each
+of these effects briefly.
+
+When the monthly courses come before their time, showing a depraved
+excretion, and flowing sometimes twice a month, the cause is in the
+blood, which stirs up the expulsive faculty of the womb, or else in the
+whole body, and is frequently occasioned by the person's diet, which
+increases the blood too much, making it too sharp or too hot. If the
+retentive faculty of the womb be weak, and the expulsive faculty strong,
+and of a quick sense, it brings them forth the sooner. Sometimes they
+flow sooner by reason of a fall, stroke or some violent passion, which
+the parties themselves can best relate. If it be from heat, thin and
+sharp humours, it is known by the distemper of the whole body. The
+looseness of the vessels and the weakness of the retentive faculty, is
+known from a moist and loose habit of the body. It is more troublesome
+than dangerous, but hinders conception, and therefore the cure is
+necessary for all, but especially such as desire children. If it
+proceeds from a sharp blood, let her temper it by a good diet and
+medicines. To which purpose, let her use baths of iron water, that
+correct the distemper of the bowels, and then evacuate. If it proceeds
+from the retentive faculty, and looseness of the vessels, it is to be
+corrected with gentle astringents.
+
+As to the courses flowing after the usual time, the causes are,
+thickness of the blood, and the smallness of its quantity, with the
+stoutness of the passage, and weakness of the expulsive faculties.
+Either of these singly may stop the courses, but if they all concur,
+they render the distemper worse. If the blood abounds not in such a
+quantity as may stir up nature to expel it, its purging must necessarily
+be deferred, till there be enough. And if the blood be thick, the
+passage stopped, and the expulsive faculty weak, the menses must needs
+be out of order and the purging of them retarded.
+
+For the cure of this, if the quantity of blood be small, let her use a
+larger diet, and a very little exercise. If the blood be thick and foul,
+let it be made thin, and the humours mixed therewith, evacuated. It is
+good to purge, after the courses have done flowing, and to use calamint,
+and, indeed, the oftener she purges, the better. She may also use fumes
+and pessaries, apply cupping glasses without scarification to the inside
+of the thighs, and rub the legs and scarify the ankles, and hold the
+feet in warm water four or five days before the courses come down. Let
+her also anoint the bottom of her belly with things proper to provoke
+the terms.
+
+
+
+_Remedies for Diseases in Women's Paps._
+
+Make a cataplasm of bean meal and salad oil, and lay it to the place
+afflicted. Or anoint with the juice of papilaris. This must be done when
+the papa are very sore.
+
+If the paps be hard and swollen, take a handful of rue, colewort roots,
+horehound and mint; if you cannot get all these conveniently, any two
+will do; pound the handful in honey, and apply it once every day till
+healed.
+
+If the nipples be stiff and sore, anoint twice a day with Florence oil,
+till healed. If the paps be flabby and hanging, bruise a little hemlock,
+and apply it to the breast for three days; but let it not stand above
+seven hours. Or, which is safer, rusae juice, well boiled, with a little
+sinapios added thereto, and anoint.
+
+If the paps be hard and dead, make a plate of lead pretty thin, to
+answer the breasts; let this stand nine hours each day, for three days.
+Or sassafras bruised, and used in like manner.
+
+
+
+_Receipt for Procuring Milk._
+
+Drink arpleui, drawn as tea, for twenty-one days. Or eat of aniseeds.
+Also the juice of arbor vitae, a glassful once a day for eleven days, is
+very good, for it quickens the memory, strengthens the body, and causeth
+milk to flow in abundance.
+
+
+
+_Directions for Drawing of Blood._
+
+Drawing of blood was first invented for good and salutary purposes,
+although often abused and misapplied. To bleed in the left arm removes
+long continued pains and headaches. It is also good for those who have
+got falls and bruises.
+
+Bleeding is good for many disorders, and generally proves a cure, except
+in some extraordinary cases, and in those cases bleeding is hurtful. If
+a woman be pregnant, to draw a little blood will give her ease, good
+health, and a lusty child.
+
+Bleeding is a most certain cure for no less than twenty-one disorders,
+without any outward or inward applications; and for many more with
+application of drugs, herbs and flowers.
+
+When the moon is on the increase, you may let blood at any time day or
+night; but when she is on the decline, you must bleed only in the
+morning.
+
+Bleeding may be performed from the month of March to November. No
+bleeding in December, January or February, unless an occasion require
+it. The months of March, April and November, are the three chief months
+of the year for bleeding in; but it may be performed with safety from
+the ninth of March to the nineteenth of November.
+
+To prevent the dangers that may arise from she unskilful drawing of
+blood, let none open a but a person of experience and practice.
+
+There are three sorts of people you must not let draw blood; first
+ignorant and inexperienced persons. Secondly, those who have bad sight
+and trembling hands, whether skilful or unskilled. For when the hand
+trembles, the lance is apt to start from the vein, and the flesh be
+thereby damaged, which may hurt, canker, and very much torment the
+patient. Thirdly, let no woman bleed, but such as have gone through a
+course of midwifery at college, for those who are unskilful may cut an
+artery, to the great damage of the patient. Besides, what is still
+worse, those pretended bleeders, who take it up at their own hand,
+generally keep unedged and rusty lancets, which prove hurtful, even in a
+skilful hand. Accordingly you ought to be cautious in choosing your
+physician; a man of learning knows what vein to open for each disorder;
+he knows how much blood to take as soon as he sees the patient, and he
+can give you suitable advice concerning your disorder.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+ARISTOTLE'S BOOK OF PROBLEMS
+
+WITH OTHER
+
+ASTROMER, ASTROLOGERS AND
+
+PHYSICIANS,
+
+CONCERNING
+
+THE STATE OF MAN'S BODY.
+
+
+Q. Among all living creatures, why hath man only his countenance lifted
+up towards Heaven. A. 1. From the will of the Creator. But although this
+answer be true, yet it seemeth not to be of force, because that so all
+questions might be easily resolved. Therefore, 2. I answer that, for the
+most part, every workman doth make his first work worse, and then his
+second better! so God creating all other animals before man gave them
+their face looking down to the earth; and then secondly he created man,
+unto whom he gave an upright shape, lifted unto heaven, because it is
+drawn from divinity, and it is derived from the goodness of God, who
+maketh all his works both perfect and good. 3. Man only, among all
+living creatures, is ordained to the kingdom of heaven, and therefore
+hath his face elevated and lifted up to heaven, because that despising
+earthly and worldly things, he ought often to contemplate on heavenly
+things. 4. That the reasonable man is like unto angels, and finally
+ordained towards God; and therefore he hath a figure looking upward. 5.
+Man is a microcosm, that is, a little world, and therefore he doth
+command all other living creatures and they obey him. 6. Naturally there
+is unto everything and every work, that form and figure given which is
+fit and proper for its motion; as unto the heavens, roundness, to the
+fire a pyramidical form, that is, broad beneath and sharp towards the
+top, which form is most apt to ascend; and so man has his face towards
+heaven to behold the wonders of God's works.
+
+Q. Why are the heads of men hairy? A. The hair is the ornament of the
+head, and the brain is purged of gross humours by the growing of the
+hair, from the highest to the lowest, which pass through the pores of
+the exterior flesh, become dry, and are converted into hair. This
+appears to be the case, from the circumstance that in all man's body
+there is nothing drier than the hair, for it is drier than the bones;
+and it is well known that some beasts are nourished with bones, as dogs,
+but they cannot digest feathers or hair, but void them undigested, being
+too hot for nourishment. 2. It is answered, that the brain is purged in
+three different ways; of superfluous watery humours by the eyes, of
+choler by the nose, and of phlegm by the hair, which is the opinion of
+the best physicians.
+
+Q. Why have men longer hair on their heads than any other living
+creature? A. Arist. de Generat. Anim. says, that men have the moistest
+brain of all living creatures from which the seed proceedeth which is
+converted into the long hair of the head. 2. The humours of men are fat,
+and do not become dry easily; and therefore the hair groweth long on
+them. In beasts, the humours easily dry, and therefore the hair groweth
+not so long.
+
+Q. Why doth the hair take deeper root in man's skin than in that of any
+other living creatures? A. Because it has greater store of nourishment
+in man, and therefore grows more in the inward parts of man. And this is
+the reason why in other creatures the hair doth alter and change with
+the skin, and not in man, unless by a scar or wound.
+
+Q. Why have women longer hair than men? A. Because women are moister and
+more phlegmatic than men, and therefore there is more matter for hair to
+them, and, by consequence, the length also of their hair. And,
+furthermore, this matter is more increased in women than men from their
+interior parts, and especially in the time of their monthly terms,
+because the matter doth then ascend, whereby the humour that breedeth
+the hair, doth increase. 2. Because women want beards; so the matter of
+the beard doth go into that of the hair.
+
+Q. Why have some women soft hair and some hard? A. 1. The hair hath
+proportion with the skin; of which some is hard, some thick, some subtle
+and soft, some gross; therefore, the hair which grows out of thick,
+gross skin, is thick and gross; that which groweth out of a subtle and
+fine skin, is fine and soft; when the pores are open, then cometh forth
+much humour, and therefore hard hair is engendered; and when the pores
+are strait, then there doth grow soft and fine hair. This doth evidently
+appear in men, because women have softer hair than they; for in women
+the pores are shut and strait, by reason of their coldness. 2. Because
+for the most part, choleric men have harder and thicker hair than
+others, by reason of their heat, and because their pores are always
+open, and therefore they have beards sooner than others. For this reason
+also, beasts that have hard hair are boldest, because such have
+proceeded from heat and choler, examples of which we have in the bear
+and the boar; and contrariwise, those beasts that have soft hair are
+fearful, because they are cold, as the hare and the hart. 3. From the
+climate where a man is born; because in hot regions hard and gross hair
+is engendered, as appears in the Ethiopians, and the contrary is the
+case is cold countries toward the north.
+
+Q. Why have some men curled hair, and some smooth? A. From the superior
+degree of heat in some men, which makes the hair curl and grow upward;
+this is proved by a man's having smooth hair when he goes into a hot
+bath, and it afterwards becomes curled. Therefore keepers of baths have
+often curled hair, as also Ethiopians and choleric men. But the cause of
+this smoothness, is the abundance of moist humours.
+
+Q. Why do women show ripeness by hair in their privy parts, and not
+elsewhere, but men in their breasts? A. Because in men and women there
+is abundance of humidity in that place, but most in women, as men have
+the mouth of the bladder in that place, where the urine is contained, of
+which the hair in the breast is engendered, and especially that about
+the navel. But of women in general, it is said, that the humidity of the
+bladder of the matrix, or womb, is joined and meeteth in that lower
+secret place, and therefore is dissolved and separated in that place
+into vapours and fumes, which are the cause of hair. And the like doth
+happen in other places, as in the hair under the arms.
+
+Q. Why have not women beards? A. Because they want heat; which is the
+case with some effeminate men, who are beardless from the same cause, to
+have complexions like women.
+
+Q. Why doth the hair grow on those that are hanged? A. Because their
+bodies are exposed to the sun, which, by its heat doth dissolve all
+moisture into the fume or vapour of which the hair doth grow.
+
+Q. Why is the hair of the beard thicker and grosser than elsewhere; and
+the more men are shaven, the harder and thicker it groweth? A. Because
+by so much as the humours or vapours of a liquid are dissolved and taken
+away, so much the more doth the humour remaining draw to the same; and
+therefore the more the hair is shaven, the thicker the humours gather
+which engender the hair, and cause it to wax hard.
+
+Q. Why are women smooth and fairer than men? A. Because in women much of
+the humidity and superfluity, which are the matter and cause of the hair
+of the body, is expelled with their monthly terms; which superfluity,
+remaining in men, through vapours passes into hair.
+
+Q. Why doth man, above all other creatures, wax hoary and gray? A.
+Because man hath the hottest heart of all living creatures; and
+therefore, nature being most wise, lest a man should be suffocated
+through the heat of his heart, hath placed the heart, which is most hot,
+under the brain, which is most cold; to the end that the heat of the
+heart may be tempered by the coldness of the brain; and contrariwise,
+that the coldness of the brain may be qualified by the heat of the
+heart; and thereby there might be a temperature in both. A proof of this
+is, that of all living creatures man hath the worst breath when he comes
+to full age. Furthermore, man doth consume nearly half his time in
+sleep, which doth proceed from the great excess of coldness and moisture
+in the brain, and from his wanting natural heat to digest and consume
+that moisture, which heat he hath in his youth, and therefore, in that
+age is not gray, but in old age, when heat faileth; because then the
+vapours ascending from the stomach remain undigested and unconsumed for
+want of natural heat, and thus putrefy, on which putrefaction of humours
+that the whiteness doth follow, which is called grayness or hoariness.
+Whereby it doth appear, that hoariness is nothing but a whiteness of
+hair, caused by a putrefaction of the humours about the roots of the
+hair, through the want of natural heat in old age. Sometimes all
+grayness is caused by the naughtiness of the complexion, which may
+happen in youth: sometimes through over great fear and care as appeareth
+in merchants, sailors and thieves.
+
+Q. Why doth red hair grow white sooner than hair of any other colour? A.
+Because redness is an infirmity of the hair; for it is engendered of a
+weak and infirm matter, that is, of matter corrupted with the flowers of
+the woman; and therefore it waxes white sooner than any other colour.
+
+Q. Why do wolves grow grisly? A. To understand this question, note the
+difference between grayness and grisliness; grayness is caused through
+defect of natural heat, but grisliness through devouring and heat. The
+wolf being a devouring beast, he eateth gluttonously without chewing,
+and enough at once for three days; in consequence of which, gross
+vapours engendered in the wolf's body, which cause grisliness. Grayness
+and grisliness have this difference; grayness is only in the head, but
+grisliness all over the body.
+
+Q. Why do horses grow grisly and gray? A. Because they are for the most
+part in the sun, and heat naturally causes putrefaction; therefore the
+matter of hair doth putrefy, and in consequence they are quickly peeled.
+
+Q. Why do men get bald, and trees let fall their leaves in winter? A.
+The want of moisture is the cause in both, which is proved by a man's
+becoming bald through venery, because by that he lets forth his natural
+humidity and heat; and by that excess in carnal pleasure the moisture is
+consumed which is the nutriment of the hair. Thus, eunuchs and women do
+not grow bald, because they do not part from this moisture; and
+therefore eunuchs are of the complexion of women.
+
+Q. Why are not women bald? A. Because they are cold and moist, which are
+the causes that the hair remaineth; for moistness doth give nutriment to
+the hair, and coldness doth bind the pores.
+
+Q. Why are not blind men naturally bald? A. Because the eye hath
+moisture in it, and that moisture which should pass through by the
+substance of the eyes, doth become a sufficient nutriment for the hair
+and therefore they are seldom bald.
+
+Q. Why doth the hair stand on end when men are afraid? A. Because in
+time of fear the heat doth go from the outward parts of the body into
+the inward to help the heart, and so the pores in which the hair is
+fastened are shut up, after which stopping and shutting up of the pores,
+the standing up of the hair doth follow.
+
+
+
+_Of the Head._
+
+Q. Why is a man's head round? A. Because it contains in it the moistest
+parts of the living creature: and also that the brain may be defended
+thereby, as with a shield.
+
+Q. Why is the head not absolutely long but somewhat round? A. To the end
+that the three creeks and cells of the brain might the better be
+distinguished; that is, the fancy in the forehead, the discoursing or
+reasonable part in the middle, and memory in the hinder-most part.
+
+Q. Why doth a man lift up his head towards the heavens when he doth
+imagine? A. Because the imagination is in the fore part of the head or
+brain, and therefore it lifteth up itself, that the creeks or cells of
+the imagination may be opened, and that the spirits which help the
+imagination, and are fit for that purpose, having their concourse
+thither, may help the imagination.
+
+Q. Why doth a man, when he museth or thinketh of things past, look
+towards the earth? A. Because the cell or creek which is behind, is the
+creek or chamber of the memory; and therefore, that looketh towards
+heaven when the head is bowed down, and so the cell is open, to the end
+that the spirits which perfect the memory should enter it.
+
+Q. Why is not the head fleshy, like other parts of the body? A. Because
+the head would be too heavy, and would not stand steadily. Also, a head
+loaded with flesh, betokens an evil complexion.
+
+Q. Why is the head subject to aches and griefs? A. By reason that evil
+humours, which proceed from the stomach, ascend up to the head and
+disturb the brain, and so cause pain in the head; sometimes it proceeds
+from overmuch filling the stomach, because two great sinews pass from
+the brain to the mouth of the stomach, and therefore these two parts do
+always suffer grief together.
+
+Q. Why have women the headache oftener than men? A. By reason of their
+monthly terms, which men are not troubled with, and by which a moist,
+unclean and venomous fume is produced, that seeks passage upwards, and
+so causes the headache.
+
+Q. Why is the brain white? A. 1. Because it is cold, and coldness is the
+mother of white. 2. Because it may receive the similitude and likeness
+of all colours, which the white colour can best do, because it is most
+simple.
+
+Q. Why are all the senses in the head? A. Because the brain is there, on
+which all the senses depend, and are directed by it; and, consequently,
+it maketh all the spirits to feel, and governeth all the membranes.
+
+Q. Why cannot a person escape death if the brain or heart be hurt? A.
+Because the brain and heart are the two principal parts which concern
+life; and, therefore, if they be hurt, there is no remedy left for cure.
+
+Q. Why is the brain moist? A. Because it may easily receive an
+impression, which moisture can best do, as it appeareth in wax, which
+doth easily receive the print of the seal when soft.
+
+Q. Why is the brain cold? A. 1. Because that by this coldness it may
+clear the understanding of man and make it subtle. 2. That by the
+coldness of the brain, the heat of the heart may be tempered.
+
+
+
+_Of the Eyes._
+
+Q. Why have you one nose and two eyes? A. Because light is more
+necessary to us than smelling; and therefore it doth proceed from the
+goodness of Nature, that if we receive any hurt or loss of one eye, the
+other should remain.
+
+Q. Why have children great eyes in their youth, which become small as
+they grow up? A. It proceeds from the want of fire, and from the
+assemblage and meeting together of the light and humour; the eyes, being
+lightened by the sun, which doth lighten the easy humour thereof and
+purge them: and, in the absence of the sun, those humours become dark
+and black, and the sight not so good.
+
+Q. Why does the blueish grey eye see badly in the day-time and well in
+the night? A. Because greyness is light and shining in itself, and the
+spirits with which we see are weakened in the day-time and strengthened
+in the night.
+
+Q. Why are men's eyes of diverse colours? A. By reason of diversity of
+humours. The eye hath four coverings and three humours. The first
+covering is called consolidative, which is the outermost, strong and
+fat. The second is called a horny skin or covering, of the likeness of
+a horn; which is a clear covering. The third, uvea, of the likeness of a
+black grape. The fourth is called a cobweb. The first humour is called
+_albuginous_, from its likeness unto the white of an egg. The second
+glarial; that is, clear, like unto crystalline. The third vitreous, that
+is, clear as glass. And the diversity of humours causeth the diversity
+of the eyes.
+
+Q. Why are men that have but one eye, good archers? and why do good
+archers commonly shut one? And why do such as behold the stars look
+through a trunk with one eye? A. This matter is handled in the
+perspective arts; and the reason is, as it doth appear in _The Book of
+Causes_, because that every virtue and strength united and knit
+together, is stronger than when dispersed and scattered. Therefore, all
+the force of seeing dispersed in two eyes, the one being shut, is
+gathered into the other, and so the light is fortified in him; and by
+consequence he doth see better and more certainly with one eye being
+shut, than when both are open.
+
+Q. Why do those that drink and laugh much, shed most tears? A. Because
+that while they drink and laugh without measure the air which is drawn
+in doth not pass out through the windpipe, and so with force is
+directed and sent to the eyes, and by their pores passing out, doth
+expel the humours of the eyes; which humour being expelled, brings
+tears.
+
+Q. Why do such as weep much, urine but little? A. Because the radical
+humidity of a tear and of urine are of one and the same nature, and,
+therefore, where weeping doth increase, urine diminishes. And that they
+are of one nature is plain to the taste, because they are both salt.
+
+Q. Why do some that have clear eyes see nothing? A. By reason of the
+oppilation and naughtiness of the sinews with which we see; for the
+temples being destroyed, the strength of the light cannot be carried
+from the brain to the eye.
+
+Q. Why is the eye clear and smooth like glass? A. 1. Because the things
+which may be seen are better beaten back from a smooth thing than
+otherwise, that thereby the sight should strengthen. 2. Because the eye
+is moist above all parts of the body, and of a waterish nature; and as
+the water is clear and smooth, so likewise is the eye.
+
+Q. Why do men and beasts who have their eyes deep in their head best see
+far off? A. Because the force and power by which we see is dispersed in
+them, and both go directly to the thing which is seen. Thus, when a man
+doth stand in a deep ditch or well, he doth see in the daytime the stars
+of the firmament; because then the power of the night and of the beams
+are not scattered.
+
+Q. Wherefore do those men who have eyes far out in their head not see
+far distant? A. Because the beams of the sight which pass from the eye,
+are scattered on every side, and go not directly unto the thing that is
+seen, and therefore the sight is weakened.
+
+Q. Why are so many beasts born blind, as lions' whelps and dogs' whelps.
+A. Because such beasts are not yet of perfect ripeness and maturity, and
+the course of nutriment doth not work in them. Thus the swallow, whose
+eyes, if they were taken out when they are young in their nest, would
+grow in again. And this is the case in many beasts who are brought forth
+before their time as it were dead, as bear's whelps.
+
+Q. Why do the eyes of a woman that hath her flowers, stain new glass?
+And why doth a basilisk kill a man with his sight? A. When the flowers
+do run from a woman, then a most venomous air is distilled from them,
+which doth ascend into a woman's head; and she, having pain in her head,
+doth wrap it up with a cloth or handkerchief; and because the eyes are
+full of insensible holes, which are called pores, there the air seeketh
+a passage, and infects the eyes, which are full of blood. The eyes also
+appear dropping and full of tears, by reason of the evil vapour that is
+in them; and these vapours are incorporated and multiplied till they
+come to the glass before them; and by reason that such a glass is round,
+clear and smooth, it doth easily receive that which is unclean. 2. The
+basilisk is a very venomous and infectious animal, and there pass from
+his eyes vapours which are multiplied upon the thing which is seen by
+him, and even unto the eye of man; the which venomous vapours or humours
+entering into the body, do infect him, and so in the end the man dieth.
+And this is also the reason why the basilisk, looking upon a shield
+perfectly well made with fast clammy pitch, or any hard smooth thing,
+doth kill itself, because the humours are beaten back from the hard
+smooth thing unto the basilisk, by which beating back he is killed.
+
+Q. Why is the sparkling in cats' eyes and wolves' eyes seen in the dark
+and not in the light? A. Because that the greater light doth darken the
+lesser; and therefore, in a greater light the sparkling cannot be seen;
+but the greater the darkness, the easier it is seen, and is more strong
+and shining.
+
+Q. Why is the sight recreated and refreshed by a green colour? A.
+Because green doth merely move the sight, and therefore doth comfort it;
+but this doth not, in black or white colours, because these colours do
+vehemently stir and alter the organ and instrument of the sight, and
+therefore make the greater violence; and by how much the more violent
+the thing is which is felt or seen the more it doth destroy and weaken
+the sense.
+
+
+
+_Of the Nose._
+
+Q. Why doth the nose stand out further than any other part of the body.
+A. 1. Because the nose is, as it were, the sink of the brain, by which
+the phlegm of the brain is purged; and therefore it doth stand forth,
+lest the other parts should be defiled. 2. Because the nose is the
+beauty of the face, and doth smell.
+
+Q. Why hath a man the worst smell of all creatures? A. Because man hath
+most brains of all creatures; and, therefore, by exceeding coldness and
+moisture, the brain wanteth a good disposition, and by consequence, the
+smelling instrument is not good, yea, some men have no smell.
+
+Q. Why have vultures and cormorants a keen smell? A. Because they have a
+very dry brain; and, therefore, the air carrying the smell, is not
+hindered by the humidity of the brain, but doth presently touch its
+instrument; and, therefore, vultures, tigers and other ravenous beasts,
+have been known to come five hundred miles after dead bodies.
+
+Q. Why did nature make the nostrils? A. 1. Because the mouth being shut
+we draw breath in by the nostrils, to refresh the heart. 2. Because the
+air which proceedeth from the mouth doth savour badly, because of the
+vapours which rise from the stomach, but that which we breathe from the
+nose is not noisome. 3. Because the phlegm which doth proceed from the
+brain is purged by them.
+
+Q. Why do men sneeze? A. That the expulsive virtue and power of the
+sight should thereby be purged, and the brain also from superfluities;
+because, as the lungs are purged by coughing, so is the sight and brain
+by sneezing; and therefore physicians give sneezing medicaments to purge
+the brain; and thus it is, such sick persons as cannot sneeze, die
+quickly, because it is a sign their brain is wholly stuffed with evil
+humours, which cannot be purged.
+
+Q. Why do such as are apoplectic sneeze, that is, such as are subject
+easily to bleed? A. Because the passages, or ventricles of the brain are
+stopped, and if they could sneeze, their apoplexy would be loosed.
+
+Q. Why does the heat of the sun provoke sneezing, and not the heat of
+the fire? A. Because the heat of the sun doth dissolve, but not consume,
+and therefore the vapour dissolved is expelled by sneezing; but the heat
+of the fire doth dissolve and consume, and therefore doth rather hinder
+sneezing than provoke it.
+
+
+
+_Of the Ears._
+
+Q. Why do beasts move their ears, and not men? A. Because there is a
+certain muscle near the under jaw which doth cause motion in the ear;
+and therefore, that muscle being extended and stretched, men do not move
+their ears, as it hath been seen in divers men; but all beasts do use
+that muscle or fleshy sinew, and therefore do move their ears.
+
+Q. Why is rain prognosticated by the pricking up of asses' ears? A.
+Because the ass is of a melancholic constitution, and the approach of
+rain produceth that effect on such a constitution. In the time of rain
+all beasts prick up their ears, but the ass before it comes.
+
+Q. Why have some animals no ears? A. Nature giveth unto everything that
+which is fit for it, but if she had given birds ears, their flying would
+have been hindered by them. Likewise fish want ears, because they would
+hinder their swimming, and have only certain little holes through which
+they hear.
+
+Q. Why have bats ears, although of the bird kind? A. Because they are
+partly birds in nature, in that they fly, by reason whereof they have
+wings; and partly they are hairy and seem to be of the nature of mice,
+therefore nature hath given them ears.
+
+Q. Why have men only round ears? A. Because the shape of the whole and
+of the parts should be proportionable, and especially in all things of
+one nature; for as a drop of water is round, so the whole water: and so,
+because a man's head is round, the ears incline towards the same figure;
+but the heads of beasts are somewhat long, and so the ears are drawn
+into length likewise.
+
+Q. Why hath nature given all living creatures ears? A. 1. Because with
+them they should hear. 2. Because by the ear choleric superfluity is
+purged; for as the head is purged of phlegmatic superfluity by the nose,
+so from choleric, by the ears.
+
+
+
+_Of the Mouth._
+
+Q. Why hath the mouth lips to compass it? A. Because the lips cover and
+defend the teeth; for it would be unseemly if the teeth were always
+seen. Also, the teeth being of a cold nature, would be soon hurt if they
+were not covered with lips.
+
+Q. Why has a man two eyes and but one mouth? A. Because a man should
+speak but little, and hear and see much. And by hearing and the light we
+see difference of things.
+
+Q. Why hath a man a mouth? A. 1. Because the mouth is the gate and door
+of the stomach. 2. Because the meat is chewed in the mouth, and prepared
+and made ready for the first digestion. 3. Because the air drawn into
+the hollow of the mouth for the refreshing of the heart, is made pure
+and subtle.
+
+Q. Why are the lips moveable? A. For the purpose of forming the voice
+and words which cannot be perfectly done without them. For as without
+_a, b, c_, there is no writing, so without the lips no voice can well be
+formed.
+
+Q. What causes men to yawn or gape? A. It proceeds from the thick fume
+and vapours that fill the jaws; by the expulsion of which is caused the
+stretching out and expansion of the jaws, and opening of the mouth.
+
+Q. Why doth a man gape when he seeth another do the same? A. It proceeds
+from the imagination. And this is proved by the similitude of the ass,
+who by reason of his melancholy, doth retain his superfluity for a long
+time, and would neither eat nor piss unless he should hear another
+doing the like.
+
+
+
+_Of the Teeth._
+
+Q. Why do the teeth only, amongst all ether bones, experience the sense
+of feeling? A. That they may discern heat and cold, that hurt them,
+which other bones need not.
+
+Q. Why have men more teeth than women? A. By reason of the abundance of
+heat and cold which is more in men than in women.
+
+Q. Why do the teeth grow to the end of our life, and not the other
+bones? A. Because otherwise they would be consumed with chewing and
+grinding.
+
+Q. Why do the teeth only come again when they fall, or be taken out, and
+other bones being taken away, grow no more? A. Because other bones are
+engendered of the humidity which is called radical, and so they breed in
+the womb of the mother, but the teeth are engendered of nutritive
+humidity, which is renewed and increased from day to day.
+
+Q. Why do the fore-teeth fall in youth, and grow again, and not the
+cheek teeth? A. From the defect of matter, and from the figure; because
+the fore-teeth are sharp, and the others broad. Also, it is the office
+of the fore-teeth to cut the meat, and therefore they are sharp; and
+the office of the others to chew the meat, and therefore they are broad
+in fashion, which is fittest for that purpose.
+
+Q. Why do the fore-teeth grow soonest? A. Because we want them sooner in
+cutting than the others in chewing.
+
+Q. Why do the teeth grow black in human creatures in their old age? A.
+It is occasioned by the corruption of the meat, and the corruption of
+phlegm with a choleric humour.
+
+Q. Why are colts' teeth yellow, and of the colour of saffron, when they
+are young, and become white when they grow up? A. Because horses have
+abundance of watery humours in them, which in their youth are digested
+and converted into grossness; but in old age heat diminishes, and the
+watery humours remain, whose proper colour is white.
+
+Q. Why did nature give living creatures teeth? A. To some to fight with,
+and for defence of their lives, as unto wolves and bears, unto some to
+eat with, as unto horses, unto some for the forming of the voices, as
+unto men.
+
+Q. Why do horned beasts want their upper teeth? A. Horns and teeth are
+caused by the same matter, that is, nutrimental humidity, and therefore
+the matter which passeth into the horns turneth not into teeth,
+consequently they want the upper teeth. And such beasts cannot chew
+well; therefore, to supply the want of teeth, they have two stomachs,
+from whence it returns and they chew it again, then it goes into the
+other to be digested.
+
+Q. Why are some creatures brought forth with teeth, as kids and lambs;
+and some without, as men? A. Nature doth not want in necessary things,
+nor abound in things superfluous; and therefore, because these beasts,
+not long after they are fallen, do need teeth, they are fallen with
+teeth; but men, being nourished by their mother, for a long time do not
+stand in need of teeth.
+
+
+
+_Of the Tongue._
+
+Q. Why is the tongue full of pores? A. Because the tongue is the means
+whereby which we taste; and through the mouth, in the pores of the
+tongue, doth proceed the sense of tasting. Again, it is observed, that
+frothy spittle is sent into the mouth by the tongue from the lungs,
+moistening the meat and making it ready for digestion.
+
+Q. Why do the tongues of such as are sick of agues judge all things
+bitter? A. Because the stomachs of such persons are filled with
+choleric humours; and choler is very bitter, as appeareth by the gall;
+therefore this bitter fume doth infect their tongues; and so the tongue,
+being full of these tastes, doth judge everything bitter.
+
+Q. Why doth the tongue water when we hear sour and sharp things spoken
+of? A. Because the imaginative virtue or power is of greater force than
+the power or faculty of tasting; and when we imagine a taste, we
+conceive the power of tasting as a swan; there is nothing felt by the
+taste, but by means of the spittle the tongue doth water.
+
+Q. Why do some persons stammer and lisp? A. Sometimes through the
+moistness of the tongue and brain, as in children, who cannot speak
+plainly nor pronounce many letters. Sometimes it happeneth by reason of
+the shrinking of certain sinews which go to the tongue, which are
+corrupted with phlegm.
+
+Q. Why are the tongues of serpents and mad dogs venomous? A. Because of
+the malignity and tumosity of the venomous humour which predominates in
+them.
+
+Q. Why is a dog's tongue good for medicine, and a horse's tongue
+pestiferous? A. By reason of some secret property, or that the tongue of
+a dog is full of pores, and so doth draw and take away the viscosity of
+the wound. It is observed that a dog hath some humour in his tongue,
+with which, by licking he doth heal; but the contrary effect is the lick
+of a horse's tongue.
+
+Q. Why is spittle white? A. By reason of the continual moving of the
+tongue, whereof heat is engendered, which doth make this superfluity
+white; as seen in the froth of water.
+
+Q. Why is spittle unsavoury and without taste? A. If it had a certain
+determinate taste, then the tongue would not taste at all, but only have
+the taste of spittle, and could not distinguish others.
+
+Q. Why doth the spittle of one that is fasting heal an imposthume? A.
+Because it is well digested and made subtle.
+
+Q. Why do some abound in spittle more than others? A. This doth proceed
+of a phlegmatic complexion, which doth predominate in them; and such are
+liable to a quotidian ague, which ariseth from the predominance of
+phlegm; the contrary in those that spit little, because heat abounds in
+them, which consumes the humidity of the spittle; and so the defect of
+spittle is a sign of fever.
+
+Q. Why is the spittle of a man that is fasting more subtle than of one
+that is full? A. Because the spittle is without the viscosity of meat,
+which is wont to make the spittle of one who is full, gross and thick.
+
+Q. From whence proceeds the spittle of a man? A. From the froth of the
+lungs, which according to the physicians, is the seat of the phlegm.
+
+Q. Why are beasts when going together for generation very full of froth
+and foam? A. Because then the lights and heart are in greater motion of
+lust; therefore there is engendered in them much frothy matter.
+
+Q. Why have not birds spittle? A. Because they have very dry lungs.
+
+Q. Why doth the tongue sometimes lose the use of speaking? A. It is
+occasioned by a palsy or apoplexy, which is a sudden effusion of blood,
+and by gross humours; and sometimes also by infection of _spiritus
+animates_ in the middle cell of the brain which hinders the spirits from
+being carried to the tongue.
+
+
+
+_Of the Roof of the Mouth._
+
+Q. Why are fruits, before they are ripe, of a bitter and sour relish,
+and afterward sweet? A. A sour relish or taste proceeds from coldness
+and want of heat in gross and thick humidity; but a sweet taste is
+produced by sufficient heat; therefore in the ripe fruit humidity is
+subtle through the heat of the sun, and such fruit is commonly sweet;
+but before it is ripe, as humidity is gross or subtle for want of heat,
+the fruit is bitter or sour.
+
+Q. Why are we better delighted with sweet tastes than with bitter or any
+other? A. Because a sweet thing is hot and moist, and through its heat
+dissolves and consumes superfluous humidities, and by this humidity
+immundicity is washed away; but a sharp, eager taste, by reason of the
+cold which predominates in it, doth bind overmuch, and prick and offend
+the parts of the body in purging, and therefore we do not delight in
+that taste.
+
+Q. Why doth a sharp taste, as that of vinegar, provoke appetite rather
+than any other? A. Because it is cold, and doth cool. For it is the
+nature of cold to desire to draw, and therefore it is the cause of
+appetite.
+
+Q. Why do we draw in more air than we breathe out? A. Because much air
+is drawn in that is converted into nutriment, and with the vital spirits
+is contained in the lungs. Therefore a beast is not suffocated as long
+as it receives air with its lungs, in which some part of the air
+remaineth also.
+
+Q. Why doth the air seem to be expelled and put forth, seeing the air is
+invisible, by reason of its variety and thinness? A. Because the air
+which is received in us, is mingled with vapours and fumes from the
+heart, by reason whereof it is made thick, and so is seen. And this is
+proved by experience, because that in winter, we see our breath, for the
+coldness of the air doth bind the air mixed with fume, and so it is
+thickened and made gross, and by consequence is seen.
+
+Q. Why have some persons stinking breath? A. Because of the evil fumes
+that arise from the stomach. And sometimes it doth proceed from the
+corruption of the airy parts of the body, as the lungs. The breath of
+lepers is so infected that it would poison birds if near them, because
+the inward parts are very corrupt.
+
+Q. Why are lepers hoarse? A. Because the vocal instruments are
+corrupted, that is, the lights.
+
+Q. Why do persons become hoarse? A. Because of the rheum descending from
+the brain, filling the conduit of the lights; and sometimes through
+imposthumes of the throat, or rheum gathering in the neck.
+
+Q. Why have the females of all living creatures the shrillest voices,
+the crow only excepted, and a woman a shriller and smaller voice than a
+man? A. By reason of the composition of the veins and vocal arteries the
+voice is formed, as appears by this similitude, that a small pipe
+sounds shriller than a great. Also in women, because the passage where
+the voice is formed is made narrow and strait, by reason of cold, it
+being the nature of cold to bind; but in men, the passage is open and
+wider through heat, because it is the property of heat to open and
+dissolve. It proceedeth in women through the moistness of the lungs, and
+weakness of the heat. Young and diseased men have sharp and shrill
+voices from the same cause.
+
+Q. Why doth the voice change in men at fourteen, and in women at twelve;
+in men they begin to yield seed, in women when their breasts begin to
+grow? A. Because then the beginning of the voice is slackened and
+loosened; and this is proved by the similitude of the string of an
+instrument let down or loosened, which gives a great sound, and also
+because creatures that are gelded, as eunuchs, capons., etc., have
+softer and slenderer voices than others, by the want of their stones.
+
+Q. Why do small birds sing more and louder than great ones, as appears
+in the lark and nightingale? A. Because the spirits of small birds are
+subtle and soft, and the organ conduit strait, as appeareth in a pipe;
+therefore their notes following easily at desire, they sing very soft.
+
+Q. Why do bees, wasps, locusts and many other such like insects, make a
+noise, seeing they have no lungs, nor instruments of music? A. Because
+in them there is a certain small skin, which, when struck by the air,
+causeth a sound.
+
+Q. Why do not fish make a sound? A. Because they have no lungs, but only
+gills, nor yet a heart, and therefore they need not the drawing in of
+the air, and by consequence they make no noise, because a voice is a
+percussion of the air which is drawing.
+
+
+
+_Of the Neck._
+
+Q. Why hath a living creature a neck? A. Because the neck is the
+supporter of the head, and therefore the neck is in the middle between
+the head and the body, to the intent that by it, and by its sinews,
+motion and sense of the body might be conveyed through all the body; and
+that by means of the neck, the heart, which is very hot, might be
+separated from the brain.
+
+Q. Why do some creatures want necks, as serpents and fishes? A. Because
+they want hearts, and therefore want that assistance which we have
+spoken of; or else they have a neck in some inward part of them, which
+is not distinguished outwardly.
+
+Q. Why is the neck full of bones and joints? A. That it may bear and
+sustain the head the better. Also, because the back bone is joined to
+the brain in the neck, and from thence it receives marrow, which is of
+the substance of the brain.
+
+Q. Why have some creatures long necks, as cranes, storks and such like?
+A. Because such birds seek their food at the bottom of waters. And some
+creatures have short necks, as sparrows, hawks, etc., because such are
+ravenous, and therefore for strength have short necks, as appeareth in
+the ox, who has a short neck and strong.
+
+Q. Why is the neck hollow, and especially before, about the tongue? A.
+Because there are two passages, whereof the one doth carry the meat to
+the nutritive instrument, or stomach and liver, which is called by the
+Greeks _Aesophagus_; and the other is the windpipe.
+
+Q. Why is the artery made with rings and circle? A. The better to bow
+and give a good sounding.
+
+
+
+_Of the Shoulders and Arms._
+
+Q. Why hath a man shoulders and arms? A. To lift and carry burdens.
+
+Q. Why are the arms round? A. For the swifter and speedier work.
+
+Q. Why are the arms thick? A. That they may be strong to lift and bear
+burdens, and thrust and give a strong blow; so their bones are thick,
+because they contain much marrow, or they would be easily corrupted and
+injured.
+
+Q. Why do the arms become small and slender in some diseases, as in mad
+men, and such as are sick of the dropsy? A. Because all the parts of the
+body do suffer the one with the other; and therefore one member being in
+grief, all the humours do concur and run thicker to give succour and
+help to the aforesaid grief.
+
+Q. Why have brute beasts no arms? A. Their fore feet are instead of
+arms, and in their place.
+
+
+
+_Of the Hands._
+
+Q. For what use hath a man hands, and an ape also, like unto a man? A.
+The hand is an instrument a man doth especially make use of, because
+many things are done by the hands, and not by any other part.
+
+Q. Why are some men ambo-dexter, that is, they use the left hand as the
+right? A. By reason of the great heat of the heart, and for the hot
+bowing of the same, for it is that which makes a man as nimble of the
+left hand as of the right.
+
+Q. Why are the fingers full of joints? A. To be more fit and apt to
+receive and keep what is put in them.
+
+Q. Why hath every finger three joints, and the thumb but two? A. The
+thumb hath three, but the third is joined to the arm, therefore is
+stronger than the other fingers; and is called pollex or polico, that
+is, to excel in strength.
+
+Q. Why are the fingers of the right hand nimbler than the fingers of the
+left? A. It proceedeth from the heat that predominates in those parts,
+and causeth great agility.
+
+
+
+_Of the Nails._
+
+Q. From whence do nails proceed? A. Of the tumosity and humours, which
+are resolved and go into the extremities of the fingers; and they are
+dried through the power of the external air, and brought to the hardness
+of horn.
+
+Q. Why do the nails of old men grow black and pale? A. Because the heat
+of the heart decaying causeth their beauty to decay also.
+
+Q. Why are men judged to be good or evil complexioned by the colour of
+the nails? A. Because they give witness of the goodness or badness of
+their heart, and therefore of the complexion, for if they be somewhat
+red, they betoken choler well tempered; but if they be yellowish or
+black, they signify melancholy.
+
+Q. Why do white spots appear in the nails? A. Through mixture of phlegm
+with nutriment.
+
+
+
+_Of the Paps and Dugs._
+
+Q. Why are the paps placed upon the breasts? A. Because the breast is
+the seat of the heart, which is most hot; and therefore the paps grow
+there, to the end that the menses being conveyed thither as being near
+the heat of the heart, should the sooner be digested, perfected and
+converted with the matter and substance of the milk.
+
+Q. Why are the paps below the breasts in beasts, and above the breast in
+women? A. Because woman goes upright, and has two legs only; and
+therefore if her paps were below her breasts, they would hinder her
+going; but beasts having four feet prevents that inconveniency.
+
+Q. Whether are great, small or middle-sized paps best for children to
+suck? A. In great ones the heat is dispersed, there is no good
+digestion of the milk; but in small ones the power and force is strong,
+because a virtue united is strongest; and by consequence there is a good
+digestion for the milk.
+
+Q. Why have not men as great paps and breasts as women? A. Because men
+have not monthly terms, and therefore have no vessel deputed for them.
+
+Q. Why do the paps of young women begin to grow about thirteen or
+fifteen years of age? A. Because then the flowers have no course to the
+teats, by which the young one is nourished, but follow their ordinary
+course and therefore wax soft.
+
+Q. Why hath a woman who is with child of a boy, the right pap harder
+than the left? A. Because the male child is conceived in the right side
+of the mother; and therefore the flowers do run to the right pap, and
+make it hard.
+
+Q. Why doth it show weakness of the child, when the milk doth drop out
+of the paps before the woman is delivered? A. Because the milk is the
+proper nutriment of the child in the womb of its mother, therefore if
+the milk run out, it is a token that the child is not nourished, and
+consequently is weak.
+
+Q. Why do the hardness of the paps betoken the health of the child in
+the womb? A. Because the flowers are converted into milk, and thereby
+strength is signified.
+
+Q. Why are women's paps hard when they be with child, and soft at other
+times? A. Because they swell then, and are puffed, and the great
+moisture which proceeds from the flowers doth run into the paps, which
+at other seasons remaineth in the matrix and womb, and is expelled by
+the place deputed for that end.
+
+Q. By what means doth the milk of the paps come to the matrix or womb?
+A. There is a certain knitting and coupling of the paps with the womb,
+and there are certain veins which the midwives do cut in the time of the
+birth of the child, and by those veins the milk flows in at the navel of
+the child, and so it receives nourishment by the navel.
+
+Q. Why is it a sign of a male child in the womb when the milk that
+runneth out of a woman's breast is thick, and not much, and of a female
+when it is thin? A. Because a woman that goeth with a boy hath a great
+heat in her, which doth perfect the milk and make it thick; but she who
+goes with a girl hath not so much heat, and therefore the milk is
+undigested, imperfect, watery and thin, and will swim above the water if
+it be put into it.
+
+Q. Why is the milk white, seeing the flowers are red, of which it is
+engendered? A. Because blood which is well purged and concocted becomes
+white, as appeareth in flesh whose proper colour is white, and being
+boiled, is white. Also, because every humour which is engendered of the
+body, is made like unto that part in colour where it is engendered as
+near as it can be; but because the flesh of the paps is white, therefore
+the colour of the milk is white.
+
+Q. Why doth a cow give milk more abundantly than other beasts? A.
+Because she is a great eating beast, where there is much monthly
+superfluity engendered, there is much milk; because it is nothing else
+but the blood purged and tried.
+
+Q. Why is not milk wholesome? A. 1. Because it curdeth in the stomach,
+whereof an evil breath is bred. 2. Because the milk doth grow sour in
+the stomach, where evil humours are bred, and infect the breath.
+
+Q. Why is milk bad for such as have the headache? A. Because it is
+easily turned into great fumosities, and hath much terrestrial substance
+in it, the which ascending, doth cause the headache.
+
+Q. Why is milk fit nutriment for infants? A. Because it is a natural and
+usual food, and they were nourished by the same in the womb.
+
+Q. Why are the white-meats made of a newly milked cow good? A. Because
+milk at that time is very springy, expels fumosities, and, as it were,
+purges at that time.
+
+Q. Why is the milk naught for the child, if the woman giving suck uses
+carnal copulation? A. Because in time of carnal copulation, the best
+part of the milk goes to the seed vessels, and to the womb, and the
+worst remain in the paps, which hurts the child.
+
+Q. Why do physicians forbid the eating of fish and milk at the same
+time? A. Because they produce a leprosy, and because they are
+phlegmatic.
+
+Q. Why have not birds and fish milk and paps? A. Because paps would
+hinder the flight of birds. And although fish have neither paps nor
+milk, the females cast much spawn, which the male touches with a small
+gut, and causes their kind to continue in succession.
+
+
+
+_Of the Back._
+
+Q. Why have beasts a back? A. 1. Because the back is the way and mien of
+the body from which are extended and spread throughout, all the sinews
+of the backbone. 2. Because it should be a guard and defence for the
+soft parts of the body, as for the stomach, liver, lights and such like.
+3. Because it is the foundation of all the bones, as the ribs, fastened
+to the back bone.
+
+Q. Why hath the back bone so many joints or knots, called _spondyli_? A.
+Because the moving and bending it, without such joints, could not be
+done; and therefore they are wrong who say that elephants have no such
+joints, for without them they could not move.
+
+Q. Why do fish die after their back bones are broken? A. Because in fish
+the back bone is instead of the heart; now the heart is the first thing
+that lives and the last that dies; and when that bone is broken, fish
+can live no longer.
+
+Q. Why doth a man die soon after the marrow is hurt or perished? A.
+Because the marrow proceeds from the brain, which is the principal part
+of a man.
+
+Q. Why have some men the piles? A. Those men are cold and melancholy,
+which melancholy first passes to the spleen, its proper seat, but there
+cannot be retained, for the abundancy of blood; for which reason it is
+conveyed to the back bone, where there are certain veins which terminate
+in the back, and receive the blood. When those veins are full of the
+melancholy blood, then the conduits of nature are opened, and the blood
+issues out once a month, like women's terms. Those men who have this
+course of blood, are kept from many infirmities, such as dropsy, plague,
+etc.
+
+Q. Why are the Jews much subject to this disease? A. Because they eat
+much phlegmatic and cold meats, which breed melancholy blood, which is
+purged with the flux. Another reason is, motion causes heat and heat
+digestion; but strict Jews neither move, labour nor converse much, which
+breeds a coldness in them, and hinders digestion, causing melancholic
+blood, which is by this means purged out.
+
+
+
+_Of the Heart._
+
+Q. Why are the lungs light, spongy and full of holes? A. That the air
+may be received into them for cooling the heart, and expelling humours,
+because the lungs are the fan of the heart; and as a pair of bellows is
+raised up by taking in the air, and shrunk by blowing it out, so
+likewise the lungs draw the air to cool the heart, and cast it out, lest
+through too much air drawn in, the heart should be suffocated.
+
+Q. Why is the flesh of the lungs white? A. Because they are in continual
+motion.
+
+Q. Why have those beasts only lungs that have hearts? A. Because the
+lungs be no part for themselves, but for the heart, and therefore, it
+were superfluous for those creatures to have lungs that have no hearts.
+
+Q. Why do such creatures as have no lungs want a bladder? A. Because
+such drink no water to make their meat digest and need no bladder for
+urine; as appears in such birds as do not drink at all, viz., the falcon
+and sparrow hawk.
+
+Q. Why is the heart in the midst of the body? A. That it may import life
+to all, parts of the body, and therefore it is compared to the sun,
+which is placed in the midst of the planets, to give light to them all.
+
+Q. Why only in men is the heart on the left side? A. To the end that the
+heat of the heart may mitigate the coldness of the spleen; for the
+spleen is the seat of melancholy, which is on the left side also.
+
+Q. Why is the heart first engendered; for the heart doth live first and
+die last? A. Because the heart is the beginning and original of life,
+and without it no part can live. For of the seed retained in the matrix,
+there is first engendered a little small skin, which compasses the seed;
+whereof first the heart is made of the purest blood; then of blood not
+so pure, the liver; and of thick and cold blood the marrow and brain.
+
+Q. Why are beasts bold that have little hearts? A. Because in a little
+heart the heat is well united and vehement, and the blood touching it,
+doth quickly heat it and is speedily carried to the other parts of the
+body, which give courage and boldness.
+
+Q. Why are creatures with a large heart timorous, as the hare? A. The
+heart is dispersed in such a one, and not able to heat the blood which
+cometh to it; by which means fear is bred.
+
+Q. How is it that the heart is continually moving? A. Because in it
+there is a certain spirit which is more subtle than air, and by reason
+of its thickness and rarefaction, seeks a larger space, filling the
+hollow room of the heart; hence the dilating and opening of the heart,
+and because the heart is earthly the thrusting and moving ceasing, its
+parts are at rest, tending downwards. As a proof of this, take an acorn,
+which, if put into the fire, the heat doth dissolve its humidity,
+therefore occupies a greater space, so that the rind cannot contain it,
+but puffs up, and throws it into the fire. The like of the heart.
+Therefore the heart of a living creature is triangular, having its least
+part towards its left side, and the greater towards the right; and doth
+also open and shut in the least part, by which means it is in continual
+motion; the first motion is called _diastole_, that is extending the
+heart or breast; the other _systole_, that is, shutting of the heart;
+and from these all the motions of the body proceed, and that of the
+pulse which the physicians feel.
+
+Q. How comes it that the flesh of the heart is so compact and knit
+together? A. Because in thick compacted substances heat is commonly
+received and united. And because the heart with its heat should moderate
+the coldness of the brain, it is made of that fat flesh apt to keep a
+strong heat.
+
+Q. How comes the heart to be the hottest part of all living creatures?
+A. It is so compacted as to receive the heat best, and because it should
+mitigate the coldness of the brain.
+
+Q. Why is the heart the beginning of life? A. It is plain that in it the
+vital spirit is bred, which is the heat of life; and therefore the heart
+having two receptacles, viz., the right and the left the right hath more
+blood than spirits; which spirit is engendered to give life and vivify
+the body.
+
+Q. Why is the heart long and sharp like a pyramid? A. The round figure
+hath an angle, therefore the heart is round, for fear any poison or
+hurtful matter should be retained in it; and because that figure is
+fittest for motion.
+
+Q. How comes the blood chiefly to be in the heart? A. The blood in the
+heart has its proper or efficient place, which some attribute to the
+liver; and therefore the heart doth not receive blood from any other
+parts but all other parts of it.
+
+Q. How happens it that some creatures want a heart? A. Although they
+have no heart, yet they have somewhat that answers for it, as appears in
+eels and fish that have the back bone instead of the heart.
+
+Q. Why does the heart beat in some creatures after the head is cut off,
+as in birds and hens? A. Because the heart lives first and dies last,
+and therefore beats longer than other parts.
+
+Q. Why doth the heat of the heart sometimes fail of a sudden, and in
+those who have the falling sickness? A. This proceeds from the defect of
+the heart itself, and of certain small skins with which it is covered,
+which, being infected and corrupted, the heart faileth on a sudden;
+sometimes only by reason of the parts adjoining; and therefore, when any
+venomous humour goes out of the stomach that turns the heart and parts
+adjoining, that causeth this fainting.
+
+
+
+_Of the Stomach._
+
+Q. For what reason is the stomach large and wide? A. Because in it the
+food is first concocted or digested as it were in a pot, to the end that
+which is pure should be separated from that which is not; and therefore,
+according to the quantity of food, the stomach is enlarged.
+
+Q. How comes it that the stomach is round? A. Because if it had angles
+and corners, food would remain in them and breed ill-humours, so that a
+man would never want agues, which humours are evacuated and consumed,
+and not hid in any such corners, by the roundness of the stomach.
+
+Q. How comes the stomach to be full of sinews? A. Because the sinews can
+be extended and enlarged, and so is the stomach when it is full; but
+when empty it is drawn together, and therefore nature provides the
+sinews.
+
+Q. How comes the stomach to digest? A. Because of the heat which is in
+it, and comes from the parts adjoining, that is, the liver and the
+heart. For as we see in metals the heat of the fire takes away the rust
+and dross from iron, the silver from tin, and gold from copper; so also
+by digestion the pure is separated from the impure.
+
+Q. For what reason doth the stomach join the liver? A. Because the liver
+is very hot, and with its heat helps digestion, and provokes appetite.
+
+Q. Why are we commonly cold after dinner? A. Because then the heat goes
+to the stomach to further digestion, and so the other parts grow cold.
+
+Q. Why is it hurtful to study soon after dinner? A. Because when the
+heat labours to help the imagination in study, it ceases from digesting
+the food, which remains undigested; therefore people should walk
+sometimes after meals.
+
+Q. How cometh the stomach slowly to digest meat? A. Because it swims in
+the stomach. Now, the best digestion is in the bottom of the stomach,
+because the fat descends not there; such as eat fat meat are very sleepy
+by reason that digestion is hindered.
+
+Q. Why is all the body wrong when the stomach is uneasy? A. Because the
+stomach is knit with the brain, heart and liver, which are the principal
+parts in man; and when it is not well, the others are indisposed.
+Again, if the first digestion be hindered, the others are also
+hindered; for in the first digestion is the beginning of the infirmity
+in the stomach.
+
+Q. Why are young men sooner hungry than old men? A. Young men do digest
+for three causes; 1. For growing; 2. For restoring life; and 3. For
+conservation of life. Also, young men are hot and dry, and therefore the
+heat doth digest more, and by consequence they desire more.
+
+Q. Why do physicians prescribe that men should eat when they have an
+appetite? A. Because much hunger and emptiness will fill the stomach
+with naughty rotten humours, which are drawn in instead of meat; for, if
+we fast over night we have an appetite to meat, but none in the morning;
+as then the stomach is filled with naughty humours, and especially its
+mouth, which is no true filling, but a deceitful one. And, therefore,
+after we have eaten a little, our stomach comes to us again; for the
+first morsel, having made clean the mouth of the stomach, doth provoke
+the appetite.
+
+Q. Why do physicians prescribe that we should not eat too much at a
+time, but little by little? A. Because when the stomach is full, the
+meat doth swim in it, which is a dangerous thing. Another reason is,
+that as very green wood doth put out the fire, so much meat chokes the
+natural heat and puts it out; and therefore the best physic is to use
+temperance in eating and drinking.
+
+Q. Why do we desire change of meals according to the change of times; as
+in winter, beef, mutton; in summer light meats, as veal, lamb, etc.? A.
+Because the complexion of the body is altered and changed according to
+the time of year. Another reason is, that this proceeds from the quality
+of the season: because the cold in winter doth cause a better digestion.
+
+Q. Why should not the meat we eat be as hot as pepper and ginger? A.
+Because as hot meat doth inflame the blood, and dispose it to a leprosy,
+so, on the contrary, meat too cold doth mortify and chill the blood. Our
+meat should not be over sharp, because it wastes the constitution; too
+much sauce doth burn the entrails, and inclineth to too often drinking;
+raw meat doth the same; and over sweet meats to constipate and cling the
+veins together.
+
+Q. Why is it a good custom to eat cheese after dinner, and pears after
+all meat? A. Because, by reason of its earthliness and thickness it
+tendeth down towards the bottom of the stomach, and so put down the
+meat; and the like of pears. Note, that new cheese is better than old,
+and that old soft cheese is very bad, and causeth the headache and
+stopping of the liver; and the older the worse. Whereof it is said that
+cheese digesteth all things but itself.
+
+Q. Why are nuts good after cheese, as the proverb is, "After fish nuts,
+and after flesh cheese?" A. Because fish is of hard digestion, and doth
+easily putrefy and corrupt; and nuts are a remedy against poison.
+
+Q. Why is it unwholesome to wait long for one dish after another, and to
+eat of divers kinds of meat? A. Because the first begins to digest when
+the last is eaten, and so digestion is not equally made. But yet this
+rule is to be noted; dishes light of digestion, as chickens, kids, veal,
+soft eggs and such like, should be first eaten; because, if they should
+be first served and eaten and were digested, they would hinder the
+digestion of the others; and the light meats not digested would be
+corrupted in the stomach and kept in the stomach violently, whereof
+would follow belching, loathing, headache, bellyache and great thirst.
+It is very hurtful too, at the same meal to drink wine and milk, because
+they are productive of leprosy.
+
+Q. Whether is meat or drink best for the stomach? A. Drink is sooner
+digested than meat, because meat is of greater substance, and more
+material than drink, and therefore meat is harder to digest.
+
+Q. Why is it good to drink after dinner? A. Because the drink will make
+the meat readier to digest. The stomach is like unto a pot which doth
+boil meat, and therefore physicians do counsel to drink at meals.
+
+Q. Why is it good to forbear a late supper? A. Because there is little
+moving or stirring after supper, and so the meat is not sent down to the
+bottom of the stomach, but remaineth undigested, and so breeds hurts;
+therefore a light supper is best.
+
+
+
+_Of the Blood._
+
+Q. Why is it necessary that every living creature that hath blood have
+also a liver? A. Because the blood is first made in the liver, its seat,
+being drawn from the stomach by certain principal veins, and so
+engendered.
+
+Q. Why is the blood red? A. 1. It is like the part in which it is made,
+viz., the liver, which is red. 2. It is likewise sweet, because it is
+well digested and concocted; but if it hath a little earthly matter
+mixed with it, that makes it somewhat salt.
+
+Q. How is women's blood thicker than men's? Their coldness thickens,
+binds, congeals, and joins together.
+
+Q. How comes the blood to all parts of the body through the liver, and
+by what means? A. Through the principal veins, as the veins of the head,
+liver, etc., to nourish the body.
+
+
+
+_Of the Urine._
+
+Q. How doth the urine come into the bladder, seeing the bladder is shut?
+A. Some say sweatings; others, by a small skin in the bladder, which
+opens and lets in the urine. Urine is a certain and not deceitful
+messenger of the health or infirmity of man. Men make white urine in the
+morning, and before dinner red, but after dinner pale, and also after
+supper.
+
+Q. Why is it hurtful to drink much cold water? A. Because one contrary
+doth hinder and expel another; water is very cold, and lying so in the
+stomach, doth hinder digestion.
+
+Q. Why is it unwholesome to drink new wine? A. 1. It cannot be digested;
+therefore it causeth the belly to swell, and a kind of bloody flux. 2.
+It hinders making water.
+
+Q. Why do physicians forbid us to labour presently after dinner? A. 1.
+Because the motion hinders the virtue and power of digestion. 2.
+Because stirring immediately after dinner causes the different parts of
+the body to draw the meat to them, which often breeds sickness. 3.
+Because motion makes the food descend before it is digested. And after
+supper it is good to walk a little, that the food may go to the bottom
+of the stomach.
+
+Q. Why is it good to walk after dinner? A. Because it makes a man well
+disposed, and fortifies and strengthens the natural heat, causing the
+superfluity of the stomach to descend.
+
+Q. Why is it wholesome to vomit? A. It purges the stomach of all naughty
+humours, expelling them, which would breed again if they should remain
+in it; and purges the eyes and head, clearing the brain.
+
+Q. How comes sleep to strengthen the stomach and the digestive faculty?
+A. Because in sleep the heat draws inwards, and helps digestion; but
+when we awake, the heat returns, and is dispersed through the body.
+
+
+
+_Of the Gall and Spleen._
+
+Q. How come living creatures to have a gall? A. Because choleric humours
+are received into it, which through their acidity helps the guts to
+expel superfluities; also it helps digestion.
+
+Q. How comes the jaundice to proceed from the gall? A. The humour of the
+gall is bluish and yellow; therefore when its pores are stopped the
+humour cannot go into the sack thereof, but are mingled with the blood,
+wandering throughout all the body and infecting the skin.
+
+Q. Why hath a horse, mule, ass or cow a gall? A. Though these creatures
+have no gall in one place, as in a purse or vessel, yet they have one
+dispersed in small veins.
+
+Q. How comes the spleen to be black? A. It is occasioned by terrestrial
+and earthy matter of a black colour. According to physicians, the spleen
+is the receptacle of melancholy, and that is black.
+
+Q. Why is he lean who hath a large spleen? A. Because the spleen draws
+much water to itself, which would turn to fat; therefore, men that have
+a small spleen are fat.
+
+Q. Why does the spleen cause men to laugh, as says Isidorus; "We laugh
+with the spleen, we are angry with the gall, we are wise with the heart,
+we love with the liver, we feel with the brain, and speak with the
+lungs"? A. The reason is, the spleen draws much melancholy to it, being
+its proper seat, the which melancholy proceeds from sadness, and is
+there consumed; and the cause failing, the effect doth so likewise. And
+by the same reason the gall causes anger, for choleric men are often
+angry, because they have much gall.
+
+
+
+_Of Carnal Copulation._
+
+Q. Why do living creatures use carnal copulation? A. Because it is most
+natural in them to get their like.
+
+Q. What is carnal copulation? A. It is a mutual action of male and
+female, with instruments ordained for that purpose to propagate their
+kind.
+
+Q. Why is this action good in those that use it lawfully and moderately?
+A. Because it eases and lightens the body, clears the mind, comforts the
+head and senses, and expels melancholy.
+
+Q. Why is immoderate carnal copulation hurtful? A. Because it destroys
+the sight, dries the body, and impairs the brain, often causes fevers
+and shortens life also.
+
+Q. Why doth carnal copulation injure melancholic or choleric men,
+especially thin men? A. Because it dries the bones much which are
+naturally so. On the contrary, it is good for the phlegmatic and
+sanguine, because they abound with that substance which by nature, is
+necessarily expelled.
+
+Q. Why should not the act be used when the body is full? A. Because it
+hinders digestion; and it is not good for a hungry belly, because it
+weakens.
+
+Q. Why is it not good soon after a bath? A. Because then the pores are
+open, and the heat dispersed through the body: for after bathing, it
+cools the body too much.
+
+Q. Why is it not proper after vomiting or looseness? A. Because it is
+dangerous to purge twice a day; for in this act the veins are purged,
+and the guts by the vomit.
+
+Q. Why is there such delight in the act of venery? A. Because this act
+is such a contemptible thing in itself, that all creatures would
+naturally abhor it were there no pleasure in it; and therefore nature
+readily uses it, that all kinds of living things should be maintained
+and kept up.
+
+Q. Why do such as use it often take less delight in it than those who
+come to it seldom? A. 1. The passages of the seed are over large and
+wide; and therefore it makes no stay there, which would cause the
+delight. 2. Through often evacuation there is little seed left, and
+therefore no delight. 3. Because such, instead of seed there is cast out
+blood, undigested and raw, or some other watery substance, which is not
+hot, and therefore affords no delight.
+
+
+
+_Of the Seed of Man and Beasts._
+
+Q. How, and of what cometh the seed of man? A. Some philosophers and
+physicians say, it is superfluous humours; others say, that the seed is
+pure blood, flowing from the brain, concocted and whitened in the
+testicles; but sweat, urine, spittle, phlegm, choler, and the like, and
+blood dispersed throughout the whole body, come chiefly from the heart,
+liver and brain, because those parts are greatly weakened by casting
+seed; and therefore it appears that frequent carnal copulation is not
+good.
+
+Q. Why is a man's seed white, and a woman's red? A. It is white in men
+by reason of great heat and quick digestion, because it is rarefied in
+the testicles; but a woman's is red, because her terms corrupt the
+undigested blood, and it hath its colour.
+
+Q. How come females to have monthly courses? A. Because they are cold in
+respect of men, and because all their nourishment cannot be converted
+into blood, a great part of which turns to menses, which are monthly
+expelled.
+
+Q. For what reason do the menses not come down in females before the age
+of thirteen? A. Because young women are hot, and digest all their
+nourishment.
+
+Q. For what reason do they leave off at about fifty? A. Because nature
+is then so exhausted, they cannot expel them by reason of weakness.
+
+Q. Why have not breeding women the menses? A. Because that then they
+turn into milk, and into the nourishment of the child: for if a woman
+with child have them, it is a sign that she will miscarry.
+
+Q. Why are they termed _menstrua_, from the word _mensis_, a month? A.
+Because it is a space of time that measures the moon, as she ends her
+course in twenty-nine days, and fourteen hours.
+
+Q. Why do they continue longer with some than others, as with some six
+or seven, but commonly with all three days? A. The first are cold,
+therefore they increase most in them, and consequently are longer
+expelling; other women are hot, and therefore have fewer and are sooner
+expelled.
+
+Q. Are the menses which are expelled, and those by which the child is
+engendered, all one? A. No, because the one are unclean, and unfit for
+that purpose; but the other very pure and clear, therefore the fittest
+for generation.
+
+Q. Why have not women their menses all one and the same time, but some
+in the new moon, some in the full, and others at the wane? A. From their
+several complexions, and though all women (in respect of men) are
+phlegmatic, yet some are more sanguine than others, some more choleric;
+and as the moon hath her quarters, so have women their complexions; the
+first sanguine, the second choleric.
+
+Q. Why do women easily conceive after their menses? A. Because the womb
+being cleansed, they are better prepared for conception.
+
+Q. Why do women look pale when they first have their menses upon them?
+A. Because the heat goes from the outward parts of the body to the
+inward, to help nature to expel their terms, which deprivation of heat
+doth cause a paleness in the face. Or, because that flux is caused of
+raw humours, which, when they run, make the face colourless.
+
+Q. Why do they at that time abhor their meat? A. Because nature labours
+more to expel their terms than digest; and, therefore, if they should
+eat, their food would remain raw in the stomach.
+
+Q. Why are some women barren and do not conceive? A. 1. It proceeds
+sometimes from the man who may be of a cold nature, so that his seed is
+unfit for generation. 2. Because it is waterish, and so doth not stay in
+the womb. 3. By reason that the seed of them both hath not a like
+proportion, as if the man be melancholy and the woman sanguine, or the
+man choleric and the woman phlegmatic.
+
+Q. Why do fat women seldom conceive? A. Because they have a slippery
+womb, and the seed will not stay in it. Or, because the mouth of the
+matrix is very strait, and the seed cannot enter it, or, if it does, it
+is so very slowly that it grows cold and unfit for generation.
+
+Q. Why do those of a hot constitution seldom conceive? A. Because the
+seed in them is extinguished or put out, as water cast into fire;
+whereof we find that women who vehemently desire the flesh seldom
+conceive.
+
+Q. Why are whores never with child? A. By reason of divers seeds, which
+corrupt and spoil the instruments of conception, for it makes them so
+slippery, that they cannot retain seed. Or, else, it is because one
+man's seed destroys another's, so neither is good for generation.
+
+Q. Why do women conceive twins? A. Because there are seven cells or
+receptacles in the womb; wherefore they may naturally have so many
+children at once as there falls seed into these cells.
+
+Q. Why are twins but half men, and not so strong as others? A. The seed
+that should have been for one, is divided into two and therefore they
+are weakly and seldom live long.
+
+
+
+_Of Hermaphrodites._
+
+Q. How are hermaphrodites begotten? A. Nature doth always tend to that
+which is best, and always intendeth to beget the male and not the
+female, because the female is only for the male's mate. Therefore the
+male is sometimes begotten in all its principal parts; and, yet, through
+the indisposition of the womb and object, and inequality of the seeds,
+when nature cannot perfect the male, she brings forth the female too.
+And therefore natural philosophers say, that an hermaphrodite is
+impotent in the privy parts of a man, as appears by experience.
+
+Q. Is an hermaphrodite accounted a man or a woman? A. It is to be
+considered in which member he is fittest for copulation; if he be
+fittest in the woman's, then he is a woman; if in a man's, then he is a
+man.
+
+Q. Should he be baptized in the name of a man or a woman? A. In the
+name of a man, because names are given _ad placitum_, and therefore he
+should be baptized, according to the worthiest name, because every agent
+is worthier than its patient.
+
+
+
+_Of Monsters._
+
+Q. Doth nature make any monsters? A. She doth; if she did not, then
+would she be deprived of her end. For of things possible, she doth
+always propose to bring forth that which is most perfect and best; but
+in the end, through the evil disposition of the matter, not being able
+to bring forth that which she intended, she brings forth that which she
+can. As it happened in Albertus's time, when in a certain village, a cow
+brought forth a calf, half a man; then the countrymen suspecting a
+shepherd, would have burnt him with the cow; but Albertus, being skilled
+in astronomy, said that this did proceed from a certain constellation,
+and so delivered the shepherd from their hands.
+
+Q. Are they one or two? A. To find out, you must look into the heart, if
+there be two hearts, there be two men.
+
+Q. Why are some children like their father, some like their mother, some
+to both and some to neither? A. If the seed of the father wholly
+overcome that of the mother the child doth resemble the father; but if
+the mother's predominate, then it is like the mother; but if he be like
+neither, that doth sometimes happen through the four qualities,
+sometimes through the influence of some heavenly constellation.
+
+Q. Why are children oftener like the father than the mother? A. It
+proceeds from the imagination of the mother in the act of copulation, as
+appeared in a queen who had her imagination on a blackamoor; and in the
+Ethiopian queen who brought forth a white child, because her imagination
+was upon a white colour; as is seen in Jacob's skill in casting rods of
+divers colours into the water, when his sheep went to ram.
+
+Q. Why do children born in the eighth month for the most part die
+quickly, and why are they called the children of the moon? A. Because
+the moon is a cold planet, which has dominion over the child, and
+therefore doth bind it with coldness, which is the cause of its death.
+
+Q. Why doth a child cry as soon as it is born? A. Because of the sudden
+change from heat to cold: which cold doth affect its tenderness. Another
+reason is, because the child's soft and tender body is wringed and put
+together coming out of the narrow and strait passage of the matrix, and
+especially, the brain being moist, and the head being pressed and
+wrinkled together, is the cause that some humours distil by the eyes,
+which are the cause of tears and weeping.
+
+Q. Why doth the child put its fingers into its mouth as soon as it
+cometh into the world? A. Because that coming out of the womb it cometh
+out of a hot bath, and entering into the cold, puts them into its mouth
+for want of heat.
+
+
+
+_Of the Child in the Womb._
+
+Q. How is the child engendered in the womb? A. The first six days the
+seed hath this colour of milk, but in the six following a red colour,
+which is near unto the disposition of the flesh; and then it is changed
+into a thick substance of blood. But in the twelve days following, this
+substance becomes so thick and round that it is capable of receiving
+shape and form.
+
+Q. Doth the child in the womb void excrements or make water? No. Because
+it hath not the first digestion which is in the stomach. It receives no
+food by the mouth, but by the navel; therefore, makes no urine but
+sweats, which is but little, and is received in a skin in the matrix,
+which at the birth is cast out.
+
+
+
+_Of Abortion and Untimely Birth._
+
+Q. Why do women that eat unwholesome meats, easily miscarry? A. Because
+they breed putrefied seed, which the mind abhorring doth cast it out of
+the womb as unfit for the shape which is adapted to receive the soul.
+
+Q. Why doth wrestling and leaping cause the casting of the child, as
+some subtle women do on purpose? A. The vapour is burning, and doth
+easily hurt the tender substance of the child, entering in at the pores
+of the matrix.
+
+Q. Why doth much joy cause a woman to miscarry? A. Because in the time
+of joy, a woman is destitute of heat, and so a miscarriage doth follow.
+
+Q. Why do women easily miscarry when they are first with child, viz.,
+the first, second or third month? A. As apples and pears easily fall at
+first, because the knots and ligaments are weak, so it is with a child
+in the womb.
+
+Q. Why is it hard to miscarry in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth
+month? A. Because the ligaments are stronger and well fortified.
+
+
+
+_Of Divers Matters._
+
+Q. Why has not a man a tail like a beast? A. Because man is a noble
+creature, whose property is to sit; which a beast, having a tail,
+cannot.
+
+Q. Why does hot water freeze sooner than cold? A. Hot water is thinner,
+and gives better entrance to the frost.
+
+Q. Why is every living creature dull after copulation? A. By reason that
+the act is filthy and unclean; and so every living creature abhors it.
+When men do think upon it, they are ashamed and sad.
+
+Q. Why cannot drunken men judge of taste as well as sober men? A.
+Because the tongue, being full of pores and spongy, receives more
+moisture into it, and more in drunken men than in sober; therefore, the
+tongue, through often drinking, is full of bad humours, and so the
+faculty of tasting is rendered out of order; also, through the
+thickening of the taste itself, drink taken by drunkards is not
+presently felt. And by this may also be understood why drunkards have
+not a perfect speech.
+
+Q. Why have melancholy beasts long ears? A. The ears proceed from a dry
+and cold substance, called gristle, which is apt to become bone; and
+because melancholy beasts do abound with this kind of substance, they
+have long ears.
+
+Q. Why do hares sleep with their eyes open? A. 1. They have their eyes
+standing out, and their eyelids short, therefore, never quite shut. 2.
+They are timorous, and as a safe-guard to themselves, sleep with their
+eyes open.
+
+Q. Why do not crows feed their young till they be nine days old? A.
+Because seeing them of another colour, they think they are of another
+kind.
+
+Q. Why are sheep and pigeons mild? A. They want galls, the cause of
+anger.
+
+Q. Why have birds their stones inward? A. Because if outward, they would
+hinder their flying and lightness.
+
+Q. How comes it that birds do not piss? A. Because that superfluity
+which would be converted into urine, is turned into feathers.
+
+Q. Why do we hear better in the night than by day? A. Because there is a
+greater quietness in the night than in the day, for the sun doth not
+exhale the vapours by night, but it doth in the day, therefore the moon
+is more fit than in the day; and the moon being fit, the motion is
+better received, which is said to be caused by a sound.
+
+Q. For what reason doth a man laugh sooner when touched in the armpits
+than in any other part of the body? A. Because there is in that place a
+meeting of many sinews, and the mean we touch, which is the flesh, is
+more subtle than in other parts, and therefore of finer feeling. When a
+man is moderately and gently touched there the spirits that are
+dispersed run into the face and causes laughter.
+
+Q. Why do some women love white men and some black men? A. 1. Some have
+weak sight, and such delight in black, because white doth hurt the sight
+more than black. 2. Because like delight in like; but some women are of
+a hot nature, and such are delighted with black, because blackness
+followeth heat; and others are of a cold nature, and those are delighted
+with white, because cold produces white.
+
+Q. Why do men incline to sleep after labour? A. Because, through
+continual moving, the heat is dispersed to the external parts of the
+body, which, after labour, is gathered together in the internal parts,
+there to digest; and from digestion, vapours arise from the heart to the
+brain, which stop the passage by which the natural heat should be
+dispersed to the external part; and then, the external parts being cold
+and thick, by reason of the coldness of the brain sleep is easily
+procured. By this it appeareth that such as eat and drink too much, do
+sleep much and long, because there are great store of humours and
+vapours bred in such persons which cannot be consumed and digested by
+the natural heat.
+
+Q. Why are such as sleep much, evil disposed and ill-coloured? A.
+Because in too much sleep moisture is gathered together, which cannot be
+consumed, and so it doth covet to go out through the superficial parts
+of the body, and especially it resorts to the face, and therefore is the
+cause of bad colours, as appeareth in such as are phlegmatic and who
+desire more sleep than others.
+
+Q. Why do some imagine in their sleep that they eat and drink sweet
+things? A. Because the phlegm drawn up by the jaws doth distil and drop
+to the throat; and this phlegm is sweet after a sore sweat, and that
+seemeth so to them.
+
+Q. Why do some dream in their sleep that they are in the water and
+drowned, and some that they were in the water and not drowned;
+especially such as are phlegmatic? A. Because when the phlegmatic
+substance doth turn to the high parts of the body, then many think they
+are in the water and drowned; but when that substance draweth into the
+internal parts, then they think they escape. Another reason may be,
+overmuch repletion and drunkenness: and therefore, when men are overmuch
+filled with meat, the fumes and vapours ascend and gather together, and
+they think they are drowned and strangled; but if they cannot ascend so
+high then they seem to escape.
+
+Q. May a man procure a dream by an external cause? A. It may be done. If
+a man speak softly in another man's ear and awake him not, then of his
+stirring of the spirits there are thunderings and buzzings in the head,
+which cause dreamings.
+
+Q. How many humours are there in a man's body? A. Four, whereof every
+one hath its proper place. The first is choler, called by physicians
+_flava bilis_, which is placed in the liver. The second is melancholy,
+called _atra bilis_, whose seat is in the spleen. The third is phlegm,
+whose place is in the head. The fourth is blood, whose place is in the
+heart.
+
+Q. What condition and quality hath a man of a sanguine complexion? A. It
+is fair and beautiful; hath his hair for the most part smooth; is bold;
+retaineth that which he hath conceived; is shame-faced, given to music,
+a lover of sciences, liberal, courteous, and not desirous of revenge.
+
+Q. What properties do follow those of a phlegmatic complexion? A. They
+are dull of wit, their hair never curls, they are seldom very thirsty,
+much given to sleep, dream of things belonging to water, are fearful,
+covetous, given to heap up riches, and are weak in the act of venery.
+
+Q. What are the properties of a choleric man? A. He is brown in
+complexion, unquiet, his veins hidden, eateth little and digesteth less,
+dreameth of dark and confused things, is sad, fearful, exceedingly
+covetous, and incontinent.
+
+Q. What dreams do follow these complexions? A. Pleasant, merry dreams do
+follow the sanguine; fearful dreams, the melancholic; the choleric dream
+of children fighting and fire; the phlegmatic dream of water. This is
+the reason why a man's complexion is said to be known by his dreams.
+
+Q. What is the reason that if you cover an egg over with salt, and let
+it lie in it a few days, all the meat within is consumed? A. A great
+dryness of the salt consumes the substance of the egg.
+
+Q. Why is the melancholic complexion the worst? A. Because it proceeds
+from the dregs of the blood, is an enemy to mirth and bringeth on aged
+appearance and death, being cold and dry.
+
+Q. What is the cause that some men die joyful, and some in extreme
+grief? A. Over-great joy doth overmuch heat the internal parts of the
+body; and overmuch grief doth drown and suffocate the heart, which
+failing, a man dieth.
+
+Q. Why hath a man so much hair on his head? A. The hair on his head
+proceeds from the vapours which arise from the stomach, and ascend to
+the head, and also of the superfluities which are in the brain; and
+those two passing through the pores of the head are converted into hair,
+by reason of the heat and dryness of the head. And because man's body is
+full of humours, and he hath more brains than any other living
+creatures.
+
+Q. How many ways is the brain purged and other hidden places of the
+body? A. Four; the watery and gross humours are purged by the eyes,
+melancholy by the ears, choler by the nose, and phlegm by the hair.
+
+Q. What is the reason that such as are very fat in their youth, are in
+danger of dying on a sudden? A. Such have very small and close veins, by
+reason of their fatness, so that the air and the breath can hardly have
+free course in them; and thereupon the natural heat wanting the
+refreshment of air, is put out, and as it were, quenched.
+
+Q. Why do garlic and onions grow after they are gathered? A. It
+proceedeth from the humidity that is in them.
+
+Q. Why do men feel cold sooner than women? A. Because men, being more
+hot than women, have their pores more open, and therefore it doth sooner
+enter into them than women.
+
+Q. Why are not old men so subject to the plague as young men and
+children? A. They are cold, and their pores are not so open as in youth;
+and therefore the infecting air doth not penetrate so soon by reason of
+their coldness.
+
+Q. Why do we cast water in a man's face when he swooneth? A. Because
+through the coldness of water the heat may run to the heart, and so give
+strength.
+
+Q. Why are those waters best and most delicate which run towards the
+rising sun? A. Because they are soonest stricken with the sunbeams, and
+made pure and subtle, the sun having them under it, and by that means
+taking off the coldness and gross vapours which they gather from the
+ground they run through.
+
+Q. Why have women such weak and small voices? A. Because their
+instruments and organs of speaking, by reason of their coldness, are
+small and narrow; and therefore, receiving but little air, cause the
+voice to be effeminate.
+
+Q. Whereof doth it proceed that want of sleep doth weaken the brain and
+body? A. Much watching doth engender choler, the which being hot both
+dry up and lessen the humours which serve the brain, the head, and other
+parts of the body.
+
+Q. Wherefore doth vinegar so readily staunch blood? A. From its cold
+virtue, for all cold is naturally binding, and vinegar being cold, hath
+the like property.
+
+Q. Why is sea-water salter in summer than in winter? A. From the heat of
+the sun, seeing by experiment that a salt thing being heated becometh
+more salt.
+
+Q. Why do men live longer in hot regions than in cold? A. Because they
+may be more dry, and by that means the natural heat is better preserved
+in them than in cold countries.
+
+Q. Why is well-water seldom or ever good? A. All water which standeth
+still in the spring and is never heated by the sunbeams, is very heavy,
+and hath much matter in it, and therefore wanting the heat of the sun,
+is naught.
+
+Q. Why do men sleep better and more at ease on the right side than on
+the left? A. Because when they be on the left side, the lungs do lie
+upon and cover the heart, which is on that side under the pap; now the
+heart, the fountain of life, being thus occupied and hindered with the
+lungs, cannot exercise its own proper operation, as being overmuch
+heated with the lungs lying upon it, and therefore wanting the
+refreshment of the air which the lungs do give it, like the blowing of a
+pair of bellows, is choked and suffocated, but by lying on the right
+side, those inconveniences are avoided.
+
+Q. What is the reason that old men sneeze with great difficulty? A.
+Because that through their coldness their arteries are very narrow and
+close, and therefore the heat is not of force to expel the cold.
+
+Q. Why doth a drunken man think that all things about him do turn round?
+A. Because the spirits which serve the sight are mingled with vapours
+and fumes, arising from the liquors he has drunk; the overmuch heat
+causeth the eye to be in continual motion, and the eye being round,
+causeth all things about it to seem to go round.
+
+Q. Wherefore doth it proceed, that bread which is made with salt is
+lighter than that which is made without it, considering that salt is
+very heavy of itself? A. Although bread is very heavy of itself, yet the
+salt dries it and makes it light, by reason of the heat which it hath;
+and the more heat there is in it, the better the bread is, and the
+lighter and more wholesome for the body.
+
+Q. Why is not new bread good for the stomach? A. Because it is full of
+moistness, and thick, hot vapours, which do corrupt the blood, and hot
+bread is blacker than cold, because heat is the mother of blackness, and
+because the vapours are not gone out of it.
+
+Q. Why do lettuces make a man sleep? A. Because they engender gross
+vapours.
+
+Q. Why do the dregs of wine and oil go to the bottom, and those of honey
+swim uppermost? A. Because the dregs of wine and oil are earthly, and
+therefore go to the bottom; but honey is a liquid that cometh from the
+stomach and belly of the bee; and is there in some sort putrefied and
+made subtle; on which account the dregs are most light and hot, and
+therefore go uppermost.
+
+Q. Why do cats' and wolves' eyes shine in the night, and not in the day?
+A. The eyes of these beasts are by nature more crystalline than the eyes
+of other beasts, and therefore do so shine in darkness; but the
+brightness of the sun doth hinder them from being seen in the day-time.
+
+Q. What is the reason that some men, if they see others dance, do the
+like with their hands and feet, or by other gestures of the body? A.
+Because the sight having carried and represented unto the mind that
+action, and judging the same to be pleasant and delightful, and
+therefore the imagination draweth the like of it in conceit and stirs up
+the body by the gestures.
+
+Q. Why does much sleep cause some to grow fat and some lean? A. Those
+who are of ill complexion, when they sleep, do consume and digest the
+superfluities of what they have eaten, and therefore become fat. But
+such as are of good complexion, when they sleep are more cold, and
+digest less.
+
+Q. How much, and from what cause do we suffer hunger better than thirst?
+A. When the stomach hath nothing else to consume, it consumeth the
+phlegm and humours which it findeth most ready and most at hand; and
+therefore we suffer hunger better than thirst, because the heat hath
+nothing to refresh itself with.
+
+Q. Why doth the hair fall after a great sickness? A. Where the sickness
+is long, as in the ague, the humours of the head are dried up through
+overmuch heat, and, therefore, wanting nourishment, the hair falls.
+
+Q. Why doth the hair of the eyebrows grow long in old men? A. Because
+through their age the bones are thin through want of heat, and therefore
+the hair doth grow there, by reason of the rheum of the eye.
+
+Q. Whereof proceedeth gaping? A. Of gross vapours, which occupy the
+vital spirits of the head, and of the coldness of the senses causing
+sleepiness.
+
+Q. What is the reason that some flowers do open with the sun rising, and
+shut with the sun setting? A. Cold doth close and shut, as hath been
+said, but the heat of the sun doth open and enlarge. Some compare the
+sun to the soul of the body; for as the soul giveth life, so the sun
+doth give life, and vivificate all things; but cold bringeth death,
+withering and decaying all things.
+
+Q. Why doth grief cause men to grow old and grey? A. Age is nothing else
+but dryness and want of humours in the body; grief then causeth
+alteration, and heat dryness; age and greyness follow immediately.
+
+Q. Why are gelded beasts weaker than such as are not gelded? A. Because
+they have less heat, and by that means less force and strength.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE PROBLEMS OF
+
+MARCUS ANTONINUS SANCTIPERTIAS
+
+
+Q. Why is it esteemed, in the judgment of the most wise, the hardest
+thing to know a man's self? A. Because nothing can be known that is of
+so great importance to man for the regulation of his conduct in life.
+Without this knowledge, man is like the ship without either compass or
+rudder to conduct her to port, and is tossed by every passion and
+prejudice to which his natural constitution is subjected. To know the
+form and perfection of man's self, according to the philosophers, is a
+task too hard; and a man, says Plato, is nothing, or if he be anything,
+he is nothing, but his soul.
+
+Q. Why is a man, though endowed with reason, the most unjust of all
+living creatures? A. Because only man is desirous of honour; and so it
+happens that every one covets to seem good, and yet naturally shuns
+labour, though he attain no virtue by it.
+
+Q. Why doth immoderate copulation do more hurt than immoderate letting
+of blood? A. The seed is full of nutriment, and better prepared for the
+nurture of the body, than the blood; for the blood is nourished by the
+seed.
+
+Q. What is the reason that those that have long yards cannot beget
+children? A. The seed, in going a long distance, doth lose the spirit,
+and therefore becomes cold and unfit.
+
+Q. Why do such as are corpulent cast forth but little seed in the act of
+copulation, and are often barren? A. Because the seed of such goeth to
+nourish the body. For the same reason corpulent women have but few
+menses.
+
+Q. How come women to be prone to venery in the summer time and men in
+the winter? A. In summer the man's testicles hang down and are feebler
+than in winter, or because hot natures become more lively in the cold
+season; for a man is hot and dry, and a woman cold and moist; and
+therefore in summer the strength of men decays, and that of women
+increases, and they grow livelier by the benefit of the contrary
+quality.
+
+Q. Why is man the proudest of all living creatures? A. By reason of his
+great knowledge; or, as philosophers say, all intelligent beings having
+understanding, nothing remains that escapes man's knowledge in
+particular; or it is because he hath rule over all earthly creatures,
+and all things seem to be brought under his dominion.
+
+Q. Why have beasts their hearts in the middle of their breasts, and man
+his inclining to the left? A. To moderate the cold on that side.
+
+Q. Why doth the woman love the man best who has got her maidenhead? A.
+By reason of shame-facedness; Plato saith, shame-facedness doth follow
+love, or, because it is the beginning of great pleasure, which doth
+bring a great alteration in the whole body, whereby the powers of the
+mind are much delighted, and stick and rest immoveable in the same.
+
+Q. How come hairy people to be more lustful than any other? A. Because
+they are said to have greater store of excrements and seed as
+philosophers assert.
+
+Q. What is the cause that the suffocation of the matrix, which happens
+to women through strife and contention, is more dangerous than the
+detaining of the flowers? A. Because the more perfect an excrement is in
+its natural disposition, the worse it is when it is altered from that
+disposition, and drawn to the contrary quality; as is seen in vinegar,
+which is sharpest when it is made of the best wine. And so it happens
+that the more men love one another the more they fall into variance and
+discord.
+
+Q. How come women's bodies to be looser, softer and less than man's; and
+why do they want hair? A. By reason of their menses; for with them their
+superfluities go away, which would produce hair; and thereby the flesh
+is filled, consequently the veins are more hid in women than in men.
+
+Q. What is the reason that when we think upon a horrible thing, we are
+stricken with fear? A. Because the conceit or imagination of things has
+force and virtue. For Plato saith, the fancy of things has some affinity
+with things themselves; for the image and representation of cold and
+heat is such as the nature of things are. Or it is this, because when we
+comprehend any dreadful matter, the blood runneth to the internal parts;
+and therefore the external parts are cold and shake with fear.
+
+Q. Why doth a radish root help digestion and yet itself remaineth
+undigested? A. Because the substance consisteth of divers parts; for
+there are some thin parts in it, which are fit to digest meat, the which
+being dissolved, there doth remain some thick and close substance in it,
+which the heat cannot digest.
+
+Q. Why do such as cleave wood, cleave it easier in the length than
+athwart? A. Because in the wood there is a grain, whereby, if it be cut
+in length, in the very cutting, one part naturally separateth from
+another.
+
+Q. What is the reason, that if a spear be stricken on the end, the sound
+cometh sooner to one who standeth near, than to him who striketh? A.
+Because, as hath been said, there is a certain long grain in wood,
+directly forward, filled with air, but on the other side there is none,
+and therefore a beam or spear being stricken on the end, the air which
+is hidden receiveth a sound in the aforesaid grain which serveth for its
+passage; and, seeing the sound cannot go easily out of it is carried
+into the ear of him who is opposite; as those passages do not go from
+side to side, a sound cannot be distinctly heard there.
+
+Q. Why are the thighs and calves of the legs of men flesh, seeing the
+legs of beasts are not so? A. Because men only go upright; and therefore
+nature hath given the lower parts corpulency, and taken it away from the
+upper; and thus she hath made the buttocks, the thighs, and calves of
+the legs fleshy.
+
+Q. Why are the sensible powers in the heart; yet if the hinder part of
+the brain be hurt, the memory suffereth by it; if the forepart, the
+imagination; if the middle, the cogitative part? A. It is because the
+brain is appointed by nature to cool the blood of the heart; whereof it
+is, that in divers of its parts it serveth the powers and instruments
+with their heart, for every action of the soul doth not proceed from one
+measure of heat.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE PROBLEMS OF
+
+ALEXANDER APHRODISEUS
+
+
+Q. Why doth the sun make a man black and dirt white, wax soft and dirt
+hard? A. By reason of the disposition of the substance that doth suffer.
+All humours, phlegm excepted, when heated above measure, do seem black
+about the skin; and dirt, being full either of saltpetre, or salt
+liquor, when the sun hath consumed its dregs and filth, doth become
+white again. When the sun hath stirred up and drawn the humidity of the
+wax, it is softened; but in the dirt, the sun doth consume the humidity,
+which is very much and makes it hard.
+
+Q. Why are round ulcers hard to be cured? A. Because they are bred of a
+sharp choler, which eats and gnaws; and because it doth run, dropping
+and gnawing, it makes a round ulcer; for which reason it requires dry
+medicines, as physicians assert.
+
+Q. Why is honey sweet to all men, but to such as have jaundice? A.
+Because they have much bitter choler all over their bodies, which
+abounds in the tongue; whence it happens when they eat honey the humours
+are stirred, and the taste itself, by the bitterness of choler, causes
+an imagination that the honey is bitter.
+
+Q. Why doth water cast on serpents, cause them to fly? A. Because they
+are dry and cold by nature, having but little blood, and therefore fly
+from excessive coldness.
+
+Q. Why doth an egg break if roasted, and not if boiled? A. When moisture
+comes near the fire, it is heated very much, and so breeds wind, which
+being put up in little room, forces its way out, and breaks the shell:
+the like happens in tubs or earthen vessels when new wine is put into
+them; too much phlegm breaks the shell of an egg in roasting; it is the
+same with earthen pots too much heated; wherefore some people wet an egg
+when they intend to roast it. Hot water, by its softness, doth dissipate
+its humidity by little and little, and dissolves it through the thinness
+and passages of the shell.
+
+Q. Why do men wink in the act of copulation, and find a little
+alteration in all other senses? A. Because, being overcome by the effect
+of that pleasure, they do comprehend it the better.
+
+Q. Why have children gravel breeding in their bladders, and old men in
+their kidneys and veins? A. Because children have straight passages in
+their kidneys, and an earthly thick humour is thrust with violence by
+the urine to the bladder, which hath wide conduits or passages, that
+give room for the urine and humour whereof gravel is engendered, which
+waxes thick, and seats itself, as the manner of it is. In old men it is
+the reverse, for they have wide passages of the veins, back and kidneys,
+that the urine may pass away, and the earthly humour congeal and sink
+down; the colour of the gravel shows the humour whereof the stone comes.
+
+Q. Why is it, if the stone do congeal and wax hard through heat, we use
+not contrary things to dissolve it by coldness, but light things, as
+parsley, fennel and the like? A. It is thought, to fall out by an
+excessive scorching heat, by which the stones do crumble into sand, as
+in the manner of earthen vessels, which, when they are overheated or
+roasted, turn to sand. And by this means it happens that small stones
+are avoided, together with sand, in making water. Sometimes cold drink
+thrusts out the stone, the kidneys being stretched and casting it out by
+a great effort; thus easing the belly of its burden. Besides, it often
+happens that immoderate heat of the kidneys, or of the veins of the back
+(through which the stone doth grow) is quenched with coldness.
+
+Q. Why is the curing of an ulcer or bile in the kidneys or bladder very
+hard? A. Because the urine being sharp, doth ulcerate the sore. Ulcers
+are worse to cure in the bladder than in the kidneys, because urine
+stays in the former, but runs away from the latter.
+
+Q. Why do chaff and straw keep water hot, but make snow cold? A. Because
+the nature of chaff wants a manifest quantity; seeing, therefore that of
+its own nature, it can easily be mingled, and consumed by that which it
+is annexed onto, it easily assumes the same nature, and being put into
+hot things, it is easily hot, heats again, and keeps hot; and on the
+contrary, being made cold by the snow, and making the snow cold it keeps
+in its coldness.
+
+Q. Why have we oftentimes a pain in making water? A. Because sharp
+choler issuing out, and pricking the bladder of the urine, doth provoke
+and stir up the whole body to ease the part offended, and to expel the
+humour moderately. This doth happen most of all unto children, because
+they have moist excrements by reason of their often drinking.
+
+Q. Why have some medicines of one kind contrary effects, as experience
+proves; for mastich doth expel, dissolve and also knit; and vinegar
+cools and heats? A. Because there are some small invisible bodies in
+them, not in confusion, but by interposition; as sand moistened doth
+clog together and seem to be but one body, though indeed there are many
+small bodies in sand. And since this is so, it is not absurd that the
+contrary qualities and virtues should be hidden in mastich, and that
+nature hath given that virtue to these bodies.
+
+Q. Why do nurses rock and move their children when they would rock them
+to sleep? A. To the end that the humours being scattered by moving, may
+move the brains; but those of more years cannot endure this.
+
+Q. Why doth oil, being drunk, cause one to vomit, and especially yellow
+choler? A. Because being light, and ascending upwards it provoketh the
+nutriment in the stomach, and lifteth it up; and so, the stomach being
+grieved, summoneth the ejective virtue to vomit, and especially choler,
+because that is light and consisteth of subtle parts, and therefore the
+sooner carried upward; for when it is mingled with any moist thing, it
+runneth into the highest room.
+
+Q. Why doth not oil mingle with moist things? A. Because, being pliant,
+soft and thick in itself, it cannot be divided into parts, and so cannot
+be mingled; neither if it be put on the earth can it enter into it.
+
+Q. Why are water and oil frozen in cold weather, and wine and vinegar
+not? A. Because that oil being without quality, and fit to be compounded
+with anything, is cold quickly and so extremely that it is most cold.
+Water being cold of nature, doth easily freeze when it is made colder
+than its own nature. Wine being hot, and of subtle parts, suffereth no
+freezing.
+
+Q. Why do contrary things in quality bring forth the same effect? A.
+That which is moist is hardened and bound alike by heat and cold. Snow
+and liquid do freeze with cold; a plaster and gravel in the bladder are
+made dry with heat. The effect indeed is the same, but by two divers
+actions; the heat doth consume and eat the abundance of moisture; but
+the cold stopping and shutting with its over much thickness, doth wring
+out the filthy humidity, like as a sponge wrung with the hand doth cast
+out the water which it hath in the pores and small passages.
+
+Q. Why doth a shaking or quivering seize us oftentimes when any fearful
+matter doth happen, as a great noise or a crack made, the sudden
+downfall of water, or the fall of a large tree? A. Because that
+oftentimes the humours being digested and consumed by time and made thin
+and weak, all the heat vehemently, suddenly and sharply flying into the
+inward part of the body, consumeth the humours which cause the disease.
+So treacle hath this effect, and many such like, which are hot and dry
+when taken after connexion.
+
+Q. Why do steel glasses shine so clearly? A. Because they are lined in
+the inside with white lead, whose nature is shining, and being put to
+glass, which is lucid and transparent, doth shine much more; and casts
+its beams through its passages, and without the body of the glass; and
+by that means the glass is very shining and clear.
+
+Q. Why do we see ourselves in glasses and clear water? A. Because the
+quality of the sight, passing into the bright bodies by reflection, doth
+return again on the beam of the eyes, as the image of him who looketh on
+it.
+
+Q. What is the reason that if you cast a stone in standing water which
+is near the surface of the earth, it causes many circles, and not if the
+water be deep in the earth? A. Because the stone, with the vehemence of
+the cast, doth agitate the water in every part of it, until it come to
+the bottom; and if there be a very great vehemence in the throw, the
+circle is still greater, the stone going down to the bottom causing many
+circles. For, first of all, it doth divide the outermost and superficial
+parts of the water in many parts, and so, always going down to the
+bottom, again dividing the water, it maketh another circle, and this is
+done successively until the stone resteth; and because the vehemence of
+the stone is slackened, still as it goes down, of necessity the last
+circle is less than the first, because by that and also by its force the
+water is divided.
+
+Q. Why are such as are deaf by nature, dumb? A. Because they cannot
+speak and express that which they never hear. Some physicians do say,
+that there is one knitting and uniting of sinews belonging to the like
+disposition. But such as are dumb by accident are not deaf at all, for
+then there ariseth a local passion.
+
+Q. Why doth itching arise when an ulcer doth wax whole and phlegm
+ceases? A. Because the part which is healed and made sound doth pursue
+the relic of the humours which remained there against nature, and which
+was the cause of the bile, and so going out through the skin, and
+dissolving itself, doth originally cause the itch.
+
+Q. How comes a man to sneeze oftener and more vehemently than a beast?
+A. Because he uses more meats and drinks, and of more different sorts,
+and that more than is requisite; the which, when he cannot digest as he
+would, he doth gather together much air and spirit, by reason of much
+humidity; the spirits then very subtle, ascending into the head, often
+force a man to void them, and so provoke sneezing. The noise caused
+thereby proceeds from a vehement spirit or breath passing through the
+conduit of the nostrils, as belching doth from the stomach or farting by
+the fundament, the voice by the throat, and a sound by the ear.
+
+Q. How come the hair and nails of dead people to grow? A. Because the
+flesh rotting, withering and falling away, that which was hidden about
+the root of the hair doth now appear as growing. Some say that it grows
+indeed, because carcasses are dissolved in the beginning to many
+excrements and superfluities by putrefaction. These going out at the
+uppermost parts of the body by some passages, do increase the growth of
+the hair.
+
+Q. Why does not the hair of the feet soon grow grey? A. For this reason,
+because that through great motion they disperse and dissolve the
+superfluous phlegm that breeds greyness. The hair of the secrets grows
+very late, because of the place, and because that in carnal copulation
+it dissolves the phlegm also.
+
+Q. Why, if you put hot burnt barley upon a horse's sore, is the hair
+which grows upon the sore not white, but like the other hair? A. Because
+it hath the force of expelling; and doth drive away and dissolve the
+phlegm, as well as all other unprofitable matter that is gathered
+together through the weakness of the parts, or condity of the sore.
+
+Q. Why doth the hair never grow on an ulcer or bile? A. Because man hath
+a thick skin, as is seen by the thickness of his hair; and if the scar
+be thicker than the skin itself, it stops the passages from whence the
+hair should grow. Horses have thinner skins, as is plain by their hair;
+therefore all passages are not stopped in their wounds and sores; and
+after the excrements which were gathered together have broken a passage
+through those small pores the hair doth grow.
+
+Q. Why is Fortune painted with a double forehead, the one side bald and
+the other hairy? A. The baldness signifies adversity, and hairiness
+prosperity, which we enjoy when it pleaseth her.
+
+Q. Why have some commended flattery? A. Because flattery setteth forth
+before our eyes what we ought to be, though not what we are.
+
+Q. Wherefore should virtue be painted girded? A. To show that virtuous
+men should not be slothful, but diligent and always in action.
+
+Q. Why did the ancients say it was better to fall into the hands of a
+raven than a flatterer? A. Because ravens do not eat us till we be dead,
+but flatterers devour us alive.
+
+Q. Why have choleric men beards before others? A. Because they are hot,
+and their pores large.
+
+Q. How comes it that such as have the hiccups do ease themselves by
+holding their breath? A. The breath retained doth heat the interior
+parts of the body, and the hiccups proceeds from cold.
+
+Q. How comes it that old men remember well what they have seen and done
+in their youth, and forget such things as they see and do in their old
+age? A. Things learned in youth take deep root and habitude in a person,
+but those learned in age are forgotten because the senses are then
+weakened.
+
+Q. What kind of covetousness is best? A. That of time when employed as
+it ought to be.
+
+Q. Why is our life compared to a play? A. Because the dishonest do
+occupy the place of the honest, and the worst sort the room of the good.
+
+Q. Why do dolphins, when they appear above the water, denote a storm or
+tempest approaching? A. Because at the beginning of a tempest there do
+arise from the bottom of the sea, certain hot exhalations and vapours
+which heat the dolphins, causing them to rise up for cold air.
+
+Q. Why did the Romans call Fabius Maximus the target of the people, and
+Marcellus the sword? A. Because the one adapted himself to the service
+of the commonwealth, and the other was very eager to revenge the
+injuries of his country; and yet they were in the senate joined
+together, because the gravity of the one would moderate the courage and
+boldness of the other.
+
+Q. Why doth the shining of the moon hurt the head? A. Because it moves
+the humours of the brain, and cannot afterwards dissolve them.
+
+Q. If water do not nourish, why do men drink it? A. Because water
+causeth the nutriment to spread through the body.
+
+Q. Why is sneezing good? A. Because it purgeth the brain as milk is
+purged by the cough.
+
+Q. Why is hot water lighter than cold? A. Because boiling water has less
+ventosity and is more light and subtle, the earthly and heavy substance
+being separated from it.
+
+Q. How comes marsh and pond water to be bad? A. By reason they are
+phlegmatic, and do corrupt in summer; the fineness of water is turned
+into vapours, and the earthiness doth remain.
+
+Q. Why are studious and learned men soonest bald? A. It proceeds from a
+weakness of the spirits, or because warmth of digestion cause phlegm to
+abound in them.
+
+Q. Why doth much watching make the brain feeble? A. Because it increases
+choler, which dries and extenuates the body.
+
+Q. Why are boys apt to change their voices about fourteen years of age?
+A. Because that then nature doth cause a great and sudden change of
+voice; experience proves this to be true; for at that time we may see
+that women's paps do grow great, do hold and gather milk, and also those
+places that are above their hips, in which the young fruit would remain.
+Likewise men's breasts and shoulders, which then can bear great and
+heavy burdens; also their stones in which their seed may increase and
+abide, and in their privy members, to let out the seed with ease.
+Further all the body is made bigger and dilated, as the alteration and
+change of every part doth testify, and the harshness of the voice and
+hoarseness; for the rough artery, the wind pipe, being made wide in the
+beginning, and the exterior and outward part being unequal to the
+throat, the air going out the rough, unequal and uneven pipe doth then
+become unequal and sharp, and after, hoarse, something like unto the
+voice of a goat, wherefore it has its name called Bronchus. The same
+doth also happen to them unto whose rough artery distillation doth
+follow; it happens by reason of the drooping humidity that a slight
+small skin filled unequally causes the uneven going forth of the spirit
+and air. Understand, that the windpipe of goats is such by reason of the
+abundance of humidity. The like doth happen unto all such as nature hath
+given a rough artery, as unto cranes. After the age of fourteen they
+leave off that voice, because the artery is made wider and reacheth its
+natural evenness and quality.
+
+Q. Why do hard dens, hollow and high places, send back the likeness and
+sound of the voice? A. Because that in such places also by reflection do
+return back the image of a sound, for the voice doth beat the air, and
+the air the place, which the more it is beaten the more it doth bear,
+and therefore doth cause the more vehement sound of the voice; moist
+places, and as it were, soft, yielding to the stroke, and dissolving it,
+give no sound again; for according to the quantity of the stroke, the
+quality and quantity of the voice is given, which is called an echo.
+Some do idly fable that she is a goddess; some say that Pan was in love
+with her, which without doubt is false. He was some wise man, who did
+first desire to search out the cause of the voice, and as they who love,
+and cannot enjoy that love, are grieved, so in like manner was he very
+sorry until he found out the solution of that cause; as Endymion also,
+who first found out the course of the moon, watching all night, and
+observing her course, and searching her motion, did sleep in the
+daytime, and that she came to him when he was asleep, because she did
+give the philosopher the solution of the course herself. They say also
+that he was a shepherd, because that in the desert and high places, he
+did mark the course of the moon. And they gave him also the pipe because
+that the high places are blown with wind, or else because he sought out
+the consonancy of figures. Prometheus also, being a wise man, sought the
+course of the star, which is called the eagle in the firmament, his
+nature and place; and when he was, as it were, wasted with the desire of
+learning, then at last he rested, when Hercules did resolve unto him all
+doubts with his wisdom.
+
+Q. Why do not swine cry when they are carried with their snouts upwards?
+A. Because that of all other beasts they bend more to the earth. They
+delight in filth, and that they seek, and therefore in the sudden change
+of their face, they be as it were strangers, and being amazed with so
+much light do keep that silence; some say the windpipe doth close
+together by reason of the straitness of it.
+
+Q. Why do swine delight in dirt? A. As physicians do say, they are
+naturally delighted with it, because they have a great liver, in which
+desire it, as Aristotle saith, the wideness of their snout is the case,
+for he that hath smelling which doth dissolve itself, and as it were
+strive with stench.
+
+Q. Why do many beasts when they see their friends, and a lion and a
+bull beat their sides when they are angry? A. Because they have the
+marrow of their backs reaching to the tail, which hath the force of
+motion in it, the imagination acknowledging that which is known to them,
+as it were with the hand, as happens to men, doth force them to move
+their tails. This doth manifestly show some secret force to be within
+them, which doth acknowledge what they ought. In the anger of lions and
+bulls, nature doth consent to the mind, and causeth it to be greatly
+moved, as men do sometimes when they are angry, beating their hands on
+other parts; when the mind cannot be revenged on that which doth hurt,
+it presently seeks out some other source, and cures the malady with a
+stroke or blow.
+
+Q. How come steel glasses to be better for the sight than any other
+kind? A. Because steel is hard, and doth present unto us more
+substantially the air that receiveth the light.
+
+Q. How doth love show its greater force by making the fool to become
+wise, or the wise to become a fool? A. In attributing wisdom to him that
+has it not; for it is harder to build than to pull down; and ordinarily
+love and folly are but an alteration of the mind.
+
+Q. How comes much labour and fatigue to be bad for the sight? A.
+Because it dries the blood too much.
+
+Q. Why is goat's milk reckoned best for the stomach? A. Because it is
+thick, not slimy, and they feed on wood and boughs rather than on grass.
+
+Q. Why do grief and vexation bring grey hairs? A. Because they dry,
+which bringeth on greyness.
+
+Q. How come those to have most mercy who have the thickest blood? A.
+Because the blood which is fat and thick makes the spirits firm and
+constant, wherein consists the force of all creatures.
+
+Q. Whether it is hardest, to obtain a person's love, or to keep it when
+obtained? A. It is hardest to keep it, by reason of the inconstancy of
+man, who is quickly angry, and soon weary of a thing; hard to be gained
+and slippery to keep.
+
+Q. Why do serpents shun the herb rue? A. Because they are cold, dry and
+full of sinews, and that herb is of a contrary nature.
+
+Q. Why is a capon better to eat than a cock? A. Because a capon loses
+not his moisture by treading of the hens.
+
+Q. Why is our smell less in winter than in summer? A. Because the air is
+thick, and less moveable.
+
+Q. Why does hair burn so quickly? A. Because it is dry and cold.
+
+Q. Why is love compared to a labyrinth? A. Because the entry and coming
+in is easy, and the going out almost impossible or hard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PART IV
+
+DISPLAYING THE SECRETS OF
+
+NATURE
+
+RELATING TO
+
+PHYSIOGNOMY
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+SECTION 1.--_Of Physiognomy, showing what it is, and whence it is
+derived._
+
+Physiognomy is an ingenious science, or knowledge of nature, by which
+the inclinations and dispositions of every creature are understood, and
+because some of the members are uncompounded, and entire of themselves,
+as the tongue, the heart, etc., and some are of a mixed nature, as the
+eyes, the nose and others, we therefore say that there are signs which
+agree and live together, which inform a wise man how to make his
+judgment before he be too rash to deliver it to the world.
+
+Nor is it to be esteemed a foolish or idle art, seeing it is derived
+from the superior bodies; for there is no part of the face of man but
+what is under the peculiar influence or government, not only of the
+seven planets but also of the twelve signs of Zodiac; and the
+dispositions, vices, virtues and fatality, either of a man or woman are
+plainly foretold, if the person pretending to the knowledge thereof be
+an artist, which, that my readers may hereby attain it I shall set these
+things in a clearer light.
+
+The reader should remember that the forehead is governed by Mars; the
+right eye is under the domination of Sol; the left is ruled by the Moon;
+the right ear is under Jupiter; the left, Saturn, the rule of the nose
+is claimed by Venus, which, by the way, is one reason that in all
+unlawful venereal encounters, the nose is too subject to bear the scars
+that are gotten in those wars; and nimble Mercury, the significator of
+eloquence claims the dominion of the mouth, and that very justly.
+
+Thus have the seven planets divided the face among them, but not with so
+absolute a way but that the twelve signs of the Zodiac do also come in
+with a part (see the engraving) and therefore the sign Cancer presides
+in the upper part of the forehead, and Leo attends upon the right
+eyebrow, as Saggittarius does upon the right eye, and Libra upon the
+right ear, upon the left eyebrow you will find Aquarius; and Gemini and
+Aries taking care of the left ear; Taurus rules in the middle of the
+forehead, and Capricorn the chin; Scorpio takes upon him the protection
+of the nose; Virgo claims the precedence of the right cheek, Pisces the
+left. And thus the face of man is cantoned out amongst the signs and
+planets; which being carefully attended to, will sufficiently inform
+the artist how to pass a judgment. For according to the sign or planet
+ruling so also is the judgment to be of the part ruled, which all those
+that have understanding know easily how to apply.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In the judgment that is to be made from physiognomy, there is a great
+difference betwixt a man and a woman; the reason is, because in respect
+of the whole composition men more fully comprehend it than women do, as
+may evidently appear by the manner and method we shall give. Wherefore
+the judgments which we shall pass in every chapter do properly concern a
+man, as comprehending the whole species, and but improperly the woman,
+as being but a part thereof, and derived from the man, and therefore,
+whoever is called to give judgment on such a face, ought to be wary
+about all the lines and marks that belong to it, respect being also had
+to the sex, for when we behold a man whose face is like unto a woman's
+and we pass a judgment upon it, having diligently observed it, and not
+on the face only, but on other parts of the body, as hands, etc., in
+like manner we also behold the face of a woman, who in respect to her
+flesh and blood is like unto a man, and in the disposure also of the
+greatest part of the body. But does physiognomy give the same judgment
+on her, as it does of a man that is like unto her? By no means, but far
+otherwise, in regard that the conception of the woman is much different
+from that of a man, even in those respects which are said to be common.
+Now in those common respects two parts are attributed to a man, and a
+third part to a woman.
+
+Wherefore it being our intention to give you an exact account, according
+to the rule of physiognomy of all and every part of the members of the
+body, we will begin with the head, as it hath relation only to man and
+woman, and not to any other creature, that the work may be more obvious
+to every reader.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+     _Of the Judgment of Physiognomy._
+
+
+Hair that hangs down without curling, if it be of a fair complexion,
+thin and soft withal, signifies a man to be naturally faint-hearted, and
+of a weak body, but of a quiet and harmless disposition. Hair that is
+big, and thick and short withal, denotes a man to be of a strong
+constitution, secure, bold, deceitful and for the most part, unquiet and
+vain, lusting after beauty, and more foolish than wise, though fortune
+may favour him. He whose hair is partly curled and partly hanging down,
+is commonly wise or a very great fool, or else as very a knave as he is
+a fool. He whose hair grows thick on his temples and his brow, one may
+certainly at first sight conclude that such a man is by nature simple,
+vain, luxurious, lustful, credulous, clownish in his speech and
+conversation and dull in his apprehension. He whose hair not only curls
+very much, but bushes out, and stands on end, if the hair be white or of
+a yellowish colour, he is by nature proud and bold, dull of
+apprehension, soon angry, and a lover of venery, and given to lying,
+malicious and ready to do any mischief. He whose hair arises in the
+corners of the temples, and is gross and rough withal, is a man highly
+conceited of himself, inclined to malice, but cunningly conceals it, is
+very courtly and a lover of new fashions. He who hath much hair, that is
+to say, whose hair is thick all over his head, is naturally vain and
+very luxurious, of a good digestion, easy of belief, and slow of
+performance, of a weak memory and for the most part unfortunate. He
+whose hair is of a reddish complexion, is for the most part, if not
+always, proud, deceitful, detracting and full of envy. He whose hair is
+extraordinarily fair, is for the most part a man fit for the most
+praiseworthy enterprises, a lover of honour, and much more inclined to
+do good than evil; laborious and careful to perform whatsoever is
+committed to his care, secret in carrying on any business, and
+fortunate. Hair of a yellowish colour shows a man to be good
+conditioned, and willing to do anything, fearful, shamefaced and weak of
+body, but strong in the abilities of the mind, and more apt to remember,
+than to avenge an injury. He whose hair is of a brownish colour, and
+curled not too much nor too little, is a well-disposed man, inclined to
+that which is good, a lover of peace, cleanliness and good manners. He
+whose hair turns grey or hoary in the time of his youth, is generally
+given to women, vain, false, unstable, and talkative. [Note. That
+whatever signification the hair has in men, it has the same in women
+also.]
+
+The forehead that riseth in a round, signifies a man liberally merry, of
+a good understanding, and generally inclined to virtue. He whose
+forehead is fleshy, and the bone of the brow jutting out, and without
+wrinkles, is a man much inclined to suits of law, contentious, vain,
+deceitful, and addicted to follow ill courses. He whose forehead is
+very low and little, is of a good understanding, magnanimous, but
+extremely bold and confident, and a great pretender to love and honour.
+He whose forehead seems sharp, and pointed up in the corners of his
+temples, so that the bone seems to jut forth a little, is a man
+naturally weak and fickle, and weak in the intellectuals. He whose brow
+upon the temples is full of flesh, is a man of a great spirit, proud,
+watchful and of a gross understanding. He whose brow is full of
+wrinkles, and has as it were a seam coming down the middle of the
+forehead, so that a man may think he has two foreheads, is one that is
+of a great spirit, a great wit, void of deceit, and yet of a hard
+fortune. He who has a full, large forehead, and a little round withal,
+destitute of hair, or at least that has little on it is bold, malicious,
+full of choler and apt to transgress beyond all bounds, and yet of a
+good wit and very apprehensive. He whose forehead is long and high and
+jutting forth, and whose face is figured, almost sharp and peaked
+towards the chin, is one reasonably honest, but weak and simple, and of
+a hard fortune.
+
+Those eyebrows that are much arched, whether in man or woman, and which
+by frequent motion elevate themselves, show the person to be proud,
+high-spirited, vain-glorious, bold and threatening, a lover of beauty,
+and indifferently inclined to either good or evil. He whose eyelids bend
+down when he speaks to another or when he looks upon him, and who has a
+kind of skulking look, is by nature a penurious wretch, close in all his
+actions, of a very few words, but full of malice in his heart. He whose
+eyebrows are thick, and have but little hair upon them, is but weak in
+his intellectuals, and too credulous, very sincere, sociable, and
+desirous of good company. He whose eyebrows are folded, and the hair
+thick and bending downwards, is one that is clownish and unlearned,
+heavy, suspicious, miserable, envious, and one that will cheat and cozen
+you if he can. He whose eyebrows have but short hair and of a whitish
+colour is fearful and very easy of belief, and apt to undertake
+anything. Those, on the other side, whose eyebrows are black, and the
+hair of them thin, will do nothing without great consideration, and are
+bold and confident of the performance of what they undertake; neither
+are they apt to believe anything without reason for so doing.
+
+If the space between the eyebrows be of more than the ordinary distance,
+it shows the person to be hard-hearted, envious, close, cunning,
+apprehensive, greedy of novelties, of a vain fortune, addicted to
+cruelty more than love. But those men whose eyebrows are at a lesser
+distance from each other, are for the most part of a dull understanding;
+yet subtle enough in their dealings, and of an uncommon boldness, which
+is often attended with great felicity; but that which is most
+commendable in them is, that they are most sure and constant in their
+friendship.
+
+Great and full eyes in either man or woman, show the person to be for
+the most part slothful, bold, envious, a bad concealer of secrets,
+miserable, vain, given to lying, and yet a bad memory, slow in
+invention, weak in his intellectuals, and yet very much conceited of
+that little knack of wisdom he thinks himself master of. He whose eyes
+are hollow in his head, and therefore discerns well at a great distance,
+is one that is suspicious, malicious, furious, perverse in his
+conversation, of an extraordinary memory, bold, cruel, and false, both
+in words and deeds, threatening, vicious, luxurious, proud, envious and
+treacherous; but he whose eyes are, as it were, starting out of his
+head, is a simple, foolish person, shameless, very fertile and easy to
+be persuaded either to vice or virtue. He who looks studiously and
+acutely, with his eyes and eyelids downwards, denotes thereby to be of a
+malicious nature, very treacherous, false, unfaithful, envious,
+miserable, impious towards God, and dishonest towards men. He whose
+eyes are small and conveniently round, is bashful and weak, very
+credulous, liberal to others, and even in his conversation. He whose
+eyes look asquint, is thereby denoted to be a deceitful person, unjust,
+envious, furious, a great liar, and as the effect of all that is
+miserable. He who hath a wandering eye and which is rolling up and down,
+is for the most part a vain, simple, deceitful, lustful, treacherous, or
+high-minded man, an admirer of the fair sex, and one easy to be
+persuaded to virtue or vice. He or she whose eyes are twinkling, and
+which move forward or backward, show the person to be luxurious,
+unfaithful and treacherous, presumptuous, and hard to believe anything
+that is spoken. If a person has any greenness mingled with the white of
+his eye, such is commonly silly, and often very false, vain and
+deceitful, unkind to his friends, a great concealer of his own secrets,
+and very choleric. Those whose eyes are every way rolling up and down,
+or they who seldom move their eyes, and when they do, as it were, draw
+their eyes inwardly and accurately fasten them upon some object, such
+are by their inclinations very malicious, vain-glorious, slothful,
+unfaithful, envious, false and contentious. They whose eyes are addicted
+to blood-shot, are naturally proud, disdainful, cruel, without shame,
+perfidious and much inclined to superstition. But he whose eyes are
+neither too little nor too big, and inclined to black, do signify a man
+mild, peaceable, honest, witty, and of a good understanding; and one
+that, when need requires, will be serviceable to his friends.
+
+A long and thin nose, denotes a man bold, furious, angry, vain, easy to
+be persuaded either to good or evil, weak and credulous. A long nose
+extended, the tip of it bending downwards, shows the person to be wise,
+discreet, secret and officious, honest, faithful and one that will not
+be over-reached in bargaining.
+
+A bottle-nose is what denotes a man to be impetuous in the obtaining of
+his desires, also a vain, false, luxurious, weak and uncertain man; apt
+to believe and easy to be persuaded. A broad nose in the middle, and
+less towards the end, denotes a vain, talkative person, a liar, and one
+of hard fortune. He who hath a long and great nose is an admirer of the
+fair sex, and well accomplished for the wars of Venus, but ignorant of
+the knowledge of anything that is good, extremely addicted to vice;
+assiduous in the obtaining what he desires, and very secret in the
+prosecution of it; and though very ignorant, would fain be thought very
+knowing.
+
+A nose very sharp on the tip of it, and neither too long nor too short,
+too thick nor too thin, denotes the person, if a man, to be of a fretful
+disposition, always pining and peevish; and if a woman, a scold, or
+contentious, wedded to her own humours, of a morose and dogged carriage,
+and if married, a plague to her husband. A nose very round at the end of
+it, and having but little nostrils, shows the person to be munificent
+and liberal, true to his trust, but withal, very proud, credulous and
+vain. A nose very long and thin at the end of it, and something round,
+withal, signifies one bold in his discourse, honest in his dealings,
+patient in receiving, and slow in offering injuries, but yet privately
+malicious. He whose nose is naturally more red than any other part of
+his face, is thereby denoted to be covetous, impious, luxurious, and an
+enemy to goodness. A nose that turns up again, and is long and full at
+the tip of it, shows the person that has it to be bold, proud, covetous,
+envious, luxurious, a liar and deceiver, vain, glorious, unfortunate and
+contentious. He whose nose riseth high in the middle, is prudent and
+polite, and of great courage, honourable in his actions, and true to his
+word. A nose big at the end shows a person to be of a peaceable
+disposition, industrious and faithful, and of a good understanding. A
+very wide nose, with wide nostrils, denotes a man dull of apprehension,
+and inclined more to simplicity than wisdom, and withal vain,
+contentious and a liar.
+
+When the nostrils are close and thin, they denote a man to have but
+little testicles, and to be very desirous of the enjoyment of women, but
+modest in his conversation. But he whose nostrils are great and wide, is
+usually well hung and lustful; but withal of an envious, bold and
+treacherous disposition and though dull of understanding, yet confident
+enough.
+
+A great and wide mouth shows a man to be bold, warlike, shameless and
+stout, a great liar and as great a talker, also a great eater, but as to
+his intellectuals, he is very dull, being for the most part very simple.
+
+A little mouth shows the person to be of a quiet and pacific temper,
+somewhat reticent, but faithful, secret, modest, bountiful, and but a
+little eater.
+
+He whose mouth smells of a bad breath, is one of a corrupted liver and
+lungs, is oftentimes vain, wanton, deceitful, of indifferent intellect,
+envious, covetous, and a promise-breaker. He that has a sweet breath, is
+the contrary.
+
+The lips, when they are very big and blubbering, show a person to be
+credulous, foolish, dull and stupid, and apt to be enticed to anything.
+Lips of a different size denote a person to be discreet, secret in all
+things, judicious and of a good wit, but somewhat hasty. To have lips,
+well coloured and more thin than thick, shows a person to be
+good-humoured in all things and more easily persuaded to good than evil.
+To have one lip bigger than the other, shows a variety of fortunes, and
+denotes the party to be of a dull, sluggish temper, but of a very
+indifferent understanding, as being much addicted to folly.
+
+When the teeth are small, and but weak in performing their office, and
+especially if they are short and few, though they show the person to be
+of a weak constitution, yet they denote him to be of a meek disposition,
+honest, faithful and secret in whatsoever he is intrusted with. To have
+some teeth longer and shorter than others, denotes a person to be of a
+good apprehension, but bold, disdainful, envious and proud. To have the
+teeth very long, and growing sharp towards the end, if they are long in
+chewing, and thin, denotes the person to be envious, gluttonous, bold,
+shameless, unfaithful and suspicious. When the teeth look very brown or
+yellowish, whether they be long or short, it shows the person to be of a
+suspicious temper, envious, deceitful and turbulent. To have teeth
+strong and close together, shows the person to be of a long life, a
+desirer of novelties, and things that are fair and beautiful, but of a
+high spirit, and one that will have his humour in all things; he loves
+to hear news, and to repeat it afterwards, and is apt to entertain
+anything on his behalf. To have teeth thin and weak, shows a weak,
+feeble man, and one of a short life, and of a weak apprehension; but
+chaste, shame-faced, tractable and honest.
+
+A tongue to be too swift of speech shows a man to be downright foolish,
+or at best but a very vain wit. A stammering tongue, or one that
+stumbles in the mouth, signifies a man of a weak understanding, and of a
+wavering mind, quickly in a rage, and soon pacified. A very thick and
+rough tongue denotes a man to be apprehensive, subtle and full of
+compliments, yet vain and deceitful, treacherous, and prone to impiety.
+A thin tongue shows a man of wisdom and sound judgment, very ingenious
+and of an affable disposition, yet somewhat timorous and too credulous.
+
+A great and full voice in either sex shows them to be of a great spirit,
+confident, proud and wilful. A faint and weak voice, attended with but
+little breath, shows a person to be of good understanding, a nimble
+fancy, a little eater, but weak of body, and of a timorous disposition.
+A loud and shrill voice, which sounds clearly denotes a person
+provident, sagacious, true and ingenious, but withal capricious, vain,
+glorious and too credulous. A strong voice when a man sings denotes him
+to be of a strong constitution, and of a good understanding, a nimble
+fancy, a little eater, but weak of body, and of a timorous disposition.
+
+A strong voice when a man sings, denotes him to be of a strong
+constitution, and of a good understanding, neither too penurious nor too
+prodigal, also ingenious and an admirer of the fair sex. A weak and
+trembling voice shows the owner of it to be envious, suspicious, slow in
+business, feeble and fearful. A loud, shrill and unpleasant voice,
+signifies one bold and valiant, but quarrelsome and injurious and
+altogether wedded to his own humours, and governed by his own counsels.
+A rough and hoarse voice, whether in speaking or singing, declares one
+to be a dull and heavy person, of much guts and little brains. A full
+and yet mild voice, and pleasing to the hearer, shows the person to be
+of a quiet and peaceable disposition (which is a great virtue and rare
+to be found in a woman), and also very thrifty and secret, not prone to
+anger, but of a yielding temper. A voice beginning low or in the bass,
+and ending high in the treble, denotes a person to be violent, angry,
+bold and secure.
+
+A thick and full chin abounding with too much flesh, shows a man
+inclined to peace, honest and true to his trust, but slow in invention,
+and easy to be drawn either to good or evil. A peaked chin and
+reasonably full of flesh, shows a person to be of a good understanding,
+a high spirit and laudable conversation. A double chin shows a peaceable
+disposition, but dull of apprehension, vain, credulous, a great
+supplanter, and secret in all his actions. A crooked chin, bending
+upwards, and peaked for want of flesh, is by the rules of physiognomy,
+according to nature, a very bad man, being proud, imprudent, envious,
+threatening, deceitful, prone to anger and treachery, and a great thief.
+
+The hair of young men usually begins to grow down upon their chins at
+fifteen years of age, and sometimes sooner. These hairs proceed from the
+superfluity of heat, the fumes whereof ascend to their chin, like smoke
+to the funnel of a chimney; and because it cannot find an open passage
+by which it may ascend higher, it vents itself forth in the hairs which
+are called the beard. There are very few, or almost no women at all,
+that have hairs on their cheeks; and the reason is, that those humours
+which cause hair to grow on the cheeks of a man are by a woman
+evacuated in the monthly courses, which they have more or less,
+according to the heat or coldness of their constitution, and the age and
+motion of the moon, of which we have spoken at large in the first part
+of this book. Yet sometimes women of a hot constitution have hair to be
+seen on their cheeks, but more commonly on their lips, or near their
+mouths, where the heat most aboundeth. And where this happens, such
+women are much addicted to the company of men, and of a strong and manly
+constitution. A woman who hath little hair on her cheeks, or about her
+mouth and lips, is of a good complexion, weak constitution, shamefaced,
+mild and obedient, whereas a woman of a more hot constitution is quite
+otherwise. But in a man, a beard well composed and thick of hair,
+signifies a man of good nature, honest, loving, sociable and full of
+humanity; on the contrary, he that hath but a little beard, is for the
+most part proud, pining, peevish and unsociable. They who have no
+beards, have always shrill and a strange kind of squeaking voices, and
+are of a weak constitution, which is apparent in the case of eunuchs,
+who, after they are deprived of their virility are transformed from the
+nature of men into the condition of women.
+
+Great and thick ears are a certain sign of a foolish person, or a bad
+memory and worse understanding. But small and thin ears show a person to
+be of a good wit, grave, sweet, thrifty, modest, resolute, of a good
+memory, and one willing to serve his friend. He whose ears are longer
+than ordinary, is thereby signified to be a bold man, uncivil, vain,
+foolish, serviceable to another more than to himself, and a man of small
+industry, but of a great stomach.
+
+A face apt to sweat on every motion, shows a person to be of a very hot
+constitution, vain and luxurious, of a good stomach, but of a bad
+understanding, and a worse conversation. A very fleshy face shows the
+person to be of a fearful disposition, but a merry heart, and withal
+bountiful and discreet, easy to be entreated, and apt to believe
+everything. A lean face, by the rules of physiognomy, denotes the person
+to be of a good understanding, but somewhat capricious and disdainful in
+his conversation. A little and round face, shows a person to be simple,
+very fearful, of a bad memory, and a clownish disposition. A plump face,
+full of carbuncles, shows a man to be a great drinker of wine, vain,
+daring, and soon intoxicated. A face red or high coloured, shows a man
+much inclined to choler, and one that will be soon angry and not easily
+pacified. A long and lean face, shows a man to be both bold, injurious
+and deceitful. A face every way of a due proportion, denotes an
+ingenious person, one fit for anything and very much inclined to what is
+good. One of a broad, full, fat face is, by the rules of physiognomy, of
+a dull, lumpish, heavy constitution, and that for one virtue has three
+vices. A plain, flat face, without any rising shows a person to be very
+wise, loving and courtly in his carriage, faithful to his friend and
+patient in adversity. A face sinking down a little, with crosses in it,
+inclining to leanness, denotes a person to be very laborious, but
+envious, deceitful, false, quarrelsome, vain and silly, and of a dull
+and clownish behaviour. A face of a handsome proportion, and more
+inclining to fat than lean, shows a person just in his actions, true to
+his word, civil, and respectful in his behaviour, of an indifferent
+understanding, and of an extraordinary memory. A crooked face, long and
+lean, denotes a man endued with as bad qualities as the face is with ill
+features. A face broad about the brows, and sharper and less as it grows
+towards the chin, shows a man simple and foolish in managing his
+affairs, vain in his discourse, envious in his nature, deceitful,
+quarrelsome and rude in his conversation. A face well-coloured, full of
+good features, and of an exact symmetry, and a just proportion in all
+its parts, and which is delightful to look upon, is commonly the index
+of a fairer mind and shows a person to be well disposed; but withal
+declares that virtue is not so impregnably seated there, but that by
+strong temptations (especially by the fair sex) it may be supplanted and
+overcome by vice. A pale complexion, shows the person not only to be
+fickle, but very malicious, treacherous, false, proud, presumptuous, and
+extremely unfaithful. A face well-coloured, shows the person to be of a
+praiseworthy disposition and a sound complexion, easy of belief, and
+respectful to his friend, ready to do a courtesy, and very easy to be
+drawn to anything.
+
+A great head, and round, withal, denotes the person to be secret, and of
+great application in carrying on business, and also ingenious and of a
+large imaginative faculty and invention; and likewise laborious,
+constant and honest. The head whose gullet stands forth and inclines
+towards the earth, signifies a person thrifty, wise, peaceable, secret,
+of a retired temper, and constant in the management of his affairs. A
+long head and face, and great, withal, denotes a vain, foolish, idle and
+weak person, credulous and very envious. To have one's head always
+shaking and moving from side to side, denotes a shallow, weak person,
+unstable in all his actions, given to lying, a great deceiver, a great
+talker, and prodigal in all his fortunes. A big head and broad face,
+shows a man to be very courageous, a great hunter after women, very
+suspicious, bold and shameless. He who hath a very big head, but not so
+proportionate as it ought to be to the body, if he hath a short neck and
+crooked gullet is generally a man of apprehension, wise, secret,
+ingenious, of sound judgment, faithful, true and courteous to all. He
+who hath a little head, and long, slender throat, is for the most part a
+man very weak, yet apt to learn, but unfortunate in his actions. And so
+much shall suffice with respect to judgment from the head and face.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+     _Of Judgments drawn from several other parts of Man's Body._
+
+
+In the body of man the head and feet are the principal parts, being the
+index which heaven has laid open to every one's view to make a judgment
+therefrom, therefore I have been the larger in my judgment from the
+several parts thereof. But as to the other parts, I shall be much more
+brief as not being so obvious to the eyes of men; yet I would proceed in
+order.
+
+The throat, if it be white, whether it be fat or lean, shows a man to be
+vain-glorious, timorous, wanton, and very much subject to choler. If the
+throat be so thin and lean that the veins appear, it shows a man to be
+weak, slow, and a dull and heavy constitution.
+
+A long neck shows one to have a long and slender foot, and that the
+person is stiff and inflexible either to good or evil. A short neck
+shows one to be witty and ingenious, but deceitful and inconstant, well
+skilled in the use of arms, and yet cares not to use them, but is a
+great lover of peace and quietness.
+
+A lean shoulder bone, signifies a man to be weak, timorous, peaceful,
+not laborious, and yet fit for any employment. He whose shoulder bones
+are of a great bigness is commonly, by the rule of physiognomy, a strong
+man, faithful but unfortunate; somewhat dull of understanding, very
+laborious, a great eater and drinker, and one equally contented in all
+conditions. He whose shoulder bone seems to be smooth, is by the rule of
+nature, modest in his look, and temperate in all his actions, both at
+bed and board. He whose shoulder bone bends, and is crooked inwardly, is
+commonly a dull person and deceitful.
+
+Long arms, hanging down and touching the knees, though such arms are
+rarely seen, denotes a man liberal, but withal vain-glorious, proud and
+inconstant. He whose arms are very short in respect to the stature of
+his body, is thereby signified to be a man of high and gallant spirit,
+of a graceful temper, bold and warlike. He whose arms are full of bones,
+sinews and flesh, is a great desirer of novelties and beauties, and one
+that is very credulous and apt to believe anything. He whose arms are
+very hairy, whether they be lean or fat, is for the most part a
+luxurious person, weak in body and mind, very suspicious and malicious
+withal. He whose arms have no hair on them at all, is of a weak
+judgment, very angry, vain, wanton, credulous, easily deceived himself,
+yet a great deceiver of others, no fighter, and very apt to betray his
+dearest friends.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+     _Of Palmistry, showing the various Judgments drawn from the Hand._
+
+
+Being engaged in this fourth part to show what judgment may be drawn,
+according to physiognomy, from the several parts of the body, and coming
+in order to speak of the hands, it has put me under the necessity of
+saying something about palmistry, which is a judgment made of the
+conditions, inclinations, and fortunes of men and women, from the
+various lines and characters nature has imprinted in their hands, which
+are almost as serious as the hands that have them.
+
+The reader should remember that one of the lines of the hand, and which
+indeed is reckoned the principal, is called the line of life; this line
+encloses the thumb, separating it from the hollow of the hand. The next
+to it, which is called the natural line, takes its beginning from the
+rising of the forefinger, near the line of life, and reaches to the
+table line, and generally makes a triangle. The table line, commonly
+called the line of fortune, begins under the little finger, and ends
+near the middle finger. The girdle of Venus, which is another line so
+called begins near the first joint of the little finger, and ends
+between the fore-finger and the middle finger. The line of death is that
+which plainly appears in a counter line to that of life, and is called
+the sister line, ending usually as the other ends; for when the line of
+life is ended, death comes, and it can go no farther. There are lines in
+the fleshy parts, as in the ball of the thumb, which is called the mount
+of Venus; under each of the fingers are also mounts, which are governed
+by several planets; and the hollow of the hand is called the plain of
+Mars.
+
+I proceed to give judgment from these several lines:--In palmistry, the
+left hand is chiefly to be regarded, because therein the lines are most
+visible, and have the strictest communication with the heart and brain.
+In the next place, observe the line of life, and if it be fair, extended
+to its full length, and not broken with an intermixture of cross lines,
+it shows long life and health, and it is the same if a double line
+appears, as there sometimes does. When the stars appear in this line, it
+is a signification of great losses and calamities; if on it there be the
+figures of two O's or a Q, it threatens the person with blindness; if it
+wraps itself about the table line, then does it promise wealth and
+honour to be attended by prudence and industry. If the line be cut and
+jagged at the upper end, it denotes much sickness; if this line be cut
+by any lines coming from the mount of Venus, it declares the person to
+be unfortunate in love and business also, and threatens him with sudden
+death. A cross below the line of life and the table line, shows the
+person to be very liberal and charitable, one of a noble spirit. Let us
+now see the signification of the table line.
+
+The table line, when broad and of a lively colour, shows a healthful
+constitution, and a quiet contented mind, and a courageous spirit, but
+if it has crosses towards the little finger, it threatens the party with
+much affliction by sickness. If the line be double, or divided into
+three parts at any of the extremities, it shows the person to be of a
+generous temper, and of a good fortune to support it; but if this line
+be forked at the end, it threatens the person shall suffer by jealousies
+and doubts, and loss of riches gotten by deceit. If three points such as
+these
+
+    * *
+     *
+
+are found in it, they denote the person prudent and liberal, a lover of
+learning, and of a good temper, if it spreads towards the fore and
+middle finger and ends blunt, it denotes preferment. Let us now see what
+is signified by the middle line. This line has in it oftentimes (for
+there is scarce a hand in which it varies not) divers very significant
+characters. Many small lines between this and the table line threaten
+the party with sickness, and also gives him hopes of recovery. A half
+cross branching into this line, declares the person shall have honour,
+riches, and good success in all his undertakings. A half moon denotes
+cold and watery distempers; but a sun or star upon this line, denotes
+prosperity and riches; this line, double in a woman, shows she will have
+several husbands, but no children.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The line of Venus, if it happens to be cut or divided near the
+forefinger, threatens ruin to the party, and that it shall befall him by
+means of lascivious women and bad company. Two crosses upon the line,
+one being on the forefinger and the other bending towards the little
+finger, show the party to be weak, and inclined to modesty and virtue,
+indeed it generally denotes modesty in women; and therefore those who
+desire such, usually choose them by this standard.
+
+The liver line, if it be straight and crossed by other lines, shows the
+person to be of a sound judgment, and a piercing understanding, but if
+it be winding, crooked and bending outward, it draws deceit and
+flattery, and the party is not to be trusted. If it makes a triangle or
+quadrangle, it shows the person to be of a noble descent, and ambitious
+of honour and promotion. If it happens that this line and the middle
+line begin near each other, it denotes a person to be weak in his
+judgment, if a man; but if a woman, in danger by hard labour.
+
+The plain of Mars being in the hollow of the hand, most of the lines
+pass through it, which renders it very significant. This plain being
+crooked and distorted, threatens the party to fall by his enemies. When
+the lines beginning at the wrist are long within the plain, reaching to
+the brawn of the hand, that shows the person to be much given to
+quarrelling, often in broils and of a hot and fiery spirit, by which he
+suffers much damage. If deep and long crosses be in the middle of the
+plain, it shows the party shall obtain honour by martial exploits; but
+if it be a woman, she shall have several husbands and easy labour with
+her children.
+
+The line of Death is fatal, when crosses or broken lines appear in it;
+for they threaten the person with sickness and a short life. A clouded
+moon appearing therein, threatens a child-bed woman with death. A bloody
+spot in the line, denotes a violent death. A star like a comet,
+threatens ruin by war, and death by pestilence. But if a bright sun
+appears therein, it promises long life and prosperity.
+
+As for the lines of the wrist being fair, they denote good fortune; but
+if crossed and broken, the contrary.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+     _Judgments according to Physiognomy, drawn from the several parts
+     of the Body, from the Hands to the Feet._
+
+
+A large and full breast, shows a man valiant and courageous, but withal
+proud and hard to deal with, quickly angry, and very apprehensive of an
+injury; he whose breast is narrow, and which riseth a little in the
+middle of it, is, by the best rule of physiognomy, of a clear spirit, of
+a great understanding, good in counsel, very faithful, clean both in
+mind and body, yet as an enemy to this, he is soon angry, and inclined
+long to keep it. He whose breast is somewhat hairy, is very luxurious,
+and serviceable to another. He who hath no hair upon his breast, is a
+man weak by nature, of a slender capacity and very timorous, but of a
+laudable life and conversation, inclined to peace, and much retired to
+himself.
+
+The back of the chin bone, if the flesh be anything hairy and lean, and
+higher than any other part that is behind, signifies a man shameless,
+beastly and withal malicious. He whose back is large, big and fat, is
+thereby denoted to be a strong and stout man, but of a heavy
+disposition, vain, slow and full of deceit.
+
+He or she whose belly is soft over all the body, is weak, lustful, and
+fearful upon little or no occasion, of a good understanding, and an
+excellent invention, but little eaters, faithful, but of various
+fortune, and meet with more adversity than prosperity. He whose flesh is
+rough and hard, is a man of strong constitution and very bold, but vain,
+proud and of a cruel temper. A person whose skin is smooth, fat and
+white, is a person, curious, vain-glorious, timorous, shame-faced,
+malicious, false, and too wise to believe all he hears.
+
+A thigh, full of strong, bristly hair, and the hair inclined to curl,
+signifies one lustful, licentious, and fit for copulation. Thighs with
+but little hair, and those soft and slender, show the person to be
+reasonably chaste, and one that has no great desire to coition, and who
+will have but few children.
+
+The legs of both men and women have a fleshy substance behind, which are
+called calves, which nature hath given them (as in our book of living
+creatures we have observed), in lieu of those long tails which other
+creatures have pendant behind. Now a great calf, and he whose legs are
+of great bone, and hair withal, denotes the person to be strong, bold,
+secure, dull in understanding and slow in business, inclined to
+procreation, and for the most part fortunate in his undertakings.
+Little legs, and but little hair on them, show the person to be weak,
+fearful, of a quick understanding, and neither luxurious at bed nor
+board. He whose legs do much abound with hair, shows he has great store
+in another place, and that he is lustful and luxurious, strong, but
+unstable in his resolution, and abounding with ill humours.
+
+The feet of either men or women, if broad and thick with flesh, and long
+in figure, especially if the skin feels hard, they are by nature of a
+strong constitution, and gross nutriment, but of weak intellect, which
+renders the understanding vain. But feet that are thin and lean, and of
+a soft skin, show the person to be but weak of body, but of a strong
+understanding and an excellent wit.
+
+The soles of the feet do administer plain and evident signs, whereby the
+disposition and constitution of men and women may be known, as do the
+palms of their hands, as being full of lines, by which lines all the
+fortunes and misfortunes of men and women may be known, and their
+manners and inclinations made plainly to appear. But this in general we
+may take notice, as that many long lines and strokes do presage great
+affliction, and a very troublesome life, attended with much grief and
+toil, care, poverty, and misery; but short lines, if they are thick and
+full of cross lines, are yet worse in every degree. Those, the skin of
+whose soles is very thick and gross, are, for the most part, able,
+strong and venturous. Whereas, on the contrary, those the skin of whose
+soles of their feet is thin, are generally weak and timorous.
+
+I shall now, before I conclude (having given an account of what
+judgments may be made by observing the several parts of the body, from
+the crown of the head to the soles of the feet), give an account of what
+judgments may be drawn by the rule of physiognomy from things extraneous
+which are found upon many, and which indeed to them are parts of the
+body, but are so far from being necessary parts that they are the
+deformity and burden of it, and speak of the habits of the body, as they
+distinguish persons.
+
+
+
+_Of Crooked and Deformed Persons._
+
+A crooked breast and shoulder, or the exuberance of flesh in the body
+either of man or woman, signifies the person to be extremely
+parsimonious and ingenious, and of a great understanding, but very
+covetous and scraping after the things of the world, attended also with
+a very bad memory, being also very deceitful and malicious; they are
+seldom in a medium, but either virtuous or extremely vicious. But if
+the person deformed hath an excrescence on his breast instead of on the
+back, he is for the most part of a double heart, and very mischievous.
+
+
+
+_Of the divers Manners of going, and particular Posture both of Men and
+Women._
+
+He or she that goes slowly, making great steps as they go, are generally
+persons of bad memory, and dull of apprehension, given to loitering, and
+not apt to believe what is told them. He who goes apace, and makes short
+steps, is most successful in all his undertakings, swift in his
+imagination, and humble in the disposition of his affairs. He who makes
+wide and uneven steps, and sidelong withal, is one of a greedy, sordid
+nature, subtle, malicious, and willing to do evil.
+
+
+
+_Of the Gait or Motion in Men and Women._
+
+Every man hath a certain gait or motion, and so in like manner hath
+every woman; for a man to be shaking his head, or using any light motion
+with his hands or feet, whether he stands or sits, or speaks, is always
+accompanied with an extravagant motion, unnecessary, superfluous and
+unhandsome. Such a man, by the rule of physiognomy is vain, unwise,
+unchaste, a detractor, unstable and unfaithful. He or she whose motion
+is not much when discoursing with any one, is for the most part wise and
+well bred, and fit for any employment, ingenious and apprehensive,
+frugal, faithful and industrious in business. He whose posture is
+forwards and backwards, or, as it were, whisking up and down, mimical,
+is thereby denoted to be a vain, silly person, of a heavy and dull wit,
+and very malicious. He whose motion is lame and limping, or otherwise
+imperfect, or that counterfeits an imperfection is denoted to be
+envious, malicious, false and detracting.
+
+
+
+_Judgment drawn from the Stature of Man._
+
+Physiognomy draws several judgments also from the stature of man, which
+take as followeth; if a man be upright and straight, inclined rather to
+leanness than fat, it shows him to be bold, cruel, proud, clamorous,
+hard to please, and harder to be reconciled when displeased, very
+frugal, deceitful, and in many things malicious. To be of tall stature
+and corpulent with it, denotes him to be not only handsome but valiant
+also, but of no extraordinary understanding, and which is worst of all,
+ungrateful and trepanning. He who is extremely tall and very lean and
+thin is a projecting man, that designs no good to himself, and suspects
+every one to be as bad as himself, importunate to obtain what he
+desires, and extremely wedded to his own humour. He who is thick and
+short, is vain, envious, suspicious, and very shallow of apprehension,
+easy of belief, but very long before he will forget an injury. He who is
+lean and short but upright withal, is, by the rules of physiognomy, wise
+and ingenious, bold and confident, and of a good understanding, but of a
+deceitful heart. He who stoops as he goes, not so much by age as custom,
+is very laborious, a retainer of secrets, but very incredulous and not
+easy to believe every vain report he hears. He that goes with his belly
+stretching forth, is sociable, merry, and easy to be persuaded.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+     _Of the Power of the Celestial Bodies over Men and Women._
+
+
+Having spoken thus largely of Physiognomy, and the judgment given
+thereby concerning the dispositions and inclinations of men and women,
+it will be convenient here to show how all these things come to pass;
+and how it is that the secret inclinations and future fate of men and
+women may be known from the consideration of the several parts of the
+bodies. They arise from the power and dominion of superior powers to
+understand the twelve signs of the Zodiac, whose signs, characters and
+significations are as follows:--
+
+[Illustration]
+
+_Aries_, the Ram, which governs the head and face.
+
+_Taurus_, the Bull, which governs the neck.
+
+_Gemini_, the Twins, which governs the hands and arms.
+
+_Cancer_, the Crab, governs the breast and stomach.
+
+_Leo_, the Lion, governs the back and heart
+
+_Virgo_, the Virgin, governs the belly and bowels.
+
+_Libra_, the Balance, governs the veins and loins.
+
+_Scorpio_, the Scorpion, governs the secret parts.
+
+_Sagittary_, the Centaur, governs the thighs.
+
+_Capricorn_, the Goat, governs the knees.
+
+_Aquarius_, the Water-Bearer, governs the legs and ankles.
+
+_Pisces_, the Fish, governs the feet.
+
+It is here furthermore necessary to let the reader know, that the
+ancients have divided the celestial sphere into twelve parts, according
+to the number of these signs, which are termed houses; as in the first
+house, Aries, in the second Taurus, in the third Gemini, etc. And
+besides their assigning the twelve signs of the twelve houses, they
+allot to each house its proper business.
+
+To the first house they give the signification of life.
+
+The second house has the signification of wealth, substances, or riches.
+
+The third is the mansion of brethren.
+
+The fourth, the house of parentage.
+
+The fifth is the house of children.
+
+The sixth is the house of sickness or disease.
+
+The seventh is the house of wedlock, and also of enemies, because
+oftentimes a wife or husband proves the worst enemy.
+
+The eighth is the house of death.
+
+The ninth is the house of religion.
+
+The tenth is the signification of honours.
+
+The eleventh of friendship.
+
+The twelfth is the house of affliction and woe.
+
+Now, astrologically speaking, a house is a certain place in the heaven
+or firmament, divided by certain degrees, through which the planets have
+their motion, and in which they have their residence and are situated.
+And these houses are divided by thirty degrees, for every sign has so
+many degrees. And these signs or houses are called the houses of such
+and such planets as make their residence therein, and are such as
+delight in them, and as they are deposited in such and such houses are
+said to be either dignified or debilitated. For though the planets in
+their several revolutions go through all the houses, yet there are some
+houses which they are more properly said to delight in. As for instance,
+Aries and Scorpio are the houses of Mars; Taurus and Libra of Venus;
+Gemini and Virgo of Mercury; Sagittarius and Pisces are the houses of
+Jupiter; Capricorn and Aquarius are the houses of Saturn; Leo is the
+house of the Sun; and Cancer is the house of the Moon.
+
+Now to sum up the whole, and show how this concerns Physiognomy, is
+this:--as the body of man, as we have shown, is not only governed by the
+signs and planets, but every part is appropriated to one or another of
+them, so according to the particular influence of each sign and planet,
+so governing is the disposition, inclination, and nature of the person
+governed. For such and such tokens and marks do show a person to be born
+under such and such a planet; so according to the nature, power and
+influences of the planets, is the judgment to be made of that person. By
+which the reader may see that the judgments drawn from physiognomy are
+grounded upon a certain verity.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Aristotle the Famous
+Philosopher, by Anonymous
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #12699 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12699)
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+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+<head>
+<meta name="generator" content=
+"HTML Tidy for Windows (vers 1st January 2004), see www.w3.org" />
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content=
+"text/html; charset=us-ascii" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Works of Aristotle the
+Famous Philosopher.</title>
+
+<style type="text/css">
+/*<![CDATA[  XML blockout */
+<!--
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+         text-align: justify;
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+    .blkquot  {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */
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+    .poem             {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;}
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+    /* for rules */
+    .long         {width: 65%;}
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+<body>
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+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Aristotle the Famous
+Philosopher, by Anonymous
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher
+       Containing his Complete Masterpiece and Family Physician; his
+              Experienced Midwife, his Book of Problems and his Remarks on
+              Physiognomy
+
+
+Author: Anonymous
+
+Release Date: June 24, 2004 [EBook #12699]
+Last Updated: February 18, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF ARISTOTLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<hr class="long" />
+<!-- Page 1 --><a name='Page_1' id="Page_1"></a>
+<!-- move illustration -->
+ <!-- Page 2 --><a name='Page_2' id="Page_2"></a>
+<h1>THE WORKS OF<br />
+ARISTOTLE<br />
+THE FAMOUS PHILOSOPHER</h1>
+<br />
+<h2>Containing his Complete Masterpiece and Family Physician; his
+Experienced Midwife, his Book of Problems and his Remarks on
+Physiognomy</h2>
+<br />
+<h3>COMPLETE EDITION, WITH ENGRAVINGS</h3>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='Illustration' id="Illustration"></a>
+<center><img src='img/co001.jpg' alt=
+'Frontispiece ' title='Frontispiece ' /></center>
+<hr class="long" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+<br />
+<div class="contents"><!-- title page -->
+<p class="part"><a href='#THE_MIDWIFES_VADE_MECUM'>THE MIDWIFE'S
+VADE-MECUM</a></p>
+<!-- part 1, book 1, the masterpiece -->
+<!-- the masterpiece is running head throughout the book -->
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_THE_MASTERPIECE">THE
+MASTERPIECE</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>On marriage and at what age young men and virgins are capable
+of it: and why so much desire it. Also, how long men and women are
+capable of it.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER
+II</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>How to beget a male or female child; and of the Embryo and
+perfect Birth; and the fittest time for the copula.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER
+III</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The reason why children are like their parents; and that the
+Mother's imagination contributes thereto; and whether the man or
+the woman is the cause of the male or female child.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER
+IV</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>That Man's Soul is not propagated by their parents, but is
+infused by its Creator, and can neither die nor corrupt. At what
+time it is infused. Of its immortality and certainty of its
+resurrection.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER
+V</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Monsters and Monstrous Births; and the several reasons
+thereof, according to the opinions of the Ancients. Also, whether
+the Monsters are endowed with reasonable Souls; and whether the
+Devils can engender; is here briefly discussed.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER
+VI</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the happy state of matrimony, as it is appointed by God,
+the true felicity that rebounds thereby to either sex; and to what
+end it is ordained.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER
+VII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Errors in Marriages; Why they are, and the Injuries caused
+by them</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER
+VIII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The Opinion of the Learned concerning Children conceived and
+born within Seven Months; with Arguments upon the Subject to
+prevent Suspicion of Incontinency, and bitter Contest on that
+Account. To which are added Rules to Know the Disposition of Man's
+Body by the Genital Parts</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER
+IX</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Green-Sickness in Virgins, with its causes, signs and
+cures; together with the chief occasions of Barrenness in Women,
+and the Means to remove the Cause, and render them
+fruitful</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER
+X</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Virginity, what it is, in what it consists, and how vitiated;
+together with the Opinions of the Learned about the Change of Sex
+in the Womb, during the Operation of Nature in forming the
+Body.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER
+XI</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Directions and Cautions for Midwives; and, first, what ought
+to be the qualifications of a midwife.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER
+XII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Further Directions to Midwives, teaching them what they ought
+to do, and what to avoid</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER
+XIII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The External, and Internal Organs of Generation in
+Women</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER
+XIV</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>A description of the Fabric of the Womb, the preparing
+Vessels and Testicles in Women. Also of the Different and
+Ejaculatory Vessels</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER
+XV</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>A Description of the Use and Action of the several Generative
+Parts in Women</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER
+XVI</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Organs of Generation in Man</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER
+XVII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>A word of Advice to both Sexes, consisting of several
+Directions with regard to Copulation</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<!-- LOOKING GLASS -->
+<!-- part 2, book ?, a private looking glass for the female sex -->
+<!-- the masterpiece is still running head ... we are mostly ignoring this -->
+<!-- title page -->
+<p class="part"><a href=
+'#A_PRIVATE_LOOKING_GLASS_FOR_THE_FEMALE_SEX'>A PRIVATE LOOKING
+GLASS FOR THE FEMALE SEX</a></p>
+<!--
+<p class="part"><a href="#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II">PART II.</p>
+-->
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Treating of the several Maladies incident to the womb, with
+proper remedies for the cure of each</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Retention of the Courses</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Excessive Menstruation</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Weeping of the Womb.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The false Courses, or Whites.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The Suffocation of the Mother</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Descending or Falling of the Womb.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Inflammation of the Womb</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Scirrhous Tumours, or Hardness of the Womb</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Dropsy of the Womb</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Moles and False Conceptions</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Conception and its Signs, and How a Woman may know whether
+it be Male or Female</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Untimely Births</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Directions for Pregnant Women</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Directions for Women when they are taken in Labour, to ensure
+their safe Delivery, and Directions for Midwives</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>What ought to be done in cases of extremity, especially in
+women who, in labour, are attacked by a flux of blood, convulsions
+and fits of wind.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>How child-bearing Women ought to be ordered after
+Delivery</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Acute Pains after Delivery</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<!-- FAMILY PHYSICIAN -->
+<!-- part ?, book ? -->
+<!-- title page -->
+<p class="part"><a href='#FAMILY_PHYSICIAN'>THE FAMILY
+PHYSICIAN</a></p>
+<!-- title page -->
+<p class="part"><a href='#EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE'>THE EXPERIENCED
+MIDWIFE</a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER
+I</a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Conception; what it is; how women are to order themselves
+after Conception.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Parts proper to a Child in the womb; How it is formed
+there, and the manner of its Situation therein.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>A Guide for Women in Travail, showing what is to be done when
+they fall in Labour, in order to their Delivery</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER
+V</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Natural Labour; What it is and what the Midwife is to do
+in such Labour</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Unnatural Labour</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Directions for Child-bearing Women in their Lying-in.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Directions for the Nurses, in ordering Newly-born
+Children</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a></p>
+<!-- PROPER AND SAFE REMEDIES -->
+<!-- part ?, book 2 -->
+<!-- title page -->
+<p class="part"><a href='#PROPER_AND_SAFE_REMEDIES'>PROPER AND SAFE
+REMEDIES</a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#REMEDIES_CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Barrenness; its several Kinds; with the proper Remedies
+for it; and the Signs of Insufficiency both in Men and
+Women</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#REMEDIES_CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER
+II</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The Diseases of the Womb</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#REMEDIES_CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER
+III</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Diseases Relating to Women's Monthly Courses</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<!-- PROPER AND SAFE REMEDIES -->
+<!-- part ?, book 2 -->
+<!-- title page -->
+<p class="part"><a href='#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS'>ARISTOTLE'S BOOK OF
+PROBLEMS</a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Eyes"><i>Of
+the Eyes</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Nose"><i>Of
+the Nose</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Ears"><i>Of
+the Ears</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Mouth"><i>Of
+the Mouth</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Teeth"><i>Of
+the Teeth</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Tongue"><i>Of
+the Tongue</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Roof_of_the_Mouth"><i>Of the Roof of the
+Mouth</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Neck"><i>Of
+the Neck</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Shoulders_and_Arms"><i>Of the Shoulders and
+Arms</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Hands"><i>Of
+the Hands</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Nails"><i>Of
+the Nails</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Paps_and_Dugs"><i>Of the Paps and
+Dugs</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Back"><i>Of
+the Back</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Heart"><i>Of
+the Heart</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Stomach"><i>Of
+the Stomach</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Blood"><i>Of
+the Blood</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Urine"><i>Of
+the Urine</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Gall_and_Spleen"><i>Of the Gall and
+Spleen</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Carnal_Copulation"><i>Of Carnal
+Copulation</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Seed_of_Man_and_Beasts"><i>Of the Seed of
+Man and Beasts</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Hermaphrodites"><i>Of
+Hermaphrodites</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Monsters"><i>Of
+Monsters</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Child_in_the_Womb"><i>Of the Child in the
+Womb</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Abortion_and_Untimely_Birth"><i>Of Abortion
+and Untimely Birth</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Divers_Matters"><i>Of Divers
+Matters</i></a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_ALEXANDER_APHRODISEUS">THE PROBLEMS OF ALEXANDER
+APHRODISEUS</a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href=
+"#BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_MARCUS_ANTONINUS_SANCTIPERTIAS">THE PROBLEMS OF
+MARCUS ANTONINUS SANCTIPERTIAS</a></p>
+<!-- physiognomy -->
+<!-- part 4, book ? -->
+<!-- title page -->
+<p class="part"><a href='#PHSIOGNOMY'>THE SECRETS OF NATURE
+RELATING TO PHYSIOGNOMY</a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER
+I</a></p>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER
+II</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Judgment of Physiognomy</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER
+III</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Judgments drawn from several other parts of Man's
+Body</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER
+IV</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Palmistry, showing the various Judgments drawn from the
+Hand</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER
+V</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Judgments according to Physiognomy, drawn from the several
+parts of the Body, from the Hands to the Feet</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="chapter"><a href="#PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER
+VI</a></p>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Power of the Celestial Bodies over Men and
+Women</i>.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<br />
+<hr class="long" />
+<br />
+<a name='THE_MIDWIFES_VADE_MECUM' id="THE_MIDWIFES_VADE_MECUM"></a>
+<h1>THE MIDWIFE'S VADE-MECUM</h1>
+<!-- Page 3 --><a name='Page_3' id="Page_3"></a>
+<h3>Containing</h3>
+<h2>PARTICULAR DIRECTIONS FOR MIDWIVES, NURSES, ETC.</h2>
+<hr class="short" />
+<h2>SOME GENUINE RECIPES FOR CAUSING SPEEDY DELIVERY.</h2>
+<hr class="short" />
+<h2>APPROVED DIRECTIONS FOR NURSES.</h2>
+<hr class="short" />
+<center><img src='img/co003.jpg' alt=
+'Medical Knowledge' title='Medical Knowledge' /></center>
+<!-- Page 4 --><a name='Page_4' id="Page_4"></a>
+<center><img src='img/co002.jpg' alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<!-- Page 5 --><a name='Page_5' id="Page_5"></a>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='PART_I' id="PART_I"></a>
+<h1>PART I&mdash;BOOK I</h1>
+<!-- Page 6 --><a name='Page_6' id="Page_6"></a> <a name=
+'VADEMECUM_PART_I_THE_MASTERPIECE' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_THE_MASTERPIECE"></a>
+<h2>THE MASTERPIECE</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>On marriage and at what age young men and virgins are capable
+of it: and why so much desire it. Also, how long men and women are
+capable of it.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>There are very few, except some professional debauchees, who
+will not readily agree that "Marriage is honourable to all," being
+ordained by Heaven in Paradise; and without which no man or woman
+can be in a capacity, honestly, to yield obedience to the first law
+of the creation, "Increase and Multiply." And since it is natural
+in young people to desire the embraces, proper to the marriage bed,
+it behoves parents to look after their children, and when they find
+them inclinable to marriage, not violently to restrain their
+inclinations (which, instead of allaying <!-- Page 7 --><a name=
+'Page_7' id="Page_7"></a> them, makes them but the more impetuous)
+but rather provide such suitable matches for them, as may make
+their lives comfortable; lest the crossing of those inclinations
+should precipitate them to commit those follies that may bring an
+indelible stain upon their families. The inclination of maids to
+marriage may be known by many symptoms; for when they arrive at
+puberty, which is about the fourteenth or fifteenth year of their
+age, then their natural purgations begin to flow; and the blood,
+which is no longer to augment their bodies, abounding, stirs up
+their minds to venery. External causes may also incline them to it;
+for their spirits being brisk and inflamed, when they arrive at
+that age, if they eat hard salt things and spices, the body becomes
+more and more heated, whereby the desire to veneral embraces is
+very great, and sometimes almost insuperable. And the use of this
+so much desired enjoyment being denied to virgins, many times is
+followed by dismal consequences; such as the green weesel colonet,
+short-breathing, trembling of the heart, etc. But when they are
+married and their veneral desires satisfied by the enjoyment of
+their husbands, these distempers vanish, and they become more gay
+and lively than before. Also, their eager staring at men, and
+affecting their company, shows that nature pushes them upon
+coition; <!-- Page 8 --><a name='Page_8' id="Page_8"></a> and their
+parents neglecting to provide them with husbands, they break
+through modesty and satisfy themselves in unlawful embraces. It is
+the same with brisk widows, who cannot be satisfied without that
+benevolence to which they were accustomed when they had their
+husbands.</p>
+<p>At the age of 14, the menses, in virgins, begin to flow; then
+they are capable of conceiving, and continue generally until 44,
+when they cease bearing, unless their bodies are strong and
+healthful, which sometimes enables them to bear at 65. But many
+times the menses proceed from some violence done to nature, or some
+morbific matter, which often proves fatal. And, hence, men who are
+desirous of issue ought to marry a woman within the age aforesaid,
+or blame themselves if they meet with disappointment; though, if an
+old man, if not worn out with diseases and incontinency, marry a
+brisk, lively maiden, there is hope of him having children to 70 or
+80 years.</p>
+<p>Hippocrates says, that a youth of 15, or between that and 17,
+having much vital strength, is capable of begetting children; and
+also that the force of the procreating matter increases till 45,
+50, and 55, and then begins to flag; the seed, by degrees, becoming
+unfruitful, the natural spirits being extinguished, and the humours
+dried up. Thus, in general, but as to <!-- Page 9 --><a name=
+'Page_9' id="Page_9"></a> individuals, it often falls out
+otherwise. Nay, it is reported by a credible author, that in
+Swedland, a man was married at 100 years of age to a girl of 30
+years, and had many children by her; but his countenance was so
+fresh, that those who knew him not, imagined him not to exceed 50.
+And in Campania, where the air is clear and temperate, men of 80
+marry young virgins, and have children by them; which shows that
+age in them does not hinder procreation, unless they be exhausted
+in their youths and their yards be shrivelled up.</p>
+<p>If any would know why a woman is sooner barren than a man, they
+may be assured that the natural heat, which is the cause of
+generation, is more predominant in the man than in the woman; for
+since a woman is more moist than a man, as her monthly purgations
+demonstrate, as also the softness of her body; it is also apparent
+that he does not much exceed her in natural heat, which is the
+chief thing that concocts the humours in proper aliment, which the
+woman wanting grows fat; whereas a man, through his native heat,
+melts his fat by degrees and his humours are dissolved; and by the
+benefit thereof are converted into seed. And this may also be
+added, that women, generally, are not so strong as men, nor so wise
+or prudent; nor have so much reason and ingenuity in ordering
+<!-- Page 10 --><a name='Page_10' id="Page_10"></a> affairs; which
+shows that thereby the faculties are hindered in operations.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_II' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_II"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>How to beget a male or female child; and of the Embryo and
+perfect Birth; and the fittest time for the copula.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>When a young couple are married, they naturally desire children;
+and therefore adopt the means that nature has appointed to that
+end. But notwithstanding their endeavours they must know that the
+success of all depends on the blessing of the Gods: not only so,
+but the sex, whether male or female, is from their disposal also,
+though it cannot be denied, that secondary causes have influence
+therein, especially two. First, the general humour, which is
+brought by the arteria praeparantes to the testes, in form of
+blood, and there elaborated into seed, by the seminifical faculty
+residing in them. Secondly, the desire of coition, which fires the
+imagination with unusual fancies, and by the sight of brisk,
+charming beauty, may soon inflame the appetite. But if nature be
+enfeebled, some meats <!-- Page 11 --><a name='Page_11' id=
+"Page_11"></a> must be eaten as will conduce to afford such aliment
+as makes the seed abound, and restores the exhaustion of nature
+that the faculties may freely operate, and remove impediments
+obstructing the procreating of children. Then, since diet alters
+the evil state of the body to a better, those subject to barrenness
+must eat such meats as are juicy and nourish well, making the body
+lively and full of sap; of which faculty are all hot moist meats.
+For, according to Galen, seed is made of pure concocted and windy
+superfluity of blood, whence we may conclude, that there is a power
+in many things, to accumulate seed, and also to augment it; and
+other things of force to cause desire, as hen eggs, pheasants,
+woodcocks, gnat-snappers, blackbirds, thrushes, young pigeons,
+sparrows, partridges, capons, almonds, pine nuts, raisins,
+currants, strong wines taken sparingly, especially those made of
+the grapes of Italy. But erection is chiefly caused by scuraum,
+eringoes, cresses, crysmon, parsnips, artichokes, turnips,
+asparagus, candied ginger, acorns bruised to powder and drank in
+muscadel, scallion, sea shell fish, etc. But these must have time
+to perform their operation, and must be used for a considerable
+time, or you will reap but little benefit from them. The act of
+coition being over, let the woman repose herself on her right side,
+with her head lying low, <!-- Page 12 --><a name='Page_12' id=
+"Page_12"></a> and her body declining, that by sleeping in that
+posture, the cani, on the right side of the matrix, may prove the
+place of conception; for therein is the greatest generative heat,
+which is the chief procuring cause of male children, and rarely
+fails the expectations of those that experience it, especially if
+they do but keep warm, without much motion, leaning to the right,
+and drinking a little spirit of saffron and juice of hissop in a
+glass of Malaga or Alicant, when they lie down and arise, for a
+week.</p>
+<p>For a female child, let the woman lie on her left side, strongly
+fancying a female in the time of procreation, drinking the
+decoction of female mercury four days from the first day of
+purgation; the male mercury having the like operation in case of a
+male; for this concoction purges the right and left side of the
+womb, opens the receptacles, and makes way for the seminary of
+generation. The best time to beget a female is, when the moon is in
+the wane, in Libra or Aquaries. Advicenne says, that when the
+menses are spent and the womb cleansed, which is commonly in five
+or seven days at most, if a man lie with his wife from the first
+day she is purged to the fifth, she will conceive a male; but from
+the fifth to the eighth a female; and from the eighth to the
+twelfth a male again: but after that perhaps neither distinctly,
+but both <!-- Page 13 --><a name='Page_13' id="Page_13"></a> in an
+hermaphrodite. In a word, they that would be happy in the fruits of
+their labour, must observe to use copulation in due distance of
+time, not too often nor too seldom, for both are alike hurtful; and
+to use it immoderately weakens and wastes the spirits and spoils
+the seed. And this much for the first particular.</p>
+<p>The second is to let the reader know how the child is formed in
+the womb, what accidents it is liable to there, and how nourished
+and brought forth. There are various opinions concerning this
+matter; therefore, I shall show what the learned say about it.</p>
+<p>Man consists of an egg, which is impregnated in the testicles of
+the woman, by the more subtle parts of the man's seed; but the
+forming faculty and virtue in the seed is a divine gift, it being
+abundantly imbued with vital spirit, which gives sap and form to
+the embryo, so that all parts and bulk of the body, which is made
+up in a few months and gradually formed into the likely figure of a
+man, do consist in, and are adumbrated thereby (most sublimely
+expressed, Psalm cxxxix.: "I will praise Thee, O Lord, for I am
+fearfully and wonderfully made.")</p>
+<p>Physicians have remarked four different times at which a man is
+framed and perfected in the womb; the first after coition, being
+perfectly formed in the week if no flux happens, which
+<!-- Page 14 --><a name='Page_14' id="Page_14"></a> sometimes falls
+out through the slipperiness of the head of the matrix, that slips
+over like a rosebud that opens suddenly. The second time of forming
+is assigned when nature makes manifest mutation in the conception,
+so that all the substance seems congealed, flesh and blood, and
+happens twelve or fourteen days after copulation. And though this
+fleshy mass abounds with inflamed blood, yet it remains
+undistinguishable, without form, and may be called an embryo, and
+compared to seed sown in the ground, which, through heat and
+moisture, grows by degrees to a perfect form in plant or grain. The
+third time assigned to make up this fabric is when the principal
+parts show themselves plain; as the heart, whence proceed the
+arteries, the brain, from which the nerves, like small threads, run
+through the whole body; and the liver, which divides the chyle from
+the blood, brought to it by the vena porta. The two first are
+fountains of life, that nourish every part of the body, in framing
+which the faculty of the womb is bruised, from the conception of
+the eighth day of the first month. The fourth, and last, about the
+thirtieth day, the outward parts are seen nicely wrought,
+distinguished by joints, from which time it is no longer an embryo,
+but a perfect child.</p>
+<p>Most males are perfect by the thirtieth day,
+<!-- Page 15 --><a name='Page_15' id="Page_15"></a> but females
+seldom before the forty-second or forty-fifth day, because the heat
+of the womb is greater in producing the male than the female. And,
+for the same reason, a woman going with a male child quickens in
+three months, but going with a female, rarely under four, at which
+time its hair and nails come forth, and the child begins to stir,
+kick and move in the womb, and then the woman is troubled with a
+loathing for meat and a greedy longing for things contrary to
+nutriment, as coals, rubbish, chalk, etc., which desire often
+occasions abortion and miscarriage. Some women have been so
+extravagant as to long for hob nails, leather, horse-flesh, man's
+flesh, and other unnatural as well as unwholesome food, for want of
+which thing they have either miscarried or the child has continued
+dead in the womb for many days, to the imminent hazard of their
+lives. But I shall now proceed to show by what means the child is
+maintained in the womb, and what posture it there remains in.</p>
+<p>The learned Hippocrates affirms that the child, as he is placed
+in the womb, has his hands on his knees, and his head bent to his
+feet, so that he lies round together, his hands upon his knees and
+his face between them, so that each eye touches each thumb, and his
+nose betwixt his knees. And of the same opinion in this matter
+<!-- Page 16 --><a name='Page_16' id="Page_16"></a> was
+Bartholinus. Columbus is of opinion that the figure of the child in
+the womb is round, the right arm bowed, the fingers under the ear,
+and about the neck, the head bowed so that the chin touches the
+breast, the left arm bowed above both breast and face and propped
+up by the bending of the right elbow; the legs are lifted upwards,
+the right so much that the thigh touches the belly, the knee the
+navel, the heel touches the left buttock, and the foot is turned
+back and covers the secrets; the left thigh touches the belly, and
+the leg lifted up to the breast.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_III' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_III"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The reason why children are like their parents; and that the
+Mother's imagination contributes thereto; and whether the man or
+the woman is the cause of the male or female child.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>In the case of similitude, nothing is more powerful than the
+imagination of the mother; for if she fix her eyes upon any object
+it will so impress her mind, that it oftentimes so happens
+<!-- Page 17 --><a name='Page_17' id="Page_17"></a> that the child
+has a representation thereof on some part of the body. And, if in
+act of copulation, the woman earnestly look on the man, and fix her
+mind on him, the child will resemble its father. Nay, if a woman,
+even in unlawful copulation, fix her mind upon her husband, the
+child will resemble him though he did not beget it. The same effect
+has imagination in occasioning warts, stains, mole-spots, and
+dartes; though indeed they sometimes happen through frights, or
+extravagant longing. Many women, in being with child, on seeing a
+hare cross the road in front of them, will, through the force of
+imagination, bring forth a child with a hairy lip. Some children
+are born with flat noses and wry mouths, great blubber lips and
+ill-shaped bodies; which must be ascribed to the imagination of the
+mother, who has cast her eyes and mind upon some ill-shaped
+creature. Therefore it behoves all women with child, if possible,
+to avoid such sights, or at least, not to regard them. But though
+the mother's imagination may contribute much to the features of the
+child, yet, in manners, wit, and propension of the mind, experience
+tells us, that children are commonly of the condition with their
+parents, and possessed of similar tempers. But the vigour or
+disability of persons in the act of copulation many times cause it
+to be otherwise; <!-- Page 18 --><a name='Page_18' id=
+"Page_18"></a> for children begotten through the heat and strength
+of desire, must needs partake more of the nature and inclination of
+their parents, than those begotten at a time when desires are
+weaker; and, therefore, the children begotten by men in their old
+age are generally weaker than, those begotten by them in their
+youth. As to the share which each of the parents has in begetting
+the child, we will give the opinions of the ancients about it.</p>
+<p>Though it is apparent that the man's seed is the chief efficient
+being of the action, motion, and generation: yet that the woman
+affords seed and effectually contributes in that point to the
+procreation of the child, is evinced by strong reasons. In the
+first place, seminary vessels had been given her in vain, and
+genital testicles inverted, if the woman wanted seminal
+excrescence, for nature does nothing in vain; and therefore we must
+grant, they were made for the use of seed and procreation, and
+placed in their proper parts; both the testicles and the
+receptacles of seed, whose nature is to operate and afford virtue
+to the seed. And to prove this, there needs no stronger argument,
+say they, than that if a woman do not use copulation to eject her
+seed, she often falls into strange diseases, as appears by young
+men and virgins. A second reason they urge is, that although the
+<!-- Page 19 --><a name='Page_19' id="Page_19"></a> society of a
+lawful bed consists not altogether in these things, yet it is
+apparent the female sex are never better pleased, nor appear more
+blythe and jocund, than when they are satisfied this way; which is
+an inducement to believe they have more pleasure and titulation
+therein than men. For since nature causes much delight to accompany
+ejection, by the breaking forth of the swelling spirits and the
+swiftness of the nerves; in which case the operation on the woman's
+part is double, she having an enjoyment both by reception and
+ejection, by which she is more delighted in.</p>
+<p>Hence it is, they say, that the child more frequently resembles
+the mother than the father, because the mother contributes more
+towards it. And they think it may be further instanced, from the
+endeared affection they bear them; for that, besides their
+contributing seminal matters, they feed and nourish the child with
+the purest fountain of blood, until its birth. Which opinion Galen
+affirms, by allowing children to participate most of the mother;
+and ascribes the difference of sex to the different operations of
+the menstrual blood; but this reason of the likeness he refers to
+the power of the seed; for, as the plants receive more nourishment
+from fruitful ground, than from the industry of the husbandman, so
+the infant receives more abundance <!-- Page 20 --><a name=
+'Page_20' id="Page_20"></a> from the mother than the father. For
+the seed of both is cherished in the womb, and then grows to
+perfection, being nourished with blood. And for this reason it is,
+they say, that children, for the most part, love their mothers
+best, because they receive the most of their substance from their
+mother; for about nine months she nourishes her child in the womb
+with the purest blood; then her love towards it newly born, and its
+likeness, do clearly show that the woman affords seed, and
+contributes more towards making the child than the man.</p>
+<p>But in this all the ancients were very erroneous; for the
+testicles, so called in women, afford not only seed, but are two
+eggs, like those of fowls and other creatures; neither have they
+any office like those of men, but are indeed the ovaria, wherein
+the eggs are nourished by the sanguinary vessels disposed
+throughout them; and from thence one or more as they are fecundated
+by the man's seed is separated and conveyed into the womb by the
+ovaducts. The truth of this is plain, for if you boil them the
+liquor will be of the same colour, taste and consistency, with the
+taste of birds' eggs. If any object that they have no shells, that
+signifies nothing: for the eggs of fowls while they are on the
+ovary, nay, after they are fastened into the uterus, have no shell.
+And though <!-- Page 21 --><a name='Page_21' id="Page_21"></a> when
+they are laid, they have one, yet that is no more than a defence
+with which nature has provided them against any outward injury,
+while they are hatched without the body; whereas those of women
+being hatched within the body, need no other fence than the womb,
+by which they are sufficiently secured. And this is enough, I hope,
+for the clearing of this point.</p>
+<p>As for the third thing proposed, as whence grow the kind, and
+whether the man or the woman is the cause of the male or female
+infant&mdash;the primary cause we must ascribe to God as is most
+justly His due, who is the Ruler and Disposer of all things; yet He
+suffers many things to proceed according to the rules of nature by
+their inbred motion, according to usual and natural courses,
+without variation; though indeed by favour from on high, Sarah
+conceived Isaac; Hannah, Samuel; and Elizabeth, John the Baptist;
+but these were all extraordinary things, brought to pass by a
+Divine power, above the course of nature. Nor have such instances
+been wanting in later days; therefore, I shall wave them, and
+proceed to speak of things natural.</p>
+<p>The ancient physicians and philosophers say that since these two
+principles out of which the body of man is made, and which renders
+the <!-- Page 22 --><a name='Page_22' id="Page_22"></a> child like
+the parents, and by one or other of the sex, viz., seed common to
+both sexes and menstrual blood, proper to the woman only; the
+similitude, say they, must needs consist in the force of virtue of
+the male or female, so that it proves like the one or the other,
+according to the quantity afforded by either, but that the
+difference of sex is not referred to the seed, but to the menstrual
+blood, which is proper to the woman, is apparent; for, were that
+force altogether retained in the seed, the male seed being of the
+hottest quality, male children would abound and few of the female
+be propagated; wherefore, the sex is attributed to the temperament
+or to the active qualities, which consists in heat and cold and the
+nature of the matter under them&mdash;that is, the flowing of the
+menstruous blood. But now, the seed, say they, affords both force
+to procreate and to form the child, as well as matter for its
+generation; and in the menstruous blood there is both matter and
+force, for as the seed most helps the maternal principle, so also
+does the menstrual blood the potential seed, which is, says Galen,
+blood well concocted by the vessels which contain it. So that the
+blood is not only the matter of generating the child, but also
+seed, it being impossible that menstrual blood has both
+principles.</p>
+<p>The ancients also say that the seed is the
+<!-- Page 23 --><a name='Page_23' id="Page_23"></a> stronger
+efficient, the matter of it being very little in quantity, but the
+potential quality of it is very strong; wherefore, if these
+principles of generation, according to which the sex is made were
+only, say they, in the menstrual blood, then would the children be
+all mostly females; as were the efficient force in the seed they
+would be all males; but since both have operation in menstrual
+blood, matter predominates in quantity and in the seed force and
+virtue. And, therefore, Galen thinks that the child receives its
+sex rather from the mother than the father, for though his seed
+contributes a little to the natural principle, yet it is more
+weakly. But for likeliness it is referred rather to the father than
+to the mother. Yet the woman's seed receiving strength from the
+menstrual blood for the space of nine months, overpowers the man's
+in that particular, for the menstrual blood rather cherishes the
+one than the other; from which it is plain the woman affords both
+matter to make and force and virtue to perfect the conception;
+though the female's be fit nutriment for the male's by reason of
+the thinness of it, being more adapted to make up conception
+thereby. For as of soft wax or moist clay, the artificer can frame
+what he intends, so, say they, the man's seed mixing with the
+woman's and also with the menstrual blood, <!-- Page 24 --><a name=
+'Page_24' id="Page_24"></a> helps to make the form and perfect part
+of man.</p>
+<p>But, with all imaginary deference to the wisdom of our fathers,
+give me leave to say that their ignorance of the anatomy of man's
+body have led them into the paths of error and ran them into great
+mistakes. For their hypothesis of the formation of the embryo from
+commixture of blood being wholly false, their opinion in this case
+must of necessity be likewise. I shall therefore conclude this
+chapter by observing that although a strong imagination of the
+mother may often determine the sex, yet the main agent in this case
+is the plastic or formative principle, according to those rules and
+laws given us by the great Creator, who makes and fashions it, and
+therein determines the sex, according to the council of his
+will.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_IV' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_IV"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>That Man's Soul is not propagated by their parents, but is
+infused by its Creator, and can neither die nor corrupt. At what
+time it is infused. Of its immortality and certainty of its
+resurrection.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Man's soul is of so divine a nature and excellency that man
+himself cannot comprehend it, <!-- Page 25 --><a name='Page_25' id=
+"Page_25"></a> being the infused breath of the Almighty, of an
+immortal nature, and not to be comprehended but by Him that gave
+it. For Moses, relating the history of man, tells us that "God
+breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a
+living soul." Now, as for all other creatures, at His word they
+were made and had life, but the creature that God had set over His
+works was His peculiar workmanship, formed by Him out of the dust
+of the earth, and He condescended to breathe into his nostrils the
+breath of life, which seems to denote both care and, if we may so
+term it, labour, used about man more than about all other living
+creatures, he only partaking and participating of the blessed
+divine nature, bearing God's image in innocence and purity, whilst
+he stood firm; and when, by his fall, that lively image was
+defaced, yet such was the love of the Creator towards him that he
+found out a way to restore him, the only begotten son of the
+Eternal Father coming into the world to destroy the works of the
+devil, and to raise up man from that low condition to which sin and
+his fall had reduced him, to a state above that of the angels.</p>
+<p>If, therefore, man would understand the excellency of his soul,
+let him turn his eyes inwardly and look unto himself and search
+diligently his own mind, and there he shall see many admirable
+<!-- Page 26 --><a name='Page_26' id="Page_26"></a> gifts and
+excellent ornaments, that must needs fill him with wonder and
+amazement; as reason, understanding, freedom of will, memory, etc.,
+that clearly show the soul to be descended from a heavenly
+original, and that therefore it is of infinite duration and not
+subject to annihilation.</p>
+<p>Yet for its many operations and offices while in the body it
+goes under several denominations: for when it enlivens the body it
+is called the soul; when it gives knowledge, the judgment of the
+mind; and when it recalls things past, the memory; when it
+discourses and discerns, reason; when it contemplates, the spirit;
+when it is the sensitive part, the senses. And these are the
+principal offices whereby the soul declares its powers and performs
+its actions. For being seated in the highest parts of the body it
+diffuses its force into every member. It is not propagated from the
+parents, nor mixed with gross matter, but the infused breath of
+God, immediately proceeding from Him; not passing from one to
+another as was the opinion of Pythagoras, who held a belief in
+transmigration of the soul; but that the soul is given to every
+infant by infusion, is the most received and orthodox opinion. And
+the learned do likewise agree that this is done when the infant is
+perfected in the womb, which happens about the twenty-
+<!-- Page 27 --><a name='Page_27' id="Page_27"></a> fourth day
+after conception; especially for males, who are generally born at
+the end of nine months; but in females, who are not so soon formed
+and perfected, through defect of heat, until the fiftieth day. And
+though this day in either case cannot be truly set down, yet
+Hippocrates has given his opinion, that it is so when the child is
+formed and begins to move, when born in due season. In his book of
+the nature of infants, he says, if it be a male and be perfect on
+the thirtieth day, and move on the seventieth, he will be born in
+the seventh month; but if he be perfectly formed on the
+thirty-fifth day, he will move on the seventieth and will be born
+in the eighth month. Again, if he be perfectly formed on the
+forty-fifth day, he will move on the ninetieth and be born in the
+ninth month. Now from these paring of days and months, it plainly
+appears that the day of forming being doubled, makes up the day of
+moving, and the day, three times reckoned, makes up the day of
+birth. As thus, when thirty-five perfects the form, if you double
+it, makes seventy the day of motion; and three times seventy
+amounts to two hundred and ten days; while allowing thirty days to
+a month makes seven months, and so you must consider the rest. But
+as to a female the case is different; for it is longer perfecting
+in the womb, the mother ever going <!-- Page 28 --><a name=
+'Page_28' id="Page_28"></a> longer with a girl than with a boy,
+which makes the account differ; for a female formed in thirty days
+does not move until the seventieth day, and is born in the seventh
+month; when she is formed on the fortieth day, she does not move
+till the eightieth and is born in the eighth month; but, if she be
+perfectly formed on the forty-fifth day she moves on the ninetieth,
+and the child is born in the ninth month; but if she that is formed
+on the sixtieth day, moves on the one hundred and tenth day, she
+will be born in the tenth month. I treat the more largely of love
+that the reader may know that the reasonable soul is not propagated
+by the parents, but is infused by the Almighty, when the child has
+its perfect form, and is exactly distinguished in its
+lineaments.</p>
+<p>Now, as the life of every other creature, as Moses shows, is in
+the blood, so the life of man consists in the soul, which although
+subject to passion, by reason of the gross composures of the body,
+in which it has a temporary confinement, yet it is immortal and
+cannot in itself corrupt or suffer change, it being a spark of the
+Divine Mind. And that every man has a peculiar soul plainly appears
+by the vast difference between the will, judgment, opinions,
+manners, and affections in men. This David observes when he says:
+"God hath fashioned the hearts <!-- Page 29 --><a name='Page_29'
+id="Page_29"></a> and minds of men, and has given to every one his
+own being and a soul of its own nature." Hence Solomon rejoiced
+that God had given him a soul, and a body agreeable to it. It has
+been disputed among the learned in what part of the body the soul
+resides; some are of opinion its residence is in the middle of the
+heart, and from thence communicates itself to every part, which
+Solomon (Prov. iv. 23) seems to confirm when he says: "Keep thy
+heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life."
+But many curious physicians, searching the works of nature in man's
+anatomy, do affirm that its chief seat is in the brain, from whence
+proceed the senses, the faculties, and actions, diffusing the
+operations of the soul through all parts of the body, whereby it is
+enlivened with heat and force to the heart, by the arteries,
+corodities, or sleepy arteries, which part upon the throat; which,
+if they happen to be broken or cut, they cause barrenness, and if
+stopped an apoplexy; for there must necessarily be ways through
+which the spirits, animal and vital, may have intercourse and
+convey native heat from the soul. For though the soul has its chief
+seat in one place, it operates in every part, exercising every
+member which are the soul's instruments, by which she discovers her
+power. But if it happen that any of the original parts are out of
+<!-- Page 30 --><a name='Page_30' id="Page_30"></a> tune, its whole
+work is confused, as appears in idiots and mad men; though, in some
+of them, the soul, by a vigorous exertion of its power, recovers
+its innate strength and they become right after a long despondency
+in mind, but in others it is not recovered again in this life. For,
+as fire under ashes, or the sun obscured from our sight by thick
+clouds, afford not their native lustre, so the soul, overwhelmed in
+moist or morbid matter, is darkened and reason thereby overclouded;
+and though reason shines less in children than it does in such as
+are arrived at maturity, yet no man must imagine that the soul of
+an infant grows up with the child, for then would it again decay;
+but it suits itself to nature's weakness, and the imbecility of the
+body wherein it is placed, that it may operate the better. And as
+the body is more capable of recovering its influence, so the soul
+does more and more exert its faculties, having force and endowment
+at the time it enters the form of a child in the womb; for its
+substance can receive nothing less. And thus much to prove that the
+soul does not come from the parents, but is infused by God. I shall
+next prove its immortality and demonstrate the certainty of our
+resurrection.</p>
+<!-- Page 31 --><a name='Page_31' id="Page_31"></a>
+<h4>OF THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL</h4>
+<p>That the soul of man is a Divine ray, infused by the Sovereign
+Creator, I have already proved, and now come to show that whatever
+immediately proceeds from Him, and participates of His nature, must
+be as immortal as its original; for, though all other creatures are
+endowed with life and motion, they yet lack a reasonable soul, and
+from thence it is concluded that their life is in their blood, and
+that being corruptible they perish and are no more; but man being
+endowed with a reasonable soul and stamped with a Divine image, is
+of a different nature, and though his body is corruptible, yet his
+soul being of an immortal nature cannot perish; but at the
+dissolution of the body returns to God who gave it, either to
+receive reward or punishment. Now, that the body can sin of itself
+is impossible, because wanting the soul, which is the principle of
+life, it cannot act nor proceed to anything either good or evil;
+for could it do so, it might even sin in the grave. But it is plain
+that after death there is a cessation; for as death leaves us so
+judgment will find us.</p>
+<p>Now, reason having evidently demonstrated the soul's
+immortality, the Holy Scriptures do abundantly give testimony of
+the truth of the <!-- Page 32 --><a name='Page_32' id=
+"Page_32"></a> resurrection, as the reader may see by perusing the
+14th and 19th chapters of Job and 5th of John. I shall, therefore,
+leave the further discussion of this matter to divines, whose
+province it is, and return to treat of the works of nature.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_V' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_V"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Monsters and Monstrous Births; and the several reasons
+thereof, according to the opinions of the Ancients. Also, whether
+the Monsters are endowed with reasonable Souls; and whether the
+Devils can engender; is here briefly discussed.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>By the ancients, monsters are ascribed to depraved conceptions,
+and are designated as being excursions of nature, which are vicious
+in one of these four ways: either in figure, magnitude, situation,
+or number.</p>
+<p>In figure, when a man bears the character of a beast, as did the
+beast in Saxony. In magnitude, when one part does not equalise with
+another; as when one part is too big or too little for the other
+parts of the body. But this is so common among us that I need not
+produce a testimony.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 33 --><a name='Page_33' id="Page_33"></a></p>
+<center><img src='img/bw033.png'  alt=
+'Monster at Ravenna' title='' /></center>
+<p class="blkquot">There was a Monster at Ravenna in Italy of this
+kind, in the year 1512.</p>
+<p>I now proceed to explain the cause of their generation, which is
+either divine or natural. The divine cause proceeds from God's
+permissive will, suffering parents to bring forth abominations for
+their filthy and corrupt affections, which are let loose unto
+wickedness like brute beasts which have no understanding. Wherefore
+it was enacted among the ancient Romans that those who were in any
+way deformed, should not be admitted into religious houses.
+<!-- Page 34 --><a name='Page_34' id="Page_34"></a> And St. Jerome
+was grieved in his time to see the lame and the deformed offering
+up spiritual sacrifices to God in religious houses. And Keckerman,
+by way of inference, excludes all that are ill-shapen from this
+presbyterian function in the church. And that which is of more
+force than all, God himself commanded Moses not to receive such to
+offer sacrifice among his people; and he also renders the reason
+Leviticus, xxii. 28, "Lest he pollute my sanctuaries." Because of
+the outward deformity, the body is often a sign of the pollution of
+the heart, as a curse laid on the child for the incontinency of its
+parents. Yet it is not always so. Let us therefore duly examine and
+search out the natural cause of their generation, which (according
+to the ancients who have dived into the secrets of nature) is
+either in the mother or in the agent, in the seed, or in the
+womb.</p>
+<p>The matter may be in default two ways&mdash;by defect or by
+excess: by defect, when the child has only one arm; by excess, when
+it has four hands or two heads. Some monsters are begotten by a
+woman's unnatural lying with beasts; as in the year 1603, there was
+a monster begotten by a woman's generating with a dog; which from
+the navel upwards had the perfect resemblance of its mother: but
+from its navel downwards it resembled a dog.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 35 --><a name='Page_35' id="Page_35"></a></p>
+<center><img src='img/bw035.png'  alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<p>The agent or womb may be in fault three ways; firstly, the
+formative faculty, which may be too strong or too weak, by which is
+procured a depraved figure; secondly, to the instrument or place of
+conception, the evil confirmation or the disposition whereof will
+cause a monstrous birth; thirdly, in the imaginative power at the
+time of conception; which is of such a force that it stamps the
+character of the thing imagined on the child. Thus the children of
+an adulteress may be like her husband, though begotten by another
+man, which is caused through the force of imagination
+<!-- Page 36 --><a name='Page_36' id="Page_36"></a> that the woman
+has of her own husband at the act of coition. And I have heard of a
+woman, who, at the time of conception, beholding the picture of a
+blackamoor, conceived and brought forth an Ethiopian. I will not
+trouble you with more human testimonies, but conclude with a
+stronger warrant. We read (Gen. xxx. 31) how Jacob having agreed
+with Laban to have all the spotted sheep <!-- Page 37 --><a name=
+'Page_37' id="Page_37"></a> for keeping his flock to augment his
+wages, took hazel rods and peeled white streaks on them, and laid
+them before the sheep when they came to drink, which coupling
+together there, whilst they beheld the rods, conceived and brought
+forth young.</p>
+<center><img src='img/bw036.png' alt=
+"&quot;Where children thus are born with hairy coats Heaven's wrath unto the kingdom it denotes&quot;"
+     title='' />
+<div class='poem'>
+<div class='stanza'><span>"Where children thus are born with hairy
+coats<br /></span> <span>Heaven's wrath unto the kingdom it
+denotes"<br /></span></div>
+</div>
+</center>
+<p>Another monster representing a hairy child. It was all covered
+with hair like a beast. That which made it more frightful was, that
+its navel was in the place where its nose should stand, and its
+eyes placed where the mouth should have been, and its mouth placed
+in the chin. It was of the male kind, and was born in France, in
+the year 1597, at a town called Arles in Provence, and lived a few
+days, frightening all that beheld it. It was looked upon as a
+forerunner of desolations which soon after happened to that
+kingdom, in which men to each other were more like brutes than
+human creatures.</p>
+<p>There was a monster born at Nazara in the year 1530. It had four
+arms and four legs.</p>
+<p>The imagination also works on the child, after conception, of
+which we have a pregnant instance.</p>
+<p>A worthy gentlewoman in Suffolk, who being with child and
+passing by a butcher who was killing his meat, a drop of blood
+sprung on her <!-- Page 38 --><a name='Page_38' id="Page_38"></a>
+face, whereupon she said her child would have a blemish on its
+face, and at the birth it was found marked with a red spot.</p>
+<center><img src='img/bw038.png' alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<p>Likewise in the reign of Henry III, there was a woman delivered
+of a child having two heads and four arms, and the bodies were
+joined at the back; the heads were so placed that they looked
+contrary ways; each had two distinct arms and hands. They would
+both laugh, both <!-- Page 39 --><a name='Page_39' id=
+"Page_39"></a> speak, and both cry, and be hungry together;
+sometimes the one would speak and the other keep silence, and
+sometimes both speak together. They lived several years, but one
+outlived the other three years, carrying the dead one (for there
+was no parting them) till the survivor fainted with the burden, and
+more with the stench of the dead carcase.</p>
+<center><img src='img/bw039.png'  alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<p>It is certain that monstrous births often happen by means of
+undue copulation; for some there are, who, having been long absent
+from one another, and having an eager desire
+<!-- Page 40 --><a name='Page_40' id="Page_40"></a> for enjoyment,
+consider not as they ought, to do as their circumstances demand.
+And if it happen that they come together when the woman's menses
+are flowing, and notwithstanding, proceed to the act of copulation,
+which is both unclean and unnatural, the issue of such copulation
+does often prove monstrous, as a just punishment for doing what
+nature forbids. And, therefore, though men should be ever so eager
+for it, yet women, knowing their own condition, should at such
+times positively refuse their company. And though such copulations
+do not always produce monstrous birth, yet <!-- Page 41 --><a name=
+'Page_41' id="Page_41"></a> the children, thus begotten, are
+generally heavy, dull, and sluggish, besides defective in their
+understandings, lacking the vivacity and loveliness with which
+children begotten in proper season are endowed.</p>
+<center><img src='img/bw040.png'  alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<center><img src='img/bw041.png' alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<p>In Flanders, between Antwerp and Mechlin, in a village called
+Uthaton, a child was born which had two heads, four arms, seeming
+like two girls joined together, having two of their arms lifted up
+between and above their heads, <!-- Page 42 --><a name='Page_42'
+id="Page_42"></a> the thighs being placed as it were across one
+another, according to the figure on p. 39. How long they lived I
+had no account of.</p>
+<p>By the figure on p. 40 you may see that though some of the
+members are wanting, yet they are supplied by other members.</p>
+<p>It remains now that I make some inquiry whether those that are
+born monsters have reasonable souls, and are capable of
+resurrection. And here both divines and physicians are of opinion
+that those who, according to the order of generations deduced from
+our first parents, proceed by mutual means from either sex, though
+their outward shape be deformed and monstrous, have notwithstanding
+a reasonable soul, and consequently their bodies are capable of
+resurrection, as other men's and women's are; but those monsters
+that are not begotten by men, but are the product of women's
+unnatural lusts in copulating with other creatures shall perish as
+the brute beasts by whom they were begotten, not having a
+reasonable soul nor any breath of the Almighty infused into them;
+and such can never be capable of resurrection. And the same is also
+true of imperfect and abortive births.</p>
+<p>Some are of opinion that monsters may be engendered by some
+infernal spirit. Of this mind was Adigus Fariur, speaking of a
+deformed <!-- Page 43 --><a name='Page_43' id="Page_43"></a>
+monster born at Craconia; and Hieronimus Cardamnus wrote of a maid
+that was got with child by the devil, she thinking it had been a
+fair young man. The like also is recorded by Vicentius, of the
+prophet Merlin, that he was begotten by an evil spirit. But what a
+repugnance it would be both to religion and nature, if the devils
+could beget men; when we are taught to believe that not any was
+ever begotten without human seed, except the Son of God. The devil
+then being a spirit and having no corporeal substance, has
+therefore no seed of generation; to say that he can use the act of
+generation effectually is to affirm that he can make something out
+of nothing, and consequently to affirm the devil to be God, for
+creation belongs to God only. Again, if the devil could assume to
+himself a human body and enliven the faculties of it, and cause it
+to generate, as some affirm he can, yet this body must bear the
+image of the devil. And it borders on blasphemy to think that God
+should so far give leave to the devil as out of God's image to
+raise his own diabolical offspring. In the school of Nature we are
+taught the contrary, viz., that like begets like; therefore, of a
+devil cannot man be born. Yet, it is not denied, but the devils,
+transforming themselves into human shapes, may abuse both men and
+<!-- Page 44 --><a name='Page_44' id="Page_44"></a> women, and,
+with wicked people, use carnal copulation; but that any unnatural
+conjunction can bring forth a human creature is contrary to nature
+and all religion.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_VI' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_VI"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the happy state of matrimony, as it is appointed by God,
+the true felicity that rebounds thereby to either sex; and to what
+end it is ordained.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Without doubt the uniting of hearts in holy wedlock is of all
+conditions the happiest; for then a man has a second self to whom
+he can reveal his thoughts, as well as a sweet companion in his
+labours, toils, trials, and difficulties. He has one in whose
+breast, as in a safe cabinet, he can confide his inmost secrets,
+especially where reciprocal love and inviolable faith is centred;
+for there no care, fear, jealousy, mistrust or hatred can ever
+interpose. For base is the man that hateth his own flesh! And truly
+a wife, if rightly considered, as Adam <!-- Page 45 --><a name=
+'Page_45' id="Page_45"></a> well observed, is or</p>
+<div class='poem'>
+<div class='stanza'><span>"I take not that to be my dowry,
+which<br /></span> <span>The vulgar sort do wealth and honour
+call;<br /></span> <span>That all my wishes terminate in
+this:&mdash;&mdash;<br /></span> <span>I'll obey my husband and be
+chaste withall;<br /></span> <span>To have God's fear, and beauty
+in my mind,<br /></span> <span>To do those good who are virtuously
+inclined."<br /></span></div>
+</div>
+ought to be esteemed of every honest man as "Bone of his bone and
+flesh of his flesh," etc. Nor was it the least care of the Almighty
+to ordain so near a union, and that for two causes; the first, for
+the increase of posterity; the second, to restrain man's wandering
+desires and affections; nay, that they might be yet happier, when
+God has joined them together, he "blessed them," as in Gen. ii. An
+ancient writer, contemplating this happy state, says, in the
+economy of Xenophon, "that the marriage bed is not only the most
+pleasant, but also profitable course of life, that may be entered
+on for the preservation and increase of posterity. Wherefore, since
+marriage is the most safe, and delightful situation of man he does
+in no ways provide amiss for his own tranquillity who enters into
+it, especially when he comes to maturity of years."<br />
+<br />
+<p>There are many abuses in marriage contrary to what is ordained,
+the which in the ensuing chapter I shall expose to view. But to
+proceed: Seeing our blessed Saviour and His holy apostles detested
+unlawful lusts, and pronounced those to be excluded the kingdom of
+heaven that polluted themselves with adultery and whoring, I cannot
+conceive what face people have to colour their impieties, who
+hating matrimony, make it their study how they may
+<!-- Page 46 --><a name='Page_46' id="Page_46"></a> live
+licentiously: for, in so doing, they take in themselves torment,
+enmity, disquietude, rather than certain pleasure, not to mention
+the hazard of their immortal soul; and certain it is that mercenary
+love (or as the wise man called it harlot-smiles) cannot be true
+and sincere and therefore not pleasant, but rather a net laid to
+betray such as trust in them with all mischief, as Solomon observes
+of the young man void of understanding, who turned aside to the
+harlot's house, "as a bird to the snare of the fowler, or as an ox
+to the slaughter, till a dart was struck through his liver." Nor in
+this case can they have children, those endearing pledges of
+conjugal affection; or if they have, they will rather redound to
+their shame than comfort, bearing the odious brand of bastards.
+Harlots, likewise are like swallows, flying in the summer season of
+prosperity; but the black stormy weather of adversity coming, they
+take wing and fly into other regions&mdash;that is, seek other
+lovers; but a virtuous, chaste wife, fixing her entire love upon
+her husband, and submitting to him as her head and king, by whose
+directions she ought to steer in all lawful courses, will, like a
+faithful companion, share patiently with him in all adversities,
+run with cheerfulness through all difficulties and dangers, though
+ever so hazardous, to preserve and assist him, in poverty,
+<!-- Page 47 --><a name='Page_47' id="Page_47"></a> sickness, or
+whatsoever misfortunes befall him, acting according to her duty in
+all things; but a proud, imperious harlot will do no more than she
+lists, in the sunshine of prosperity; and like a horse-leech, ever
+craving, and never satisfied; still seeming displeased, if all her
+extravagant cravings be not answered; not regarding the ruin and
+misery she brings on him by those means, though she seems to doat
+upon him, used to confirming her hypocrisy with crocodile tears,
+vows and swoonings, when her cully has to depart awhile, or seems
+but to deny immediate desires; yet this lasts no longer than she
+can gratify her appetite, and prey upon his fortune.</p>
+<p>Now, on the contrary, a loving, chaste and even-tempered wife,
+seeks what she may to prevent such dangers, and in every condition
+does all she can to make him easy. And, in a word, as there is no
+content in the embraces of a harlot, so there is no greater joy in
+the reciprocal affection and endearing embraces of a loving,
+obedient, and chaste wife. Nor is that the principal end for which
+matrimony was ordained, but that the man might follow the law of
+his creation by increasing his kind and replenishing the earth; for
+this was the injunction laid upon him in Paradise, before his fall.
+To conclude, a virtuous wife is a crown and
+<!-- Page 48 --><a name='Page_48' id="Page_48"></a> ornament to her
+husband, and her price is above all rubies: but the ways of a
+harlot are deceitful.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_VII' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_VII"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Errors in Marriages; Why they are, and the Injuries caused
+by them</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>By errors in marriage, I mean the unfitness of the persons
+marrying to enter into this state, and that both with respect to
+age and the constitution of their bodies; and, therefore, those who
+design to enter into that condition ought to observe their ability
+and not run themselves into inconveniences; for those that marry
+too young may be said to marry unseasonably, not considering their
+inability, nor examining the forces of nature; for some, before
+they are ripe for the consummation of so weighty a matter, who
+either rashly, of their own accord, or by the instigation of
+procurers or marriage-brokers, or else forced thereto by their
+parents who covet a large dower take upon them this yoke to their
+prejudice; by which some, before the expiration of a year, have
+been so enfeebled, that all <!-- Page 49 --><a name='Page_49' id=
+"Page_49"></a> their vital moisture has been exhausted; which had
+not been restored again without great trouble and the use of
+medicines. Therefore, my advice is: that it is not convenient to
+suffer children, or such as are not of age, to marry, or get
+children.</p>
+<p>He that proposes to marry, and wishes to enjoy happiness in that
+state, should choose a wife descended from honest and temperate
+parents, she being chaste, well bred, and of good manners. For if a
+woman has good qualities, she has portion enough. That of Alcmena,
+in Plautus, is much to the purpose, where he brings in a young
+woman speaking thus:&mdash;</p>
+<div class='poem'>
+<div class='stanza'><span>"I take not that to be my dowry,
+which<br /></span> <span>The vulgar sort do wealth and honour
+call;<br /></span> <span>That all my wishes terminate in
+this:&mdash;&mdash;<br /></span> <span>I'll obey my husband and be
+chaste withall;<br /></span> <span>To have God's fear, and beauty
+in my mind,<br /></span> <span>To do those good who are virtuously
+inclined."<br /></span></div>
+</div>
+<p>And I think she was in the right, for such a wife is more
+precious than rubies.</p>
+<p>It is certainly the duty of parents to bring up their children
+in the ways of virtue, and to have regard to their honour and
+reputation; and especially to virgins, when grown to be
+marriageable. For, as has been noted, if through the too great
+severity of parents, they may be crossed in their love, many of
+them throw themselves into the unchaste arms of the first alluring
+tempter that comes in the way, being, through the softness and
+flexibility of their nature, and the strong desire they have after
+what nature strongly incites them to, easily induced to believe
+men's false vows of promised marriage, to cover their shame: and
+then too late, their parents repent of their severity which has
+brought an indelible stain upon their families.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 50 --><a name='Page_50' id="Page_50"></a></p>
+<center><img src='img/co004.jpg'  alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<p><!-- Page 51 --><a name='Page_51' id="Page_51"></a></p>
+<center><img src='img/co005.jpg' alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<!-- Page 52 --><a name='Page_52' id="Page_52"></a>
+<p>Another error in marriage is, the inequality of years in the
+parties married; such as for a young man, who, to advance his
+fortune, marries a woman old enough to be his grandmother: between
+whom, for the most part, strife, jealousies, and dissatisfaction
+are all the blessings which crown the genial bed, is being
+impossible for such to have any children. The like may be said,
+though with a little excuse, when an old doting widower marries a
+virgin in the prime of her youth and her vigour, who, while he
+vainly tries to please her, is thereby wedded to his grave. For, as
+in green youth, it is unfit and unseasonable to think of marriage,
+so to marry in old age is just the same; for they that enter upon
+it too soon are soon <!-- Page 53 --><a name='Page_53' id=
+"Page_53"></a> exhausted, and fall into consumptions and divers
+other diseases; and those who procrastinate and marry unseemingly,
+fall into the like troubles; on the other side having only this
+honour, if old men, they become young cuckolds, especially if their
+wives have not been trained up in the paths of virtue, and lie too
+much open to the importunity and temptation of lewd and debauched
+men. And thus much for the errors of rash and inconsiderate
+marriages.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_VIII' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_VIII"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The Opinion of the Learned concerning Children conceived and
+born within Seven Months; with Arguments upon the Subject to
+prevent Suspicion of Incontinency, and bitter Contest on that
+Account. To which are added Rules to Know the Disposition of Man's
+Body by the Genital Parts</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Many bitter quarrels happen between men and their wives upon the
+man's supposition that the child comes too soon, and by
+consequence, that he could not be the father; whereas, it is
+<!-- Page 54 --><a name='Page_54' id="Page_54"></a> the want of
+understanding the secrets of nature which brings the man into that
+error; and which, had he known, might have cured him of his
+suspicion and jealousy.</p>
+<p>To remove which, I shall endeavour to prove, that it is
+possible, and has been frequently known, that children have been
+born at seven months. Paul, the Counsel, has this passage in the
+19th Book of Pleadings, viz.: "It is now a received truth, that a
+perfect child may be born in the seventh month, by the authority of
+the learned Hippocrates; and therefore, we must believe that a
+child born at the end of the seventh month in lawful matrimony may
+be lawfully begotten."</p>
+<p>Galen is of opinion that there is no certain time set for the
+bearing of children; and that from Pliny's authority, who makes
+mention of a woman that went thirteen months with child; but as to
+what concerns the seventh month, a learned author says, "I know
+several married people in Holland that had twins born in the
+seventh month, who lived to old age, having lusty bodies and lively
+minds. Wherefore their opinion is absurd, who assert that a child
+at seven months cannot be perfect and long lived; and that it
+cannot in all parts be perfect until the ninth month." Thereupon
+the author proceeds to tell a passage from his own knowledge, viz.:
+"<!-- Page 55 --><a name='Page_55' id="Page_55"></a> Of late there
+happened a great disturbance among us, which ended not without
+bloodshed; and was occasioned by a virgin, whose chastity had been
+violated, descending from a noble family of unspotted fame. Several
+charged the fact upon the Judge, who was president of a city in
+Flanders, who firmly denied it, saying he was ready to take his
+oath that he never had any carnal copulation with her, and that he
+would not father that, which was none of his; and farther argued,
+that he verily believed it was a child born in seven months,
+himself being many miles distant from the mother of it when it was
+conceived. Upon which the judges decreed that the child should be
+viewed by able physicians and experienced women, and that they
+should make their report. They having made diligent inquiry, all of
+them with one mind, concluded the child, without discussing who was
+the father, was born within the space of seven months, and that it
+was carried in the mother's womb but twenty-seven weeks and some
+odd days; but if she should have gone full nine months, the child's
+parts and limbs would have been more firm and strong, and the
+structure of the body more compact; for the skin was very loose,
+and the breast bone that defends the heart, and the gristles that
+lay over the stomach, lay higher than <!-- Page 56 --><a name=
+'Page_56' id="Page_56"></a> naturally they should be, not plain,
+but crooked and sharp, rigid or pointed, like those of a young
+chicken hatched in the beginning of spring. And being a female, it
+wanted nails upon the joints of the fingers; upon which, from the
+masculous cartilaginous matter of the skin, nails that are very
+smooth do come, and by degrees harden; she had, instead of nails, a
+thin skin or film. As for her toes, there were no signs of nails
+upon them, wanting the heat which was expanded to the fingers from
+the nearness of the heart. All this was considered, and above all,
+one gentlewoman of quality that assisted, affirming that she had
+been the mother of nineteen children, and that divers of them had
+been born and lived at seven months, though within the seventh
+month. For in such cases, the revolution of the month ought to be
+observed, which perfects itself in four bare weeks, or somewhat
+less than twenty-eight days; in which space of the revolution, the
+blood being agitated by the force of the moon, the courses of women
+flow from them; which being spent, and the matrix cleansed from the
+menstruous blood which happens on the fourth day, then, if a man on
+the seventh day lie with his wife, the copulation is most natural,
+and then the conception is best: and the child thus begotten may be
+born in the seventh month and prove <!-- Page 57 --><a name=
+'Page_57' id="Page_57"></a> very healthful. So that on this report,
+the supposed father was pronounced innocent; the proof that he was
+100 miles distant all that month in which the child was begotten;
+as for the mother she strongly denied that she knew the father,
+being forced in the dark; and so, through fear and surprise, was
+left in ignorance."</p>
+<p>As for coition, it ought not to be used unless the parties be in
+health, lest it turn to the disadvantage of the children so
+begotten, creating in them, through the abundance of ill humours,
+divers languishing diseases. Wherefore, health is no better
+discerned than by the genitals of the man; for which reasons
+midwives, and other skilful women, were formerly wont to see the
+testicles of children, thereby to conjecture their temperature and
+state of body; and young men may know thereby the signs and
+symptoms of death; for if the cases of the testicles be loose and
+feeble, which are the proofs of life, are fallen, but if the secret
+parts are wrinkled and raised up, it is a sign that all is well,
+but that the event may exactly answer the prediction, it is
+necessary to consider what part of the body the disease possesseth;
+for if it chance to be the upper part that is afflicted, as the
+head or stomach, then it will not so then appear by the members,
+which are unconnected <!-- Page 58 --><a name='Page_58' id=
+"Page_58"></a> with such grievances; but the lower part of the body
+exactly sympathising with them, their liveliness, on the contrary,
+makes it apparent; for nature's force, and the spirits that have
+their intercourse, first manifest themselves therein; which
+occasions midwives to feel the genitals of children, to know in
+what part the gulf is residing, and whether life or death be
+portended thereby, the symptoms being strongly communicated to the
+vessels, that have their intercourse with the principal seat of
+life.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_IX' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_IX"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Green-Sickness in Virgins, with its causes, signs and
+cures; together with the chief occasions of Barrenness in Women,
+and the Means to remove the Cause, and render them
+fruitful</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The green-sickness is so common a complaint amongst virgins,
+especially those of a phlegmatic complexion, that it is easily
+discerned, showing itself by discolouring the face, making it look
+green, pale, and of a dusty colour, proceeding from raw and
+indigested humours; nor doth <!-- Page 59 --><a name='Page_59' id=
+"Page_59"></a> it only appear to the eye, but sensibly affects the
+person with difficulty of breathing, pains in the head, palpitation
+of the heart, with unusual beatings and small throbbings of the
+arteries in the temples, back and neck, which often cast them into
+fevers when the humour is over vicious; also loathing of meat and
+the distention of the hypochondriac part, by reason of the
+inordinate effluxion of the menstruous blood of the greater
+vessels; and from the abundance of humours, the whole body is often
+troubled with swellings, or at least the thighs, legs and ankles,
+all above the heels; there is also a weariness of the body without
+any reason for it.</p>
+<p>The Galenical physicians affirm, that this distemper proceeds
+from the womb; occasioned by the gross, vicious and rude humours
+arising from several inward causes; but there are also outward
+causes which have a share in the production of it; as taking cold
+in the feet, drinking of water, intemperance of diet, eating things
+contrary to nature, viz., raw or burnt flesh, ashes, coals, old
+shoes, chalk, wax, nutshells, mortar, lime, oatmeal, tobacco pipes,
+etc., which occasion both a suppression of the menses and
+obstructions through the whole body; therefore, the first thing
+necessary to vindicate the cause, is matrimonial conjunction,
+<!-- Page 60 --><a name='Page_60' id="Page_60"></a> and such
+copulation as may prove satisfactory to her that is afflicted, for
+then the menses will begin to flow according to their natural and
+due course, and the humours being dispersed, will soon waste
+themselves; and then no more matter being admitted to increase
+them, they will vanish and a good temperament of body will return;
+but in case this best remedy cannot be had soon enough, then let
+blood in the ankles, and if she be about sixteen, you may likewise
+do it in the arm, but let her be bled sparingly, especially if the
+blood be good. If the disease be of any continuance, then it is to
+be eradicated by purging, preparation of the humour being first
+considered, which may be done by the virgin's drinking the
+decoction of guaiacum, with dittany of erete; but the best purge in
+this case ought to be made of aloes, agaric, senna, rhubarb; and
+for strengthening the bowels and removing obstructions, chaly-beate
+medicines are chiefly to be used. The diet must be moderate, and
+sharp things by all means avoided.</p>
+<p>And now, since barrenness daily creates discontent, and that
+discontent breeds indifference between man and wife, or, by
+immediate grief, frequently casts the woman into one or another
+distemper, I shall in the next place treat thereof.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>OF BARRENNESS.</h3>
+<p><!-- Page 61 --><a name='Page_61' id="Page_61"></a> Formerly,
+before women came to the marriage-bed, they were first searched by
+the mid-wife, and those only which she allowed of as fruitful were
+admitted. I hope, therefore, it will not be amiss to show you how
+they may prove themselves and turn barren ground into fruitful
+soil. Barrenness is a deprivation of the life and power which ought
+to be in the seed to procreate and propagate; for which end men and
+women were made. Causes of barrenness may be over much cold or
+heat, drying up the seed and corrupting it, which extinguishes the
+life of the seed, making it waterish and unfit for generation. It
+may be caused also, by the not flowing or over-flowing of the
+courses by swellings, ulcers, and inflammation of the womb, by an
+excrescence of flesh growing about the mouth of the matrix, by the
+mouth of the matrix being turned up to the back or side by the
+fatness of the body, whereby the mouth of the matrix is closed up,
+being pressed with the omentum or caul, and the matter of the seed
+is turned to fat; if she be a lean and dry body, and though she do
+conceive, yet the fruit of her body will wither before it come to
+perfection, for want of nourishment. One main cause of barrenness
+is attributed to want of a convenient <!-- Page 62 --><a name=
+'Page_62' id="Page_62"></a> moderating quality, which the woman
+ought to have with the man; as, if he be hot, she must be cold; if
+he be dry, she must be moist; as, if they be both dry or both moist
+of constitution, they cannot propagate; and yet, simply considering
+of themselves, they are not barren, for she who was before as the
+barren fig-tree being joined to an apt constitution becomes as the
+fruitful vine. And that a man and woman, being every way of like
+constitution, cannot create, I will bring nature itself for a
+testimony, who hath made man of a better constitution than woman,
+that the quality of the one, may moderate the quality of the
+other.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SIGNS OF BARRENNESS.</h3>
+<p>If barrenness proceeds from overmuch heat, if she is a dry body,
+subject to anger, has black hair, quick pulse, and her purgations
+flow but little, and that with pain, she loves to play in the
+courts of Venus. But if it comes by cold, then the signs are
+contrary to the above mentioned. If through the evil quality of the
+womb, make a suffumigation of red styrax, myrrh, cassia-wood,
+nutmeg, and cinnamon; and let her receive the fumes into her womb,
+covering her very close; and if the odour so received passes
+through the body to the mouth <!-- Page 63 --><a name='Page_63' id=
+"Page_63"></a> and nostrils, she is fruitful. But if she feels not
+the fumes in her mouth and nostrils, it argues barrenness one of
+these ways&mdash;that the spirit of the seed is either extinguished
+through cold, or dissipated through heat. If any woman be suspected
+to be unfruitful, cast natural brimstone, such as is digged out of
+mines, into her urine, and if worms breed therein, she is not
+barren.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>PROGNOSTICS.</h3>
+<p>Barrenness makes women look young, because they are free from
+those pains and sorrows which other women are accustomed to. Yet
+they have not the full perfection of health which other women
+enjoy, because they are not rightly purged of the menstruous blood
+and superfluous seed, which are the principal cause of most uterine
+diseases.</p>
+<p>First, the cause must be removed, the womb strengthened, and the
+spirits of the seed enlivened. If the womb be over hot, take syrup
+of succory, with rhubarb, syrup of violets, roses, cassia,
+purslain. Take of endive, water-lilies, borage flowers, of each a
+handful; rhubarb, mirobalans, of each three drachms; make a
+decoction with water, and to the straining of the syrup add
+electuary violets one ounce, syrup of cassia half an ounce, manna
+three <!-- Page 64 --><a name='Page_64' id="Page_64"></a> drachms;
+make a potion. Take of syrup of mugwort one ounce, syrup of
+maiden-hair two ounces, pulv-elect triasand one drachm; make a
+julep. Take prus. salt, elect. ros. mesua, of each three drachms,
+rhubarb one scruple, and make a bolus; apply to the loins and privy
+parts fomentations of the juice of lettuce, violets, roses,
+malloes, vine leaves and nightshade; anoint the secret parts with
+the cooling unguent of Galen.</p>
+<p>If the power of the seed be extinguished by cold, take every
+morning two spoonfuls of cinnamon water, with one scruple of
+mithridate. Take syrup of calamint, mugwort and betony, of each one
+ounce; waters of pennyroyal, feverfew, hyssop and sage, of each two
+ounces; make a julep. Take oil of aniseed two scruples and a half;
+diacimini, diacliathidiamosei and diagla-ongoe, of each one drachm,
+sugar four ounces, with water of cinnamon, and make lozenges; take
+of them a drachm and a half twice a day, two hours before meals;
+fasten cupping glasses to the hips and belly. Take of styrax and
+calamint one ounce, mastick, cinnamon, nutmeg, lign, aloes, and
+frankincense, of each half ounce; musk, ten grains, ambergris, half
+a scruple; make a confection with rosewater, divide it into four
+equal parts; one part make a pomatum oderation to smell at
+<!-- Page 65 --><a name='Page_65' id="Page_65"></a> if she be not
+hysterical; of the second, make a mass of pills, and let her take
+three every other night: of the third make a pessary, dip it in oil
+of spikenard, and put it up; of the fourth, make a suffumigation
+for the womb.</p>
+<p>If the faculties of the womb be weakened, and the life of the
+seed suffocated by over much humidity flowing to those parts: take
+of betony, marjoram, mugwort, pennyroyal and balm, of each a
+handful; roots of alum and fennel, of each two drachms; aniseed and
+cummin, of each one drachm, with sugar and water a sufficient
+quantity; make a syrup, and take three ounces every morning.</p>
+<p>Purge with the following things; take of the diagnidium, two
+grains, spicierum of castor, a scruple, pill foedit two scruples,
+with syrup of mugwort, make six pills. Take apeo, diagem. diamoser,
+diamb. of each one drachm; cinnamon, one drachm and a half; cloves,
+mace and nutmeg, of each half a drachm; sugar six ounces, with
+water of feverfew; make lozenges, to be taken every morning. Take
+of decoction of sarsaparilla and virga aurea, not forgetting sage,
+which Agrippa, wondering at its operation, has honoured with the
+name of <i>sacra herba</i>, a holy herb. It is recorded by
+Dodonoeus in the <i>History of Plants</i>, lib. ii. cap. 77, that
+after a great mortality among the Egyptians, the surviving
+<!-- Page 66 --><a name='Page_66' id="Page_66"></a> women, that
+they might multiply quickly, were commanded to drink the juice of
+sage, and to anoint the genitals with oil of aniseed and spikenard.
+Take mace, nutmeg, cinnamon, styrax and amber, of each one drachm;
+cloves, laudanum, of each half a drachm; turpentine, a sufficient
+quantity; trochisks, to smooth the womb. Take roots of valerian and
+elecampane, of each one pound; galanga, two ounces; origan
+lavender, marjoram, betony, mugwort, bay leaves, calamint, of each
+a handful; make an infusion with water, in which let her sit, after
+she hath her courses.</p>
+<p>If barrenness proceed from dryness, consuming the matter of the
+seed; take every day almond milk, and goat's milk extracted with
+honey, but often of the root satyrion, candied, and electuary of
+diasyren. Take three wethers' heads, boil them until all the flesh
+comes from the bones, then take melilot, violets, camomiles,
+mercury, orchia with their roots, of each a handful; fenugreek,
+linseed, valerian roots, of each one pound; let all these be
+decocted in the aforesaid broth, and let the woman sit in the
+decoction up to the navel.</p>
+<p>If barrenness be caused by any proper effect of the womb, the
+cure is set down in the second book. Sometimes the womb proves
+barren where there is no impediment on either side,
+<!-- Page 67 --><a name='Page_67' id="Page_67"></a> except only in
+the manner of the act; as when in the emission of the seed, the man
+is quick and the woman is slow, whereby there is not an emission of
+both seeds at the same instant as the rules of conception require.
+Before the acts of coition, foment the privy parts with the
+decoction of betony, sage, hyssop and calamint and anoint the mouth
+and neck of the womb with musk and civet.</p>
+<p>The cause of barrenness being removed, let the womb be
+strengthened as follows; Take of bay berries, mastic, nutmeg,
+frankincense, nuts, laudanum, giapanum, of each one drachm,
+styracis liquid, two scruples, cloves half a scruple, ambergris two
+grains, then make a pessary with oil of spikenard.</p>
+<p>Take of red roses, lapididis hoematis, white frankincense, of
+each half an ounce. Dragon's blood, fine bole, mastic, of each two
+drachms; nutmeg, cloves, of each one drachm; spikenard, half a
+scruple, with oil of wormwood; make a plaster for the lower part of
+the belly, then let her eat candied eringo root, and make an
+injection only of the roots of satyrion.</p>
+<p>The aptest time for conception is instantly after the menses
+have ceased, because then the womb is thirsty and dry, apt both to
+draw the seed and return it, by the roughness of the inward
+surface, and besides, in some, the mouth <!-- Page 68 --><a name=
+'Page_68' id="Page_68"></a> of the womb is turned into the back or
+side, and is not placed right until the last day of the
+courses.</p>
+<p>Excess in all things is to be avoided. Lay aside all passions of
+the mind, shun study and care, as things that are enemies to
+conception, for if a woman conceive under such circumstances,
+however wise the parents may be, the children, at best, will be but
+foolish; because the mental faculties of the parents, viz., the
+understanding and the rest (from whence the child derives its
+reason) are, as it were, confused through the multiplicity of cares
+and thought; of which we have examples in learned men, who, after
+great study and care, having connection with their wives, often
+beget very foolish children. A hot and moist air is most suitable,
+as appears by the women in Egypt, who often bring forth three or
+four children at one time.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_X' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_X"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 69 --><a name='Page_69' id="Page_69"></a> CHAPTER
+X</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Virginity, what it is, in what it consists, and how vitiated;
+together with the Opinions of the Learned about the Change of Sex
+in the Womb, during the Operation of Nature in forming the
+Body.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>There are many ignorant people that boast of their skill in the
+knowledge of virginity, and some virgins have undergone harsh
+censures through their ignorant conclusions; I therefore thought it
+highly necessary to clear up this point, that the towering
+imaginations of conceited ignorance might be brought down, and the
+fair sex (whose virtues are so illustriously bright that they
+excite our wonder and command our imitation), may be freed from the
+calumnies and detractions of ignorance and envy; and so their
+honour may continue as unspotted, as they have kept their persons
+uncontaminated and free from defilement.</p>
+<p>Virginity, in a strict sense, signifies the prime, the chief,
+the best of anything; and this makes men so desirous of marrying
+virgins, imagining some secret pleasure is to be enjoyed in their
+embraces, more than in those of widows, or of such as have been
+lain with before, though not many years ago, a very great personage
+thought <!-- Page 70 --><a name='Page_70' id="Page_70"></a>
+differently, and to use his own expression:&mdash;"The getting a
+maidenhead was such a piece of drudgery, that it was fitter for a
+coal heaver than a prince."<a name='FNanchor_1_1' id=
+"FNanchor_1_1"></a> <a href='#Footnote_1_1'><sup>[1]</sup></a> But
+this was only his opinion, for I am sure that other men think
+differently.</p>
+<p>The curious inquirers into the secrets of Nature, have observed,
+that in young maidens in the <i>sinus pudoris</i>, or in what is
+called the neck of the womb, is that wonderful production usually
+called the <i>hymen</i>, but in French <i>bouton de rose</i>, or
+rosebud, because it resembles the expanded bud of a rose or a gilly
+flower. From this the word <i>defloro</i>, or, deflower, is
+derived, and hence taking away virginity is called deflowering a
+virgin, most being of the opinion that the virginity is altogether
+lost when this membrane is fractured and destroyed by violence;
+when it is found perfect and entire, however, no penetration has
+been effected; and in the opinion of some learned physicians there
+is neither hymen nor expanded skin which contains blood in it,
+which some people think, flows from the ruptured membrane at the
+first time of sexual intercourse.</p>
+<p>Now this <i>claustrum virginale</i>, or flower, is composed of
+four little buds like myrtle berries, which are full and plump in
+virgins, but hang <!-- Page 71 --><a name='Page_71' id=
+"Page_71"></a> loose and flag in women; and these are placed in the
+four angles of the <i>sinus pudoris</i>, joined together by little
+membranes and ligatures, like fibres, each of them situated in the
+testicles, or spaces between each bud, with which, in a manner,
+they are proportionately distended, and when once this membrane is
+lacerated, it denotes <i>Devirgination</i>. Thus many ignorant
+people, finding their wives defective in this respect on the first
+night, have immediately suspected their chastity, concluding that
+another man had been there before them, when indeed, such a rupture
+may happen in several ways accidentally, as well as by sexual
+intercourse, viz. by violent straining, coughing, or sneezing, the
+stoppage of the urine, etc., so that the entireness or the fracture
+of that which is commonly taken for a woman's virginity or
+maidenhead, is no absolute sign of immorality, though it is more
+frequently broken by copulation than by any other means.<a name=
+'FNanchor_2_2' id="FNanchor_2_2"></a> <a href=
+'#Footnote_2_2'><sup>[2]</sup></a></p>
+<p><!-- Page 72 --><a name='Page_72' id="Page_72"></a> And now to
+say something of the change of the sexes in the womb. The genital
+parts of the sexes are so unlike each other in substance,
+composition, situation, figure, action and use that nothing is more
+unlike to each other than they are, and the more, all parts of the
+body (the breasts excepted, which in women swell, because Nature
+ordained them for suckling the infant) have an exact resemblance to
+each other, so much the more do the genital parts of one sex
+differ, when compared with the other, and if they be thus different
+in form, how much more are they so in their use.</p>
+<p>The venereal feeling also proceeds from different causes; in men
+from the desire of emission, and in women from the desire of
+reception. All these things, then, considered I cannot but wonder,
+he adds, how any one can imagine that the female genital organs can
+be changed into the male organ, since the sexes
+<!-- Page 73 --><a name='Page_73' id="Page_73"></a> can be
+distinguished only by those parts, nor can I well impute the reason
+for this vulgar error to anything but the mistake of inexpert
+midwives, who have been deceived by the faulty conformation of
+those parts, which in some males may have happened to have such
+small protrusions that they could not be seen, as appears by the
+example of a child who was christened in Paris under the name of
+<i>Ivan</i>, as a girl, and who afterwards turned out to be a boy,
+and on the other hand, the excessive tension of the clytoris in
+newly-born female infants may have occasioned similar mistakes.
+Thus far Pliny in the negative, and notwithstanding what he has
+said, there are others, such as Galen, who assert the affirmative.
+"A man," he says, "is different from a woman, only by having his
+genitals outside his body, whereas a woman has them inside her."
+And this is certain, that if Nature having formed a male should
+convert him into a female, she has nothing else to do but to turn
+his genitals inward, and again to turn a woman into a man by a
+contrary operation. This, however, is to be understood of the child
+whilst it is in the womb and not yet perfectly formed, for Nature
+has often made a female child, and it has remained so for a month
+or two, in its mother's womb; but afterwards the heat greatly
+<!-- Page 74 --><a name='Page_74' id="Page_74"></a> increasing in
+the genital organs, they have protruded and the child has become a
+male, but nevertheless retained some things which do not befit the
+masculine sex, such as female gestures and movements, a high voice,
+and a more effeminate temper than is usual with men; whilst, on the
+other hand, the genitals have become inverted through cold humours,
+but yet the person retained a masculine air, both in voice and
+gesture. Now, though both these opinions are supported by several
+reasons, yet I think the latter are nearer the truth, for there is
+not that vast difference between the genitals of the two sexes as
+Pliny asserts; for a woman has, in a way, the same <i>pudenda</i>
+as a man, though they do not appear outwardly, but are inverted for
+the convenience of generation; one being solid and the other
+porous, and that the principal reason for changing sexes is, and
+must be attributed to heat or cold, which operates according to its
+greater or lesser force.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<!-- Page 75 --><a name='Page_75' id="Page_75"></a>
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+<a name='Footnote_1_1' id="Footnote_1_1"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_1_1'>[1]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p>Attributed to George IV (Translator).</p>
+</div>
+<a name='Footnote_2_2' id="Footnote_2_2"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_2_2'>[2]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p>A young man was once tried at Rutland Assizes for violating a
+virgin, and after close questioning, the girl swearing positively
+in the matter, and naming the time, place and manner of the action,
+it was resolved that she should be examined by a skilful surgeon
+and two midwives, who were to report on oath, which they did, and
+declared that the membranes were intact and unlacerated, and that,
+in their opinion, her body had not been penetrated. This had its
+due effect upon the jury, and they acquitted the prisoner, and the
+girl afterwards confessed that she swore it against him out of
+revenge, as he had promised to marry her, and had afterwards
+declined.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XI' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XI"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Directions and Cautions for Midwives; and, first, what ought
+to be the qualifications of a midwife.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>A midwife who wishes to acquit herself well in her employment,
+ought certainly not to enter upon it rashly or unadvisedly, but
+with all imaginable caution, remembering that she is responsible
+for any mischief which may happen through her ignorance or neglect.
+None, therefore, should undertake that duty merely because of their
+age or because they themselves have had many children, for, in
+such, generally, many things will be found wanting, which she
+should possess. She ought to be neither too old nor too young,
+neither very fat, nor so thin, as to be weak, but in a good habit
+of body; not subject to illness, fears, nor sudden frights;
+well-made and neat in her attire, her hands small and smooth, her
+nails kept well-trimmed and without any rings on her fingers whilst
+she is engaged in her work, nor anything upon her wrists that may
+obstruct her. And to these ought to be added activity, and a due
+amount of strength, with much caution and diligence, nor should she
+be given to drowsiness or impatience.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 76 --><a name='Page_76' id="Page_76"></a> She should
+be polite and affable in her manners, sober and chaste, not given
+to passion, liberal and compassionate towards the poor, and not
+greedy of gain when she attends the rich. She should have a
+cheerful and pleasant temper, so that she may be the more easily
+able to comfort her patients during labour. She must never be in a
+hurry, though her business may call her to some other case, lest
+she should thereby endanger the mother or the child.</p>
+<p>She ought to be wary, prudent, and intelligent, but above all,
+she ought to be possessed by the fear of God, which will give her
+both "knowledge and discretion," as the wise man says.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XII' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XII"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Further Directions to Midwives, teaching them what they ought
+to do, and what to avoid</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Since the duties of a midwife have such a great influence on the
+well-doing or the contrary of both women and children, in the first
+<!-- Page 77 --><a name='Page_77' id="Page_77"></a> place, she must
+be diligent in gaining all such knowledge as may be useful to her
+in her practice, and never to think herself so perfect, but that it
+may be possible for her to add to her knowledge by study and
+experience. She should, however, never try any experiments unless
+she has tried them, or knows that they can do no harm; practising
+them neither upon rich nor poor, but freely saying what she knows,
+and never prescribing any medicines which will procure abortion,
+even though requested; for this is wicked in the highest degree,
+and may be termed murder. If she be sent for to people whom she
+does not know, let her be very cautious before she goes, lest by
+attending an infectious woman, she runs the danger of injuring
+others, as sometimes happens. Neither must she make her dwelling a
+receiving-house for big-bellied women to discharge their load, lest
+it get her a bad name and she by such means loses her practice.</p>
+<p>In attending on women, if the birth happens to be difficult, she
+must not seem to be anxious, but must cheer the woman up and do all
+she can to make her labour easy. She will find full directions for
+this, in the second part of this book.</p>
+<p>She must never think of anything but doing well, seeing that
+everything that is required <!-- Page 78 --><a name='Page_78' id=
+"Page_78"></a> is in readiness, both for the woman and for
+receiving the child, and above all, let her keep the woman from
+becoming unruly when her pains come on, lest she endanger her own
+life, and the child's as well.</p>
+<p>She must also take care not to be hurried over her business but
+wait God's time for the birth, and she must by no means allow
+herself to be upset by fear, even if things should not go well,
+lest that should make her incapable of rendering that assistance
+which the woman in labour stands in need of, for where there is the
+most apparent danger, there the most care and prudence are required
+to set things right.</p>
+<p>And now, because she can never be a skilful midwife who knows
+nothing but what is to be seen outwardly, I do not think it will be
+amiss but rather very necessary, modestly to describe the
+generative parts of women as they have been anatomised by learned
+men, and to show the use of such vessels as contribute to
+generation.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XIII' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XIII"></a> <!-- Page 79 --><a name=
+'Page_79' id="Page_79"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The External, and Internal Organs of Generation in
+Women</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>If it were not for the public benefit, especially for that of
+the professors and practitioners of the art of midwifery, I would
+refrain from treating the secrets of Nature, because they may be
+turned to ridicule by lascivious and lewd people. But as it is
+absolutely necessary that they should be known for the public good,
+I will not omit them because some may make a wrong use of them.
+Those parts which can be seen at the lowest part of the stomach are
+the <i>fissure magna</i>, or the <i>great cleft</i>, with its
+<i>labia</i> or lips, the <i>Mons Veneris</i>, or Mountain of
+Venus, and the hair. These together are called the <i>pudenda</i>,
+or things to be ashamed of because when they are exposed they cause
+a woman <i>pudor</i>, or shame. The <i>fissure magna</i> reaches
+from the lower part of the <i>os pubis</i>, to within an inch of
+the <i>anus</i>, but it is less and closer in virgins than in those
+who have borne children, and has two lips, which grow thicker and
+fuller towards the pubis, and meeting on the middle of the <i>os
+pubis</i>, form that rising hill <!-- Page 80 --><a name='Page_80'
+id="Page_80"></a> which is called the <i>Mons Veneris</i>, or the
+Hill of Venus.</p>
+<p>Next come the <i>Nymphae</i> and the <i>Clitoris</i>, the former
+of which is a membrany and moist substance, spongy, soft and partly
+fleshy, of a red colour and in the shape of two wings, which are
+joined at an acute angle at their base, producing a fleshy
+substance there which covers the clitoris, and sometimes they
+extend so far, that an incision is required to make room for a
+man's instrument of generation.</p>
+<p>The <i>Clitoris</i> is a substance in the upper part of the
+division where the two wings meet, and the seat of venereal
+pleasure, being like a man's <i>penis</i> in situation, substance,
+composition and power of erection, growing sometimes to the length
+of two inches out of the body, but that never happens except
+through extreme lustfulness or some extraordinary accident. This
+<i>clitoris</i> consists of two spongy and skinny bodies,
+containing a distinct original from the <i>os pubis</i>, its tip
+being covered with a tender skin, having a hole or passage like a
+man's yard or <i>penis</i>, although not quite through, in which
+alone, and in its size it differs from it.</p>
+<p>The next things are the fleshy knobs of the great neck of the
+womb, and these knobs are behind the wings and are four in number,
+<!-- Page 81 --><a name='Page_81' id="Page_81"></a> resembling
+myrtle berries, and being placed quadrangularly one against the
+other, and here the orifice of the bladder is inserted, which opens
+into the fissures, to evacuate the urine, and one of these knobs is
+placed before it, and closes up the passage in order to secure it
+from cold, or any suchlike inconvenience.</p>
+<p>The lips of the womb, which appear next, disclose its neck, if
+they are separated, and two things may be observed in them, which
+are the neck itself and the <i>hymen</i>, or more properly, the
+<i>claustrum virginale</i>, of which I have spoken before. By the
+neck of the womb we must understand the channel that lies between
+the above-mentioned knobs and the inner bone of the womb, which
+receives the penis like a sheath, and so that it may be more easily
+dilated by the pleasure of procreation, the substance is sinewy and
+a little spongy. There are several folds or pleats in this cavity,
+made by tunicles, which are wrinkled like a full blown rose. In
+virgins they appear plainly, but in women who are used to
+copulation they disappear, so that the inner side of the neck of
+the womb appears smooth, but in old women it is more hard and
+gristly. But though this channel is sometimes crooked and sinks
+down yet at the times of copulation, labour, or of the monthly
+flow, it is erected or distended, <!-- Page 82 --><a name='Page_82'
+id="Page_82"></a> which overtension occasions the pain in
+childbirth.</p>
+<p>The hymen, or <i>claustrum virginale</i>, is that which closes
+the neck of the womb, and is broken by the first act of copulation;
+its use being rather to check the undue menstrual flow in virgins,
+rather than to serve any other purpose, and usually when it is
+broken, either by copulation, or by any other means, a small
+quantity of blood flows from it, attended with some little pain.
+From this some observe that between the folds of the two tunicles,
+which constitute the neck of the womb there are many veins and
+arteries running along, and arising from, the vessels on both sides
+of the thighs, and so passing into the neck of the womb, being very
+large; and the reason for this is, that the neck of the bladder
+requires to be filled with great vigour, so as to be dilated, in
+order that it may lay hold of the penis better; for great heat is
+required in such motions, and that becomes more intense by the act
+of friction, and consumes a considerable amount of moisture, for
+supplying which large vessels are absolutely necessary.</p>
+<p>Another cause of the largeness of the vessels is, that menses
+make their way through them, which often occasions pregnant women
+to continue menstruating: for though the womb be
+<!-- Page 83 --><a name='Page_83' id="Page_83"></a> shut up, yet
+the passages in the neck of the womb through which these vessels
+pass, are open. In this case, we may further observe, that as soon
+as the <i>pudenda</i> are penetrated, there appear two little pits
+or holes which contain a secretion, which is expelled during
+copulation, and gives the woman great pleasure.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XIV' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XIV"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>A description of the Fabric of the Womb, the preparing
+Vessels and Testicles in Women. Also of the Different and
+Ejaculatory Vessels</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The womb is joined to its neck in the lower part of the
+<i>Hypogastrium</i> where the hips are the widest and broadest, as
+they are greater and broader there than those of men, and it is
+placed between the bladder and the straight gut, which keeps it
+from swaying, and yet gives it freedom to stretch and dilate, and
+again to contract, as nature requires. Its shape is somewhat round
+and not unlike a gourd, growing smaller and more acute towards
+<!-- Page 86 --><a name='Page_86' id="Page_86"></a>
+<!-- Page 84 --><a name='Page_84' id="Page_84"></a>
+<!-- Page 85 --><a name='Page_85' id="Page_85"></a> one end, being
+knit together by its own ligaments; its neck likewise is joined by
+its own substance and by certain membranes that fasten into the
+<i>os sacrum</i> and the share-bone. Its size varies much in
+different women, and the difference is especially great between
+those who have borne children and those who have had none. Its
+substance exceeds a thumb's breadth in thickness, and so far from
+decreasing conception, it rather increases; and in order to
+strengthen it it is interwoven with fibres which cross it from side
+to side, some of which are straight and some winding, and its
+proper vessels are veins, arteries and nerves. Amongst these there
+are two small veins which pass into the womb from the spermatic
+vessels, and two larger ones from the neck: the mouth of these
+veins pierces as far as the inward cavity.</p>
+<center><img src='img/co007.jpg' alt=
+'Position of a Child in the Womb just before delivery.' title=
+'' /></center>
+<center><img src='img/co006.jpg' alt=
+'The action of quickening' title='' /></center>
+<p>The womb has two arteries on both sides of the spermatic vessels
+and the hypogastric, which accompany the veins; and besides these,
+there are several little nerves in the form of a net, which extend
+throughout it, from the bottom of the <i>pudenda</i>; their chief
+function is sensibility and pleasure, as they move in sympathy
+between the head and the womb.</p>
+<p>It may be further noted that the womb is occasionally moveable
+by means of the two ligaments that hang on either side of it, and
+often rises and falls. The neck of the womb
+<!-- Page 87 --><a name='Page_87' id="Page_87"></a> is extremely
+sensitive, so that if it be at any time out of order through over
+fatness, moisture or relaxation, it thereby becomes subject to
+barrenness. With pregnant women, a glutinous matter is often found
+at the entrance to the womb so as to facilitate the birth; for at
+the time of delivery, the mouth of the womb is opened as wide as
+the size of the child requires, and dilates equally from top to
+bottom.</p>
+<p>The spermatic vessels in women, consist of two veins and two
+arteries, which differ from those of men only in size and the
+manner of their insertion; for the number of veins and arteries is
+the same as in men, the right vein issuing from the trunk of the
+hollow vein descending and besides them there are two arteries,
+which flow from the aorta.</p>
+<p>These vessels are narrower and shorter in women than in men; but
+it must be noticed that they are more intertwined and contorted
+than in men, and shrink together by reason of their shortness that
+they may, by their looseness, be better stretched out when
+necessary: and these vessels in women are carried in an oblique
+direction through the lesser bowels and testicles but are divided
+into two branches half way. The larger goes to the stones and forms
+a winding body, and wonderfully inoculates the lesser branches
+where it disperses <!-- Page 88 --><a name='Page_88' id=
+"Page_88"></a> itself, and especially at the higher part of the
+bottom of the womb, for its nourishment, and that part of the
+courses may pass through the vessels; and seeing that women's
+testicles are situated near the womb, for that cause those vessels
+do not fall from the peritoneum, nor do they make so much passage
+as in men, as they do not extend to the share-bone.</p>
+<p>The stones of woman, commonly called <i>testicles</i>, do not
+perform the same function as in men, for they are altogether
+different in position, size, temperature, substance, form and
+covering. They are situated in the hollow of the muscles of the
+loins, so that, by contracting greater heat, they may be more
+fruitful, their office being to contain the ova or eggs, one of
+which, being impregnated by the man's seed engenders the child.
+They are, however, different from those of the male in shape,
+because they are smaller and flatter at each end, and not so round
+or oval; the external superficies is also more unequal, and has the
+appearance of a number of knobs or kernels mixed together.</p>
+<p>There is a difference, also, in the substance, as they are much
+softer and more pliable, and not nearly so compact. Their size and
+temperature are also different for they are much colder and smaller
+than in men, and their covering or enclosure is likewise quite
+different; for as <!-- Page 89 --><a name='Page_89' id=
+"Page_89"></a> men's are wrapped in several covers, because they
+are very pendulous and would be easily injured unless they were so
+protected by nature, so women's stones, being internal and thus
+less subject to being hurt, are covered by only one membrane, and
+are likewise half covered by the peritoneum.</p>
+<p>The ejaculatory vessels are two small passages, one on either
+side, which do not differ in any respect from the spermatic veins
+in substance. They rise in one place from the bottom of the womb,
+and do not reach from their other extremity either to the stones or
+to any other part, but are shut up and impassable, and adhere to
+the womb as the colon does to the blind gut, and winding half way
+about; and though the testicles are not close to them and do not
+touch them, yet they are fastened to them by certain membranes
+which resemble the wing of a bat, through which certain veins and
+arteries passing from the end of the testicles may be said to have
+their passages going from the corners of the womb to the testicles,
+and these ligaments in women are the <i>cremasters</i><a name=
+'FNanchor_3_3' id="FNanchor_3_3"></a> <a href=
+'#Footnote_3_3'><sup>[3]</sup></a> in men, of which I shall speak
+more fully when I come to describe the male parts of
+generation.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<!-- Page 90 --><a name='Page_90' id="Page_90"></a>
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+<a name='Footnote_3_3' id="Footnote_3_3"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_3_3'>[3]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p>Muscles by which the testicles are drawn up.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XV' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XV"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>A Description of the Use and Action of the several Generative
+Parts in Women</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The external parts, commonly called the <i>pudenda</i>, are
+designed to cover the great orifice and to receive the man's penis
+or yard in the act of sexual intercourse, and to give passage to
+the child and to the urine. The use of the wings and knobs, like
+myrtle berries, is for the security of the internal parts, closing
+the orifice and neck of the bladder and by their swelling up, to
+cause titillation and pleasure in those parts, and also to obstruct
+the involuntary passage of the urine.</p>
+<p>The action of the clitoris in women is similar to that of the
+penis in men, viz., <i>erection</i>; and its lower end is the glans
+of the penis, and has the same name. And as the <i>glans</i> of man
+are the seat of the greatest pleasure in copulation, so is this in
+the woman.</p>
+<p>The action and use of the neck on the womb is the same as that
+of the penis, viz., erection, brought about in different ways:
+first, in copulation it becomes erect and made straight for the
+passage of the penis into the womb; <!-- Page 91 --><a name=
+'Page_91' id="Page_91"></a> secondly, whilst the passage is filled
+with the vital blood, it becomes narrower for embracing the penis;
+and the uses of this erection are twofold:&mdash;first, because if
+the neck of the womb were not erected, the man's yard could find no
+proper passage to the womb, and, secondly, it hinders any damage or
+injury that might ensue through the violent striking of the
+<i>penis</i> during the act of copulation.</p>
+<p>The use of the veins that pass through the neck of the womb, is
+to replenish it with blood and vigour, that so, as the moisture is
+consumed by the heat engendered by sexual intercourse, it may be
+renewed by those vessels; but their chief business is to convey
+nutriment to the womb.</p>
+<p>The womb has many properties belonging to it: first, the
+retention of the impregnated egg, and this is conception, properly
+so called; secondly, to cherish and nourish it, until Nature has
+fully formed the child, and brought it to perfection, and then it
+operates strongly in expelling the child, when the time of its
+remaining has expired, becoming dilated in an extraordinary manner
+and so perfectly removed from the senses that they cannot
+injuriously affect it, retaining within itself a power and strength
+to eject the foetus, unless it be rendered deficient by any
+accident; and in such a case <!-- Page 92 --><a name='Page_92' id=
+"Page_92"></a> remedies must be applied by skilful hands to
+strengthen it, and enable it to perform its functions; directions
+for which will be given in the second book.</p>
+<p>The use of the preparing vessels is this; the arteries convey
+the blood to the testicles; some part of it is absorbed in
+nourishing them, and in the production of these little bladders
+(which resemble eggs in every particular), through which the
+<i>vasa preparantia</i> run, and which are absorbed in them; and
+the function of the veins is to bring back whatever blood remains
+from the above mentioned use. The vessels of this kind are much
+shorter in women than in men, because they are nearer to the
+testicles; this defect is, however, made good by the many intricate
+windings to which those vessels are subject; for they divide
+themselves into two branches of different size in the middle and
+the larger one passes to the testicles.</p>
+<p>The stones in women are very useful, for where they are
+defective, the work of generation is at an end. For though those
+bladders which are on the outer surface contain no seed, as the
+followers of Galen and Hippocrates wrongly believed, yet they
+contain several eggs, generally twenty in each testicle; one of
+which being impregnated by the animated part of the man's seed in
+the act of copulation, descends <!-- Page 93 --><a name='Page_93'
+id="Page_93"></a> through the oviducts into the womb, and thus in
+due course of time becomes a living child.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XVI' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XVI"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Organs of Generation in Man</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Having given a description of the organs of generation in women,
+with the anatomy of the fabric of the womb, I shall now, in order
+to finish the first part of this treatise, describe the organs of
+generation in men, and how they are fitted for the use for which
+Nature intended them.</p>
+<p>The instrument of generation in men (commonly called the yard,
+in Latin, <i>penis</i>, from <i>pendo</i>, to hang, because it
+hangs outside the belly), is an organic part which consists of
+skin, tendons, veins, arteries, sinews and great ligaments; and is
+long and round, and on the upper side flattish, seated under the
+<i>os pubis</i>, and ordained by Nature partly for the evacuation
+of urine, and partly for conveying the <!-- Page 94 --><a name=
+'Page_94' id="Page_94"></a> seed into the womb; for which purpose
+it is full of small pores, through which the seed passes into it,
+through the <i>vesicula seminalis,</i><a name='FNanchor_4_4' id=
+"FNanchor_4_4"></a> <a href='#Footnote_4_4'><sup>[4]</sup></a> and
+discharges the urine when they make water; besides the common
+parts, viz., the two nervous bodies, the septum, the urethra, the
+glans, four muscles and the vessels. The nervous bodies (so called)
+are surrounded with a thick white, penetrable membrane, but their
+inner substance is spongy, and consists chiefly of veins, arteries,
+and nervous fibres, interwoven like a net. And when the nerves are
+filled with animal vigour and the arteries with hot, eager blood,
+the penis becomes distended and erect; also the neck of the
+<i>vesicula urinalis</i>,<a name='FNanchor_5_5' id=
+"FNanchor_5_5"></a> <a href='#Footnote_5_5'><sup>[5]</sup></a> but
+when the influx of blood ceases, and when it is absorbed by the
+veins, the penis becomes limp and flabby. Below those nervous
+bodies is the urethra, and whenever they swell, it swells also. The
+penis has four muscles; two shorter ones springing from the <i>Cox
+endix</i> and which serve for erection, and on that account they
+are called <i>erectores</i>; two larger, coming from <i>sphincters
+ani</i>, which serve to dilate the urethra so as to discharge the
+semen, and these are called dilatantes, or wideners. At the end of
+the penis is the <i>glans,</i> <!-- Page 95 --><a name='Page_95'
+id="Page_95"></a> covered with a very thin membrane, by means of
+which, and of its nervous substance, it becomes most extremely
+sensitive, and is the principal seat of pleasure in copulation. The
+outer covering of the <i>glans</i> is called the <i>preputium</i>
+(foreskin), which the Jews cut off in circumcision, and it is
+fastened by the lower part of it to the <i>glans</i>. The penis is
+also provided with veins, arteries and nerves.</p>
+<p>The <i>testiculi</i>, stones or testicles (so called because
+they testify one to be a man), turn the blood, which is brought to
+them by the spermatic arteries into seed. They have two sorts of
+covering, common and proper; there are two of the common, which
+enfold both the testes. The outer common coat, consists of the
+<i>cuticula</i>, or true skin, and is called the scrotum, and hangs
+from the abdomen like a purse; the inner is the <i>membrana
+carnosa</i>. There are also two proper coats&mdash;the outer called
+<i>cliotrodes</i>, or virginales; the inner <i>albugidia;</i> in
+the outer the cremaster is inserted. The <i>epididemes</i>, or
+<i>prostatae</i> are fixed to the upper part of the testes, and
+from them spring the <i>vasa deferentia</i>, or
+<i>ejaculatoria</i>, which deposit the seed into the <i>vesicule
+seminales</i> when they come near the neck of the bladder. There
+are two of these <i>vesiculae</i>, each like a bunch of grapes,
+which emit the seed into the urethra <!-- Page 96 --><a name=
+'Page_96' id="Page_96"></a> in the act of copulation. Near them are
+the <i>prostatae</i>, about the size of a walnut, and joined to the
+neck of the bladder. Medical writers do not agree about the use of
+them, but most are of the opinion that they produce an oily and
+sloppy discharge to besmear the urethra so as to defend it against
+the pungency of the seed and urine. But the vessels which convey
+the blood to the testes, from which the seed is made, are the
+<i>arteriae spermaticae</i> and there are two of them also. There
+are likewise two veins, which carry off the remaining blood, and
+which are called <i>venae spermaticae</i>.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+<a name='Footnote_4_4' id="Footnote_4_4"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_4_4'>[4]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p>Seminal vesicle.</p>
+</div>
+<a name='Footnote_5_5' id="Footnote_5_5"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_5_5'>[5]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p>Urinary vesicle.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XVII' id=
+"VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_XVII"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>A word of Advice to both Sexes, consisting of several
+Directions with regard to Copulation</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>As Nature has a mutual desire for copulation in every creature,
+for the increase and propagation of its kind, and more especially
+in man, <!-- Page 97 --><a name='Page_97' id="Page_97"></a> the
+lord of creation and the masterpiece of Nature, in order that such
+a noble piece of divine workmanship should not perish, something
+ought to be said concerning it, it being the foundation of
+everything that we have hitherto been treating of, since without
+copulation there can be no generation. Seeing, therefore, so much
+depends upon it, I have thought it necessary, before concluding the
+first book, to give such directions to both sexes, for the
+performance of that act, as may appear efficacious to the end for
+which nature designed it, but it will be done with such caution as
+not to offend the chastest ear, nor to put the fair sex to the
+blush when they read it.</p>
+<p>In the first place, then, when a married couple from the desire
+of having children are about to make use of those means that Nature
+has provided for that purpose, it is well to stimulate the body
+with generous restoratives, that it may be active and vigorous. And
+the imagination should be charmed with sweet music, and if all care
+and thoughts of business be drowned in a glass of rosy wine, so
+that their spirit may be raised to the highest pitch of ardour, it
+would be as well, for troubles, cares or sadness are enemies to the
+pleasures of Venus. And if the woman should conceive when sexual
+intercourse takes place at such times of disturbance,
+<!-- Page 98 --><a name='Page_98' id="Page_98"></a> it would have a
+bad effect upon the child. But though generous restoratives may be
+employed for invigorating nature, yet all excess should be
+carefully avoided, for it will check the briskness of the spirits
+and make them dull and languid, and as it also interferes with
+digestion, it must necessarily be an enemy <i>to</i> copulation;
+for it is food taken moderately and that is well digested, which
+enables a man to perform the dictates of Nature with vigour and
+activity, and it is also necessary, that in their mutual embraces
+they meet each other with equal ardour, for, if not, the woman
+either will not conceive, or else the child may be weak bodily, or
+mentally defective. I, therefore, advise them to excite their
+desires mutually before they begin their conjugal intercourse, and
+when they have done what nature requires, a man must be careful not
+to withdraw himself from his wife's arms too soon, lest some sudden
+cold should strike into the womb and occasion miscarriage, and so
+deprive them of the fruits of their labour.</p>
+<p>And when the man has withdrawn himself after a suitable time,
+the woman should quietly go to rest, with all calmness and
+composure of mind, free from all anxious and disturbing thoughts,
+or any other mental worry. And she must, as far as possible, avoid
+turning <!-- Page 99 --><a name='Page_99' id="Page_99"></a> over
+from the side on which she was first lying, and also keep from
+coughing and sneezing, because as it violently shakes the body, it
+is a great enemy to conception.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='A_PRIVATE_LOOKING_GLASS_FOR_THE_FEMALE_SEX' id=
+"A_PRIVATE_LOOKING_GLASS_FOR_THE_FEMALE_SEX"></a>
+<h1><!-- Page 100 --><a name='Page_100' id="Page_100"></a> A<br />
+PRIVATE LOOKING-GLASS<br />
+FOR THE<br />
+FEMALE SEX</h1>
+<hr class="short" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II' id="LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II"></a>
+<h2>PART II</h2>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_I' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_I"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Treating of the several Maladies incident to the womb, with
+proper remedies for the cure of each</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The womb is placed in the <i>hypogastrium</i>, or lower part of
+the body, in the cavity called the <i>pelvis</i>, having the
+straight gut on one side to <!-- Page 101 --><a name='Page_101' id=
+"Page_101"></a> protect it against the hardness of the backbone,
+and the bladder on the other side to protect it against blows. Its
+form or shape is like a virile member, with this exception, that
+the man's is outside, and the woman's inside.</p>
+<p>It is divided into the neck and body. The neck consists of a
+hard fleshy substance, much like cartilage, and at the end of it
+there is a membrane placed transversely, which is called the hymen.
+Near the neck there is a prominent pinnacle, which is called the
+door of the womb, because it preserves the <i>matrix</i> from cold
+and dust. The Greeks called it <i>clitoris</i>, and the Latins
+<i>praeputium muliebre</i>, because the Roman women abused these
+parts to satisfy their mutual unlawful lusts, as St. Paul says,
+Romans 1. 26.</p>
+<p>The body of the womb is where the child is conceived, and this
+is not altogether round, but dilates itself into two angles; the
+outward part is full of sinews, which are the cause of its
+movements, but inside it is fleshy. It is wrongly said, that in the
+cavity of the womb there are seven divided cells or receptacles for
+the male seed, but anatomists know that there are only two, and
+also that those two are not divided by a partition, but only by a
+line or suture running through the middle of it.</p>
+<p>At the bottom of the cavity there are little
+<!-- Page 102 --><a name='Page_102' id="Page_102"></a> holes called
+<i>cotyledones</i>, which are the ends of certain veins or
+arteries, and serve breeding women to convey nourishment to the
+child, which is received by the umbilical and other veins, to carry
+the courses to the <i>matrix</i>.</p>
+<p>As to menstruation, it is defined as a monthly flow of bad and
+useless blood, and of the super-abundance of it, for it is an
+excrement in quality, though it is pure and incorrupt, like the
+blood in the veins. And that the menstruous blood is pure in
+itself, and of the same quality as that in the veins, is proved in
+two ways.&mdash;First, from the final object of the blood, which is
+the propagation and preservation of mankind, that man might be
+conceived; and that, being begotten, he might be comforted and
+preserved both in and out of the womb, and all allow that it is
+true that a child in the matrix is nourished by the blood. And it
+is true that when it is out of it, it is nourished by the same; for
+the milk is nothing but the menstruous blood made white in the
+breast. Secondly, it is proved to be true by the way it is
+produced, as it is the superfluity of the last aliment of the
+fleshy parts.</p>
+<p>The natural end of man and woman's being is to propagate. Now,
+in the act of conception one must be an active agent and the other
+passive, for if both were similarly constituted, they
+<!-- Page 103 --><a name='Page_103' id="Page_103"></a> could not
+propagate. Man, therefore, is hot and dry, whilst woman is cold and
+moist: he is the agent, and she the passive or weaker vessel, that
+she may be subject to the office of the man. It is necessary that
+woman should be of a cold constitution, because a redundancy of
+Nature for the infant that depends on her is required of her; for
+otherwise there would be no surplus of nourishment for the child,
+but no more than the mother requires, and the infant would weaken
+the mother, and like as in the viper, the birth of the infant would
+be the death of the parent.</p>
+<p>The monthly purgations continue from the fifteenth to the
+forty-sixth or fiftieth year; but a suppression often occurs, which
+is either natural or morbid: the courses are suppressed naturally
+during pregnancy, and whilst the woman is suckling. The morbid
+suppression remains to be spoken of.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_II' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_II"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 104 --><a name='Page_104' id="Page_104"></a> CHAPTER
+II</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Retention of the Courses</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The suppression of the menstrual periods, is an interruption of
+that accustomed evacuation of blood, which comes from the matrix
+every month, and the part affected is the womb.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CAUSE.</h3>
+<p>The cause of this suppression is either external or internal.
+The external cause may be heat or dryness of air, want of sleep,
+too much work, violent exercise, etc., whereby the substance is so
+consumed, and the body so exhausted that nothing is left over to be
+got rid of, as is recorded of the Amazons who, being active and
+constantly in motion, had their courses very little, if at all. Or
+it may be brought about by cold which is very frequent, as it
+vitiates and thickens the blood, and binds up the passages, so that
+it cannot flow out.</p>
+<p>The internal cause is either instrumental or material; in the
+womb or in the blood. In the womb, it may be in various ways; by
+humours, and abscesses and ulcers, by the narrowness of the veins
+and passages, or by the adipose membrane in fat bodies, pressing on
+the neck of the <!-- Page 105 --><a name='Page_105' id=
+"Page_105"></a> matrix, but then they must have hernia, zirthilis,
+for in men the membrane does not reach so low; by too much cold or
+heat, the one vitiating the action, and the other consuming the
+matter through the wrong formation of the uterine parts; by the
+neck of the womb being turned aside, and sometimes, though rarely,
+by a membrane or excrescence of the flesh growing at the mouth or
+neck of the womb. The blood may be in fault in two ways, in
+quantity and in quality; in quantity, when it is so consumed that
+no surplus is left over, as in viragoes or virile women, who,
+through their heat and natural strength, consume it all in their
+last nourishment; as Hippocrates writes of Prethusa, for when her
+husband praised her overmuch, her courses were suppressed, her
+voice changed and she got a beard with a manly face. But I think,
+rather that these must be <i>Gynophagi,</i> or woman-eaters, rather
+than women-breeders, because they consume one of the principles of
+generation, which gives a being to the world, viz., the menstruous
+blood. The blood may likewise be lost, and the courses checked by
+nosebleeding, by bleeding piles, by dysentery, commonly called the
+bloody flux, by many other discharges, and by chronic diseases.
+Secondly, the matter may be vitiated in quality, and if it be
+sanguineous, sluggish, <!-- Page 106 --><a name='Page_106' id=
+"Page_106"></a> bilious or melancholy, and any of these will cause
+an obstruction in the veins.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SIGNS.</h3>
+<p>Signs which manifest the disease are pains in the head, neck,
+back and loins; weariness of the whole body (but especially of the
+hips and legs, because the womb is near those parts); palpitation
+of the heart. The following are particular signs:&mdash;If the
+suppression arises from a cold, the woman becomes heavy, sluggish,
+pale and has a slow pulse; Venus' combats are neglected, the urine
+is thick, the blood becomes watery and great in quantity, and the
+bowels become constipated. If it arises from heat, the signs are
+just the opposite. If the retention be natural and arises from
+conception, this may be known by drinking hydromel, i.e., water and
+honey, after supper, before going to bed, by the effect which it
+has; for if after taking it, she feels a heating pain about the
+navel and the lower parts of the abdomen, it is a sign that she has
+conceived, and that the suppression is natural.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>PROGNOSTICS.</h3>
+<p>The whole body is affected by any disorder of the womb, and
+especially the heart, the liver <!-- Page 107 --><a name='Page_107'
+id="Page_107"></a> and the brain, and there is a singular sympathy
+between the womb and those three organs. Firstly, the womb
+communicates with the heart by the mediation of those arteries
+which come from the aorta. Hence, when menstruation is suppressed,
+fainting, swooning, a very low pulse, and shortness of breath will
+ensue. Secondly, it communicates with the liver by the veins
+derived from the hollow vein. Obstructions, jaundice, dropsy,
+induration of the spleen will follow. Thirdly, it communicates with
+the brain by the nerves and membranes of the back; hence arise
+epilepsy, madness, fits of melancholy, pains in the back of the
+head, unaccountable fears and inability to speak. I may, therefore,
+well agree with Hippocrates that if menstruation be suppressed,
+many dangerous diseases will follow.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CURE.</h3>
+<p>In the cure of this, and of all the other following cases, I
+shall observe the following order:&mdash;The cures will be taken
+from surgical, pharmaceutical and diuretical means. The suppression
+has a plethoric effect, and must be removed by the evacuation;
+therefore we begin with bleeding. In the middle of the menstrual
+period, open the liver vein, and two days before, open
+<!-- Page 108 --><a name='Page_108' id="Page_108"></a> the saphena
+in both feet; if the repletion is not very great apply cupping
+glasses to the legs and thighs, although there may be no hope of
+removing the suppression. As in some women, the cotyledones are so
+closed up that nothing but copulation will open them, yet it will
+be well to relieve the woman as much as possible by opening the
+hemoroid veins by applying a leech. After bleeding let the place be
+prepared and made flexible with syrup of stychas, calamint, betony,
+hyssop, mugwort, horehound, fumitary, maidenhair. Bathe the parts
+with camomiles, pennyroyal, savias, bay-leaves, juniper-berries,
+rue, marjoram, feverfew. Take a handful each of nep, maidenhair,
+succory and betony leaves and make a decoction, and take three
+ounces of it, syrup of maidenhair, mugwort and succory, half an
+ounce of each. After she comes out of her bath, let her drink it
+off. Purge with <i>Pill agaric, fleybany, corb, feriae</i>. In this
+case, Galen recommends <i>pilulae of caberica coloquintida</i>;
+for, as they are good for purging the bad humours, so also they
+open the passages of the womb, and strengthen it by their aromatic
+qualities.</p>
+<p>If the stomach be over-loaded, let her take an emetic, yet such
+a one as may work both ways, lest if it only works upwards, it
+should check the humours too much. Take two drachms of
+<!-- Page 109 --><a name='Page_109' id="Page_109"></a> trochisks of
+agaric, infuse this in two ounces of oxymel in which dissolve one
+scruple and a half of <i>electuary dissarum</i>, and half an ounce
+of <i>benedic laxit</i>. Take this as a purge.</p>
+<p>After the humour has been got rid of, proceed to more suitable
+and stronger remedies. Take a drachm and a half of trochisk of
+myrrh; ten grains of musk with the juice of smallage; make twelve
+pills and take six every morning, or after supper, on going to bed.
+Take half an ounce of cinnamon, two drachms each of smirutium, or
+rogos, valerin aristolochia; two scruples each of astrumone root
+and saffron; two drachms of spec. diambia; four scruples of
+trochisk of myrrh; two scruples tartari vitriolari; make half into
+a powder; make lozenges with mugwort water and sugar, and take one
+drachm of them every morning; or mix a drachm of the powder with
+one drachm of sugar, and take it in white wine. Take two drachms
+each of prepared steel and spec. hair; one scruple each of borax
+and spec. of myrrh, with savine juice; make it up into eighty-eight
+lozenges and take three every other day before dinner. Take one
+scruple of castor, half a drachm of wild carrot seed with syrup of
+mugwort, and make four pills, take them in the morning fasting, for
+three days following, before the usual time of purging. Take five
+drachms each of agaric, <!-- Page 110 --><a name='Page_110' id=
+"Page_110"></a> aristolochia, and juice of horehound; six drachma
+each of rhubarb, spikenard, aniseed, guidanum, asafoetida,
+mallow-root, gentian, of the three peppers and of liquorice: make
+an electuary with honey, and take three drachms for a dose. For
+phlegmatic constitutions nothing can be better than the decoction
+of guaiacum wood with a little disclaim, taken fasting in the
+morning, for twelve days consecutively, without producing
+sweating.</p>
+<p>Treat the lower parts of the body to suffumigating, pessaries,
+ointments and injections; for fumigating use cinnamon, nutmeg, the
+berries of the bay tree, mugwort, galbanum, molanthium, amber, etc.
+Make pessaries of figs and the bruised leaves of dog's mercury,
+rolled up in lint, and if a stronger one is required, make one of
+myrrh, opopanax, ammoniac, galbanum, sagepanum, mithridate, agaric,
+coloquintida, tec. Make injections of a decoction of origane
+mugwort, dog's mercury, betony, and eggs; inject into the womb with
+a female syringe. Take half an ounce each of oil of almonds,
+lilies, capers, camomiles; two drachms each of laudanum and oil of
+myrrh; make a salve with wax, with which anoint the place; make
+injections of fenugreek, camomiles, melilot, dill, marjoram,
+pennyroyal, feverfew, juniper berries and calamint; but if the
+suppression arises <!-- Page 111 --><a name='Page_111' id=
+"Page_111"></a> from a lack of matter, then the courses ought not
+to be brought on until the spirits be raised and the amount of
+blood increased; or if it arises from affections of the womb
+itself, as dropsy or inflammation, then particular care must be
+used; but I will not lay stress on this here, but will mention the
+remedies in their order.</p>
+<p>If the retention comes from repletion or fullness, if the air be
+hot and dry, take moderate exercise before meals, and very light
+diet and drinks, and with your food take garden savory&mdash;thyme
+and origane, if it arises from emptiness and defect of matter: if
+the weather be moist and moderately hot, avoid exercise and late
+hours; let your food be nourishing and easy of digestion, such as
+raw eggs, lamb, chickens, almonds, milk and the like.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_III' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_III"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 112 --><a name='Page_112' id="Page_112"></a> CHAPTER
+III</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Excessive Menstruation</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The learned say, that truth is manifested by comparing
+contraries, and so, as I have above spoken of the suppression of
+menstruation, it is now necessary that I should treat of excessive
+menstruation, which is no less dangerous than the former. This
+immoderate monthly flow is defined as a sanguineous discharge, as
+it consists merely of blood, wherein it differs from the false
+courses or whites, of which I shall speak further on. Secondly, it
+is said to proceed from the womb; for there are two ways in which
+the blood issues forth; one by the internal veins of the body of
+the womb (and this is properly called the monthly flow), the other
+is by those veins which terminate in the neck of the matrix, which
+Aetius calls haemorrhoids of the womb. In quantity, Hippocrates
+said, it should be about eighteen ounces, and they should last
+about three days: and when the faculties of the body are weakened
+by their flow, we may take it that the discharge is inordinate. In
+bodies which abound in gross humours, this immoderate flow
+sometimes unburdens nature of her load and ought not to be checked
+without a physician's advice.</p>
+<br />
+<!-- Page 113 --><a name='Page_113' id="Page_113"></a>
+<h3>CAUSE.</h3>
+<p>The cause is either internal or external. The internal cause is
+threefold; in the substance, the instrument or the power. The
+matter, which is the blood, may be vitiated in two ways; first, by
+the heat of the constitution, climate or season, heating the blood,
+whereby the passages are dilated, and the power weakened so that it
+cannot retain the blood. Secondly, by falls, blows, violent
+motions, rupture of the veins, etc. The external cause may be the
+heat of the air, heavy burdens, unnatural childbirth, etc.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SIGNS.</h3>
+<p>In this excessive flow the appetite is lessened, conception is
+checked and all the functions weakened; the feet swell, the colour
+of the face changes, and the whole body is weakened. If the flow
+comes from the rupture of a vein, the body is sometimes cold, the
+blood flows out in streams, suddenly, and causes great pain. If it
+arises from heat, and the orifice of the vein is dilated, there is
+little or no pain, but yet the blood flows faster than it does when
+caused by erosion, but not so fast as it does in a rupture. If
+caused by erosion, the woman feels a scalding of the passage, and
+it differs from the other two, <!-- Page 114 --><a name='Page_114'
+id="Page_114"></a> in so much as it does not flow so quickly or so
+freely as they do. If it is caused by weakness of the womb, the
+woman feels a dislike for sexual intercourse. Lastly, if it
+proceeds from the defective quality of the blood let some of it
+drop into a cloth, and when it is dry, you may judge, of the
+quality by the colour. If it be passionate it will be yellow; if
+melancholy, it will be black, and if phlegmatic, it will be
+waterish and whitish.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>PROGNOSTICS.</h3>
+<p>If convulsions are joined to the flow, it is dangerous, because
+that intimates that the noble parts are affected, convulsions
+caused by emptiness are deadly. If they continue long, they will be
+very difficult to cure, and it was one of the miracles which our
+Saviour Christ wrought, to cure a woman of this disease of twelve
+years standing.</p>
+<p>To conclude, if the flow be excessive, many diseases will
+follow, which will be almost impossible to cure; the blood, being
+consumed together with the innate heat, either morbid, dropsical,
+or paralytical diseases will follow.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CURE.</h3>
+<p>The cure consists in three particulars. First,
+<!-- Page 115 --><a name='Page_115' id="Page_115"></a> in expelling
+and carrying away the blood. Secondly, in connecting and removing
+the fluxibility of the matter. Thirdly, in incorporating the veins
+and faculties. For the first, to get rid of the superfluous blood,
+open a vein in the arm, and draw off as much blood as the strength
+of the patient will allow; not all at one time, but at intervals,
+for by those means the spirits are less weakened, and the reaction
+so much the greater.</p>
+<p>Apply cupping glasses to the breasts and also over the liver,
+and to correct the flexibility of the matter, purgative means,
+moderated by astringents, may be employed.</p>
+<p>If it is caused by erosion, and salt phlegm, prepare with syrup
+of violets, wormwood, roses, citron peel, succory, etc. Then make
+the following purge:&mdash;mirabolans, half an ounce; trochisks of
+agaric, one drachm; make a decoction with the plantain-water, and
+add syrup of roses lax. three ounces, and make a draught.</p>
+<p>If caused by any mental excitement, prepare the body by syrup of
+roses, myrtles, sorrel and parsley, mixed with plantain-water,
+knot-grass and endive. Then purge with the following
+draught:&mdash;Take one drachm each of the void of mirabolans, and
+rhubarb, cinnamon fifteen grains; infuse for a night in endive
+water; add to the strained water half an ounce of pulp of
+<!-- Page 116 --><a name='Page_116' id="Page_116"></a> tamarinds
+and of cassia, and make a draught. If the blood be waterish as it
+is in dropsical subjects and flows out easily on account of its
+thinness, it will be a good plan to draw off the water by purging
+with agaric, elaterium and coloquintida. Sweating is also useful in
+this case, as by it the noxious matter is carried off, and the
+motion of the blood to other parts. To produce sweating, employ
+cardus water, and mithridate, or a decoction of guaiacum and
+sarsaparilla. Gum guaiacum is also a great producer of
+perspiration, and sarsaparilla pills, taken every night before
+going to bed are also highly to be recommended. If the blood pours
+out, without any evil quality in itself, then strengthening means
+only should be employed, which is a thing to be done in cases of
+inordinate discharge.</p>
+<p>Take one scruple of ol. ammoniac, one drachm of treacle, half an
+ounce of conserve of roses and make an electuary with syrup of
+myrtle, or if the discharge be of long standing take two drachms of
+matrix, one drachm of olilanum troch. de carbara, a scruple of
+balustium; make into a powder and form into pills with syrup of
+quinces, and take one before every meal. Take two scruples each of
+troch. dechambede, scoriaferri, coral and frankincense; pound these
+to a fine powder, and make into lozenges with sugar and plantain
+water. Asses' dung is also approved <!-- Page 117 --><a name=
+'Page_117' id="Page_117"></a> of, whether taken inwardly with syrup
+of quinces or applied outwardly with steeled water. Galen by
+sending the juice of it into the womb by means of a syringe for
+four days consecutively, cured this immediate flow, which could not
+be checked in any other way. Let the patient take one scruple and a
+half of pilon in water before going to bed; make a fumigation for
+the womb of mastic, frankincense and burnt frogs, adding the hoof
+of a mule. Take an ounce each of the juice of knot-grass, comfoly
+and quinces; a drachm of camphor; dip a piece of silk or cotton
+into it and apply it to the place. Take half an ounce each of oil
+of mastic, myrtle, and quinces; a drachm each of fine bole and
+troch. decardas, and a sufficient quantity of dragon's blood, make
+an ointment and apply it before and behind. Take an ounce and a
+half each of plantain, shepherd's purse and red rose leaves; an
+ounce of dried mint, and three ounces of bean flour; boil all these
+in plantain water and make two plasters:&mdash;apply one before and
+one behind. If the blood flows from those veins which are
+terminated at the neck of the matrix, then it is not called an
+undue discharge of the <i>menses</i>, but haemorrhoids of the womb.
+The same remedy, however, will serve for both, only the
+instrumental cure will be a little different; for in uterine
+haemorrhoids, the ends of the <!-- Page 120 --><a name='Page_120'
+id="Page_120"></a> <!-- Page 118 --><a name='Page_118' id=
+"Page_118"></a> <!-- Page 119 --><a name='Page_119' id=
+"Page_119"></a> veins hang over like teats, which must be removed
+by cutting, and then the veins closed with aloes, fine bole, burnt
+alum, myrrh, mastic, with comfoly-juice and knot grass, laid upon
+it like a plaster.</p>
+<center><img src='img/co009.jpg' alt=
+'Position of the Embryos in a plural conception' title=
+'' /></center>
+<center><img src='img/co008.jpg' alt=
+'Process of Delivery.' title='' /></center>
+<p>The air should be cold and dry, and all motion of the body
+should be prohibited. Her diet should consist of pheasants,
+partridges, grouse, rabbits, calves' feet, etc., and her drink
+should be mixed with the juice of pomegranates and quinces.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_IV' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_IV"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Weeping of the Womb.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The weeping of the womb is an unnatural flow of blood, coming
+from it in drops, like tears, and causing violent pains in it, and
+occurring at no fixed period or time. By some it is supposed to be
+produced by the excessive flow of the courses, as they flow
+copiously and freely; this is continued, though only little at a
+time, and accompanied by great pain and difficulty of
+<!-- Page 121 --><a name='Page_121' id="Page_121"></a> passing it,
+and on this account it is compared to the strangury.</p>
+<p>The cause is in the power, instrument or matter; in the power,
+on account of its being enfeebled so that it cannot expel the
+blood, and which, remaining there, makes that part of the womb grow
+hard, and distends the vessels, and from that, pains in the womb
+arise. In the instrument, from the narrowness of the passage.
+Lastly, it may be the matter of the blood which is at fault, and
+which may be in too great quantities; or the quality may be bad, so
+that it is thick and gross and cannot flow out as it ought to do,
+but only in drops. The signs will best be ascertained by the
+patient's own account, but there will be pains in the head, stomach
+and back, with inflammation, difficulty of breathing and
+excoriation of the matrix. If the patient's strength will permit
+it, first open a vein in the arm, rub the upper parts and let a
+cord be fastened tightly round the arm, so that the force of the
+blood may be carried backward; then apply such things as may relax
+the womb, and assuage the heat of the blood, as poultices made of
+bran, linseed, mallows, dog's mercury and artiplex. If the blood be
+viscous and thick, add mugwort, calamint, dictain and betony to it,
+and let the patient take about the size of a nutmeg of Venic
+treacle, and syrup of mugwort <!-- Page 122 --><a name='Page_122'
+id="Page_122"></a> every morning; make an injection of aloes, dog's
+mercury, linseed, groundsel, mugwort, fenugreek, with sweet almond
+oil.</p>
+<p>Sometimes it is caused by wind, and then bleeding must not be
+had recourse to, but instead take one ounce of syrup of feverfew;
+half an ounce each of honey, syrup of roses, syrup of stachus; an
+ounce each of calamint water, mugwort, betony and hyssop, and make
+a julep. If the pain continues, use this purge:&mdash;Take a drachm
+of spec. Hitrae, half an ounce of diacatholicon, one ounce of syrup
+of roses and laxative, and make a draught with a decoction of
+mugwort and the four cordial flowers. If it proceeds from weakness,
+she must be strengthened, but if from grossness of blood, let the
+quality of it be altered, as I have shown in the preceding chapter.
+Lastly, if her bowels are confined, move them by an injection of a
+decoction of camomiles, betony, feverfew, mallows, linseed,
+juniper-berries, cumminseed, aniseed, melilot, and add to it half
+an ounce of diacatholicon; two drachms of hiera piera, an ounce
+each of honey and oil and a drachm and a half of sol. nitre. The
+patient must abstain from salt, acid and windy food.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_V' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_V"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 123 --><a name='Page_123' id="Page_123"></a> CHAPTER
+V</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The false Courses, or Whites.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>From the womb, not only the menstruous blood proceeds, but many
+evacuations, which were summed up by the ancients under the title
+of <i>rhoos gunaikeios</i>,<a name='FNanchor_6_6' id=
+"FNanchor_6_6"></a> <a href='#Footnote_6_6'><sup>[6]</sup></a>
+which is the distillation of a variety of corrupt humours through
+the womb, which flow from the whole body or a part of it, varying
+both in courses and colour.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CAUSE.</h3>
+<p>The cause is either promiscuously in the whole body, by a
+cacochymia; or weakness of it, or in some of its parts, as in the
+liver, which by a weakness of the blood producing powers, cause a
+production of corrupt blood, which then is reddish. Sometimes, when
+the fall is sluggish in its action, and does not get rid of those
+superfluities engendered in the liver, the matter is yellowish.
+Sometimes it is in the spleen when it does not cleanse the blood of
+the dregs and rejected particles, and then the matter which flows
+forth is blackish. It may also come from <!-- Page 124 --><a name=
+'Page_124' id="Page_124"></a> a cold in the head, or from any other
+decayed or corrupted member, but if the discharge be white, the
+cause lies either in the stomach or loins. In the stomach, by some
+crude substance there, and vitiated by grief, melancholy or some
+other mental disturbance; for otherwise, if the matter were only
+crude phlegm and noways corrupt, being taken into the liver it
+might be converted into the blood; for phlegm in the ventricle is
+called nourishment half digested; but being corrupt, though sent
+into the liver it cannot be turned into nutriment, for the second
+decoction in the stomach cannot correct that which the first
+corrupted; and therefore the liver sends it to the womb, which can
+neither digest nor reject it, and so it is voided out with the same
+colour which it had in the ventricle. The cause may also be in the
+veins being overheated whereby the spermatical matter flows out
+because of its thinness. The external causes may be moistness of
+the air, eating bad food, anger, grief, sloth, too much sleep,
+costiveness.</p>
+<p>The signs are bodily disturbances, shortness of breathing, and
+foul breath, a distaste for food, swollen eyes and feet, and low
+spirits; discharges of different colours, as red, black, green,
+yellow and white from the womb. It differs from the flowing of the
+courses and from too abundant menstruation, in so far as it keeps
+no <!-- Page 125 --><a name='Page_125' id="Page_125"></a> certain
+period, and is of many colours, all of which spring from blood.</p>
+<p>If the flux be phlegmatic, it will last long and be hard to
+cure, but if sickness or diarrhoea supervene, it carries off the
+humour and cures the disease. If it is abundant it does not last so
+long, but it is more dangerous, for it will cause a cleft in the
+neck of the womb, and sometimes also an excoriation of the matrix;
+if melancholy, it must be dangerous and obstinate. The flux of the
+haemorrhoids, however, assists the cure.</p>
+<p>If the matter which flows out be reddish, open a vein in the
+arm; if not, apply ligatures to the arms and shoulders. Galen
+boasts that he cured the wife of Brutus, who was suffering from
+this disease, by rubbing the upper part with honey.</p>
+<p>If it is caused by the brain, take syrup of betony and marjoram.
+Give as a purgative <i>Pill. coch.</i> or <i>Agaric</i>; make
+nasalia of sage, or hyssop juice, betony, flagella, with one drop
+of oil of <i>Elect. Dianth. Rosat. Diambrae, diamosci dulus</i>,
+one drachm of each, and make lozenges to be taken every morning and
+evening. <i>Auri Alexandrina</i>, half a drachm at night on going
+to bed. If these things have no effect, try suffumigation and
+plasters, as they are prescribed above.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 126 --><a name='Page_126' id="Page_126"></a> If it
+arises from crudities of the stomach or from a cold, disordered
+liver, take a decoction of <i>lignum sanctum</i> every morning,
+purge with <i>pill de agaric, de hermadact, de hiera, diacolinthis,
+foetid-agrigatio</i>; take two drachms of elect. aromet-roses, one
+scruple each of dried citron peel, nutmeg, long pepper; one drachm
+of draglanga; half a scruple each of <i>fantalum album,</i> ling,
+aloes; six ounces of sugar, with mint water: make lozenges of it,
+and take them before meals. If there be repletion besides the
+rigidity of the liver, purging by means of an emetic is to be
+recommended, for which take three drachms of the electuary diasatu.
+Galen allows diuretical remedies, such as <i>aqua
+petrofolma</i>.</p>
+<p>If the discharge be angry, treat it with syrup of roses,
+violets, endive and succory; give a purge of mirabolans, manna,
+rhubarb, and cassia. Take two drachms of rhubarb, one of aniseed,
+and one scruple and a half of cinnamon; infuse them into six ounces
+of syrup of prunes, and add one ounce of strained manna, and take
+it in the morning as required. Take one drachm each of the
+following drugs: <i>diatonlanton, diacorant, diarthod, abbaris,
+dyacydomei</i>, four ounces of sugar, and make into lozenges with
+plantain water. If the gall be sluggish, and does not stir the
+bowels, give warm injections of a decoction
+<!-- Page 127 --><a name='Page_127' id="Page_127"></a> of the four
+mollifying herbs, with honey of roses and aloes.</p>
+<p>If the flow be bilious, treat the patient with syrup of
+maiden-hair; epithynium, polypody, borage, buglos, fumitary, hart's
+tongue and syrups, bisantius, which must be made without vinegar,
+else it will assist the disease instead of nature, for melancholy
+is increased by the use of vinegar, and both Hippocrates, Silvius
+and Avenzoar reject it as injurious for the womb, and therefore not
+to be used internally in uterine diseases. <i>Pilulae sumariae,
+pilulae lud. delupina, lazuli diosena</i> and <i>confetio hamec</i>
+are purges of bile. Take two ounces of pounded prunes, one drachm
+of senna, a drachm and a half each of epithimium, polypody and
+fumitary, and an ounce of sour dates, and make a decoction with
+endive water; take four ounces of it and add three drachms of
+hamesech and three of manna. Or take a scruple each of <i>pil.
+indic. foetid, agarici, trochis ati</i>; one scruple of rhubarb
+pills, six grains of lapis lazuli, make into pills with epithimium,
+and take them once a week. Take three drachms of elect.
+loetificans. Galen three drachms, a drachm each of
+<i>diamargaritum, calimi, diamosci dulus</i>; a drachm of conserve
+of borage, violets and burglos; one drachm of candied citron peel,
+seven ounces of sugar, and make into lozenges with rose water.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 128 --><a name='Page_128' id="Page_128"></a> Lastly
+let the womb be cleansed of all corrupt matter, and then be
+strengthened. In order to purify it, make injections of the
+decoction of betony, feverfew, spikenard, bismust, mercury and
+sage, and add two ounces each of sugar and sweet almond oil;
+pessaries may also be made of silk or cotton, softened in the juice
+of the above mentioned herbs.</p>
+<p>You must prepare trochisks, thus, to strengthen the womb. Take
+one ounce each of mugwort, feverfew, myrrh, amber, mace, storax,
+ling aloes and red roses, and make lozenges or troches with
+mucilage of tragacanth; throw one of them on to hot coals and
+fumigate the womb with red wine, in which mastic, fine bole,
+malustia and red roots have been decocted; anoint the matrix with
+oil of quinces and myrtles, and apply a plaster to it, for the
+womb; and let the woman take <i>diamosdum dulco</i>, <i>aract</i>,
+and <i>slemoticum</i> every morning.</p>
+<p>A drying diet is recommended as best, because in these cases the
+body abounds with phlegmatic and crude humours. On this account,
+Hippocrates advises the patient to go to bed supperless. Her food
+should consist of partridges, pheasant and grouse, roasted rather
+than boiled, too much sleep must be prohibited whilst moderate
+exercise is very advisable.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><!-- Page 129 --><a name='Page_129' id="Page_129"></a>
+FOOTNOTES:</p>
+<a name='Footnote_6_6' id="Footnote_6_6"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_6_6'>[6]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p>The female flowing.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_VI' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_VI"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The Suffocation of the Mother</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>This, which if simply considered, will be found to be merely the
+cause of an effect, is called in English, "the suffocation of the
+mother," not because the womb is strangled, but because by its
+retraction towards the midriff and stomach, which presses it up, so
+that the instrumental cause of respiration, the midriff, is
+suffocated, and acting with the brain, cause the animating faculty,
+the efficient cause of respiration, also to be interrupted, when
+the body growing cold, and the action weakened, the woman falls to
+the ground as if she were dead.</p>
+<p>Some women remain longer in those hysterical attacks than
+others, and Rabbi Moses mentions some who lay in the fit for two
+days. Rufus writes of one who continued in it for three days and
+three nights, and revived at the end of the three days. And I will
+give you an example so that we may take warning by the example of
+other men. Paroetus mentions a Spanish woman who was suddenly
+seized with suffocation of the womb, and was thought to be dead.
+Her friends, for their own satisfaction, sent for a surgeon in
+order to have her <!-- Page 130 --><a name='Page_130' id=
+"Page_130"></a> opened, and as soon as he began to make an
+incision, she began to move, and come to herself again with great
+cries, to the horror and surprise of all those present.</p>
+<p>In order that the living may be distinguished from the dead, old
+writers prescribe three experiments. The first is, to lay a feather
+on the mouth, and by its movements you may judge whether the
+patient be alive or dead; the second is, to place a glass of water
+on the breast, and if it moves, it betokens life; the third is, to
+hold a bright, clean, looking-glass to the mouth and nose, and if
+the glass be dimmed with a little moisture on it, it betokens life.
+These three experiments are good, but you must not depend upon them
+too much, for though the feather and the glass do not move, and the
+looking-glass continues bright and clear, yet it is not a necessary
+consequence that she is dead. For the movement of the lungs, by
+which breathing is produced, may be checked, so that she cannot
+breathe, and yet internal heat may remain, which is not evident by
+the motion of the breast or lungs, but lies hidden in the heart and
+arteries.</p>
+<p>Examples of this we find in flies and swallows, who seem dead to
+all outward appearances, breathless and inanimate, and yet they
+live by that heat which is stored up in the heart
+<!-- Page 131 --><a name='Page_131' id="Page_131"></a> and inward
+arteries. At the approach of summer, however, the internal heat,
+being restored to the outer parts, they are then brought to life
+again, out of their sleeping trance.</p>
+<p>Those women, therefore, who apparently die suddenly, and from no
+visible cause, should not be buried until the end of three days,
+lest the living be buried instead of the dead.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CURE.</h3>
+<p>The part affected is the womb, of which there are two
+motions&mdash;natural and symptomatic. The natural motion is, when
+the womb attracts the male seed, or expels the infant, and the
+symptomatical motion, of which we are speaking, is a convulsive
+drawing up of the womb.</p>
+<p>The cause is usually in the retention of the seed, or in the
+suppression of the menses, which causes a repletion of the corrupt
+humours of the womb, from which a windy refrigeration arises, which
+produces a convulsion of the ligaments of the womb. And just as it
+may arise from humidity or repletion, so also, as it is a
+convulsion, it may be caused by dryness or emptiness. Lastly also,
+it may arise from abortion or from difficult childbirth.</p>
+<br />
+<!-- Page 132 --><a name='Page_132' id="Page_132"></a>
+<h3>SIGNS.</h3>
+<p>On the approach of suffocation of the womb the face becomes
+pale, there is a weakness of the legs, shortness of breathing,
+frigidity of the whole body, with a spasm in the throat, and then
+the woman falls down, bereft of sense and motion; the mouth of the
+womb is closed up, and feels hard when touched with the finger.
+When the paroxysm or the fit is over, she opens her eyes, and as
+she feels an oppression of the stomach, she tries to vomit. And
+lest any one should be deceived into taking one disease for
+another, I will show how it may be distinguished from those
+diseases which most resemble it.</p>
+<p>It differs from apoplexy, as it comes without the patient crying
+out; in hysterical fits also the sense of feeling is not altogether
+destroyed and lost, as it is in apoplexy; and it differs from
+epilepsy, as the eyes are not distorted, and there is spongy froth
+from the mouth. That convulsive motion also, which is frequently
+accompanied by symptoms of suffocation, is not universal, as it is
+in epilepsy, but there is some convulsion, but that without any
+violent agitation. In syncope both breathing and the pulse fail,
+the face grows pale, and the woman faints suddenly; but in
+hysterical <!-- Page 133 --><a name='Page_133' id="Page_133"></a>
+attacks there are usually both breathing and pulse, though these
+are indistinct; the face is red and she has a forewarning of the
+approaching fit. It cannot, however, be denied that syncope may
+accompany this feeling of suffocation. Lastly, it can be
+distinguished from lethargy by the pulse, which is rapid in the
+former, but weak in the latter.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CURE.</h3>
+<p>In the cure of this affection, two things must be taken care
+of:&mdash;<i>In the first place</i>, nature must be stimulated to
+expel these hurtful humours which obscure the senses, so that the
+woman may be brought back from that sleepy fit. <i>Secondly</i>,
+during the intervals of the attack, proper remedies must be
+employed, in order to remove the cause.</p>
+<p>To stimulate nature, apply cupping-glasses to the hips and
+navel: apply ligatures to the thighs, rub the extremities with
+salt, mustard and vinegar, and shout and make a great noise in her
+ears. Hold asafoetida to the nose, or sacopenium steeped in
+vinegar; make her sneeze by blowing castor-powder, white pepper and
+hellebore up her nose; hold burnt feathers, hair, leather, or
+anything else with a strong, <!-- Page 134 --><a name='Page_134'
+id="Page_134"></a> stinking smell under her nose, for bad odours
+are unpleasant to nature, and the animal spirits so strive against
+them, that the natural heat is restored by their means. The brain
+is sometimes so oppressed, that it becomes necessary to burn the
+outer skin of the head with hot oil, or with a hot iron, and strong
+injections and suppositories are useful. Take a handful each of
+sage, calamint, horehound, feverfew, marjoram, betony and hyssop;
+half an ounce of aniseed; two drachma each of coloquintida, white
+hellebore and salgem; boil these in two quarts of water till
+reduced to half; add two ounces of castor oil and two drachms of
+hiera piera and make an injection of it. Or take two ounces of
+boiled honey, half a scruple of spurge, four grains of coloquint,
+two grains of hellebore and drachm of salt; make a suppository.
+Hippocrates mentions a hysterical woman who could only be relieved
+of the paroxysms by pouring cold water on her: yet this is a
+strange cure, and should only be administered in the heat of
+summer, when the sun is in the tropic of Cancer.</p>
+<p>If it be caused by the retention and corruption of the seed, let
+the mid-wife take oil of lilies, marjoram and bay leaves, and
+dissolve two grains of civet in them, and the same quantity of
+musk, and at the moment of the <!-- Page 135 --><a name='Page_135'
+id="Page_135"></a> paroxysm let her dip her finger into the mixture
+and put it into the neck of the womb, and tickle and rub it with
+it.</p>
+<p>When the fit is over, proceed to remove the cause. If it arises
+from suppression of the menses, look in <a href="#Page_107">Chapter
+XI, p. 102</a>, for the cure. If it arises from the retention of
+the seed, a good husband will administer the cure, but those who
+cannot honourably obtain that remedy, must use such means as will
+dry up and diminish the seed, as diaciminum, diacalaminthes, etc.
+The seed of the agnus castus is highly valued as a draught, whether
+taken inwardly, applied outwardly or used as a suffumigation. It
+was held in high esteem by the Athenian women, for by its means
+they remained as pure vessels and preserved their chastity, by only
+strewing it on the bed on which they lay, and hence the name of
+<i>agnus castus</i>, which was given to it, as denoting its
+effects. Make an issue on the inside of each leg, four inches below
+the knee, and then make lozenges of two scruples of agric, half a
+scruple each of wild carrot seed and ligne aloes; three drachms of
+washed turpentine, and make a bolus with a conserve of flowers.
+Eight drachms of castor taken in white wine are very useful in this
+case, or you may make pills of it with dog's tooth, and take them
+on going to bed. <!-- Page 136 --><a name='Page_136' id=
+"Page_136"></a> Take an ounce of white briony root dried and cut up
+like carrots, put it into a little wine and place it on the fire,
+and drink when warm. Take one scruple each of myrrh, castor and
+asafoetida; four grains each of saffron and rue-seed, and make
+eight pills and take two every night on going to bed.</p>
+<p>Galen, from his own experience, recommends powdered agaric, of
+which he frequently gave one scruple in white wine. Put a head of
+bruised garlic on the navel at bed time, and fasten it with a
+swathing band. Make a girdle for the waist of galbanum, and also a
+plaster for the stomach, and put civet and musk on one part of it,
+which must be applied to the navel. Take two drachms each of pulvis
+benedict, and of troches of agaric, a sufficient quantity of
+mithridate, and make two pessaries, and that will purge the matrix
+of wind and phlegm; foment the private parts with salad oil in
+which some feverfew and camomiles have been boiled. Take a handful
+of roseleaves and two scruples of cloves, sew them in a little
+cloth and boil them for ten minutes in malmsey; then apply them, as
+hot as they can be borne, to the mouth of the womb, but do not let
+the smell go up her nose. A dry diet must still be adhered to and
+the moderate use of Venus is advisable. Let her eat aniseed
+biscuits <!-- Page 137 --><a name='Page_137' id="Page_137"></a>
+instead of bread, and roast meat instead of boiled.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_VII' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_VII"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Descending or Falling of the Womb.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The descent of the womb is caused by a relaxation of the
+ligatures, whereby the matrix is carried backward, and in some
+women it protrudes to the size of an egg, and there are two kinds
+of this, distinguished by a descending and a precipitation. The
+descending of the womb is, when it sinks down to the entrance of
+the private parts, and appears either very little or not at all, to
+the eye. Its precipitation is when it is turned inside out like a
+purse, and hangs out between the thighs, like a cupping glass.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CAUSE.</h3>
+<p>This is either external or internal. The external cause is
+difficult childbirth, violent pulling away, or inexperience in
+drawing away the child, violent coughing, sneezing, falls,
+<!-- Page 138 --><a name='Page_138' id="Page_138"></a> blows, and
+carrying heavy burdens. The internal cause, is generally the flow
+of too much moisture into these parts, which hinders the operation
+of the womb, whereby the ligaments by which the womb is supported
+are relaxed. The particular cause, however, lies in the retention
+of the <i>semen</i>, or in the suppression of the monthly
+courses.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SIGNS.</h3>
+<p>The principal gut and the bladder are often so crushed, that the
+passage of both evacuations is hindered. If the urine flows out
+white and thick, and the midriff is interfered with, the loins
+suffer, the private parts are in pain, and the womb descends to
+them, or else comes clean out.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>PROGNOSTICS.</h3>
+<p>If an old woman is thus affected, the cure is very difficult,
+because it weakens the womb, and therefore, though it may be put
+back into its proper place, yet it is apt to get displaced again,
+by a very slight amount of illness. And also with younger women, if
+this disease is inveterate, and if it is caused by putrefaction of
+the nerves, it is incurable.</p>
+<br />
+<!-- Page 139 --><a name='Page_139' id="Page_139"></a>
+<h3>CURE.</h3>
+<p>The womb, being placed by nature between the straight gut and
+the bladder, ought not to be put back again until the powers of
+both are excited. Now that nature is relieved of her burden, let
+the woman be laid on her back so that her legs may be higher than
+her head; let her feet be drawn up towards her private parts, and
+her knees spread open. Then apply oil of sweet almonds and lilies,
+or a decoction of mallows, beet, fenugreek and linseed, to the
+swelling; when the inflammation is reduced, let the midwife rub her
+hand with oil of mastic, and restore the womb to its proper place.
+When the matrix is up, the patient's position must be changed. Her
+legs must be put out quite straight and laid together, and apply
+six cupping glasses to her breast and navel. Boil feverfew,
+mugwort, red rose leaves and comfrey in red wine; make a
+suffumigation for the matrix, and apply sweet scents to her nose.
+When she comes out of her bath, give her an ounce of syrup of
+feverfew with a drachm of dog's tooth (<i>mithridate</i>). Take
+three drachms each of laudanum and mastic, and make a plaster for
+the navel of it, and then make pessaries of asafoetida, saffron,
+comfrey, and mastic, adding a little castor oil.&mdash;Parius
+<!-- Page 140 --><a name='Page_140' id="Page_140"></a> in such
+cases makes his pessaries only of cork, shaped like a small egg; he
+covered them with wax and mastic dissolved together, and fastening
+them to a thread, he put them into the womb.</p>
+<p>The immediate danger being now removed and the matrix returned
+to its natural place the remote cause must be got rid of. If she be
+of full habit of body open a vein, after preparing her with syrup
+of betony, calamint, hyssop and feverfew. Give a purge, and if the
+stomach be oppressed with any crude matter relieve it by emetics
+and by sudorifics of lignum sanctum and sassafras taken twenty days
+consecutively, which dry up the superfluous moisture, and
+consequently suppress the cause of the disease.</p>
+<p>The air should be hot and dry, and her diet hot and attenuating.
+Let her abstain from dancing, jumping, sneezing, as well as from
+all mental and bodily emotions, eat sparingly, not drink much, and
+be moderate in her sleep.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_VIII' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_VIII"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 141 --><a name='Page_141' id="Page_141"></a> CHAPTER
+VIII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Inflammation of the Womb</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The phlegmon, or inflammation of the matrix, is a humour which
+affects the whole womb, and is accompanied by unnatural heat, by
+obstruction and by an accumulation of corrupt blood.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CAUSE.</h3>
+<p>The cause of this affection is suppression of the courses,
+fullness of body, the immoderate use of sexual intercourse,
+frequent handling the genitals, difficult child-birth, violent
+motions of the body, falls, blows, to which may be added, the use
+of strong pessaries, whereby the womb is frequently inflamed,
+cupping glasses, also, fastened to the <i>pubis</i> and
+<i>hypogastrium</i>, draw the humours of the womb.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SIGNS.</h3>
+<p>The signs are pains in the lower parts of the body and head,
+humours, sickness, coldness in the knees, throbbing in the neck,
+palpitation of the heart. Often, also, there is shortness of breath
+because of the heart which is close to the midriff, and the breasts
+sympathising <!-- Page 142 --><a name='Page_142' id="Page_142"></a>
+with the swollen and painful womb. Besides this, if the front of
+the matrix be inflamed, the privates suffer, and the urine is
+suppressed, or only flows with difficulty. If the hinder part be
+inflamed, the loins and back suffer, and the bowels are very
+costive; if the right side be inflamed, the right hip suffers, and
+the right leg is heavy and moves slowly, so that at times she seems
+almost lame. If, however, the left side of the womb be inflamed,
+then the left hip suffers and the left leg is weaker than the
+right. If the neck of the womb is affected, by putting her finger
+in, the midwife feels that its mouth is contracted and closed up,
+and that it is hard round it.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CURE.</h3>
+<p>In the cure, first of all, let the humours which flow to the
+womb be expelled. To effect this, after the bowels have been
+loosened by cooling clysters bleeding will be necessary. Therefore,
+open a vein in the arm, if she is not with child; the day after
+strike the saphena in both feet, fasten ligatures and cupping
+glasses to the arm, and rub the upper part. Purge gently with
+cassia, rhubarb, senna and myrobalan. Take one drachm of senna, a
+scruple of aniseed, myrobalan, half an ounce,
+<!-- Page 143 --><a name='Page_143' id="Page_143"></a> with a
+sufficient quantity of barley water. Make a decoction and dissolve
+syrup of succory in it, and two ounces of rhubarb; pound half an
+ounce of cassia with a few drops of oil of aniseed and make a
+draught. At the commencement of the disease, anoint the private
+parts and loins with oil of roses and quinces: make plasters of
+plantain, linseed, barley meal, melilot, fenugreek, white of eggs,
+and if the pain be intense, a little laudanum; foment the genitals
+with a decoction of poppy-heads, purslace, knot-grass and
+water-lilies. Make injections of goat's milk, rose water, clarified
+whey and honey of roses. When the disease is on a decline, use
+injections of sage, linseed, mugwort, pennyroyal, horehound,
+fenugreek, and anoint the lower parts of the stomach with oil of
+camomiles and violets.</p>
+<p>Take four ounces each of lily and mallow roots, a handful of
+dog's mercury, a handful and a half each of mugwort, feverfew,
+camomile flowers and melilot, bruise the herbs and roots, and boil
+them in a sufficient quantity of milk; then add two ounces each of
+fresh butter, oil of camomiles and lilies, with a sufficient
+quantity of bran, make two plasters, and apply one before and the
+other behind.</p>
+<p>If the tumour cannot be removed, but seems inclined to
+suppurate, take three drachms <!-- Page 144 --><a name='Page_144'
+id="Page_144"></a> each of fenugreek, mallow roots, boiled figs,
+linseed, barley meal, dove's dung and turpentine; half a drachm of
+deer's suet, half a scruple of opium and make a plaster of wax.</p>
+<p>Take bay leaves, sage, hyssop, camomiles, and mugwort, and make
+an infusion in water.</p>
+<p>Take half a handful of wormwood and betony and half a pint each
+of white wine and milk, boil them until reduced to half; then take
+four ounces of this decoction and make an injection, but you must
+be careful that the humours are not brought down into the womb.
+Take three drachms each of roast figs, and bruised dog's mercury;
+three drachms each of turpentine and duck's grease, and two grains
+of opium; make a pessary with wax.</p>
+<p>The room must be kept cool, and all motions of the body,
+especially of the lower parts, must be prohibited. Wakefulness is
+to be recommended, for humours are carried inward by sleep, and
+thus inflammation is increased. Eat sparingly, and drink only
+barley water or clarified whey, and eat chickens and chicken broth,
+boiled with endive, succory, sorrel, bugloss and mallows.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_IX' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_IX"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 145 --><a name='Page_145' id="Page_145"></a> CHAPTER
+IX</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Scirrhous Tumours, or Hardness of the Womb</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>A <i>scirrhus</i>, or a hard unnatural swelling of the matrix is
+generally produced by neglected, or imperfectly cured phlegm,
+which, insensibly, hinders the functions of the womb, and
+predisposes the whole body to listlessness.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CAUSE.</h3>
+<p>One cause of this disease may be ascribed to want of judgment on
+the part of the physician, as many empirics when attending to
+inflammation of the womb, chill the humour so much that it can
+neither pass backward nor forward, and hence, the matter being
+condensed, turns into a hard, stony substance. Other causes may be
+suppression of the menses, retention of the <i>Lochein</i>,
+commonly called the after purging; eating decayed meat, as in the
+disordered longing after the <i>pleia</i> to which pregnant women
+are often subject. It may, however, also proceed from obstructions
+and ulcers in the matrix or from some evil affections of the
+stomach or spleen.</p>
+<p>If the bottom of the womb be affected, she feels, as it were, a
+heavy burden representing <!-- Page 146 --><a name='Page_146' id=
+"Page_146"></a> a mole,<a name='FNanchor_7_7' id=
+"FNanchor_7_7"></a> <a href='#Footnote_7_7'><sup>[7]</sup></a> yet
+differing from it, in that the breasts are attenuated, and the
+whole body grows less. If the neck of the womb be affected, no
+outward humours will appear; its mouth is retracted and feels hard
+to the touch, nor can the woman have sexual intercourse without
+great pain.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>PROGNOSTICS.</h3>
+<p>Confirmed scirrhus is incurable, and will turn to cancer or
+incurable dropsy, and when it ends in cancer it proves fatal,
+because as the innate heat of these parts is almost smothered, it
+can hardly be restored again.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CURE.</h3>
+<p>Where there is repletion, bleeding is advisable, therefore open
+a vein in one arm and in both feet, more especially if the menses
+are suppressed.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 147 --><a name='Page_147' id="Page_147"></a> Treat the
+humours with syrup of borage, succory made with a poultice, and
+then take the following pills, according to the patient's
+strength.</p>
+<p>Hiera piera six drachms, two and a half drachms each of black
+hellebore and polypody; a drachm and a half each of agaric, lapis
+lazuli, sal Indiae, coloquintida, mix them and make two pills.
+After purging, mollify the hardness as follows:&mdash;the privy
+parts and the neck of the womb with an ointment of decalthea and
+agrippa; or take two drachms each of opopanax, bdellium, ammoniac
+and myrrh, and half a drachm of saffron; dissolve the gum in oil of
+lilies and sweet almond and make an ointment with wax and
+turpentine. Apply diacatholicon ferellia below the navel, and make
+infusions of figs, mugwort, mallows, pennyroyal, althea, fennel
+roots, melilot, fenugreek and the four mollifying herbs, with oil
+of dill, camomiles and lilies dissolved in it. Take three drachms
+of gum bdellium, put the stone pyrites on the coals, and let her
+take the fumes into her womb. Foment the privy parts with a
+decoction of the roots and leaves of dane wort. Take a drachm each
+of gum galbanum and opopanax, half an ounce each of juice of dane
+wort and mucilage of fenugreek, an ounce of calve's marrow, and a
+sufficient quantity of <!-- Page 148 --><a name='Page_148' id=
+"Page_148"></a> wax, and make a pessary. Or make a pessary of lead
+only, dip it in the above mentioned things, and put it up.</p>
+<p>The atmosphere must be kept temperate, and gross and salt meats
+such as pork, bull beef, fish and old cheese, must be
+prohibited.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+<a name='Footnote_7_7' id="Footnote_7_7"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_7_7'>[7]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p><i>Mole</i>: "A somewhat shapeless, compact fleshy mass
+occurring in the uterus, due to the retention and continued life of
+the whole or a part of the foetal envelopes, after the death of the
+foetus (a <i>maternal or true mole</i>); or being some other body
+liable to be mistaken for this, or perhaps a polypus or false
+mole." (<i>Whitney's Century Dictionary</i>.)</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_X' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_X"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Dropsy of the Womb</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Uterine dropsy is an unnatural swelling, caused by the
+collection of wind or phlegm in the cavity, membranes or substance
+of the womb, on account of the want of innate heat and of
+sufficient alimentation, and so it turns into an excrescence. The
+causes are, too much cold and moisture of the milt and liver,
+immoderate drinking, eating insufficiently cooked meat, all of
+which by causing repletion, overpower the natural heat. It may
+likewise be caused by undue menstruation, or by any other
+immoderate evacuation. To these may be added abortions,
+subcutaneous inflammations and a hardened swelling of the womb.</p>
+<br />
+<!-- Page 149 --><a name='Page_149' id="Page_149"></a>
+<h3>SIGNS.</h3>
+<p>The signs of this affection are as follows:&mdash;The lower
+parts of the stomach, with the genitals, are swollen and painful;
+the feet swell, the natural colour of the face is lost, the
+appetite becomes depraved, and there is a consequent heaviness of
+the whole body. If the woman turns over in bed a noise like flowing
+water is heard, and sometimes water is discharged from the womb. If
+the swelling is caused by wind and the stomach feels hot, it sounds
+like a drum; the bowels rumble, and the wind escapes through the
+neck of the womb with a murmuring noise. This affection may be
+distinguished from true conception in many ways, as will be shown
+in the chapter on <i>conception</i>. It is distinguished from
+common dropsy, by the lower parts of the stomach being most
+swollen. Again, it does not appear so injurious in this
+blood-producing capability, nor is the urine so pale, nor the face
+so altered. The upper parts are also not so reduced, as in usual
+dropsy.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>PROGNOSTICS.</h3>
+<p>This affection foretells the ruin of the natural functions, by
+that peculiar sympathy it has with the liver, and that, therefore,
+<i>kathydria</i>, or general dropsy will follow.</p>
+<br />
+<!-- Page 150 --><a name='Page_150' id="Page_150"></a>
+<h3>CURE.</h3>
+<p>In the cure of this disease, imitate the practice of
+Hippocrates, and first mitigate the pain with fomentations of
+melilot, dog's mercury, mallows, linseed, camomiles and althoea.
+Then let the womb be prepared with syrup of stoebis, hyssop,
+calamint, mugwort, with distilled water, a decoction of elder,
+marjoram, sage, origan, spearage, pennyroyal, and betony. Purge
+with senna, agaric, rhubarb, and claterium. Take spicierum hier, a
+scruple each of rhubarb, agaric lozenges, and make into pills with
+iris juice.</p>
+<p>When diseases arise from moistness, purge with pills, and in
+those affections which are caused by emptiness or dryness, purge by
+means of a draught. Apply cupping glasses to the stomach and also
+to the navel, especially if the swelling be flatulent. Put a seton
+on to the inside of each leg, the width of a hand below the knee.
+Take two drachms each of sparganium, diambrae, diamolet,
+diacaliminti, diacinamoni, myrrh lozenges, and a pound of sugar;
+make these into lozenges with betony water, and take them two hours
+before meals. Apply a little bag of camomiles, cummin and melilot
+boiled in oil of rue, to the bottom of the stomach as hot as it can
+be borne; anoint the stomach and the <!-- Page 151 --><a name=
+'Page_151' id="Page_151"></a> privates with unguent agripp, and
+unguent aragon. Mix iris oil with it, and cover the lower part of
+the stomach with a plaster of bay berries, or a cataplasm made of
+cummin, camomiles, briony root, adding cows' and goats' dung.</p>
+<p>Our modern medical writers ascribe great virtues to
+tobacco-water, injected into the womb by means of a clyster. Take a
+handful each of balm of southernwood, origanum, wormwood, calamint,
+bay berries and marjoram, and four drachms of juniper berries; make
+a decoction of these in water, and use this for fomentations and
+infusions. Make pessaries of storax, aloes, with the roots of
+dictam, aristolochia and gentian, but instead of this you may use
+the pessary prescribed at the end of Chapter XVII. Let her take
+aromatic electuary, disatyrion and candied eringo roots, every
+morning.</p>
+<p>The air must be hot and dry, moderate exercise is to be taken
+and too much sleep prohibited. She may eat the flesh of partridges,
+larks, grouse, hares, rabbits, etc., and let her drink diluted
+urine.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XI' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XI"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 152 --><a name='Page_152' id="Page_152"></a> CHAPTER
+XI</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Moles<a name='FNanchor_8_8' id="FNanchor_8_8"></a>
+<a href='#Footnote_8_8'><sup>[8]</sup></a> and False
+Conceptions</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>This disease may be defined as an inarticulate shapeless piece
+of flesh, begotten in the womb as if it were true conception. In
+this definition we must note two things: (1) because a mole is said
+to be inarticulate or jointless, and without shape, it differs from
+monstrosities which are both <i>formata</i> and <i>articulata</i>;
+(2) it is said to be, as it were a true conception, which makes a
+difference between a true conception, and a mole, and this
+difference holds good in three ways. First, in its genus, because a
+mole cannot be said to be an animal: secondly, in the species,
+because it has not a human figure and has not the character of a
+man; thirdly, in the individual, for it has no affinity to the
+parent, either in the whole body, or in any particular part of
+it.</p>
+<br />
+<!-- Page 153 --><a name='Page_153' id="Page_153"></a>
+<h3>CAUSE.</h3>
+<p>There is a great difference of opinion amongst learned writers
+as to the cause of this affection. Some think, that if the woman's
+seed goes into the womb, and not the man's, that the mole is
+produced thereby. Others declare that it springs from the
+menstruous blood, but if these two things were granted, then
+virgins, by having their courses or through nocturnal pollutions,
+might be liable to the same things, which none have ever been yet.
+The true cause of this fleshy mole is due both to the man and from
+the menstruous blood in the woman both mixing together in the
+cavity of the womb. Nature finding herself weak there (and yet
+wishing to propagate her species), labours to bring forth a
+defective conception rather than nothing and instead of a living
+creature produces a lump of flesh.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SIGNS.</h3>
+<p>The signs of a mole are these. The <i>menses</i> are suppressed,
+the appetite becomes depraved, the breasts swell and the stomach
+becomes inflated and hard. So far the symptoms in a pregnant woman
+and in one that has a mole are the same, but now this is how they
+differ. The <!-- Page 154 --><a name='Page_154' id="Page_154"></a>
+first sign of difference is in the movements of a mole. It may be
+felt moving in the womb before the third month, whereas an infant
+cannot be so felt; yet this motion cannot proceed from any
+intelligent power in the mole, but from the capabilities of the
+womb, and of the seminal vigour, distributed through the substance
+of the mole, for it does not live an animal, but a vegetable life,
+like a plant. <i>Secondly</i>, in a mole the stomach swells
+suddenly, but in true conception it is first contracted, and then
+rises by degrees. <i>Thirdly</i>, if the stomach is pressed with
+the hand, the mole gives way, and returns to its former position as
+soon as the hand is removed. But a child in the womb does not move
+immediately though pressed with the hand, and when the hand is
+removed it returns slowly or not at all. <i>Lastly</i>, no child
+continues in the womb more than eleven months, but a mole continues
+for four or five years, more or less, sometimes according as it is
+fastened to the matrix; and I have known a mole pass away in four
+or five months. If, however, it remains until the eleventh month,
+the woman's legs grow weak and the whole body wastes away, but the
+stomach still increases, which makes some women think that they are
+dropsical, though there is no reason for it, for in dropsy the legs
+swell and grow big, but in a mole they wither and fall away.</p>
+<br />
+<!-- Page 155 --><a name='Page_155' id="Page_155"></a>
+<h3>CURE.</h3>
+<p>In the school of Hippocrates we are taught that bleeding causes
+abortion, by taking all the nourishment which should preserve the
+life of the embryo. In order, therefore, that this faulty
+conception may be deprived of that nourishing sap by which it
+lives, open the liver vein and saphena in both feet, apply cupping
+glasses to the loins and sides of the stomach, and when that has
+been done, let the uterine parts be first softened, and then the
+expulsive powers be stimulated to get rid of the burden.</p>
+<p>In order to relax the ligatures of the mole, take three handfuls
+of mallows with their roots, two handfuls each of camomiles,
+melilot, pellitory of the wall, violet leaves, dog's mercury,
+fennel roots, parsley, and one pound each of linseed and fenugreek;
+boil them in oil and let the patient sit in it up to her navel.
+When she comes out of her bath, she should anoint her private parts
+and loins with the following ointment:&mdash;"Take one ounce each
+of oil of camomiles, lilies and sweet almonds: half an ounce each
+of fresh butter, laudanum and ammoniac, and make an ointment with
+oil of lilies. Or, instead of this, you may use unguentum agrippae
+or dialthea. Take a handful of dog's mercury and althea roots; half
+a handful <!-- Page 156 --><a name='Page_156' id="Page_156"></a> of
+flos brochae ursini; six ounces of linseed and barley meal. Boil
+all these together in honey and water and make a plaster, and make
+pessaries of gum galbanum, bdellium, ammoniac, figs, pig's fat and
+honey.</p>
+<p>After the ligaments of the mole are loosened, let the expulsive
+powers be stimulated to expel the mole, and for doing this, all
+those drugs may be used which are adapted to bring on the courses.
+Take one ounce of myrrh lozenges, half an ounce each of castor,
+astrolachia, gentian and dittany and make them into a powder, and
+take one drachm in four ounces of mugwort water. Take calamint,
+pennyroyal, betony, hyssop, sage, horehound, valerian, madder and
+savine; make a decoction in water and take three ounces of it, with
+one and a half ounces of feverfew. Take three scruples each of
+mugwort, myrrh, gentian and pill. coch.; a drachm each of rue,
+pennyroyal and opopanax, and the same of asafoetida, cinnamon,
+juniper-berries and borage, and make into pills with savine juice,
+to be taken every morning. Make an infusion of hyssop, bay leaves,
+bay berries, calamint, camomiles, mugwort and savine. Take two
+scruples each of sacopenium, mugwort, savine, cloves, nutmeg, bay
+berries; one drachm of galbanum; one scruple each of hiera piera
+and black hellebore, and make a pessary with turpentine.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 157 --><a name='Page_157' id="Page_157"></a> But if
+these medicaments are not procurable, then the mole must be pulled
+out by means of an instrument called the <i>pes
+gryphis</i>,<a name='FNanchor_9_9' id="FNanchor_9_9"></a> <a href=
+'#Footnote_9_9'><sup>[9]</sup></a> which may be done without much
+danger if it be performed by a skilful surgeon. After she has been
+delivered of the mole (because the woman will have lost much blood
+already), let the flow of blood be stopped as soon as possible.</p>
+<p>Apply cupping glasses to the shoulders and ligatures to the
+arms, and if this be not effective, open the liver vein in the
+arm.</p>
+<p>The atmosphere of the room must be kept tolerably dry and warm,
+and she must be put on a dry diet, to soothe the system; she must,
+however, drink white wine.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<!-- Page 158 --><a name='Page_158' id="Page_158"></a>
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+<a name='Footnote_8_8' id="Footnote_8_8"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_8_8'>[8]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p><i>Mole</i>: "A somewhat shapeless, compact fleshy mass
+occurring in the uterus, due to the retention and continued life of
+the whole or a part of the foetal envelopes, after the death of the
+foetus (<i>a maternal or true mole</i>); or being some other body
+liable to be mistaken for this, or perhaps a polypus or false
+mole." (<i>Whitney's Century Dictionary</i>.)</p>
+</div>
+<a name='Footnote_9_9' id="Footnote_9_9"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_9_9'>[9]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p><i>Griffin's claw</i>, a peculiar hooked instrument.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XII' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XII"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Conception and its Signs, and How a Woman may know whether
+it be Male or Female</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Ignorance often makes women the murderesses of the fruit of
+their own body, for many, having conceived and finding themselves
+out of order, and not rightly knowing the cause, go to the shop of
+their own conceit and take whatever they think fit, or else (as the
+custom is) they send to the doctor for a remedy, and he, not
+perceiving the cause of their trouble, for nothing can be diagnosed
+accurately by the urine, prescribes what he thinks best; perhaps
+some diuretic or cathartic, which destroy the embryo. Therefore
+Hippocrates says, it is necessary that women should be instructed
+in the signs of conception, so that the parent as well as the child
+may be saved from danger. I shall, therefore, lay down some rules,
+by which every woman may know whether she is pregnant or not, and
+the signs will be taken from the woman, from her urine, from the
+child and from experiments.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SIGNS.</h3>
+<p>The first day after conception, she feels a slight quivering and
+chilliness throughout her <!-- Page 159 --><a name='Page_159' id=
+"Page_159"></a> body; there is a tickling of the womb and a little
+pain in the lower parts of her stomach. Ten or twelve days after
+she feels giddy and her eyes dim and with circles round them; the
+breasts swell and grow hard, with some pain and pricking in them,
+whilst the stomach rises and sinks again by degrees, and there is a
+hardness about the navel. The nipples grow red, the heart beats
+unusually strongly, the natural appetite abates, and the woman has
+a craving after strange food. The neck of the womb is contracted,
+so that it can scarcely be felt when the finger is put in. And the
+following is an infallible sign; she is alternately in high spirits
+and melancholy; the monthly courses cease without any apparent
+cause, the evacuations from the bowels are retained unusually long,
+by the womb pressing on the large gut, and her desire for sexual
+intercourse is diminished. The surest sign is taken from the
+infant, which begins to move in the womb in the third or fourth
+month, and not in the manner of a mole, mentioned above, from side
+to side like a stone, but gently, as may be perceived by applying
+the hand cold upon the stomach.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SIGNS TAKEN FROM THE URINE.</h3>
+<p>The best writers affirm that the water of a pregnant woman is
+white and has little specks in <!-- Page 160 --><a name='Page_160'
+id="Page_160"></a> it, like those in a sunbeam, ascending and
+descending in it, of an opal colour, and when the sediment is
+disturbed by shaking the urine, it looks like carded wool. In the
+middle of gestation it turns yellow, then red and lastly black,
+with a red film. At night on going to bed, let her drink water and
+honey, and if afterwards she feels a beating pain in her stomach
+and about the navel, she has conceived. Or let her take the juice
+of cardius, and if she brings it up again, that is a sign of
+conception. Throw a clean needle into the woman's urine, put it
+into a basin and let it stand all night. If it is covered with red
+spots in the morning, she has conceived, but if it has turned black
+and rusty, she has not.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SIGNS TAKEN FROM THE SEX, TO SHOW WHETHER IT BE A MALE OR
+FEMALE.</h3>
+<p>If it is a male, the right breast swells first, the right eye is
+brighter than the left, the face is high-coloured, because the
+colour is such as the blood is, and as the male is conceived of
+purer blood and of more perfect seed than the female, red specks in
+the urine, and making a sediment, show that a male has been
+conceived, but if they are white, a female. Put the urine of the
+woman into a glass bottle, let it stand tightly stoppered for two
+days, then strain it through a fine cloth,
+<!-- Page 161 --><a name='Page_161' id="Page_161"></a> and you will
+find little animals in it. If they are red, it is a male, but if
+white, it is a female.</p>
+<p>The belly is rounder and lies higher with a boy than with a
+girl, and the right breast is harder and plumper than the left, and
+the right nipple redder, and the woman's colour is clearer than
+when she has conceived a girl.</p>
+<p>To conclude, the most certain sign to give credit to, is the
+motion of the child, for the male moves in the third month, and the
+female not until the fourth.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XIII' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XIII"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Untimely Births</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>When the fruit of the womb comes forth before the seventh month
+(that is, before it comes to maturity), it is said to be abortive;
+and, in effect, the children prove abortive, that is, do not live,
+that are born in the eighth month. Why children born in the seventh
+or ninth month should live, and not those born in the eighth, may
+seem strange, and yet it is true. The cause of it is ascribed by
+some to the planet <!-- Page 162 --><a name='Page_162' id=
+"Page_162"></a> under which the child is born; for every month,
+from conception to birth, is governed by its own planet, and in the
+eighth month Saturn predominates, which is dry and cold; and
+coldness, being an utter enemy to life, destroys the natural
+constitution of the child. Hippocrates gives a better reason,
+viz.:&mdash;The infant, being every way perfect and complete in the
+seventh month, wants more air and nourishment than it had before,
+and because it cannot obtain this, it tries for a passage out. But
+if it have not sufficient strength to break the membranes and to
+come out as ordained by nature, it will continue in the womb until
+the ninth month, so that by that time it may be again strengthened.
+But if it returns to the attempt in the eighth month and be born,
+it cannot live, because the day of its birth is either past or is
+to come. For in the eighth month Avicunus says, it is weak and
+infirm, and therefore on being brought into the cold air, its
+vitality must be destroyed.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>CURE.</h3>
+<p>Untimely births may be caused by cold, for as it causes the
+fruit of the tree to wither and fall before it is ripe, so it nips
+the fruit of the womb before it comes to perfection, or makes it
+abortive;&mdash;sometimes by humidity, which weakens
+<!-- Page 163 --><a name='Page_163' id="Page_163"></a> its power,
+so that the fruit cannot be retained until the proper time. It may
+be caused by dryness or emptiness, which rob the child of its
+nourishment, or by an alvine discharge, by bleeding or some other
+evacuation, by inflammation of the womb, and other severe disease.
+Sometimes it is caused by joy, anger, laughter and especially by
+fear, for then the heat forsakes the womb, and goes to the heart,
+and so the cold sinks into the womb, whereby the ligaments are
+relaxed, and so abortion follows. On this account, Plato
+recommended that the woman should avoid all temptations to
+excessive joy and pleasure, as well as all occasions for fear and
+grief. Abortion may also be caused by the pollution of the air by
+filthy odours, and especially by the smell of the smouldering wick
+of a candle, and also by falls, blows, violent exercise, jumping,
+dancing, etc.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SIGNS.</h3>
+<p>Signs of coming abortion are a falling away of the breast, with
+a flow of watery milk, pains in the womb, heaviness in the head,
+unusual weariness in the hips and thighs, and a flowing of the
+courses. Signs denoting that the fruit is dead in the womb are
+sunken eyes, pains in the head, frights, paleness of the face and
+lips, gnawing at the stomach, no movements of the infant; coldness
+<!-- Page 164 --><a name='Page_164' id="Page_164"></a> and
+looseness of the mouth of the womb. The stomach falls down, whilst
+watery and bloody discharges come from the womb.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XIV' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XIV"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Directions for Pregnant Women</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The prevention of untimely births consists in removing the
+aforementioned causes, which must be effected both before and after
+conception.</p>
+<p>Before conception, if the body be too hot, dry or moist, employ
+such treatment as to counteract the symptoms; if the blood be
+vitiated purify it, if plethoric, open the liver vein; if gross,
+reduce it; if too thin strengthen and nourish it. All the diseases
+of the womb must be removed as I have shown.</p>
+<p>After conception, let the atmosphere be kept temperate, do not
+sleep too much, avoid late hours, too much bodily exercise, mental
+excitement, loud noises and bad smells, and sweet smells must also
+be avoided by those who are hysterical. Refrain from all things
+that may provoke either urine or menstruation, also salt,
+<!-- Page 165 --><a name='Page_165' id="Page_165"></a> sour, and
+windy food, and keep to a moderate diet.</p>
+<p>If the bowels are confined, relieve the stomach with injections
+made of a decoction of mallows and violets, with sugar and salad
+oil; or make a broth with borage, buglos, beetroot, and mallows,
+and add a little manna to it. If, on the other hand, she be
+troubled with looseness of the bowels, do not check it with medical
+advice, for all the uterine fluxes have some bad qualities in them,
+which must be evacuated before the discharge is stopped.</p>
+<p>A cough is another thing to which pregnant women are frequently
+liable, and which causes them to run great danger of miscarrying,
+by the shock and continual drain upon the vein. To prevent this
+shave off the hair from the coronal commissures, and apply the
+following plaster to the place.</p>
+<p>Take half an ounce of resin, a drachm of laudanum, a drachm each
+of citron peel, lignaloes and galbanum, with a sufficient quantity
+of liquid and dry styrax. Dissolve the gum in vinegar and make a
+plaster, and at night let her inhale the fumes of these lozenges,
+thrown upon bright coals. Take also a drachm and a half each of
+frankincense, styrax powder and red roses: eight drachms of
+sandrich, a drachm each of mastic, benjamin and amber; make into
+lozenges <!-- Page 166 --><a name='Page_166' id="Page_166"></a>
+with turpentine, and apply a cautery to the nape of the neck. And
+every night let her take the following pills:&mdash;Half an ounce
+each of hypocistides, terrae sigilatae and fine bole; two drachms
+each of bistort, alcatia, styrax and calamint, and one drachm of
+cloves, and make into pills with syrup of myrtles.</p>
+<p>In pregnant women, a corrupt matter is generated which, flowing
+to the ventricle, spoils the appetite and causes sickness. As the
+stomach is weak, and cannot digest this matter, it sometimes sends
+it to the bowels which causes a flux of the stomach, which greatly
+adds to the weakness of the womb. To prevent all these dangers the
+stomach must be strengthened by the following means:&mdash;Take one
+drachm each of lignaloes and nutmeg; a scruple each of mace,
+cloves, mastic, laudanum; an ounce of oil of spikenard; two grains
+of musk, half an ounce each of oil of mastic, quinces and wormwood,
+and make into an ointment for the stomach, to be applied before
+meals. Instead of this, however, you may use cerocum stomachile
+Galeni. Take half an ounce each of conserve of borage, buglos and
+atthos; two drachms each of confection of hyacinths, candied lemon
+peel, specierum, diamarg, pulo. de genunis: two scruples each of
+nutmeg and diambra; two drachma each of peony roots and diacoratum,
+and make <!-- Page 167 --><a name='Page_167' id="Page_167"></a>
+into an electuary with syrup of roses, which she must take twice a
+day before meals. Another affection which troubles a pregnant woman
+is swelling of the legs, which happens during the first three
+months, by the superfluous humours descending from the stomach and
+liver. To cure this, take two drachms of oil of roses, and one
+drachm each of salt and vinegar; shake them together until the salt
+is dissolved, and anoint the legs with it hot, rubbing it well in
+with the hand. It may be done without danger during the fourth,
+fifth and sixth months of pregnancy; for a child in the womb is
+compared to an apple on the tree. For the first three months it is
+a weak and tender subject, like the apple, to fall away; but
+afterwards, when the membranes become strengthened, the fruit
+remains firmly fastened to the womb, and not subject to mischances,
+and so it remains, until the seventh month, until when it is near
+the time, the ligaments are again relaxed (like the apple that is
+almost ripe).</p>
+<p>They grow looser every day, until the appointed time for
+delivery; if, therefore, the body is in real need of purging, the
+woman may do it without danger in the fourth, fifth or sixth month,
+but neither before nor after that unless in the case of some
+violent illness, in which it is possible that both mother and child
+may perish. <!-- Page 168 --><a name='Page_168' id="Page_168"></a>
+Apply plasters and ointments to the loins in order to strengthen
+the fruit in the womb. Take one drachm each of gum Arabic,
+galangale, bistort, hypocistid and storax, a drachm and a half each
+of fine bole, nutmeg, mastic, balaust, dragon's blood and myrtle
+berries, and a sufficient quantity of wax and turpentine and make
+into a plaster. Apply it to the loins in the winter, and remove it
+every twenty-four hours, lest the loins should become overheated by
+it. In the interim, anoint the private parts and loins with
+<i>countess' balsam</i> but if it be summer time and the loins hot,
+the following plaster will be more suitable. Take a pound of red
+roses, two drachms each of mastic and red Sanders, one drachm each
+of bole ammoniac and red coral, two drachms and a half each of
+pomegranate seed and prepared coriander seed, two scruples of
+barberries, one ounce each of oil of mastic and of quinces, and
+plantain-juice.</p>
+<p>Anoint the loins also with sandalwood ointment, and once a week
+wash them with two parts of rose-water and one of white wine mixed
+together and warmed at the fire. This will assuage the heat of the
+loins, get rid of the oil of the plaster from the pores of the
+skin, and cause the fresh ointment or plaster to penetrate more
+easily, and to strengthen the womb. Some think that a load-stone
+laid upon the navel, keeps <!-- Page 169 --><a name='Page_169' id=
+"Page_169"></a> a woman from abortion. The same thing is also
+stated of the stone called <i>aetites</i> or eagle-stone, if it is
+hung round the neck. Samian stone has the same virtue.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XV' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XV"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Directions for Women when they are taken in Labour, to ensure
+their safe Delivery, and Directions for Midwives</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Having thus given the necessary directions to pregnant women,
+how to manage their health during their pregnancy, I will now add
+what is necessary for them to do, in order that they may be safely
+delivered.</p>
+<p>When the time of birth draws near, the woman must be sure to
+send for a skilful midwife, and that rather too soon than too late.
+She must have a pallet bed ready to place it near the fire, so that
+the midwife and those who are to help her, may be able to pass
+round it, and give assistance on either side, as may be required. A
+change of linen must be in readiness, and a small stool to rest her
+feet against, as she will have <!-- Page 170 --><a name='Page_170'
+id="Page_170"></a> more power when her legs are bent, than when
+they are straight.</p>
+<p>When everything is thus ready, and when the woman feels the
+pains coming on, if the weather be not cold, she should walk about
+the room, rest on the bed occasionally, waiting for the breaking of
+the waters, which is a fluid contained in one of the outward
+membranes, and which flows out thence, when the membrane is broken
+by the struggles of the child. There is no special time for this
+discharge, though it generally takes place about two hours before
+the birth. Movements will also cause the womb to open and dilate,
+and when lying long in bed will be uncomfortable. If she be very
+weak she may take some mild cordial to give her strength, if her
+pain will permit her; and if the labour be tedious, she may be
+revived with chicken or mutton broth, or she may take a poached
+egg; but she must be very careful not to eat to excess.</p>
+<p>There are many postures in which women are delivered; some
+sitting in a chair, supported by others, or resting on the bed;
+some again upon their knees and resting on their arms; but the
+safest and most commodious way, is in the bed, and then the midwife
+ought to observe the following rules:&mdash;Let her lay the woman
+upon her back, with her head a little raised by means of a pillow,
+with similar supports for her loins and <!-- Page 171 --><a name=
+'Page_171' id="Page_171"></a> buttocks, which latter should also be
+raised, for if she lies low, she cannot be delivered so easily.
+Then let her keep her knees and thighs as far apart as she can, her
+legs bent inward towards each other, and her buttocks, the soles of
+her feet and her heels being placed upon a small rest, placed for
+the purpose, so that she may be able to strain the stronger. In
+case her back should be very weak, a swathing band should be placed
+under it, the band being doubled four times and about four inches
+broad. This must be held by two persons who must raise her up a
+little every time her pains come on, with steady hands and in even
+time, but if they be not exact in their movements, they had better
+leave her alone. At the same time two women must hold her shoulders
+so that she may strain out the foetus more easily; and to
+facilitate this let one stroke or press the upper part of her
+stomach gently and by degrees. The woman herself must not be
+nervous or downhearted, but courageous, and forcing herself by
+straining and holding her breath.</p>
+<p>When delivery is near, the midwife must wait patiently until the
+child's head, or some limb, bursts the membranes, for if the
+midwife through ignorance, or through haste to go to some other
+woman, as some have done, tears the membrane with her nails, she
+endangers both the woman <!-- Page 172 --><a name='Page_172' id=
+"Page_172"></a> and the child; for by lying dry and lacking that
+slipperiness which should make it easy, it comes forth with severe
+pains.</p>
+<p>When the head appears, the midwife must hold it gently between
+her hands, and draw the child, whenever the woman's pains are upon
+her, but at no other times; slipping her forefingers under its
+armpits by degrees, and not using a rough hand in drawing it out,
+lest the tender infant might become deformed by such means. As soon
+as the child is taken out, which is usually with its face
+downwards,&mdash;it should be laid upon its back, that it may
+receive external respiration more freely; then cut the navel string
+about three inches from the body, tying the end which adheres to it
+with a silk string, as closely as you can; then cover the child's
+head and stomach well, allowing nothing to touch its face.</p>
+<p>When the child has been thus brought forth, if it be healthy lay
+it aside, and let the midwife attend to the patient by drawing out
+the afterbirth; and this she may do by wagging and stirring it up
+and down, and afterwards drawing it out gently. And if the work be
+difficult, let the woman hold salt in her hands, close them tightly
+and breathe hard into them, and by that she will know whether the
+membranes are broken or not. It may also be known by making her
+strain or vomit; by putting her fingers down her throat,
+<!-- Page 173 --><a name='Page_173' id="Page_173"></a> or by
+straining or moving her lower parts, but let all be done
+immediately. If this should fail, let her take a draught of elder
+water, or the yolk of a new laid egg, and smell a piece of
+asafoetida, especially if she is troubled with a windy colic. If
+she happen to take cold, it is a great obstruction to the
+afterbirth; in such cases the midwife ought to chafe the woman's
+stomach gently, so as to break, not only the wind, but also to
+force the secundine to come down. But if these should prove
+ineffectual, the midwife must insert her hand into the orifice of
+the womb and draw it out gently.</p>
+<p>Having thus discussed common births, or such as are generally
+easy, I shall now give directions in cases of extremity.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XVI' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XVI"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>What ought to be done in cases of extremity, especially in
+women who, in labour, are attacked by a flux of blood, convulsions
+and fits of wind.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>If the woman's labour be hard and difficult, greater care must
+be taken than at other times. <!-- Page 174 --><a name='Page_174'
+id="Page_174"></a> And, first of all, the situation of the womb and
+her position in lying must be across the bed, and she must be held
+by strong persons to prevent her from slipping down or moving
+during the surgeon's operations. Her thighs must be put as far
+apart as possible, and held so, whilst her head must rest upon a
+bolster, and her loins be supported in the same manner. After her
+rump and buttocks have been raised, be careful to cover her
+stomach, belly and thighs with warm clothes, to keep them from the
+cold.</p>
+<p>When the woman is in this position, let the operator put up his
+or her hand, if the neck of the womb be dilated, and remove the
+coagulated blood that obstructs the passage of the birth; and by
+degrees make way gently, let him remove the infant tenderly, having
+first anointed his hand with butter or some harmless salve. And if
+the waters have not come down, they may then be let out without
+difficulty. Then, if the infant should attempt to come out head
+foremost, or crosswise, he should turn it gently, to find the feet.
+Having done this, let him draw out one and fasten it with ribbon
+and then put it up again, and by degrees find the other, bringing
+them as close together and as even as possible, and between whiles
+let the woman breathe, and she should be urged to strain so as to
+help nature in the birth, that it may be brought forth. And
+<!-- Page 175 --><a name='Page_175' id="Page_175"></a> to do this
+more easily, and that the hold may be surer, wrap a linen cloth
+round the child's thighs, taking care to bring it into the hand
+face downwards.</p>
+<p>In case of flux of blood, if the neck of the womb be open, it
+must be considered whether the infant or the <i>secundine</i>,
+generally called the afterbirth, comes first, and as the latter
+happens to do so occasionally, it stops the mouth of the womb and
+hinders the birth, and endangers both the woman's and the child's
+life. In this case the afterbirth must be removed by a quick turn.
+They have deceived many people, who, feeling their softness, have
+supposed that the womb was not dilated, and by that means the woman
+and child, or at least the latter, have been lost. When the
+afterbirth has been removed, the child must be sought for and drawn
+out, as directed above; and if the woman or the child die in such a
+case, the midwife or the surgeon are blameless because they have
+used their best endeavours.</p>
+<p>If it appears upon examination that the afterbirth comes first,
+let the woman be delivered as quickly as possible, because a great
+flow of blood will follow, for the veins are opened, and on this
+account two things have to be considered.</p>
+<p><i>First</i>:&mdash;The manner in which the afterbirth advances,
+whether it be much or little. If the former, and the head of the
+child appears first, <!-- Page 176 --><a name='Page_176' id=
+"Page_176"></a> it may be guided and directed towards the neck of
+the womb, as in the case of natural birth, but if there appears any
+difficulty in the delivery, the best way is to look for the feet,
+and draw it out by them; but if the latter, the afterbirth may be
+put back with a gentle hand, and the child taken out first. But if
+the afterbirth has come so far forward that it cannot be put back,
+and the child follows it closely, then the afterbirth must be
+removed very carefully, and as quickly as may be, and laid aside
+without cutting the entrail that is fastened to it; for you may be
+guided to the infant by it, which must be drawn out by the feet,
+whether it be alive or dead, as quickly as possible; though this is
+not to be done except in cases of great necessity, for in other
+cases the afterbirth ought to come last.</p>
+<p>In drawing out a dead child, these directions should be
+carefully followed by the surgeon, viz.&mdash;If the child be found
+to be dead, its head appearing first, the delivery will be more
+difficult; for it is an evident sign that the woman's strength is
+beginning to fail her, that, as the child is dead and has no
+natural power, it cannot be assisting in its own delivery in any
+way. Therefore the most certain and the safest way for the surgeon
+is, to put up his left hand, sliding it into the neck of the womb,
+and into the lower part of it towards the feet, as hollow in the
+palm <!-- Page 177 --><a name='Page_177' id="Page_177"></a> as he
+can, and then between the head of the infant and the neck of the
+womb. Then, having a forceps in the right hand, slip it up above
+the left hand, between the head of the child and the flat of the
+hand, fixing it in the bars of the temple near the eye. As these
+cannot be got at easily in the occipital bone, be careful still to
+keep the hand in its place, and gently move the head with it, and
+so with the right hand and the forceps draw the child forward, and
+urge the woman to exert all her strength, and continue drawing
+whenever her pains come on. When the head is drawn out, he must
+immediately slip his hand under the child's armpits, and take it
+quite out, and give the woman a piece of toasted white bread, in a
+quarter of a pint of Hippocras wine.</p>
+<p>If the former application fails let the woman take the following
+potion hot when she is in bed, and remain quiet until she begins to
+feel it operating.</p>
+<p>Take seven blue figs, cut them into pieces and add five grains
+each of fenugreek, motherwort and rue seed, with six ounces each of
+water of pennyroyal and motherwort; reduce it to half the quantity
+by boiling and after straining add one drachm of troches of myrrh
+and three grains of saffron; sweeten the liquor with loaf sugar,
+and spice it with cinnamon.&mdash;After having rested on this, let
+her strain again as much as <!-- Page 178 --><a name='Page_178' id=
+"Page_178"></a> possible, and if she be not successful, make a
+fumigation of half a drachm each of castor, opopanax, sulphur and
+asafoetida, pounding them into a powder and wetting the juice of
+rue, so that the smoke or fumes may go only into the matrix and no
+further.</p>
+<p>If this have not the desired effect, then the following plaster
+should be applied:&mdash;Take an ounce and a half of balganum, two
+drachms of colocynth, half an ounce each of the juice of motherwort
+and of rue, and seven ounces of virgin bees' wax: pound and melt
+them together, spreading them on a cere-cloth so that they may
+spread from the navel to the os pubis and extending to the flanks,
+at the same time making a pessary of wood, enclosing it in a silk
+bag, and dipping it in a decoction of one drachm each of sound
+birthwort, savin colocinthis, stavescare and black hellebore, with
+a small sprig or two of rue.</p>
+<p>But if these things have not the desired effect, and the woman's
+danger increases, let the surgeon use his instruments to dilate and
+widen the womb, for which purpose the woman must be placed on a
+chair, so that she may turn her buttocks as far from its back as
+possible, at the same time drawing up her legs as close as she can
+and spreading her thighs open as wide as possible; or if she is
+very weak it may be better to lay <!-- Page 179 --><a name=
+'Page_179' id="Page_179"></a> her on the bed with her head
+downwards, her buttocks raised and both legs drawn up. Then the
+surgeon may dilate the womb with his speculum matrices and draw out
+the child and the afterbirth together, if it be possible, and when
+this is done, the womb must be well washed and anointed, and the
+woman put back to bed and comforted with spices and cordials. This
+course must be adopted in the case of dead children and moles,
+afterbirths and false births, which will not come out of
+themselves, at the proper time. If the aforementioned instrument
+will not widen the womb sufficiently, then other instruments, such
+as the drake's bill, or long pincers, ought to be used.</p>
+<p>If any inflammation, swelling or congealed blood happens to be
+contracted in the womb under the film of these tumours, either
+before or after the birth, let the midwife lance it with a penknife
+or any suitable instrument, and squeeze out the matter, healing it
+with a pessary dipped in oil of red roses.</p>
+<p>If the child happens at any time to be swollen through cold or
+violence, or has contracted a watery humour, if it is alive, such
+means must be used as are least injurious to the child or mother;
+but if it be dead, the humours must be let out by incisions, to
+facilitate the birth.</p>
+<p>If, as often happens, the child is presented
+<!-- Page 180 --><a name='Page_180' id="Page_180"></a> feet
+foremost, with the hands spreading out from the hips, the midwife
+must in such a case be provided with the necessary ointments to rub
+and anoint the child with, to help it coming forth, lest it should
+turn into the womb again, holding both the infant's arms close to
+the hips at the same time, that it may come out in this manner; but
+if it proves too big, the womb must be well anointed. The woman
+should also take a sneezing powder, to make her strain; the
+attendant may also stroke her stomach gently to make the birth
+descend, and to keep it from returning.</p>
+<p>It happens occasionally, that the child presenting itself with
+the feet first, has its arms extended above its head; but the
+midwife must not receive it so, but put it back into the womb,
+unless the passage be extraordinarily wide, and then she must
+anoint both the child and the womb, and it is not safe to draw it
+out, which must, therefore, be done in this manner.&mdash;The woman
+must lie on her back with her head low and her buttocks raised; and
+then the midwife must compress the stomach and the womb with a
+gentle hand, and by that means put the child back, taking care to
+turn the child's face towards the mother's back, raising up its
+thighs and buttocks towards the navel, so that the birth may be
+more natural.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 181 --><a name='Page_181' id="Page_181"></a> If the
+child happens to come out with one foot, with the arm extended
+along the side and the other foot turned backwards; then the woman
+must be immediately put to bed and laid in the above-described
+position; when the midwife must immediately put back the foot which
+appears so, and the woman must rock herself from side to side,
+until she finds that the child has turned, but she must not alter
+her position nor turn upon her face. After this she may expect her
+pains and must have great assistance and cordials so as to revive
+and support her spirits.</p>
+<p>At other times it happens that the child lies across in the
+womb, and falls upon its side; in this case the woman must not be
+urged in her labour; therefore, the midwife when she finds it so,
+must use great diligence to reduce it to its right form, or at
+least to such a form in the womb as may make the delivery possible
+and most easy by moving the buttocks and guiding the head to the
+passage; and if she be successful in this, let the woman rock
+herself to and fro, and wait with patience till it alters its way
+of lying.</p>
+<p>Sometimes the child hastens simply by expanding its legs and
+arms; in which, as in the former case, the woman must rock herself,
+but not with violence, until she finds those parts fall to their
+proper station; or it may be done <!-- Page 182 --><a name=
+'Page_182' id="Page_182"></a> by a gentle compression of the womb;
+but if neither of them avail, the midwife must close the legs of
+the infant with her hand, and if she can get there, do the like by
+the arms, and so draw it forth; but if it can be reduced of itself
+to the posture of a proper birth it is better.</p>
+<p>If the infant comes forward, both knees forward, and the hands
+hanging down upon the thighs, then the midwife must put both knees
+upward, till the feet appear; taking hold of which with her left
+hand let her keep her right hand on the side of the child, and in
+that posture endeavour to bring it forth. But if she cannot do
+this, then also the woman must rock herself until the child is in a
+more convenient posture for delivery.</p>
+<p>Sometimes it happens that the child presses forward with one arm
+extended on its thighs, and the other raised over its head, and the
+feet stretched out at length in the womb. In such case, the midwife
+must not attempt to receive the child in that posture, but must lay
+the woman on the bed in the manner aforesaid, making a soft and
+gentle compression on her belly, oblige the child to retire; which
+if it does not, then must the midwife thrust it back by the
+shoulder, and bring the arm that was stretched above the head to
+its right station; for there is most danger in these extremities;
+and, therefore, the <!-- Page 183 --><a name='Page_183' id=
+"Page_183"></a> midwife must anoint her hands and the womb of the
+woman with sweet butter, or a proper pomatum, and thrust her hand
+as near as she can to the arm of the infant, and bring it to the
+side. But if this cannot be done, let the woman be laid on the bed
+to rest a while; in which time, perhaps, the child may be reduced
+to a better posture; which the midwife finding, she must draw
+tenderly the arms close to the hips and so receive it.</p>
+<p>If an infant come with its buttocks foremost, and almost double,
+then the midwife must anoint her hand and thrust it up, and gently
+heaving up the buttocks and back, strive to turn the head to the
+passage, but not too hastily, lest the infant's retiring should
+shape it worse: and therefore, if it cannot be turned with the
+hand, the woman must rock herself on the bed, taking such
+comfortable things as may support her spirits, till she perceives
+the child to turn.</p>
+<p>If the child's neck be bowed, and it comes forward with its
+shoulders, as it sometimes doth, with the hands and feet stretched
+upwards, the midwife must gently move the shoulders, that she may
+direct the head to the passage; and the better to effect it, the
+woman must rock herself as aforesaid.</p>
+<p>These and other like methods are to be observed in case a woman
+hath twins, or three <!-- Page 184 --><a name='Page_184' id=
+"Page_184"></a> children at a birth, which sometimes happens: for
+as the single birth hath but one natural and many unnatural forms,
+even so it may be in a double and treble birth.</p>
+<p>Wherefore, in all such cases the midwife must take care to
+receive the first which is nearest the passage; but not letting the
+other go, lest by retiring it should change the form; and when one
+is born, she must be speedy in bringing forth the other. And this
+birth, if it be in the natural way, is more easy, because the
+children are commonly less than those of single birth, and so
+require a less passage. But if this birth come unnaturally, it is
+far more dangerous than the other.</p>
+<p>In the birth of twins, let the midwife be very careful that the
+secundine be naturally brought forth, lest the womb, being
+delivered of its burden, fall, and so the secundine continue longer
+there than is consistent with the woman's safety.</p>
+<p>But if one of the twins happens to come with the head, and the
+other with the feet foremost, then let the midwife deliver the
+natural birth first; and if she cannot turn the other, draw it out
+in the posture in which it presses forward; but if that with its
+feet downward be foremost, she may deliver that first, turning the
+other aside. But in this case the midwife must carefully see that
+it be not a monstrous birth, instead <!-- Page 185 --><a name=
+'Page_185' id="Page_185"></a> of twins, a body with two heads, or
+two bodies joined together, which she may soon know if both the
+heads come foremost, by putting up her hand between them as high as
+she can; and then, if she finds they are twins she may gently put
+one of them aside to make way for the other, taking the first which
+is most advanced, leaving the other so that it do not change its
+position. And for the safety of the other child, as soon as it
+comes forth out of the womb, the midwife must tie the navel-string,
+as has before been directed, and also bind, with a large, long
+fillet, that part of the navel which is fastened to the secundine,
+the more readily to find it.</p>
+<p>The second infant being born, let the midwife carefully examine
+whether there be not two secundines, for sometimes it falls out,
+that by the shortness of the ligaments it retires back to the
+prejudice of the woman. Wherefore, lest the womb should close, it
+is most expedient to hasten them forth with all convenient
+speed.</p>
+<p>If two infants are joined together by the body, as sometimes it
+monstrously falls out, then, though the head should come foremost,
+yet it is proper, if possible, to turn them and draw them forth by
+the feet, observing, when they come to the hips, to draw them out
+as soon as may be. And here great care ought to be used in
+anointing and widening the passage. But these sort of
+<!-- Page 186 --><a name='Page_186' id="Page_186"></a> births
+rarely happening, I need to say the less of them, and, therefore,
+shall show how women should be ordered after delivery.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XVII' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XVII"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>How child-bearing Women ought to be ordered after
+Delivery</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>If a woman has had very hard labour, it is necessary that she
+should be wrapped up in a sheep's skin, taken off before it is
+cold, applying the fleshy side to her veins and belly, or, for want
+of this, the skin of a hare or coney, flayed off as soon as killed,
+may be applied to the same parts, and in so doing, a dilation being
+made in the birth, and the melancholy blood being expelled in these
+parts, continue these for an hour or two.</p>
+<p>Let the woman afterwards be swathed with fine linen cloth, about
+a quarter of a yard in breadth, chafing the belly before it is
+swathed, with oil of St. John's wort; after that raise up the
+matrix with a linen cloth, many times folded: then with a linen
+pillar or quilt, cover the flanks, and place the swathe somewhat
+above the <!-- Page 187 --><a name='Page_187' id="Page_187"></a>
+haunches, winding it pretty stiff, applying at the same time a
+linen cloth to her nipples; do not immediately use the remedies to
+keep back the milk, by reason the body, at such a time, is out of
+frame; for there is neither vein nor artery which does not strongly
+beat; and remedies to drive back the milk, being of a dissolving
+nature, it is improper to apply them to the breasts during such
+disorder, lest by doing so, evil humours be contracted in the
+breast. Wherefore, twelve hours at least ought to be allowed for
+the circulation and settlement of the blood, and what was cast on
+the lungs by the vehement agitation during labour, to retire to its
+proper receptacles.</p>
+<p>Some time after delivery, you may take a restrictive of the
+yolks of two eggs, and a quarter of a pint of white wine, oil of
+St. John's wort, oil of roses, plantain and roses water, of each an
+ounce, mix them together, fold a linen cloth and apply it to the
+breast, and the pains of those parts will be greatly eased.</p>
+<p>She must by no means sleep directly after delivery; but about
+four hours after, she may take broth, caudle or such liquid
+victuals as are nourishing; and if she be disposed to sleep it may
+be very safely permitted. And this is as much, in the case of a
+natural birth, as ought immediately to be done.</p>
+<p>But in case of an extremity or an unnatural
+<!-- Page 188 --><a name='Page_188' id="Page_188"></a> birth, the
+following rules ought to be observed:&mdash;</p>
+<p>In the first place, let the-woman keep a temperate diet, by no
+means overcharging herself after such an extraordinary evacuation,
+not being ruled by giving credit to unskilful nurses, who admonish
+them to feed heartily, the better to repair the loss of blood. For
+that blood is not for the most part pure, but such as has been
+retained in the vessels or membrane better voided, for the health
+of the woman, than kept, unless there happen an extraordinary flux
+of the blood. For if her nourishment be too much, which curding,
+very often turns to imposthumes.</p>
+<p>Therefore, it is requisite, for the first five days especially,
+that she take moderately panado broth, poached eggs, jelly of
+chickens or calves' feet or fresh barley broth; every day
+increasing the quantity a little.</p>
+<p>And if she intend to be a nurse to the child, she may take
+something more than ordinary, to increase the milk by degrees,
+which must be of no continuance, but drawn off by the child or
+otherwise. In this case likewise, observe to let her have coriander
+or fennel seeds boiled in barley broth; but by all means, for the
+time specified, let her abstain from meat. If no fever trouble her,
+she may drink now and then a small quantity of pure white wine or
+of claret, as also syrup of maidenhead or any other syrup that is
+<!-- Page 189 --><a name='Page_189' id="Page_189"></a> of an
+astringent quality, taken in a little water well boiled.</p>
+<p>After the fear of fever or contraction of humour in the breast
+is over, she may be nourished more plentifully with the broth of
+capons, pullets, pigeons, mutton, veal, etc., which must not be
+until after eight days from the time of delivery; at which time the
+womb, unless some accident binds, has purged itself. It will then
+likewise be expedient to give cold meats, but let it be sparingly,
+so that she may the better gather strength. And let her, during the
+time, rest quietly and free from disturbance, not sleeping in the
+day time, if she can avoid it.</p>
+<p>Take of both mallows and pellitory of the wall a handful;
+camomile and melilot flowers, of each a handful; aniseed and fennel
+of each two ounces; boil them in a decoction of sheep's head and
+take of this three quarts, dissolving in it common honey, coarse
+sugar and fresh butter and administer it clysterwise; but if it
+does not penetrate well take an ounce of catholicon.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XVIII' id=
+"LOOKING_GLASS_PART_II_CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Acute Pains after Delivery</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>These pains frequently afflict the woman no less than the pain
+of her labour, and are, by the <!-- Page 190 --><a name='Page_190'
+id="Page_190"></a> more ignorant, many times taken the one for the
+other; and sometimes they happen both at the same instant; which is
+occasioned by a raw, crude and watery matter in the stomach,
+contracted through ill digestion; and while such pains continue,
+the woman's travail is retarded.</p>
+<p>Therefore, to expel fits of the cholic, take two ounces of oil
+of sweet almonds, and an ounce of cinnamon water, with three or
+four drops of syrup of ginger; then let the woman drink it off.</p>
+<p>If this does not abate the pain, make a clyster of camomile,
+balm-leaves, oil of olives and new milk, boiling the former in the
+latter. Administer it as is usual in such cases. And then,
+fomentation proper for dispelling the wind will not be amiss.</p>
+<p>If the pain produces a griping in the guts after delivery, then
+take of the root of great comfrey, one drachm, nutmeg and peach
+kernels, of each two scruples, yellow amber, eight drachms,
+ambergris, one scruple; bruise them together, and give them to the
+woman as she is laid down, in two or three spoonfuls of white wine;
+but if she be feverish, then let it be in as much warm broth.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='FAMILY_PHYSICIAN' id="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN"></a>
+<h1><!-- Page 191 --><a name='Page_191' id="Page_191"></a>
+THE<br />
+FAMILY PHYSICIAN</h1>
+<hr class="short" />
+<h2>BEING<br />
+CHOICE AND APPROVED<br />
+REMEDIES<br />
+FOR SEVERAL DISEASES<br />
+INCIDENTAL TO HUMAN BODIES</h2>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_the_Apoplexy" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_the_Apoplexy"></a>
+<h3><i>For the Apoplexy</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take man's skull prepared, and powder of male peony, of each an
+ounce and a half, contrayerva, bastard dittany, angelica, zedvary,
+of each two drachms, mix and make a powder, add thereto
+<!-- Page 192 --><a name='Page_192' id="Page_192"></a> two ounces
+of candied orange and lemon peel, beat all together to a powder,
+whereof you may take half a drachm or a drachm.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_A_Powder_for_the_Epilepsy" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_A_Powder_for_the_Epilepsy"></a>
+<h3><i>A Powder for the Epilepsy or Falling Sickness</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take of opopanax, crude antimony, castor, dragon's blood, peony
+seeds, of each an equal quantity; make a subtle powder; the dose,
+half a drachm of black cherry water. Before you take it, the
+stomach must be prepared with some proper vomit, as that of
+Mynficht's emetic tartar, from four grains to six; if for children,
+salts of vitrol, from a scruple to half a drachm.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_a_Headache" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_a_Headache"></a>
+<h3><i>For a Headache of Long Standing</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take the juice or powder in distilled water of hog lice and
+continue it.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_Spitting_of_Blood" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_Spitting_of_Blood"></a>
+<h3><i>For Spitting of Blood</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take conserve of comfrey and of hips, of each an ounce and a
+half; conserve of red roses, three ounces; dragon's blood, a
+drachm; spices of hyacinths, two scruples; red coral, a drachm; mix
+and with syrup of poppies make a soft electuary. Take the quantity
+of a walnut, night and morning.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_a_Looseness" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_a_Looseness"></a>
+<h3><i>For a Looseness</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take Venice treacle and diascordium, of each
+<!-- Page 193 --><a name='Page_193' id="Page_193"></a> half a
+drachm, in warm ale or water gruel, or what you like best, at
+night, going to bed.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_the_Bloody_Flux" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_the_Bloody_Flux"></a>
+<h3><i>For the Bloody Flux</i>.</h3>
+<p>First take a drachm of powder of rhubarb in a sufficient
+quantity of conserve of red roses, in the morning early; then at
+night, take of tornified or roasted rhubarb, half a drachm;
+diascordium, a drachm and a half; liquid laudanum cyclomated, a
+scruple: mix and make into a bolus.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_an_Inflammation" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_an_Inflammation"></a>
+<h3><i>For an Inflammation of the Lungs</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take of cherious water, ten ounces; water of red poppies, three
+ounces; syrup of poppies, an ounce; pearl prepared, a drachm; make
+julep, and take six spoonfuls every fourth hour.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_An_Ointment_for_the_Pleurisy" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_An_Ointment_for_the_Pleurisy"></a>
+<h3><i>An Ointment for the Pleurisy</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take oil of violets or sweet almonds, an ounce of each, with wax
+and a little saffron, make an ointment, warm it and bathe it upon
+the parts affected.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_An_Ointment_for_the_Itch" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_An_Ointment_for_the_Itch"></a>
+<h3><i>An Ointment for the Itch</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take sulphur vive in powder, half an ounce, oil of tartar per
+deliquim, a sufficient quantity, ointment of roses, four ounces;
+make a liniment, <!-- Page 194 --><a name='Page_194' id=
+"Page_194"></a> to which add a scruple of rhodium to aromatize, and
+rub the parts affected with it.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_Running_Scab" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_Running_Scab"></a>
+<h3><i>For Running Scab</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take two pounds of tar, incorporate it into a thick mass with
+well-sifted ashes; boil the mass in fountain-water, adding leaves
+of ground-ivy, white horehound, fumitory roots, sharp-pointed dock
+and of flocan pan, of each four handfuls; make a bath to be used
+with care of taking cold.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_Worms_in_Children" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_Worms_in_Children"></a>
+<h3><i>For Worms in Children</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take wormseed, half a drachm, flour of sulphur, a drachm; mix
+and make a powder. Give as much as will lie on a silver threepence,
+night and morning, in grocer's treacle or honey, or to grown up
+people, you may add a sufficient quantity of aloe rosatum and so
+make them up into pills; three or four may be taken every
+morning.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_Fevers_in_Children" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_Fevers_in_Children"></a>
+<h3><i>For Fevers in Children</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take crab-eyes, a drachm, cream of tartar, half a drachm; white
+sugar-candy finely powdered, weight of both; mix all well together
+and give as much as will lie on a silver threepence, in a spoonful
+of barley-water or sack whey.</p>
+<br />
+<!-- Page 195 --><a name='Page_195' id="Page_195"></a> <a name=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_A_Quieting_Night_Draught" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_A_Quieting_Night_Draught"></a>
+<h3><i>A Quieting Night-Draught, when the Cough is
+Violent</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take water of green wheat, six ounces, syrup diascordium, three
+ounces, take two or three spoonfuls going to bed every night or
+every other night.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_An_Electuary_for_the_Dropsy" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_An_Electuary_for_the_Dropsy"></a>
+<h3><i>An Electuary for the Dropsy</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take best rhubarb, one drachm, gum lac, prepared, two drachms,
+zyloaloes, cinnamon, long birthwort, half an ounce each, best
+English saffron, half a scruple; with syrup of chicory and rhubarb
+make an electuary. Take the quantity of a nutmeg or small walnut
+every morning fasting.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_a_Tympany_Dropsy" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_a_Tympany_Dropsy"></a>
+<h3><i>For a Tympany Dropsy</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take roots of chervil and candied eringo roots, half an ounce of
+each, roots of butcher-broom, two ounces, grass-roots, three
+ounces, shavings of ivory and hartshorn, two drachms and a half
+each; boil them in two or three pounds of spring water. Whilst the
+strained liquor is hot, pour it upon the leaves of watercresses and
+goose-grass bruised, of each a handful, adding a pint of Rhenish
+wine. Make a close infusion for two hours, then strain out the
+liquor again, and add to it three ounces of magirtral water and
+<!-- Page 196 --><a name='Page_196' id="Page_196"></a> earth worms
+and an ounce and a half of the syrup of the five opening roots.
+Make an apozen, whereof take four ounces twice a day.</p>
+<br />
+<a name="FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_an_Inward_Bleeding" id=
+"FAMILY_PHYSICIAN_For_an_Inward_Bleeding"></a>
+<h3><i>For an Inward Bleeding</i>.</h3>
+<p>Take leaves of plantain and stinging nettles, of each three
+handfuls, bruise them well and pour on them six ounces of plantain
+water, afterwards make a strong expression and drink the whole off.
+<i>Probatum est</i>.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='GENERAL_OBSERVATIONS' id="GENERAL_OBSERVATIONS"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 197 --><a name='Page_197' id="Page_197"></a> GENERAL
+OBSERVATIONS</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Worthy of Notice</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<h3>WHEN YOU FIND</h3>
+<p>A red man to be faithful, a tall man to be wise, a fat man to be
+swift of foot, a lean man to be a fool, a handsome man not to be
+proud, a poor man not to be envious, a knave to be no liar, an
+upright man not too bold and hearty to his own loss, one that
+drawls when he speaks not to be crafty and circumventing, one that
+winks on another with his eyes not to be false and deceitful, a
+sailor and hangman to be pitiful, a poor man to build churches, a
+quack doctor to have a good conscience, a bailiff not to be a
+merciless villain, an hostess not to over-reckon you, and an usurer
+to be charitable&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+<h3>THEN SAY,</h3>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Ye have found a prodigy</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p>Men acting contrary to the common course of nature.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE' id="EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE"></a>
+<!-- Page 198 --><a name='Page_198' id="Page_198"></a>
+<h1>PART II</h1>
+<hr class="short" />
+<h1>THE<br />
+EXPERIENCED MIDWIFE</h1>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_INTRODUCTION' id=
+"EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_INTRODUCTION"></a>
+<h2>INTRODUCTION.</h2>
+<br />
+<p>I have given this Part the title of The Experienced Midwife,
+because it is chiefly designed for those who profess Midwifery, and
+contains whatever is necessary for them to know in the practice
+thereof; and also, because it is the result of many years'
+experience, and that in the <!-- Page 199 --><a name='Page_199' id=
+"Page_199"></a> most difficult cases, and is, therefore, the more
+to be depended upon.</p>
+<p>A midwife is the most necessary and honourable office, being
+indeed a helper of nature; which therefore makes it necessary for
+her to be well acquainted with all the operations of nature in the
+work of generation, and instruments with which she works. For she
+that knows not the operations of nature, nor with what tool she
+works, must needs be at a loss how to assist therein. And seeing
+the instruments of operation, both in men and women, are those
+things by which mankind is produced, it is very necessary that all
+midwives should be well acquainted with them, that they may better
+understand their business, and assist nature, as there shall be
+occasion.</p>
+<p>The first thing then necessary as introductory to this treatise,
+is an anatomical description of the several parts of generation
+both in men and women; but as in the former part of this work I
+have treated at large upon these subjects, being desirous to avoid
+tautology, I shall not here repeat anything of what was then said,
+but refer the reader thereto, as a necessary introduction to what
+follows. And though I shall be necessitated to speak plainly so
+that I may be understood, yet I shall do it with that modesty that
+none shall have need to blush unless it be
+<!-- Page 200 --><a name='Page_200' id="Page_200"></a> from
+something in themselves, rather than from what they shall find
+here; having the motto of the royal garter for my defence, which
+is:&mdash;"Honi soit qui mal y pense,"&mdash;"Evil be to him that
+evil thinks."</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='A_GUIDE_TO_CHILDBEARING_WOMEN' id=
+"A_GUIDE_TO_CHILDBEARING_WOMEN"></a>
+<h1><!-- Page 201 --><a name='Page_201' id="Page_201"></a> A<br />
+GUIDE TO CHILDBEARING<br />
+WOMEN</h1>
+<hr class="long" />
+<h2>BOOK I</h2>
+<br />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_I' id=
+"EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_I"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>Of the Womb</i>.</h3>
+<p>In this chapter I am to treat of the womb, which the Latins call
+<i>matrix</i>. Its parts are two; the mouth of the womb and the
+bottom of it. The mouth is an orifice at the entrance into it,
+which may be dilated and shut together like a purse; for though in
+the act of copulation it is big enough to receive the glans of the
+yard, yet after conception, it is so close and shut, that it will
+not admit the point of a bodkin to enter; and yet again, at the
+time of a woman's delivery, it is opened to such an extraordinary
+degree, that the child passeth through it into the world;
+<!-- Page 202 --><a name='Page_202' id="Page_202"></a> at which
+time this orifice wholly disappears, and the womb seems to have but
+one great cavity from the bottom to the entrance of the neck. When
+a woman is not with child, it is a little oblong, and of substance
+very thick and close; but when she is with child it is shortened,
+and its thickness diminished proportionably to its distension; and
+therefore it is a mistake of anatomists who affirm, that its
+substance waxeth thicker a little before a woman's labour; for any
+one's reason will inform him, that the more distended it is, the
+thinner it must be; and the nearer a woman is to the time of her
+delivery the shorter her womb must be extended. As to the action by
+which this inward orifice of the womb is opened and shut, it is
+purely natural; for were it otherwise, there could not be so many
+bastards begotten as there are, nor would any married women have so
+many children. Were it in their own power they would hinder
+conception, though they would be willing enough to use copulation;
+for nature has attended that action with so pleasing and delightful
+sensations, that they are willing to indulge themselves in the use
+thereof notwithstanding the pains they afterwards endure, and the
+hazard of their lives that often follows it. And this comes to
+pass, not so much from an inordinate lust in woman, as that the
+great Director of Nature, for the <!-- Page 203 --><a name=
+'Page_203' id="Page_203"></a> increase and multiplication of
+mankind, and even all other species in the elementary world, hath
+placed such a magnetic virtue in the womb, that it draws the seed
+to it, as the loadstone draws iron.</p>
+<p>The Author of Nature has placed the womb in the belly, that the
+heat might always be maintained by the warmth of the parts
+surrounding it; it is, therefore, seated in the middle of the
+hypogastrium (or lower parts of the belly between the bladder and
+the belly, or right gut) by which also it is defended from any hurt
+through the hardness of the bones, and it is placed in the lower
+part of the belly for the convenience of copulation, and of a birth
+being thrust out at full time.</p>
+<p>It is of a figure almost round, inclining somewhat to an oblong,
+in part resembling a pear; for being broad at the bottom, it
+gradually terminates in the point of the orifice which is
+narrow.</p>
+<p>The length, breadth and thickness of the womb differ according
+to the age and disposition of the body. For in virgins not ripe it
+is very small in all its dimensions, but in women whose terms flow
+in great quantities, and such as frequently use copulation, it is
+much larger, and if they have had children, it is larger in them
+than in such as have had none; but in women of a good stature and
+well shaped, it is (as I have <!-- Page 204 --><a name='Page_204'
+id="Page_204"></a> said before), from the entry of the privy parts
+to the bottom of the womb usually about eight inches; but the
+length of the body of the womb alone, does not exceed three; the
+breadth thereof is near about the same, and of the thickness of the
+little finger, when the womb is not pregnant, but when the woman is
+with child, it becomes of a prodigious greatness, and the nearer
+she is to delivery, the more the womb is extended.</p>
+<p>It is not without reason then, that nature (or the God of
+Nature) has made the womb of a membranous substance; for thereby it
+does the easier open to conceive, is gradually dilated by the
+growth of the foetus or young one, and is afterwards contracted or
+closed again, to thrust forth both it and the after-burden, and
+then to retire to its primitive seat. Hence also it is enabled to
+expel any noxious humours, which may sometimes happen to be
+contained within it.</p>
+<p>Before I have done with the womb, which is the field of
+generation, and ought, therefore, to be the more particularly taken
+care of (for as the seeds of plants can produce no plants, nor
+sprig unless grown in ground proper to excite and awaken their
+vegetative virtue so likewise the seed of man, though potentially
+containing all the parts of the child, would never produce so
+<!-- Page 205 --><a name='Page_205' id="Page_205"></a> admissible
+an effect, if it were not cast into that fruitful field of nature,
+the womb) I shall proceed to a more particular description of its
+parts, and the uses for which nature has designed them.</p>
+<p>The womb, then, is composed of various similar parts, that is of
+membranes, veins, arteries and nerves. Its membranes are two and
+they compose the principal parts of the body, the outermost of
+which ariseth from the peritoneum or caul, and is very thin,
+without it is smooth, but within equal, that it may the better
+cleave to the womb, as it is fleshier and thicker than anything
+else we meet with within the body, when the woman is not pregnant,
+and is interwoven with all sorts of fibres or small strings that it
+may the better suffer the extension of the child, and the water
+caused during pregnancy, and also that it may the easier close
+again after delivery.</p>
+<p>The veins and arteries proceed both from the hypogastric and the
+spermatic vessels, of which I shall speak by and by; all these are
+inserted and terminated in the proper membranes of the womb. The
+arteries supply it with food and nourishment, which being brought
+together in too great a quantity, sweats through the substance of
+it, and distils as it were a dew at the bottom of the cavity; from
+thence proceed <!-- Page 206 --><a name='Page_206' id=
+"Page_206"></a> the terms in ripe virgins, and the blood which
+nourisheth the embryo in breeding women. The branches which issue
+from the spermatic vessels, are inserted on each side of the bottom
+of the womb, and are much less than those which proceed from the
+hypogastrics, those being greater and bedewing the whole substance
+of it. There are some other small vessels, which arising the one
+from the other are conducted to the internal orifice, and by these,
+those that are pregnant purge away the superfluity of the terms
+when they happen to have more than is used in the nourishment of
+the infant: by which means nature has taken so much care of the
+womb, that during pregnancy it shall not be obliged to open itself
+for passing away those excrementitious humours, which, should it be
+forced to do, might often endanger abortion.</p>
+<p>As touching the nerves, they proceed from the brain, which
+furnishes all the inner parts of the lower belly in them, which is
+the true reason it hath so great a sympathy with the stomach, which
+is likewise very considerably furnished from the same part; so that
+the womb cannot be afflicted with any pain, but that the stomach is
+immediately sensible thereof, which is the cause of those loathings
+or frequent vomitings which happen to it.</p>
+<p>But beside all these parts which compose the
+<!-- Page 207 --><a name='Page_207' id="Page_207"></a> womb, it has
+yet four ligaments, whose office it is, to keep it firm in its
+place, and prevent its constant agitation, by the continual motion
+of the intestines which surround it, two of which are above and two
+below. Those above are called the broad ligaments, because of their
+broad and membranous figure, and are nothing else but the
+production of the peritoneum which growing out of the sides of the
+loins towards the veins come to be inserted in the sides of the
+bottom of the womb, to hinder the body from bearing too much on the
+neck, and so from suffering a precipitation as will sometimes
+happen when the ligaments are too much relaxed; and do also contain
+the testicles, and as well, safely conduct the different vessels,
+as the ejaculatories, to the womb. The lowermost are called round
+ligaments, taking their origin from the side of the womb near the
+horn, from whence they pass the groin, together with the production
+of the peritoneum, which accompanies them through the rings of the
+oblique and transverse muscles of the belly, by which they divide
+themselves into many little branches resembling the foot of a
+goose, of which some are inserted into the os pubis, the rest are
+lost and confounded with the membranes which women and children
+feel in their thighs. These two ligaments are long, round and
+nervous, and <!-- Page 208 --><a name='Page_208' id="Page_208"></a>
+pretty big in their beginning near the matrix, hollow in their
+rise, and all along the os pubis, where they are a little smaller
+and become flat, the better to be inserted in the manner aforesaid.
+It is by their means the womb is hindered from rising too high.
+Now, although the womb is held in its natural situation by means of
+these four ligaments, it has liberty enough to extend itself when
+pregnant, because they are very loose, and so easily yield to its
+distension. But besides these ligaments, which keep the womb, as it
+were, in a poise, yet it is fastened for greater security by its
+neck, both to the bladder and rectum, between which it is situated.
+Whence it comes to pass, that if at any time the womb be inflamed,
+it communicates the inflammation to the neighbouring part.</p>
+<p>Its use or proper action in the work of generation, is to
+receive and retain the seed, and deduce from it power and action by
+its heat, for the generation of the infant; and it is, therefore,
+absolutely necessary for the conservation of the species. It also
+seems by accident to receive and expel the impurities of the whole
+body, as when women have abundance of whites, and to purge away,
+from time to time, the superfluity of the blood, as when a woman is
+not with child.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><!-- Page 209 --><a name='Page_209' id="Page_209"></a> SECT.
+II.&mdash;<i>Of the difference between the ancient and modern
+Physicians, touching the woman's contributing seed for the
+Formation of the Child</i>.</h3>
+<p>Our modern anatomists and physicians are of different sentiments
+from the ancients touching the woman's contributing seed for the
+formation of the child, as well as the man; the ancients strongly
+affirming it, but our modern authors being generally of another
+judgment. I will not make myself a party to this controversy, but
+set down impartially, yet briefly, the arguments on each side, and
+leave the judicious reader to judge for himself.</p>
+<p>Though it is apparent, say the ancients, that the seed of man is
+the principal efficient and beginning of action, motion and
+generation, yet the woman affords seed, and contributes to the
+procreation of the child, it is evident from hence, that the woman
+had seminal vessels, which had been given her in vain if she wanted
+seminal excretions; but since nature forms nothing in vain, it must
+be granted that they were formed for the use of the seed and
+procreation, and fixed in their proper places, to operate and
+contribute virtue and efficiency to the seed; and this, say they,
+is further proved from hence, that if women at years of maturity
+<!-- Page 210 --><a name='Page_210' id="Page_210"></a> use not
+copulation to eject their seed, they often fall into strange
+diseases, as appears by young women and virgins, and also it
+appears that, women are never better pleased than when they are
+often satisfied this way, which argues, that the pleasure and
+delight, say they, is double in women to what it is in men, for as
+the delight of men in copulation consists chiefly in the emission
+of the seed, so women are delighted, both in the emission of their
+own and the reception of the man's.</p>
+<p>But against this, all our modern authors affirm that the
+ancients are very erroneous, inasmuch as the testicles in women do
+not afford seed, but are two eggs, like those of a fowl or other
+creatures; neither have they any such offices as in men, but are
+indeed an ovarium, or receptacle for eggs, wherein these eggs are
+nourished, by the sanguinary vessels dispersed through them; and
+from hence one or more, as they are fecundated by the man's seed,
+are conveyed into the womb by the oviducts. And the truth of this,
+say they, is so plain, that if you boil them, the liquor shall have
+the same taste, colour and consistency with the taste of bird's
+eggs. And if it be objected that they have no shells, the answer is
+easy; for the eggs of fowls while they are in the ovary, nay, after
+they have fallen into the uterus, have no shell: and though they
+have <!-- Page 211 --><a name='Page_211' id="Page_211"></a> one
+when they are laid, yet it is no more than a fence which nature has
+provided for them against outward injuries, they being hatched
+without the body, but those of women being hatched within the body
+have no need of any other fence than the womb to secure them.</p>
+<p>They also further say, that there are in the generation of the
+foetus, or young ones, two principles, <i>active</i> and
+<i>passive</i>; the <i>active</i> is the man's seed elaborated in
+the testicles out of the arterial blood and animal spirits; the
+<i>passive</i> principle is the ovum or egg, impregnated by the
+man's seed; for to say that women have true seed, say they, is
+erroneous. But the manner of conception is this; the most
+spirituous part of the man's seed, in the act of copulation,
+reaching up to the ovarium or testicles of the woman (which
+contains divers eggs, sometimes fewer) impregnates one of them;
+which, being conveyed by the oviducts to the bottom of the womb,
+presently begins to swell bigger and bigger, and drinks in the
+moisture that is so plentifully sent hither, after the same manner
+that the seed in the ground suck the fertile moisture thereof, to
+make them sprout.</p>
+<p>But, notwithstanding what is here urged by modern anatomists,
+there are some late writers of the opinion of the ancients, viz.,
+that women both have, and emit seed in the act of copulation;
+<!-- Page 212 --><a name='Page_212' id="Page_212"></a> and even
+women themselves take it ill to be thought merely passive in the
+act wherein they make such vigorous exertions; and positively
+affirm, that they are sensible of the emission of their seed in
+that action, and that in it a great part of the delight which they
+take in that act, consists. I shall not, therefore, go about to
+take away any of their happiness from them, but leave them in
+possession of their imaginary felicity.</p>
+<p>Having thus laid the foundation of this work, I will now proceed
+to speak of conception, and of those things which are necessary to
+be observed by women from the time of their conception, to the time
+of their delivery.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_II' id=
+"EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_II"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Conception; what it is; how women are to order themselves
+after Conception.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>What Conception is, and the qualifications
+requisite thereto.</i></h3>
+<p>Conception is nothing but an action of the womb, by which the
+prolific seed is received and <!-- Page 213 --><a name='Page_213'
+id="Page_213"></a> retained, that an infant may be engendered and
+formed out of it. There are two sorts of conception: the one
+according to nature, which is followed by the generation of the
+infant in the womb; the other false and wholly against nature, in
+which the seed changes into water, and produces only false
+conceptions, moles, or other strange matter. Now, there are three
+things principally necessary in order to a true conception, so that
+generation may follow, viz., without diversity of sex there can be
+no conception; for, though some will have a woman to be an animal
+that can engender of herself, it is a great mistake; there can be
+no conception without a man discharge his seed into the womb. What
+they allege of pullets laying eggs without a cock's treading them
+is nothing to the purpose, for those eggs should they be set under
+a hen, will never become chickens because they never received any
+prolific virtue from the male, which is absolutely necessary to
+this purpose, and is sufficient to convince us, that diversity of
+the sex is necessary even to those animals, as well as to the
+generation of man. But diversity of sex, though it be necessary to
+conception, yet it will not do alone; there must also be a
+congression of the different sexes; for diversity of sex would
+profit little if copulation did not follow. I confess I have heard
+of subtle women, <!-- Page 214 --><a name='Page_214' id=
+"Page_214"></a> who, to cover their sin and shame, have endeavoured
+to persuade some peasants that they were never touched by man to
+get them with child; and that one in particular pretended to
+conceive by going into a bath where a man had washed himself a
+little before and spent his seed in it, which was drawn and sucked
+into her womb, as she pretended. But such stories as these are only
+for such who know no better. Now that these different sexes should
+be obliged to come to the touch, which we call copulation or
+coition, besides the natural desire of begetting their like, which
+stirs up men and women to it, the parts appointed for generation
+are endowed by nature with a delightful and mutual itch, which
+begets in them a desire to the action; without which, it would not
+be very easy for a man, born for the contemplation of divine
+mysteries, to join himself, by the way of coition, to a woman, in
+regard to the uncleanness of the part and the action. And, on the
+other side, if the woman did but think of those pains and
+inconveniences to which they are subject by their great bellies,
+and those hazards of life itself, besides the unavoidable pains
+that attend their delivery, it is reasonable to believe they would
+be affrighted from it. But neither sex makes these reflections till
+after the action is over, considering nothing beforehand but the
+pleasure <!-- Page 215 --><a name='Page_215' id="Page_215"></a> of
+the enjoyment, so that it is from this voluptuous itch that nature
+obliges both sexes to this congression. Upon which the third thing
+followeth of course, viz., the emission of seed into the womb in
+the act of copulation. For the woman having received this prolific
+seed into her womb, and retained it there, the womb thereupon
+becomes depressed, and embraces the seed so closely, that being
+closed the point of a needle cannot enter into it without violence.
+And now the woman may be said to have conceived, having reduced by
+her heat from power into action, the several faculties which are
+contained in the seed, making use of the spirits with which the
+seed abounds, and which are the instruments which begin to trace
+out the first lineaments of the parts, and which afterwards, by
+making use of the menstruous blood flowing to it, give it, in time,
+growth and final perfection. And thus much shall suffice to explain
+what conception is. I shall next proceed to show</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. II.&mdash;<i>How a Woman ought to order herself after
+Conception</i>.</h3>
+<p>My design in this treatise being brevity, I shall bring forward
+a little of what the learned have said of the causes of twins, and
+whether <!-- Page 216 --><a name='Page_216' id="Page_216"></a>
+there be any such things as superfoetations, or a second conception
+in a woman (which is yet common enough), and as to twins, I shall
+have occasion to speak of them when I come to show you how the
+midwife ought to proceed in the delivery of the women that are
+pregnant with them. But having already spoken of conception, I
+think it now necessary to show how such as have conceived ought to
+order themselves during their pregnancy, that they may avoid those
+inconveniences, which often endanger the life of the child and many
+times their own.</p>
+<p>A woman, after conception, during the time of her being with
+child, ought to be looked upon as indisposed or sick, though in
+good health; for child bearing is a kind of nine months' sickness,
+being all that time in expectation of many inconveniences which
+such a condition usually causes to those that are not well governed
+during that time; and therefore, ought to resemble a good pilot,
+who, when sailing on a rough sea and full of rocks, avoids and
+shuns the danger, if he steers with prudence, but if not, it is a
+thousand to one but he suffers shipwreck. In like manner, a woman
+with child is often in danger of miscarrying and losing her life,
+if she is not very careful to prevent those accidents to which she
+is subject all the time of her pregnancy. All which time her care
+must be double, first of herself, <!-- Page 217 --><a name=
+'Page_217' id="Page_217"></a> and secondly of the child she goes
+with for otherwise, a single error may produce a double mischief;
+for if she receives a prejudice, the child also suffers with her.
+Let a woman, therefore, after conception, observe a good diet,
+suitable to her temperament, custom, condition and quality; and if
+she can, let the air where she ordinarily dwells be clear and well
+tempered, and free from extremes, either of heat or cold; for being
+too hot, it dissipateth the spirits too much and causes many
+weaknesses; and by being too cold and foggy, it may bring down
+rheums and distillations on the lungs, and so cause her to cough,
+which, by its impetuous motion, forcing downwards, may make her
+miscarry. She ought alway to avoid all nauseous and ill smells; for
+sometimes the stench of a candle, not well put out, may cause her
+to come before time; and I have known the smell of charcoal to have
+the same effect. Let her also avoid smelling of rue, mint,
+pennyroyal, castor, brimstone, etc.</p>
+<p>But, with respect to their diet, women with child have generally
+so great loathings and so many different longings, that it is very
+difficult to prescribe an exact diet for them. Only this I think
+advisable, that they may use those meats and drinks which are to
+them most desirable, though, perhaps, not in themselves so
+wholesome <!-- Page 218 --><a name='Page_218' id="Page_218"></a> as
+some others, and, it may be not so pleasant; but this liberty must
+be made use of with this caution, that what they desire be not in
+itself unwholesome; and also that in everything they take care of
+excess. But, if a child-bearing woman finds herself not troubled
+with such longings as we have spoken of, let her take simple food,
+and in such quantity as may be sufficient for herself and the
+child, which her appetite may in a great measure regulate; for it
+is alike hurtful to her to fast too long as to eat too much; and
+therefore, rather let her eat a little and often; especially let
+her avoid eating too much at night, because the stomach being too
+much filled, compresseth the diaphragm, and thereby causeth
+difficulty of breathing. Let her meat be easy of digestion, such as
+the tenderest parts of beef, mutton, veal, fowls, pullets, capons,
+pigeons and partridges, either boiled or roasted, as she likes
+best, new laid eggs are also very good for her; and let her put
+into her broth those herbs that purify it, as sorrel, lettuce,
+succory and borage; for they will purge and purify the blood. Let
+her avoid whatever is hot seasoned, especially pies and baked
+meats, which being of hot digestion, overcharge the stomach. If she
+desire fish let it be fresh, and such as is taken out of rivers and
+running streams. Let her eat quinces and marmalade, to strengthen
+<!-- Page 219 --><a name='Page_219' id="Page_219"></a> her child:
+for which purpose sweet almonds, honey, sweet apples, and full ripe
+grapes, are also good. Let her abstain from all salt, sour, bitter
+and salt things, and all things that tend to provoke the
+terms&mdash;such as garlic, onions, mustard, fennel, pepper and all
+spices except cinnamon, which in the last three months is good for
+her. If at first her diet be sparing, as she increases in bigness,
+let her diet be increased, for she ought to consider that she has a
+child as well as herself to nourish. Let her be moderate in her
+drinking; and if she drinks wine, let it be rather claret than
+white (for it will breed good blood, help the digestion, and
+comfort the stomach, which is weakly during pregnancy); but white
+wine being diuretic, or that which provokes urine, ought to be
+avoided. Let her be careful not to take too much exercise, and let
+her avoid dancing, riding in a coach, or whatever else puts the
+body into violent motion, especially in the first month. But to be
+more particular, I shall here set down rules proper for every month
+for the child-bearing woman to order herself, from the time she
+first conceived, to the time of her delivery.</p>
+<h4><i>Rules for the First Two Months</i>.</h4>
+<p>As soon as a woman knows, or has reason to believe, that she has
+conceived, she ought to <!-- Page 220 --><a name='Page_220' id=
+"Page_220"></a> abstain from all violent motions and exercise;
+whether she walks afoot, or rides on horseback or in a coach, it
+ought to be very gently. Let her also abstain from Venery (for
+which, after conception, she has usually no great inclination),
+lest there be a mole or superfoetation, which is the adding of one
+embryo to another. Let her beware not to lift her arms too high,
+nor carry great burdens, nor repose herself on hard and uneasy
+seats. Let her use moderately good, juicy meat and easy of
+digestion, and let her wines be neither too strong nor too sharp,
+but a little mingled with water; or if she be very abstemious, she
+may use water wherein cinnamon has been boiled. Let her avoid
+fastings, thirst, watchings, mourning, sadness, anger, and all
+other perturbations of the mind. Let no one present any strange or
+unwholesome thing to her, nor so much as name it, lest she should
+desire it and not be able to get it, and so either cause her to
+miscarry, or the child to have some deformity on that account. Let
+her belly be kept loose with prunes, raisins or manna in her broth,
+and let her use the following electuary, to strengthen the womb and
+the child&mdash;</p>
+<p>"Take conserve of borage, buglos and roses, each two ounces; an
+ounce of balm; an ounce each of citron peel and shreds, candied
+mirobalans, an ounce each; extract of wood aloes
+<!-- Page 221 --><a name='Page_221' id="Page_221"></a> a scruple;
+prepared pearl, half a drachm; red coral and ivory, of each a
+drachm; precious stones each a scruple; candied nutmegs, two
+drachms, and with syrup of apples and quinces make an
+electuary."</p>
+<h4><i>Let her observe the following rules</i>.</h4>
+<p>"Take pearls prepared, a drachm; red coral and ivory prepared,
+each half a drachm, precious stones, each a scruple; yellow citron
+peel, mace, cinnamon, cloves, each half a drachm; saffron, a
+scruple; wood aloes, half a scruple; ambergris, six drachms; and
+with six ounces of sugar dissolved in rosewater make rolls." Let
+her also apply strengtheners of nutmeg, mace and mastich made up in
+bags, to the navel, or a toast dipped in malmsey, or sprinkled with
+powdered mint. If she happens to desire clay, chalk, or coals (as
+many women with child do), give her beans boiled with sugar, and if
+she happens to long for anything that she cannot obtain, let her
+presently drink a large draught of pure cold water.</p>
+<h4><i>Rules for the Third Month</i>.</h4>
+<p>In this month and the next, be sure to keep from bleeding; for
+though it may be safe and <!-- Page 222 --><a name='Page_222' id=
+"Page_222"></a> proper at other times, yet it will not be so at the
+end of the fourth month; and yet if blood abound, or some
+incidental disease happens which requires evacuation, you may use a
+cupping glass, with scarification, and a little blood may be drawn
+from the shoulders and arms, especially if she has been accustomed
+to bleed. Let her also take care of lacing herself too straitly,
+but give herself more liberty than she used to do; for inclosing
+her belly in too strait a mould, she hinders the infant from taking
+its free growth, and often makes it come before its time.</p>
+<h4><i>Rules for the Fourth Month</i>.</h4>
+<p>In this month also you ought to keep the child-bearing woman
+from bleeding, unless in extraordinary cases, but when the month is
+passed, blood-letting and physic may be permitted, if it be gentle
+and mild, and perhaps it may be necessary to prevent abortion. In
+this month she may purge, in an acute disease, but purging may only
+be used from the beginning of this month to the end of the sixth;
+but let her take care that in purging she use no vehement medicine,
+nor any bitter, as aloes, which is disagreeable and hurtful to the
+child, and opens the mouth of the vessels; neither let her use
+coloquintida, scammony nor turbith; she <!-- Page 223 --><a name=
+'Page_223' id="Page_223"></a> may use cassia, manna, rhubarb,
+agaric and senna but dyacidodium purgans is best, with a little of
+the electuary of the juice of roses.</p>
+<h4><i>Rules for the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Months</i>.</h4>
+<p>In these months, child-bearing women are troubled with coughs,
+colds, heart-beating, fainting, watching, pains in the loins and
+hips, and bleeding. The cough is from a sharp vapour that comes to
+the jaws and rough artery from the terms, or the thin part of that
+blood got less into the reins of the breast; this endangers
+abortion, and strength fails from watching: therefore, purge the
+humours that come to the breast, with rhubarb and agaric, and
+strengthen the head as in a catarrh, and give sweet lenitives as in
+a cough. Palpitation and faintness arises from vapours that go to
+it by the arteries, or from blood that abounds and cannot get out
+of the womb, but ascends and oppresses the heart; and in this case
+cordials should be used both inwardly and outwardly. Watching, is
+from sharp dry vapours that trouble the animal spirits, and in this
+case use frictions, and let the woman wash her feet at bed-time,
+and let her take syrup of poppies, dried roses, emulsions of sweet
+almonds, and white poppy seed. If she be troubled with pains in her
+loins and hips, as <!-- Page 224 --><a name='Page_224' id=
+"Page_224"></a> in those months she is subject to be, from the
+weight of her child as it grows big and heavy, and so stretches the
+ligaments of the womb and part adjacent, let her hold it up with
+swathing bands about her neck. About this time also the woman often
+happens to have a flux of blood, either at the nose, womb or
+haemorrhoids, from plenty of blood, or from the weakness of the
+child that takes it not in, or else from evil humour in the blood,
+that stirs up nature and sends it forth. And sometimes it happens
+that the vessels of the womb may be broken, either by some violent
+motion, fall, cough or trouble of the mind (for any of these will
+work that effect), and this is so dangerous, that in such a case
+the child cannot be well, but if it be from blood only, the danger
+is less, provided it flows by the veins of the neck of the womb,
+for then it prevents plethora and takes not away the nourishment of
+the child; but if it proceeds from the weakness of the child, that
+draws it not in, abortion of the child often follows, or hard
+travail, or else she goes beyond her time. But if it flows from the
+inward veins of the womb, there is more danger by the openness of
+the womb, if it come from evil blood; the danger is alike from
+cacochymy, which is like to fall upon both. If it arises from
+plethora, open a vein, but with great caution, and use astringents,
+of <!-- Page 225 --><a name='Page_225' id="Page_225"></a> which the
+following will do well:&mdash;Take prepared pearls, a scruple; red
+coral, two scruples; mace, nutmeg, each a drachm; cinnamon, half a
+drachm; make a powder, or with white sugar make rolls. Or give this
+powder in broth:&mdash;"Take red coral, a drachm; half a drachm
+precious stones; red sander, half a drachm; bole, a drachm; scaled
+earth and tormental roots, each two scruples, with sugar of roses
+and Manus Christi; with pearl, five drachms; make a powder." You
+may also strengthen the child at the navel, and if there be a
+cacochymy, alter the humours, and if you can do it safely,
+evacuate; you may likewise use amulets on her hands and about her
+neck. In a flux of haemorrhoids, wear off the pain, and let her
+drink hot wine with a toasted nutmeg. In these months the belly is
+also subject to be bound, but if it be without any apparent
+disease, the broth of a chicken or veal, sodden with oil, or with
+the decoction of mallows or marsh-mallows, mercury or linseed, put
+up in a clyster, will not be amiss, but in less quantity than is
+given in other cases:&mdash;viz. of the decoction, five ounces, of
+common oil, three ounces, of sugar, two ounces, and of cassia
+fistula, one ounce. But if she will not take a clyster, one or two
+yolks of new laid eggs, or a little peas-pottage warm, a little
+salt and sugar, and supped a little before meat,
+<!-- Page 226 --><a name='Page_226' id="Page_226"></a> will be very
+convenient. But if her belly be distended and stretched with wind a
+little fennel seed and aniseed reduced to a powder and mixed with
+honey and sugar made after the manner of an electuary, will be very
+well Also, if thighs and feet swell let them be anointed with
+erphodrinum (which is a liquid medicine) made with vinegar and
+rose-water, mingled with salt.</p>
+<h4><i>Rules for the Eighth Month</i>.</h4>
+<p>The eighth month is commonly called the most dangerous;
+therefore the greatest care and caution ought to be used, the diet
+better in quality, but no more, nor indeed, so much in quantity as
+before, but as she must abate her diet, she must increase her
+exercise; and because then women with child, by reason that sharp
+humours alter the belly, are accustomed to weaken their spirits and
+strength, they may well take before meat, an electuary of
+diarrhoden, or aromaticum rosatum or diamagarton; and sometimes
+they may lick a little honey. As they will loathe, nauseate their
+meat, they may take green ginger, candied with sugar, and the rinds
+of citron and oranges candied; and let them often use honey for
+strengthening the infant. When she is not very far from her labour,
+let her eat every day seven roasted <!-- Page 227 --><a name=
+'Page_227' id="Page_227"></a> figs before her meat, and sometimes
+let her lick a little honey. But let her beware of salt and
+powdered meat, for it is neither good for her nor the child.</p>
+<h4><i>Rules for the Ninth Month</i>.</h4>
+<p>In the ninth month let her have a care of lifting any great
+weight, but let her move a little more, to dilate the parts, and
+stir up natural heat. Let her take heed of stooping, and neither
+sit too much nor lie on her sides, neither ought she to bend
+herself much enfolded in the umbilical ligaments, by which means it
+often perisheth. Let her walk and stir often, and let her exercise
+be, rather to go upwards than downwards. Let her diet, now
+especially, be light and easy of digestion and damask prunes with
+sugar, or figs with raisins, before meat, as also the yolks of
+eggs, flesh and broth of chickens, birds, partridges and pheasants;
+astringent and roasted meats, with rice, hard eggs, millet and such
+like other things are proper. Baths of sweet water, with emollient
+herbs, ought to be used by her this month with some intermission,
+and after the baths let her belly be anointed with oil of sweet
+roses and of violets; but for her privy parts, it is better to
+anoint them with the fat of hens, geese or ducks, or
+<!-- Page 228 --><a name='Page_228' id="Page_228"></a> with oil of
+lilies, and the decoction of linseed and fenugreek, boiled with oil
+of linseed and marshmallows, or with the following
+liniment:&mdash;</p>
+<p>Take mallows and marshmallows, cut and shred, of each one ounce;
+of linseed, one ounce; let them be boiled from twenty ounces of
+water to ten; then let her take three ounces of the boiled broth,
+of oil of almonds and oil of flower-de-luce, of each one ounce; of
+deer's suet, three ounces. Let her bathe with this, and anoint
+herself with it, warm.</p>
+<p>If for fourteen days before the birth, she do every morning and
+evening bathe and moisten her belly with muscadine and lavender
+water, the child will be much strengthened thereby. And if every
+day she eat toasted bread, it will hinder anything from growing to
+the child. Her privy parts must be gently stroked down with this
+fomentation.</p>
+<p>"Take three ounces of linseed, and one handful each of mallows
+and marshmallows sliced, then let them be put into a bag and
+immediately boiled." Let the woman with child, every morning and
+evening, take the vapour of this decoction in a hollow stool,
+taking great heed that no wind or air come to her in-parts, and
+then let her wipe the part so anointed with a linen cloth, and she
+may anoint the belly and groins as at first.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 229 --><a name='Page_229' id="Page_229"></a> When she
+has come so near to her time, as to be ten or fourteen days
+thereof, if she begins to feel any more than ordinary pain let her
+use every day the following:&mdash;"Take mallows and marshmallows,
+of each a handful; camomiles, hard mercury, maidenhair, of each a
+handful; of linseed, four ounces; let them be boiled in a
+sufficient quantity of water as to make a bath therewith." But let
+her not sit too hot upon the seat, nor higher than a little above
+her navel; nor let her sit upon it longer than about half an hour,
+lest her strength languish and decay, for it is better to use it
+often than to stay too long in it.</p>
+<p>And thus have I shown how a child-bearing woman ought to govern
+herself each month during her pregnancy. How she must order herself
+at her delivery, shall be shown in another chapter, after I have
+first shown the intended midwife how the child is first formed in
+the womb, and the manner of its decumbiture there.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_III' id=
+"EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_III"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 230 --><a name='Page_230' id="Page_230"></a> CHAPTER
+III</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Parts proper to a Child in the womb; How it is formed
+there, and the manner of its Situation therein.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>In the last chapter I treated of conception, showed what it was,
+how accomplished and its signs, and how she who has conceived ought
+to order herself during the time of her pregnancy. Now, before I
+come to speak of her delivery, it is necessary that the midwife be
+first made acquainted with the parts proper to a child in the womb,
+and also that she be shown how it is formed, and the manner of its
+situation and decumbiture there; which are so necessary to her,
+that without the knowledge thereof, no one can tell how to deliver
+a woman as she ought. This, therefore, shall be the work of this
+chapter. I shall begin with the first of these.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>Of the Parts proper to a Child in the
+Womb</i>.</h3>
+<p>In this section, I must first tell you what I mean by the parts
+proper to a child in the womb; and they are only those that either
+help or nourish it; and whilst it is lodged in that dark repository
+of nature, and that help to clothe and defend it there and are cast
+away, as of no <!-- Page 231 --><a name='Page_231' id=
+"Page_231"></a> more use, after it is born, and these are two,
+viz., the umbilicars, or navel vessels, and the secundinum. By the
+first it is nourished, and by the second clothed and defended from
+wrong. Of each of these I shall speak distinctly; and first,</p>
+<h4><i>Of the Umbilicars, or Navel Vessels</i>.</h4>
+<p>These are four in number, viz.:&mdash;one vein, two arteries,
+and the vessel which is called the urachos.</p>
+<p>(1) The vein is that on which the infant is nourished, from the
+time of its conception till the time of its delivery; till being
+brought into the light of the world, it has the same way of
+concocting the food we have. This vein ariseth from the liver of
+the child, and is divided into two parts when it has passed the
+navel; and these two are divided and subdivided, the branches being
+upheld by the skin called <i>chorion</i> (of which I speak by and
+by), and are joined to the veins of the mother's womb, from whence
+they have their blood for the nourishment of the child.</p>
+<p>(2) The arteries are two on each side which proceed from the
+back branches of the great artery of the mother, and the vital
+blood is carried by those to the child being ready concocted by the
+mother.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 232 --><a name='Page_232' id="Page_232"></a> (3) A
+nervous or sinewy production is led from the bottom of the bladder
+of the infant to the navel, and this is called <i>urachos</i>, and
+its use is, to convey the urine of the infant from the bladder to
+the alantois. Anatomists do very much vary in their opinion
+concerning this, some denying any such thing to be in the delivery
+of the woman, and others on the contrary affirming it; but
+experience has testified there is such a thing, for Bartholomew
+Carbrolius, the ordinary doctor of anatomy to the College of
+Physicians at Montpellier in France, records the history of a maid,
+whose water being a long time stopped, at last issued out through
+the navel. And Johannes Fernelius speaks of the same thing that
+happened to a man of thirty years of age, who having a stoppage at
+the neck of the bladder, his urine issued out of his navel for many
+months together, and that without any prejudice at all to his
+health, which he ascribes to the ill lying of his navel, whereby
+the urachos was not well dried. And Volchier Coitas quotes such
+another instance in a maid of thirty-four at Nuremburg in Germany.
+These instances, though they happen but seldom, are sufficient to
+prove that there is such a thing as anurachos in men.</p>
+<p>These four vessels before mentioned, viz., one vein, two
+arteries and the urachos, join near <!-- Page 233 --><a name=
+'Page_233' id="Page_233"></a> the navel, and are united by a skin
+which they have from the chorion and so become like a gut or rope,
+and are altogether void of sensibility, and this is that which
+women call the navel-string. The vessels are thus joined together,
+that so they may neither be broken, severed nor entangled; and when
+the infant is born are of no use save only to make up the ligament
+which stops the hole of the navel and for some other physical use,
+etc.</p>
+<h4><i>Of the Secundine or After-birth.</i></h4>
+<p>Setting aside the name given to this by the Greeks and Latins,
+it is called in English by the name of secundine, after-birth or
+after-burden; which are held to be four in number.</p>
+<p>(1) The <i>first</i> is called placenta, because it resembles
+the form of a cake, and is knit both to the navel and chorion, and
+makes up the greatest part of the secundine or after-birth. The
+flesh of it is like that of the melt or spleen, soft, red and
+tending something to blackness, and hath many small veins and
+arteries in it: and certainly the chief use of it is, for
+containing the child in the womb.</p>
+<p>(2) The <i>second</i> is the chorion. This skin and that called
+the amnios, involve the child round, both above and underneath, and
+on both <!-- Page 234 --><a name='Page_234' id="Page_234"></a>
+sides, which the alantois does not. This skin is that which is most
+commonly called the secundine, as it is thick and white garnished
+with many small veins and arteries, ending in the placenta before
+named, being very light and slippery. Its use is, not only to cover
+the child round about, but also to receive, and safely bind up the
+roots of the veins and arteries or navel vessels before
+described.</p>
+<p>(3) The <i>third</i> thing which makes up the secundine in the
+alantois, of which there is a great dispute amongst anatomists.
+Some say there is such a thing, and others that there is not. Those
+who will have it to be a membrane, say it is white, soft and
+exceedingly thin, and just under the placenta, where it is knit to
+the urachos, from which it receives the urine; and its office is to
+keep it separate from the sweat, that the saltness of it may not
+offend the tender skin of the child.</p>
+<p>(4) The <i>fourth</i>, and last covering of the child is called
+amnios; and it is white, soft and transparent, being nourished by
+some very small veins and arteries. Its use is, not only to enwrap
+the child, but also to retain the sweat of the child.</p>
+<p>Having thus described the parts proper to a child in the womb, I
+will next proceed to speak of the formation of the child therein,
+as soon <!-- Page 235 --><a name='Page_235' id="Page_235"></a> as I
+have explained the hard terms of the section, that those for whose
+help it is designed, may understand what they read. A <i>vein</i>
+is that which receives blood from the liver, and distributes in
+several branches to all parts of the body. <i>Nerve</i> is the same
+with <i>sinew</i>, and is that by which the brain adds sense and
+motion to the body. <i>Placenta</i>, properly signifies
+<i>sugar</i> cake; but in this section it is used to signify a
+spongy piece of flesh resembling a cake, full of veins and
+arteries, and is made to receive a mother's blood appointed for the
+infant's nourishment in the womb. The <i>chorion</i> is an outward
+skin which compasseth the child in the womb. The <i>amnios</i> is
+the inner skin which compasseth the child in the womb. The
+<i>alantois</i> is the skin that holds the urine of the child
+during the time that it abides in the womb. The <i>urachos</i> is
+the vessel that conveys the urine from the child in the womb to the
+<i>alantois</i>. I now proceed to</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. II.&mdash;<i>Of the Formation of the Child in the
+Womb.</i></h3>
+<p>To speak of the formation of the child in the womb, we must
+begin where nature begins, and, that is at the act of coition, in
+which the womb having received the generative seed (without which
+there can be no conception), the womb immediately shuts up itself
+so close that the <!-- Page 236 --><a name='Page_236' id=
+"Page_236"></a> point of a needle cannot enter the inward orifice;
+and this it does, partly to hinder the issuing out of the seed
+again, and partly to cherish it by an inward heat, the better to
+provoke it to action; which is one reason why women's bellies are
+so lank at their first conception. The woman having thus conceived,
+the first thing which is operative in conception is the spirit
+whereof the seed is full, which, nature quickening by the heat of
+the womb, stirs up the action. The internal spirits, therefore,
+separate the parts that are less pure, which are thick, cold and
+clammy, from those that are more pure and noble. The less pure are
+cast to the outside, and with these seed is circled round and the
+membrane made, in which that seed that is most pure is wrapped
+round and kept close together, that it may be defended from cold
+and other accidents, and operate the better.</p>
+<p>The first thing that is formed is the amnios; the next the
+chorion; and they enwrap the seed round like a curtain. Soon after
+this (for the seed thus shut up in the woman lies not idle), the
+navel vein is bred, which pierceth those skins, being yet very
+tender, and carries a drop of blood from the veins of the mother's
+womb to the seed; from which drop the vena cava, or chief vein,
+proceeds, from which all the rest of the veins which nourish the
+body spring; and <!-- Page 237 --><a name='Page_237' id=
+"Page_237"></a> now the seed hath something to nourish it, whilst
+it performs the rest of nature's work, and also blood administered
+to every part of it, to form flesh.</p>
+<p>This vein being formed, the navel arteries are soon after
+formed; then the great artery, of which all the others are but
+branches; and then the heart, for the liver furnisheth the arteries
+with blood to form the heart, the arteries being made of seed, but
+the heart and the flesh, of blood. After this the brain is formed,
+and then the nerves to give sense and motion to the infant.
+Afterwards the bones and flesh are formed; and of the bones, first
+of all, the vertebrae or chine bones, and then the skull, etc. As
+to the time in which this curious part of nature's workmanship is
+formed, having already in Chapter II of the former part of this
+work spoken at large upon this point, and also of the nourishment
+of the child in the womb, I shall here only refer the reader
+thereto, and proceed to show the manner in which the child lies in
+the womb.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. III.&mdash;<i>Of the manner of the Child's lying in the
+Womb</i>.</h3>
+<p>This is a thing so essential for a midwife to know, that she can
+be no midwife who is ignorant <!-- Page 238 --><a name='Page_238'
+id="Page_238"></a> of it; and yet even about this authors extremely
+differ; for there are not two in ten that agree what is the form
+that the child lies in the womb, or in what fashion it lies there;
+and yet this may arise in a great measure from the different times
+of the women's pregnancy; for near the time of its deliverance out
+of those winding chambers of nature it oftentimes changes the form
+in which it lay before, for another.</p>
+<p>I will now show the several situations of the child in the
+mother's womb, according to the different times of pregnancy, by
+which those that are contrary to nature, and are the chief cause of
+ill labours, will be more easily conceived by the understanding
+midwife. It ought, therefore, in the first place to be observed,
+that the infant, as well male as female, is generally situated in
+the midst of the womb; for though sometimes, to appearance a
+woman's belly seems higher on one side than the other, yet it is so
+with respect to the belly only, and not to her womb, in the midst
+of which it is always placed.</p>
+<p>But, in the second place, a woman's great belly makes different
+figures, according to the different times of pregnancy; for when
+she is young with child, the embryo is always found of a round
+figure, a little long, a little oblong, having the spine moderately
+turned inwards, and the thighs folded, and a little raised, to
+<!-- Page 239 --><a name='Page_239' id="Page_239"></a> which the
+legs are so raised, that the heels touch the buttocks; the arms are
+bending, and the hands placed upon the knees, towards which part of
+the body, the head is turned downwards towards the inward orifice
+of the womb, tumbling as it were over its head so that then the
+feet are uppermost, and the face towards the mother's great gut;
+and this turning of the infant in this manner, with its head
+downwards, towards the latter end of a woman's reckoning, is so
+ordered by nature, that it may be thereby the better disposed of
+its passage into the world at the time of its mother's labour,
+which is not then far off (and indeed some children turn not at all
+until the very time of birth); for in this posture all its joints
+are most easily extended in coming forth; for by this means its
+arms and legs cannot hinder its birth, because they cannot be bent
+against the inner orifice of the womb and the rest of the body,
+being very supple, passeth without any difficulty after the head,
+which is hard and big; being passed the head is inclined forward,
+so that the chin toucheth the breast, in which posture, it
+resembles one sitting to ease nature, and stooping down with the
+head to see what comes from him. The spine of the back is at that
+time placed towards the mother's, the head uppermost, the face
+downwards; and proportionately to its growth, it extends its
+<!-- Page 240 --><a name='Page_240' id="Page_240"></a> members by
+little and little, which were exactly folded in the first month. In
+this posture it usually keeps until the seventh or eighth month,
+and then by a natural propensity and disposition of the upper
+first. It is true there are divers children, that lie in the womb
+in another posture, and come to birth with their feet downwards,
+especially if there be twins; for then, by their different motions
+they do so disturb one another, that they seldom come both in the
+same posture at the time of labour, but one will come with the
+head, and another with the feet, or perhaps lie across; but
+sometimes neither of them will come right. But, however the child
+may be situated in the womb, or in whatever posture it presents
+itself at the time of birth, if it be not with its head forwards,
+as I have before described, it is always against nature, and the
+delivery will occasion the more pain and danger, and require
+greater care and skill from the midwife, than when the labour is
+more natural.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_IV' id=
+"EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_IV"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 241 --><a name='Page_241' id="Page_241"></a> CHAPTER
+IV</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>A Guide for Women in Travail, showing what is to be done when
+they fall in Labour, in order to their Delivery</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>The end of all that we have been treating of is, the bringing
+forth of a child into the world with safety both to the mother and
+the infant, as the whole time of a woman's pregnancy may be termed
+a kind of labour; for, from the time of the conception to the time
+of her delivery, she labours under many difficulties, is subject to
+many distempers, and in continual danger, from one affection or
+other, till the time of birth comes; and when that comes, the
+greatest labour and travail come along with it, insomuch that then
+all the other labours are forgotten, and that only is called the
+time of her labours, and to deliver her safely is the principal
+business of the midwife; and to assist therein, shall be the chief
+design of this chapter. The time of the child's being ready for its
+birth, when nature endeavours to cast it forth, is that which is
+properly the time of a woman's labour; nature then labouring to be
+eased of its burden. And since many child-bearing women,
+(especially the first child) are often mistaken in their reckoning
+and so, when they draw near their time <!-- Page 242 --><a name=
+'Page_242' id="Page_242"></a> take every pain they meet with for
+their labour, which often proves prejudicial and troublesome to
+them, when it is not so, I will in the first section of this
+chapter, set down some signs, by which a woman may know when the
+true time of her labour is come.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>The Signs of the true Time of a Woman's
+Labour</i>.</h3>
+<p>When women with child, especially of their first, perceive any
+extraordinary pains in the belly, they immediately send for their
+midwife, as taking it for their labour; and then if the midwife be
+not a skilful and experienced woman, to know the time of labour,
+but takes it for granted without further inquiry (for some such
+there are), and so goes about to put her into labour before nature
+is prepared for it, she may endanger the life of both mother and
+child, by breaking the amnios and chorion. These pains, which are
+often mistaken for labour, are removed by warm clothes laid to the
+belly, and the application of a clyster or two, by which those
+pains which precede a true labour, are rather furthered than
+hindered. There are also other pains incident to a woman in that
+condition from the flux of the belly, which are easily known by the
+frequent stools that follow them.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 243 --><a name='Page_243' id="Page_243"></a> The
+signs, therefore, of labour, some few days before, are that the
+woman's belly, which before lay high, sinks down, and hinders her
+from walking so easily as she used to do; also there flow from the
+womb slimy humours, which nature has appointed to moisten and
+smooth the passage that its inward orifice may be the more easily
+dilated when there is occasion; which beginning to open at this
+time, suffers that slime to flow away, which proceeds from the
+Glandules called <i>prostata</i>. These are signs preceding the
+labour; but when she is presently falling into labour, the signs
+are, great pains about the region of the reins and loins, which
+coming and retreating by intervals, are answered in the bottom of
+the belly by congruous throes, and sometimes the face is red and
+inflamed, the blood being much heated by the endeavours a woman
+makes to bring forth her child; and likewise, because during these
+strong throes her respiration is intercepted, which causes the
+blood to have recourse to her face; also her privy parts are
+swelled by the infant's head lying in the birth, which, by often
+thrusting, causes those parts to descend outwards. She is much
+subject to vomiting, which is a good sign of good labour and speedy
+delivery, though by ignorant people thought otherwise; for good
+pains are thereby excited and redoubled; which
+<!-- Page 244 --><a name='Page_244' id="Page_244"></a> vomiting is
+excited by the sympathy there is between the womb and the stomach.
+Also, when the birth is near, women are troubled with a trembling
+in the thighs and legs, not with cold, like the beginning of an
+ague fit, but with the heat of the whole body, though it must be
+granted, this does not happen always. Also, if the humours which
+then flow from the womb are discoloured with the blood, which the
+midwives call <i>shows</i>, it is an infallible mark of the birth
+being near. And if then the midwife puts up her fingers into the
+neck of the womb, she will find the inner orifice dilated; at the
+opening of which the membranes of the infant, containing the
+waters, present themselves and are strongly forced down with each
+pain she hath; at which time one may perceive them sometimes to
+resist, and then again press forward the finger, being more or less
+hard and extended, according as the pains are stronger or weaker.
+These membranes, with the waters in them, when they are before the
+head of the child, midwives call <i>the gathering of the
+waters</i>, resemble to the touch of the fingers those eggs which
+have no shell, but are covered only with a simple membrane. After
+this, the pains still redoubling the membranes are broken by a
+strong impulsation of these waters, which flow away, and then the
+head of the infant is presently <!-- Page 245 --><a name='Page_245'
+id="Page_245"></a> felt naked, and presents itself at the inward
+orifice of the womb. When these waters come thus away, then the
+midwife may be assured the birth is very near, this being the most
+certain sign that can be; for the <i>amnios alantois</i>, which
+contained these waters, being broken by the pressing forward of the
+birth, the child is no better able to subsist long in the womb
+afterwards than a naked man in a heap of snow. Now, these waters,
+if the child comes presently after them, facilitate the labour by
+making the passage slippery; and therefore, let no midwife (as some
+have foolishly done) endeavour to force away the water, for nature
+knows best when the true time of birth is, and therefore retains
+the waters till that time. But if by accident the water breaks away
+too long before the birth, then such things as will hasten it, may
+be safely administered, and what these are, I will show in another
+section.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. II.&mdash;<i>How a Woman ought to be ordered when the
+time of her labour is come</i>.</h3>
+<p>When it is known that the true time of her labour is come by the
+signs laid down in the foregoing, of which those most to be relied
+upon are pains and strong throes in the belly, forcing downwards
+towards the womb, and a dilation <!-- Page 246 --><a name=
+'Page_246' id="Page_246"></a> of the inward orifice, which may be
+perceived by touching it with the finger, and the gathering of the
+waters before the head of the child, and thrusting down the
+membranes which contain them; through which, between the pains, one
+may in some manner with the finger discover the part which presents
+itself (as we have said before), especially if it be the head of
+the child, by its roundness and hardness; I say, if these things
+concur and are evident, the midwife may be sure it is the time of
+the woman's labour, and care must be taken to get all those things
+that are necessary to comfort her at that time. And the better to
+help her, be sure to see that she is not tightly laced; you must
+also give her one strong clyster or more, if there be occasion,
+provided it be done at the beginning, and before the child be too
+forward, for it will be difficult for her to receive them
+afterwards. The benefit accruing therefrom will be, that they
+excite the gut to discharge itself of its excrements, so that the
+rectum being emptied there may be the more space for the dilation
+of the passage; likewise to cause the pains to bear the more
+downward, through the endeavours she makes when she is at stool,
+and in the meantime, all other necessary things for her labour
+should be put in order, both for the mother and the child. To this
+end, some get a midwife's; but a pallet bed, girded,
+<!-- Page 247 --><a name='Page_247' id="Page_247"></a> is much the
+best way, placed near the fire, if the season so require, which
+pallet ought to be so placed, that there may be easy access to it
+on every side, that the woman may be the more easily assisted, as
+there is occasion.</p>
+<p>If the woman abounds with blood, to bleed her a little more may
+not be improper, for thereby she will both breathe the better, and
+have her breasts more at liberty, and likewise more strength to
+bear down her pains; and this may be done without danger because
+the child being about ready to be born, has no more need of the
+mother's blood for its nourishment; besides, this evacuation does
+many times prevent her having a fever after delivery. Also, before
+her delivery, if her strength will permit, let her walk up and down
+her chamber; and that she may have strength so to do, it will be
+necessary to give her good strengthening things, such as jelly,
+broth, new laid eggs, or some spoonfuls of burnt wine; and let her
+by all means hold out her pains, bearing them down as much as she
+can, at the time when they take her; and let the midwife from time
+to time touch the inward orifice with her finger, to know whether
+the waters are ready to break and whether the birth will follow
+soon after. Let her also anoint the woman's privities with
+emollient oil, hog's grease, and fresh butter, if she find they are
+hard to be <!-- Page 248 --><a name='Page_248' id="Page_248"></a>
+dilated. Let the midwife, likewise, all the time be near the
+labouring woman, and diligently observe her gestures, complaints,
+and pains, for by this she may guess pretty well how far her labour
+advanceth, because when she changeth her ordinary groans into loud
+cries, it is a sign that the child is near the birth; for at the
+time her pains are greater and more frequent. Let the woman
+likewise, by intervals, rest herself upon the bed to regain her
+strength, but not too long, especially if she be little, short and
+thick, for such women have always worse labour if they lie long on
+their beds in their travail. It is better, therefore, that she walk
+about her chamber as long as she can, the woman supporting her
+under the arms, if it be necessary; for by this means, the weight
+of the child causes the inward orifices of the womb to dilate the
+sooner than in bed, and if her pains be stronger and more frequent,
+her labour will not be near so long. Let not the labouring woman be
+concerned at those qualms and vomitings which, perhaps, she may
+find come upon her, for they will be much for her advantage in the
+issue, however uneasy she may be for a time, as they further her
+pains and throes by provoking downward.</p>
+<p>When the waters of the child are ready and gathered (which may
+be perceived through the <!-- Page 249 --><a name='Page_249' id=
+"Page_249"></a> membranes presenting themselves to the orifice) to
+the bigness of the whole dilatation, the midwife ought to let them
+break of themselves, and not, like some hasty midwives, who being
+impatient of the woman's long labour, break them, intending thereby
+to hasten their business, when instead thereof, they retard it; for
+by the too hasty breaking of these waters (which nature designed to
+make the child slip more easy), the passage remains dry by which
+means the pains and throes of the labouring woman are less
+efficacious to bring forth the infant than they would otherwise
+have been. It is, therefore, much the better way to let the waters
+break of themselves; after which the midwife may with ease feel the
+child by that part which first presents, and thereby discern
+whether it comes right, that is, with the head foremost, for that
+is the proper and most natural way of the birth. If the head comes
+right, she will find it big, round, hard and equal; but if it be
+any other part, she will find it rugged, unequal, soft and hard,
+according to the nature of the part it is. And this being the true
+time when a woman ought to be delivered, if nature be not wanting
+to perform its office, therefore, when the midwife finds the birth
+thus coming forward let her hasten to assist and deliver it, for it
+ordinarily happens soon after, if it be natural.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 250 --><a name='Page_250' id="Page_250"></a> But if it
+happens, as it sometimes may, that the waters break away too long
+before the birth, in such a case, those things which hasten nature
+may safely be administered. For which purpose make use of
+pennyroyal, dittany, juniper berries, red coral, betony and
+feverfew, boiled in white wine, and give a drachm of it, or it
+would be much better to take the juice of it when it is in its
+prime, which is in May, and having clarified it, make it into a
+syrup with double its weight of sugar, and keep it all the year, to
+use when occasion calls for it; mugwort used in the same manner is
+also good in this case; also a drachm of cinnamon powder given
+inwardly profits much in this case; and so does tansey broiled and
+applied to the privities; or an oil of it, so, made and used, as
+you were taught before. The stone <i>aetites</i> held to the
+privities, is of extraordinary virtue, and instantly draws away,
+both child and after-burden; but great care must be taken to remove
+it presently, or it will draw forth womb and all; for such is the
+magnetic virtue of this stone that both child and womb follow it as
+readily as iron doth the load-stone or the load-stone the north
+star.</p>
+<p>There are many things that physicians affirm are good in this
+case; among which are an ass's or horse's hoof, hung near the
+privities; a piece of red coral hung near the said place. A
+load-stone <!-- Page 251 --><a name='Page_251' id="Page_251"></a>
+helps very much, held in the woman's left hand; or the skin cut off
+a snake, girt about the middle, next to the skin. These things are
+mentioned by Mizaldus, but setting those things aside, as not so
+certain, notwithstanding Mizaldus quotes them, the following
+prescriptions are very good to speedy deliverance to women in
+travail.</p>
+<p>(1) A decoction of white wine made in savory, and drank.</p>
+<p>(2) Take wild tansey, or silver weed, bruise it, and apply to
+the woman's nostrils.</p>
+<p>(3) Take date stones, and beat them to powder, and let her take
+half a drachm of them in white wine at a time.</p>
+<p>(4) Take parsley and bruise it and press out the juice, and dip
+a linen cloth in it, and put it so dipped into the mouth of the
+womb; it will presently cause the child to come away, though it be
+dead, and it will bring away the after-burden. Also the juice of
+the parsley is a thing of so great virtue (especially stone
+parsley) that being drank by a woman with child, it cleanseth not
+only the womb, but also the child in the womb, of all gross
+humours.</p>
+<p>(5) A scruple of castorum in powder, in any convenient liquor,
+is very good to be taken in such a case, and so also is two or
+three drops of castorum in any convenient liquor; or eight or
+<!-- Page 252 --><a name='Page_252' id="Page_252"></a> nine drops
+of spirits of myrrh given in any convenient liquor, gives speedy
+deliverance.</p>
+<p>(6) Give a woman in such a case another woman's milk to drink;
+it will cause speedy delivery, and almost without pain.</p>
+<p>(7) The juice of leeks, being drunk with warm water, highly
+operates to cause speedy delivery.</p>
+<p>(8) Take peony seeds and beat them into a powder, and mix the
+powder with oil, with which oil anoint the privities of the woman
+and child; it will give her deliverance speedily, and with less
+pain than can be imagined.</p>
+<p>(9) Take a swallow's nest and dissolve it in water, strain it,
+and drink it warm, it gives delivery with great speed and much
+ease.</p>
+<p>Note this also in general, that all that move the terms are good
+for making the delivery easy, such as myrrh, white amber in white
+wine, or lily water, two scruples or a drachm; or cassia lignea,
+dittany, each a drachm; cinnamon, half a drachm, saffron, a
+scruple; give a drachm, or take borax mineral, a drachm, and give
+it in sack; or take cassia lignea, a drachm; dittany, amber, of
+each a drachm; cinnamon, borax, of each a drachm and a half;
+saffron, a scruple, and give her half a drachm; or give her some
+drops of oil of hazel in convenient liquor; or two or three drops
+of oil of cinnamon in vervain <!-- Page 253 --><a name='Page_253'
+id="Page_253"></a> water. Some prepare the secundine
+thus:&mdash;Take the navel-string and dry it in an oven, take two
+drachms of the powder, cinnamon a drachm, saffron half a scruple,
+with the juice of savin make trochisks; give two drachms; or wash
+the secundine in wine and bake it in a pot; then wash it in endive
+water and wine, take half a drachm of it; long pepper, galangal, of
+each half a drachm; plantain and endive seed, of each half a
+drachm; lavender seed, four scruples; make a powder, or take
+laudanum, two drachms; storax, calamite, benzoin, of each half a
+drachm; musk, ambergris each six grains, make a powder or trochisks
+for a fume. Or use pessaries to provoke the birth; take galbanum
+dissolved in vinegar, an ounce; myrrh, two drachms, with oil of oat
+make a pessary.</p>
+<h4><i>An Ointment For the Navel</i>.</h4>
+<p>Take oil of keir, two ounces, juice of savine an ounce, of leeks
+and mercury, each half an ounce; boil them to the consumption of
+the juice; add galbanum dissolved in vinegar, half an ounce, myrrh,
+two drachms, storax liquid a drachm, round bitwort, sowbread,
+cinnamon, saffron, a drachm, with wax make an ointment and apply
+it.</p>
+<p>If the birth be retarded through the weakness
+<!-- Page 254 --><a name='Page_254' id="Page_254"></a> of the
+mother, refresh her by applying wine and soap to the nose, confect.
+alkermas. diamarg.</p>
+<p>These things may be applied to help nature in her delivery when
+the child comes to the birth the right way, and yet the birth be
+retarded; but if she finds the child comes the wrong way, and that
+she is not able to deliver the woman as she ought to be, by helping
+nature, and saving both mother and child (for it is not enough to
+lay a woman if it might be done any other way with more safety and
+ease, and less hazard to woman and child), then let her send
+speedily for the better and more able to help; and not as I once
+knew a midwife do, who, when a woman she was to deliver had hard
+labour, rather than a man-midwife should be sent for, undertook to
+deliver the woman herself (though told it was a man's business),
+and in her attempting it, brought away the child, but left the head
+in the mother's womb; and had not a man midwife been presently sent
+for, the mother had lost her life as well as the child; such
+persons may rather be termed butchers than midwives. But supposing
+the woman's labour to be natural, I will next show what the midwife
+ought to do, in order of her delivery.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_V' id=
+"EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_V"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 255 --><a name='Page_255' id="Page_255"></a> CHAPTER
+V</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Natural Labour; What it is and what the Midwife is to do
+in such Labour</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>What Natural Labour is</i>.</h3>
+<p>There are four things which denominate a woman's natural labour;
+the first is, that it be at the full time, for if a woman comes
+before her time, it cannot be termed natural labour, neither will
+it be so easy as though she had completed her nine months. The
+second thing is, that it be speedy, and without any ill accident;
+for when the time of her birth come, nature is not dilatory in the
+bringing it forth, without some ill accident intervene, which
+renders it unnatural.</p>
+<p>The third is, that the child be alive; for all will grant, that
+the being delivered of a dead child is very unnatural. The fourth
+is, that the child come right, for if the position of the child in
+the womb be contrary to that which is natural, the event will prove
+it so, by making that which should be a time of life, the death
+both of the mother and the child.</p>
+<p>Having thus told you what I mean by natural labour, I shall next
+show how the midwife is to proceed therein, in order to the woman's
+delivery. <!-- Page 256 --><a name='Page_256' id="Page_256"></a>
+When all the foregoing requisites concur, and after the waters be
+broken of themselves, let there rather a quilt be laid upon the
+pallet bedstead than a feather bed, having there-on linen and
+cloths in many folds, with such other things as are necessary, and
+that may be changed according to the exigency requiring it, so that
+the woman may not be incommoded with the blood, waters and other
+filth which are voided in labour. The bed ought to be ordered, that
+the woman being ready to be delivered, should lie on her back upon
+it, having her body in a convenient posture; this is, her head and
+breast a little raised, so that she may be between lying and
+sitting, for being so placed, she is best capable of breathing,
+and, likewise, will have more strength to bear her pains than if
+she lay otherwise, or sunk down in her bed. Being so placed, she
+must spread her thighs abroad, folding her legs a little towards
+her buttocks, somewhat raised by a little pillow underneath, to the
+end that her rumps should have more liberty to retire back; and let
+her feet be stayed against some firm thing; besides this, let her
+take firm hold of some of the good women attending her, with her
+hands, that she may the better stay herself during her pains. She
+being thus placed at her bed, having her midwife at hand, the
+better to assist as nature may require, let her take
+<!-- Page 257 --><a name='Page_257' id="Page_257"></a> courage, and
+help her pains as best she can, bearing them down when they take
+her, which she must do by holding her breath, and forcing them as
+much as possible, in like manner as when she goes to stool, for by
+such straining, the diaphragm, or midriff, being strongly thrust
+downward, necessarily forces down the womb and the child in it. In
+the meantime, let the midwife endeavour to comfort her all she can,
+exhorting her to bear her labour courageously, telling her it will
+be quickly over, and that there is no fear but that she will have a
+speedy delivery. Let the midwife also, having no rings on her
+fingers, anoint them with oil of fresh butter, and therewith dilate
+gently the inward orifice of the womb putting her finger ends into
+the entry thereof, and then stretch them one from the other, when
+her pains take her; by this means endeavouring to help forward the
+child, and thrusting by little and little, the sides of the orifice
+towards the hinder part of the child's head, anointing it with
+fresh butter if it be necessary.</p>
+<p>When the head of the infant is a little advanced into the inward
+orifice, the midwife's phrase is:&mdash;"It is crowned"; because it
+girds and surrounds it just as a crown; but when it is so far that
+the extremities begin to appear without the privy parts, then they
+say, "The infant <!-- Page 258 --><a name='Page_258' id=
+"Page_258"></a> is in the passage"; and at this time the woman
+feels herself as if it were scratched, or pricked with pins, and is
+ready to imagine that the midwife hurts her, when it is occasioned
+by the violent distension of those parts and the laceration which
+sometimes the bigness of the child's head causeth there. When
+things are in this posture, let the midwife seat herself
+conveniently to receive the child, which will come quickly, and
+with her finger ends (which she must be sure to keep close pared)
+let her endeavour to thrust the crowning of the womb (of which I
+have spoken before), back over the head of the child, and as soon
+as it is advanced as far as the ears, or thereabouts, let her take
+hold of the two sides with her two hands, that when a good pain
+comes she may quickly draw forth the child, taking care that the
+navel-string be not entangled about the neck or any part, as
+sometimes it is, lest thereby the after-burden be pulled with
+violence, and perhaps the womb also, to which it is fastened, and
+so either cause her to flood or else break the strings, both which
+are of bad consequence to the woman, whose delivery may thereby be
+rendered the more difficult. It must also be carefully observed
+that the head be not drawn forth straight, but shaking it a little
+from one side to the other, that the shoulders may sooner and
+easier take <!-- Page 259 --><a name='Page_259' id="Page_259"></a>
+their places immediately after it is past, without losing time,
+lest the head being past, the child be stopped there by the
+largeness of the shoulders, and so come in danger of being
+suffocated and strangled in the passage, as it sometimes happens,
+for the want of care therein. But as soon as the head is born, if
+there be need, she may slide her fingers under the armpits, and the
+rest of the body will follow without any difficulty.</p>
+<p>As soon as the midwife hath in this manner drawn forth the
+child, let her put it on one side, lest the blood and water which
+follows immediately, should do it any injury by running into its
+mouth and nose, as they would do, if it lay on its back; and so
+endanger the choking of it. The child being thus born, the next
+thing requisite is, to bring away the after-burden, but before that
+let the midwife be very careful to examine whether there be more
+children in the womb; for sometimes a woman may have twins that
+expected it not; which the midwife may easily know by the
+continuance of the pains after the child is born, and the bigness
+of the mother's belly. But the midwife may be sure of it, if she
+puts her hand up to the entry of the womb, and finds there another
+watery gathering, and the child in it presenting to the passage,
+and if she find it so, she must have a <!-- Page 260 --><a name=
+'Page_260' id="Page_260"></a> care of going to fetch the
+after-birth, till the woman be delivered of all the children she is
+pregnant with. Wherefore the first string must be cut, being first
+tied with a thread three or four times double, and fasten the other
+end with string to the woman's thighs, to prevent the inconvenience
+it may cause by hanging between the thighs; and then removing the
+child already born, she must take care to deliver her of the rest,
+observing all the circumstances as with the first; after which, it
+will be necessary to fetch away the after-birth, or births. But of
+that I shall treat in another section, and first show what is to be
+done to the new-born infant.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. II.&mdash;<i>Of the Cutting of the Child's Navel
+String.</i></h3>
+<p>Though this is accounted by many but as a trifle, yet great care
+is to be taken about it, and it shows none of the least art and
+skill of a midwife to do it as it should be; and that it may be so
+done, the midwife should observe: (1) The time. (2) The place. (3)
+The manner. (4) The event.</p>
+<p>(1) The time is, as soon as ever the infant comes out of the
+womb, whether it brings part <!-- Page 261 --><a name='Page_261'
+id="Page_261"></a> of the after-burden with it or not; for
+sometimes the child brings into the world a piece of the amnios
+upon its head, and is what mid wives call the <i>caul</i>, and
+ignorantly attribute some extraordinary virtue to the child so
+born; but this opinion is only the effect of their ignorance; for
+when a child is born with such a crown (as some call it) upon its
+brows, it generally betokens weakness and denotes a short life. But
+to proceed to the matter in hand. As soon as the child comes into
+the world, it should be considered whether it is weak or strong;
+and if it be weak, let the midwife gently put back part of the
+natural and vital blood into the body of the child by its navel;
+for that recruits a weak child (the vital and natural spirits being
+communicated by the mother to the child by its navel-string), but
+if the child be strong, the operation is needless. Only let me
+advise you, that many children that are born seemingly dead, may
+soon be brought to life again, if you squeeze six or seven drops of
+blood out of that part of the navel-string which is cut off, and
+give it to the child inwardly.</p>
+<p>(2) As to the place in which it should be cut, that is, whether
+it should be cut long or short, it is that which authors can
+scarcely agree in, and which many midwives quarrel about; some
+prescribing it to be cut at four <!-- Page 262 --><a name=
+'Page_262' id="Page_262"></a> fingers' breadth, which is, at best,
+but an uncertain rule, unless all fingers were of one size. It is a
+received opinion, that the parts adapted to the generation are
+contracted and dilated according to the cutting of the
+navel-string, and this is the reason why midwives are generally so
+kind to their own sex, that they leave a longer part of the
+navel-string of a male than female, because they would have the
+males well provided for the encounters of Venus; and the reason
+they give, why they cut that of the female shorter is, because they
+believe it makes them more acceptable to their husbands. Mizaldus
+was not altogether of the opinion of these midwives, and he,
+therefore, ordered the navel string to be cut long both in male and
+female children; for which he gives the following reason, that the
+instrument of generation follows the proportion of it; and
+therefore, if it be cut too short in a female, it will be a
+hindrance to her having children. I will not go about to contradict
+the opinions of Mizaldus; these, experience has made
+good:&mdash;That one is, that if the navel-string of a child, after
+it be cut, be suffered to touch the ground, the child will never
+hold its water, either sleeping or waking, but will be subjected to
+an involuntary making of water all its lifetime. The other is, that
+a piece of a child's navel-string carried about one, so
+<!-- Page 263 --><a name='Page_263' id="Page_263"></a> that it
+touch his skin, defends him that wears it from the falling sickness
+and convulsions.</p>
+<p>(3) As to the manner it must be cut, let the midwife take a
+brown thread, four or five times double, of an ell long, or
+thereabouts, tied with a single knot at each of the ends, to
+prevent their entangling; and with this thread so accommodated
+(which the woman must have in readiness before the woman's labour,
+as also a good pair of scissors, that no time may be lost) let her
+tie the string within an inch of the belly with a double knot, and
+turning about the end of the thread, let her tie two more on the
+other side of the string, reiterating it again, if it be necessary;
+then let her cut off the navel-string another inch below the
+ligatures, towards the after-birth, so that there only remains but
+two inches of the string, in the midst of which will be the knot we
+speak of, which must be so close knit, as not to suffer a drop of
+blood to squeeze out of the vessels, but care must be taken, not to
+knit it so strait, as to out it in two, and therefore the thread
+must be pretty thick and pretty strait cut, it being better too
+strait than too loose; for some children have miserably lost their
+lives, with all their blood, before it was discovered, because the
+navel-string was not well tied, therefore great care must be taken
+that no blood squeeze through; for if there do,
+<!-- Page 264 --><a name='Page_264' id="Page_264"></a> a new knot
+must be made with the rest of the string. You need not fear to bind
+the navel-string very hard because it is void of sense, and that
+part which you leave, falls off in a very few days, sometimes in
+six or seven, or sooner, but never tarries longer than eight or
+nine. When you have thus cut the navel-string, then take care the
+piece that falls off touch not the ground, for the reason I told
+you Mizaldus gave, which experience has justified.</p>
+<p>(4) The last thing I mentioned, was the event or consequence, or
+what follows cutting the navel-string. As soon as it is cut, apply
+a little cotton or lint to the place to keep it warm, lest the cold
+enter into the body of the child, which it most certainly will do,
+if you have not bound it hard enough. If the lint or cotton you
+apply to it, be dipped in oil of roses, it will be the better, and
+then put another small rag three or four times double upon the
+belly; upon the top of all, put another small bolster, and then
+swathe it with a linen swathe, four fingers broad, to keep it
+steady, lest by moving too much, or from being continually stirred
+from side to side, it comes to fall off before the navel-string,
+which you left remaining, is fallen off.</p>
+<p>It is the usual custom of midwives to put a piece of burnt rag
+to it, which we commonly call tinder; but I would rather advise
+them to put <!-- Page 265 --><a name='Page_265' id="Page_265"></a>
+a little ammoniac to it, because of its drying qualities.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. III.&mdash;<i>How to bring away the
+After-burden.</i></h3>
+<p>A woman cannot be said to be fairly delivered, though the child
+be born, till the after-burden be also taken from her; herein
+differing from most animals, who, when they have brought forth
+their young, cast forth nothing else but some water, and the
+membranes which contained them. But women have an after-labour,
+which sometimes proves more dangerous than the first; and how to
+bring it safely away without prejudice to her, shall be my business
+to show in this section.</p>
+<p>As soon as the child is born, before the midwife either ties or
+cuts the navel-string, lest the womb should close, let her take the
+string and wind it once or twice about one or two fingers on her
+left hand joined together, the better to hold it, with which she
+may draw it moderately, and with the right hand, she may only take
+a single hold of it, above the left, near the privities, drawing
+likewise with that very gently, resting the while the forefinger of
+the same hand, extended and stretched forth along the string
+towards the entrance of the vagina, always observing, for the
+greater facility, to draw <!-- Page 266 --><a name='Page_266' id=
+"Page_266"></a> it from the side where the burden cleaves least;
+for in so doing, the rest will separate the better; and special
+care must be taken that it be not drawn forth with too much
+violence, lest by breaking the string near the burden, the midwife
+be obliged to put the whole hand into the womb to deliver the
+woman; and she need to be a very skilful person that undertakes it,
+lest the womb, to which the burden is sometimes very strongly
+fastened, be drawn away with it, as has sometimes happened. It is,
+therefore, best to use such remedies as may assist nature. And here
+take notice, that what brings away the birth, will also bring away
+the after-birth. And therefore, for effecting this work, I will lay
+down the following rules.</p>
+<p>(1) Use the same means of bringing away the after-birth, that
+you made use of to bring away the birth; for the same care and
+circumspection are needful now that there were then.</p>
+<p>(2) Considering that the labouring woman cannot but be much
+spent by what she has already undergone in bringing forth the
+infant, be therefore sure to give her something to comfort her. And
+in this case good jelly broths, also a little wine and toast in it,
+and other comforting things, will be necessary.</p>
+<p>(3) A little hellebore in powder, to make her sneeze, is in this
+case very proper.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 267 --><a name='Page_267' id="Page_267"></a> (4)
+Tansey, and the stone aetites, applied as before directed, are also
+of good use in this case.</p>
+<p>(5) If you take the herb vervain, and either boil it in wine, or
+a syrup with the juice of it, which you may do by adding to it
+double its weight of sugar (having clarified the juice before you
+boil it), a spoonful of that given to the woman is very efficacious
+to bring away the secundine; and feverfew and mugwort have the same
+operation taken as the former.</p>
+<p>(6) Alexanders<a name='FNanchor_10_10' id="FNanchor_10_10"></a>
+<a href='#Footnote_10_10'><sup>[10]</sup></a> boiled in wine, and
+the wine drank, also sweet servile, sweet cicily, angelica roots,
+and musterwort, are excellent remedies in this case.</p>
+<p>(7) Or, if this fail, the smoke of marigolds, received up a
+woman's privities by a funnel, have been known to bring away the
+after-birth, even when the midwife let go her hold.</p>
+<p>(8) Boil mugwort in water till it be very soft, then take it
+out, and apply it in the manner of a poultice to the navel of the
+labouring woman, and it instantly brings away the birth. But
+special care must be taken to remove it as soon as they come away,
+lest by its long tarrying it should draw away the womb also.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><!-- Page 268 --><a name='Page_268' id="Page_268"></a> SECT.
+IV.&mdash;<i>Of Laborious and Difficult Labours and how the Midwife
+is to proceed therein</i>.</h3>
+<p>There are three sorts of bad labours, all painful and difficult,
+but not all properly unnatural. It will be necessary, therefore, to
+distinguish these.</p>
+<p>The <i>first</i> of these labours is that when the mother and
+child suffer very much extreme pain and difficulty, even though the
+child come right; and this is distinguishably called the laborious
+labour.</p>
+<p>The <i>second</i> is that which is difficult and differs not
+much from the former, except that, besides those extraordinary
+pains, it is generally attended with some unhappy accident, which,
+by retarding the birth, causes the difficulty; but these
+difficulties being removed, it accelerates the birth, and hastens
+the delivery.</p>
+<p>Some have asked, what is the reason that women bring forth their
+children with so much pain? I answer, the sense of feeling is
+distributed to the whole body by the nerves, and the mouth of the
+womb being so narrow, that it must of necessity be dilated at the
+time of the woman's delivery, the dilating thereof stretches the
+nerves, and from thence comes the pain. And therefore the reason
+why some women have more pain in their labour than others, proceeds
+<!-- Page 269 --><a name='Page_269' id="Page_269"></a> from their
+having the mouth of the matrix more full of nerves than others. The
+best way to remove those difficulties that occasion hard pains and
+labour, is to show first from whence they proceed. Now the
+difficulty of labour proceeds either from the mother, or child, or
+both.</p>
+<p>From the mother, by reason of the indisposition of the body, or
+from some particular part only, and chiefly the womb, as when the
+woman is weak, and the mother is not active to expel the burden, or
+from weakness, or disease, or want of spirits; or it may be from
+strong passion of the mind with which she was once possessed; she
+may also be too young, and so may have the passage too narrow; or
+too old, and then, if it be her first child, because her pains are
+too dry and hard, and cannot be easily dilated, as happens also to
+them which are too lean; likewise those who are small, short or
+deformed, as crooked women who have not breath enough to help their
+pains, and to bear them down, persons that are crooked having
+sometimes the bones of the passage not well shaped. The colic also
+hinders labour, by preventing the true pains; and all great and
+active pains, as when the woman is taken with a great and violent
+fever, a great flooding, frequent convulsions, bloody flux, or any
+other great distemper. <!-- Page 270 --><a name='Page_270' id=
+"Page_270"></a> Also, excrements retained cause great difficulty,
+and so does a stone in the bladder: or when the bladder is full of
+urine, without being able to void it, or when the woman is troubled
+with great and painful piles. It may also be from the passages,
+when the membranes are thick, the orifice too narrow, and the neck
+of the womb not sufficiently open, the passages strained and
+pressed by tumours in the adjacent parts, or when the bones are too
+firm, and will not open, which very much endangers the mother and
+the child; or when the passages are not slippery, by reason of the
+waters having broken too soon, or membranes being too thin. The
+womb may also be out of order with regard to its bad situation or
+conformation, having its neck too narrow, hard and callous, which
+may easily be so naturally, or may come by accident, being many
+times caused by a tumour, an imposthume, ulcer or superfluous
+flesh.</p>
+<p>As to hard labour occasioned by the child, it is when the child
+happens to stick to a mole, or when it is so weak it cannot break
+the membranes; or if it be too big all over, or in the head only;
+or if the natural vessels are twisted about its neck; when the
+belly is hydropsical; or when it is monstrous, having two heads, or
+joined to another child, also, when the child is dead or so weak
+that it can contribute nothing <!-- Page 271 --><a name='Page_271'
+id="Page_271"></a> to its birth; likewise when it comes wrong, or
+there are two or more. And to all these various difficulties there
+is oftentimes one more, and that is, the ignorance of the midwife,
+who for want of understanding in her business, hinders nature in
+her work instead of helping her.</p>
+<p>Having thus looked into the cause of hard labour, I will now
+show the industrious midwife how she may minister some relief to
+the labouring woman under these difficult circumstances. But it
+will require judgment and understanding in the midwife, when she
+finds a woman in difficult labour, to know the particular
+obstruction, or cause thereof, that so a suitable remedy may be
+applied; as for instance, when it happens by the mother's being too
+young and too narrow, she must be gently treated, and the passages
+anointed with oil, hog's lard, or fresh butter, to relax and dilate
+them the easier, lest there should happen a rupture of any part
+when the child is born; for sometimes the peritoneum breaks, with
+the skin from the privities to the fundament.</p>
+<p>But if the woman be in years with her first child, let her lower
+parts be anointed to mollify the inward orifice, which in such a
+case being more hard and callous, does not easily yield to the
+distention of labour, which is the true cause why such women are
+longer in labour, and also <!-- Page 272 --><a name='Page_272' id=
+"Page_272"></a> why their children, being forced against the inward
+orifice of the womb (which, as I have said, is a little callous)
+are born with great bumps and bruises on their heads.</p>
+<p>Those women who are very small and mis-shaped, should not be put
+to bed, at least until the waters are broken, but rather kept
+upright and assisted to walk about the chamber, by being supported
+under the arms; for by that means, they will breathe more freely,
+and mend their pains better than on the bed, because there they lie
+all of a heap. As for those that are very lean, and have hard
+labour from that cause, let them moisten the parts with oil and
+ointments, to make them more smooth and slippery, that the head of
+the infant, and the womb be not so compressed and bruised by the
+hardness of the mother's bones which form the passage. If the cause
+be weakness, she ought to be strengthened, the better to support
+her pains, to which end give her good jelly broths, and a little
+wine with a toast in it. If she fears her pains, let her be
+comforted, assuring her that she will not endure any more, but be
+delivered in a little time. But if her pains be slow and small, or
+none at all, they must be provoked by frequent and pretty strong
+clysters; let her walk about her chamber, so that the weight of the
+child may help them forward. If she flood <!-- Page 273 --><a name=
+'Page_273' id="Page_273"></a> or have strong convulsions she must
+then be helped by a speedy delivery; the operation I shall relate
+in this section of unnatural labours. If she be costive, let her
+use clysters, which may also help to dispel colic, at those times
+very injurious because attended with useless pains, and because
+such bear not downward, and so help not to forward the birth. If
+she find an obstruction or stoppage of the urine, by reason of the
+womb's bearing too much on the bladder, let her lift up her belly a
+little with her hands, and try if by that she receives any benefit;
+if she finds she does not, it will be necessary to introduce a
+catheter into her bladder, and thereby draw forth her urine. If the
+difficulty be from the ill posture of the woman, let her be placed
+otherwise, in a posture more suitable and convenient for her; also
+if it proceeds from indispositions of the womb, as from its oblique
+situation, etc., it must be remedied, as well as it can be, by the
+placing her body accordingly; or, if it be a vicious conformation,
+having the neck too hard, too callous, too straight, it must be
+anointed with oil and ointments, as before directed. If the
+membranes be so strong that the waters do not break in due time,
+they may be broken with the fingers, if the midwife be first well
+assured that the child is come forward into the passage, and ready
+to follow presently <!-- Page 274 --><a name='Page_274' id=
+"Page_274"></a> after; or else, by the breaking of the waters too
+soon, the child may be in danger of remaining dry a long time; to
+supply which defect, you may moisten the parts with fomentations,
+decoctions, and emollient oils; which yet is not half so well as
+when nature does her work in her own time, with the ordinary slime
+and waters. The membranes sometimes do press forth with the waters,
+three or four fingers' breadth out of the body before the child
+resembling a bladder full of water; but there is no great danger in
+breaking them, if they be not already broken; for when the case is
+so, the child is always in readiness to follow, being in the
+passage, but let the midwife be very careful not to pull it with
+her hand, lest the after-burden be thereby loosened before its
+time, for it adheres thereto very strongly. If the navel-string
+happen to come first, it must presently be put up again, and kept
+so, if possible, or otherwise, the woman must be immediately
+delivered. But if the after-burden should come first, it must not
+be put up again by any means; for the infant having no further
+occasion for it, it would be but an obstacle if it were put up; in
+this case, it must be cut off, having tied the navel-string, and
+afterwards draw forth the child with all speed that may be, lest it
+be suffocated.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><!-- Page 275 --><a name='Page_275' id="Page_275"></a> SECT.
+V.&mdash;<i>Of Women labouring of a dead Child</i>.</h3>
+<p>When the difficulty of labour arises from a dead child, it is a
+great danger to a mother and great care ought to be taken therein;
+but before anything be done, the midwife ought to be well assured
+that the child is dead indeed, which may be known by these
+signs.</p>
+<p>(1) The breast suddenly slacks, or falls flat, or bags down. (2)
+A great coldness possesses the belly of the mother, especially
+about the navel. (3) Her urine is thick, with a filthy stinking
+settling at the bottom. (4) No motion of the child can be
+perceived; for the trial whereof, let the midwife put her hand into
+warm water, and lay it upon the belly, for that, if it is alive,
+will make it stir. (5) She is very subject to dreams of dead men,
+and affrighted therewith. (6) She has extraordinary longings to eat
+such things as are contrary to nature. (7) Her breath stinks,
+though not used so to do. (8) When she turns herself in her bed,
+the child sways that way like a lump of lead.</p>
+<p>These things being carefully observed, the midwife may make a
+judgment whether the child be alive or dead, especially if the
+woman take the following prescription:&mdash;"Take half a pint of
+white wine and burn it, and add thereto half an ounce of cinnamon,
+but no other <!-- Page 276 --><a name='Page_276' id="Page_276"></a>
+spices whatever, and when she has drunk it, if her travailing pains
+come upon her, the child is certainly dead; but if not, the child
+may possibly be either weak or sick, but not dead. This will bring
+her pains upon her if it be dead, and will refresh the child and
+give her ease if it be living; for cinnamon refresheth and
+strengtheneth the child.</p>
+<p>Now, if upon trial it be found the child is dead, let the mother
+do all she can to forward the delivery, because a dead child can in
+no wise be helpful therein. It will be necessary, therefore, that
+she take some comfortable things to prevent her fainting, by reason
+of the putrid vapours arising from the dead child. And in order to
+her delivery let her take the following herbs boiled in white wine
+(or at least as many of them as you can get), viz., dittany,
+betony, pennyroyal, sage, feverfew, centaury, ivy leaves and
+berries. Let her also take sweet basil in powder, and half a drachm
+at a time in white wine; let her privities also be anointed with
+the juice of the garden tansey. Or take the tansey in the summer
+when it can most plentifully be had, and before it runs up to
+flower, and having bruised it well, boil it in oil until the juice
+of it be consumed. If you set it in the sun, after you have mixed
+it with oil, it will be more effectual. This, an industrious
+midwife, who <!-- Page 277 --><a name='Page_277' id="Page_277"></a>
+would be prepared against all events, ought to have always by her.
+As to the manner of her delivery, the same methods must be used as
+are mentioned in the section of natural labour. And here again, I
+cannot but commend the stone aetites, held near the privities,
+whose magnetic virtue renders it exceedingly necessary on this
+occasion, for it draws the child any way with the same facility
+that the load-stone draws iron.</p>
+<p>Let the midwife also make a strong decoction of hyssop with
+water, and let the woman drink it very hot, and it will in a little
+time bring away the dead child.</p>
+<p>If, as soon as she is delivered of the dead child, you are in
+doubt that part of the afterbirth is left behind in the body (for
+in such cases as these many times it rots, and comes away
+piece-meal), let her continue drinking the same decoction until her
+body be cleansed.</p>
+<p>A decoction made of herbs, muster-wort, used as you did the
+decoction of hyssop, works the effect. Let the midwife also take
+the roots of pollodum and stamp them well; warm them a little and
+bind them on the sides of her feet, and it will soon bring away the
+child either dead or alive.</p>
+<p>The following medicines also are such as stir up the expulsive
+faculty, but in this case they <!-- Page 278 --><a name='Page_278'
+id="Page_278"></a> must be stronger, because the motion of the
+child ceases.</p>
+<p>Take savine, round birthwort, trochisks of myrrh, castor,
+cinnamon and saffron, each half a drachm; make a powder, give a
+drachm.</p>
+<p>Or she may purge first, and then apply an emollient, anointing
+her about the womb with oil of lilies, sweet almonds, camomiles,
+hen and goose-grease. Also foment to get out the child, with a
+decoction of mercury, orris, wild cucumbers, saecus, broom flowers.
+Then anoint the privities and loins with ointment of sow-bread. Or,
+take coloquintida, agaric, birthwort, of each a drachm; make a
+powder, add ammoniacum dissolved in wine, ox-gall, each two
+drachms. Or make a fume with an ass's hoof burnt, or gallianum, or
+castor, and let it be taken in with a funnel.</p>
+<p>To take away pains and strengthen the parts, foment with the
+decoction of mugwort, mallows, rosemary, with wood myrtle, St.
+John's wort, each half an ounce, spermaceti two drachms, deer's
+suet, an ounce; with wax make an ointment. Or take wax six ounces,
+spermaceti an ounce; melt them, dip flux therein, and lay it all
+over her belly.</p>
+<p>If none of these things will do, the last remedy is to try
+surgery, and then the midwife ought without delay to send for an
+expert and able <!-- Page 279 --><a name='Page_279' id=
+"Page_279"></a> man-midwife, to deliver her by manual operation, of
+which I shall treat more at large in the next chapter.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+<a name='Footnote_10_10' id="Footnote_10_10"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_10_10'>[10]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p>Horse-parsley.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_VI' id=
+"EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_VI"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Unnatural Labour</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>In showing the duty of a midwife, when the child-bearing woman's
+labour is unnatural, it will be requisite to show, in the first
+place, what I mean by unnatural labour, for that women do bring
+forth in pain and sorrow is natural and common to all. Therefore,
+that which I call unnatural is, when the child comes to the birth
+in a contrary posture to that which nature ordained, and in which
+the generality of the children come into the world.</p>
+<p>The right and natural birth is when the child comes with its
+head first; and yet this is too short a definition of a natural
+birth; for if any part of the head but the crown comes first, so
+that the body follows not in a straight line, it is a wrong and
+difficult birth, even though the head comes first. Therefore, if
+the child comes with its feet first, or with the side across, it is
+<!-- Page 280 --><a name='Page_280' id="Page_280"></a> quite
+contrary to nature, or to speak more plainly, that which I call
+unnatural.</p>
+<p>Now, there are four general ways a child may come wrong. (1)
+When any of the foreparts of the body first present themselves. (2)
+When by an unhappy transposition, any of the hinder parts of the
+body first present themselves. (3) When either of the sides, or,
+(4) the feet present themselves first. To these, the different
+wrong postures that a child can present itself in, may be
+reduced.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>How to deliver a Woman of a Dead Child by
+Manual Operation</i>.</h3>
+<p>When manual operation is necessary, let the operator acquaint
+the woman of the absolute necessity there is for such an operation;
+and that, as the child has already lost its life, there is no other
+way left for the saving hers. Let him also inform her, for her
+encouragement, that he doubts not, with the divine blessing, to
+deliver her safely, and that the pains arising therefrom will not
+be so great as she fears. Then let him stir up the woman's pains by
+giving her some sharp clyster, to excite her throes to bear down,
+and bring forth the child. And if this prevails not, let him
+proceed with the manual operation.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 281 --><a name='Page_281' id="Page_281"></a> First,
+therefore, let her be placed across the bed that he may operate the
+easier; and let her lie on her back, with her hips a little higher
+than her head, or at least the body equally placed, when it is
+necessary to put back or turn the infant to give it a better
+posture. Being thus situated, she must fold her legs so as her
+heels be towards her buttocks, and her thighs spread, and so held
+by a couple of strong persons, there must be others also to support
+her under her arms, that the body may not slide down when the child
+is drawn forth; for which sometimes great strength is required. Let
+the sheets and blankets cover her thighs for decency's sake, and
+with respect to the assistants, and also to prevent her catching
+cold; the operator herein governing himself as well with respect to
+his convenience, and the facility and surety of the operation, as
+to other things. Then let him anoint the entrance to the womb with
+oil or fresh butter, if necessary, that with so more ease he may
+introduce his hand, which must also be anointed, and having by the
+signs above mentioned, received satisfaction that the child is
+dead, he must do his endeavours to fetch it away as soon as he
+possibly can. If the child offer the head first, he must gently put
+it back until he hath liberty to introduce his hand quite into the
+womb; then sliding it <!-- Page 282 --><a name='Page_282' id=
+"Page_282"></a> along, under the belly, to find the feet, let him
+draw it forth by them, being very careful to keep the head from
+being locked into the passage; and that it be not separated from
+the body; which may be effected the more easily, because the child
+being very rotten and putrefied, the operator need not be so
+mindful to keep the breast and face downwards as he is in living
+births. But if notwithstanding all these precautions, by reason of
+the child's putrefaction, the head should be separated and left
+behind in the womb, it must be drawn forth according to the
+directions which have been given in the third section of this
+chapter. But when the head, coming first, is so far advanced that
+it cannot well be put back, it is better to draw it forth so, than
+to torment the woman too much by putting it back to turn it, and
+bring it by the feet; but the head being a part round and slippery,
+it may also happen that the operator cannot take hold of it with
+his fingers by reason of its moisture, nor put them up to the side
+of it, because the passage is filled with its bigness; he must,
+therefore, take a proper instrument, and put it up as far as he can
+without violence, between the womb and the child's head (for the
+child being dead before, there can be no danger in the operation),
+and let him fasten it there, giving it hold upon one of the
+<!-- Page 283 --><a name='Page_283' id="Page_283"></a> bones of the
+skull, that it may not slide, and after it is well fixed in the
+head, he may therewith draw it forth, keeping the ends of the
+fingers of his left hand flat upon the opposite side, the better to
+help to disengage it, and by wagging it a little, to conduct it
+directly out of the passage, until the head be quite born; and
+then, taking hold of it with his hands only, the shoulders being
+drawn into the passage, and so sliding the fingers of both hands
+under the armpits, the child may be quite delivered, and then the
+after-burden fetched, to finish the operation, being careful not to
+pluck the navel-string too hard lest it break, as often happens
+when it is corrupt.</p>
+<p>If the dead child comes with the arm up to the shoulders so
+extremely swelled that the woman must suffer too great violence to
+have it put back, it is then (being first well assured the child is
+dead) best to take it off by the shoulder joints, by twisting three
+or four times about, which is very easily done by reason of the
+softness and tenderness of the body. After the arm is so separated,
+and no longer possesses the passage, the operator will have more
+room to put up his hand into the womb, to fetch the child by the
+feet and bring it away.</p>
+<p>But although the operator is sure the child is dead in the womb,
+yet he must not therefore <!-- Page 284 --><a name='Page_284' id=
+"Page_284"></a> presently use instruments because they are never to
+be used but when hands are not sufficient, and there is no other
+remedy to prevent the woman's danger, or to bring forth the child
+any other way; and the judicious operator will choose that way
+which is the least hazardous, and most safe.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. II.&mdash;<i>How a Woman must be Delivered when the
+Child's Feet come first</i>.</h3>
+<p>There is nothing more obvious to those whose business it is to
+assist labouring women, than that the several unnatural postures in
+which children present themselves at the birth are the occasions of
+most of the bad labours and ill accidents that happen to them in
+that condition.</p>
+<p>And since midwives are often obliged, because of their unnatural
+situations, to draw the children forth by the feet, I conceive it
+to be most proper first to show how a child must be brought forth
+that presents itself in that posture, because it will be a guide to
+several of the rest.</p>
+<p>I know indeed in this case it is the advice of several authors
+to change the figure, and place the head so that it may present to
+the birth, and this counsel I should be very much inclined
+<!-- Page 285 --><a name='Page_285' id="Page_285"></a> to follow,
+could they but also show how it may be done. But it will appear
+very difficult, if not impossible to be performed, if we would
+avoid the danger that by such violent agitations both the mother
+and the child must be put into, and therefore my opinion is, that
+it is better to draw forth by the feet, when it presents itself in
+that posture, than to venture a worse accident by turning it.</p>
+<p>As soon, therefore, as the waters are broken, and it is known
+that the child come thus and that the womb is open enough to admit
+the midwife's or operator's hand into it, or else by anointing the
+passage with oil or hog's grease, to endeavour to dilate it by
+degrees, using her fingers to this purpose, spreading them one from
+the other, after they are together entered, and continue to do so
+until they be sufficiently dilated, then taking care that her nails
+be well pared, no rings on her fingers and her hands well anointed
+with oil or fresh butter, and the woman placed in the manner
+directed in the former section, let her gently introduce her hand
+into the entrance of the womb, where finding the child's feet, let
+her draw it forth in the manner I shall presently direct; only let
+her first see whether it presents one foot or both, and if but one
+foot, she ought to consider whether it be the right foot or the
+left, and also in what <!-- Page 286 --><a name='Page_286' id=
+"Page_286"></a> fashion it comes; for by that means she will soon
+come to know where to find the other, which as soon as she knows
+and finds, let her draw it forth with the other; but of this she
+must be specially careful, viz., that the second be not the foot of
+another child; for if so, it may be of the utmost consequence, for
+she may sooner split both mother and child, than draw them forth.
+But this may be easily prevented if she but slide the hand up by
+the first leg and thigh to the waist, and there finding both thighs
+joined together, and descending from one and the same body. And
+this is also the best means to find the other foot, when it comes
+but with one.</p>
+<p>As soon as the midwife has found both the child's feet, she may
+draw them forth, and holding them together, may bring them little
+by little in this manner, taking afterwards hold of the arms and
+thighs, as soon as she can come at them, drawing them so till the
+hips come forth. While this is doing, let her observe to wrap the
+parts in a single cloth, so that her hands being always greasy
+slide not in the infant's body, which is very slippery, because of
+the vicious humours which are all over it; which being done, she
+may take hold under the hips, so as to draw it forth to the
+beginning of the breast; and let her on both sides with her hand
+<!-- Page 287 --><a name='Page_287' id="Page_287"></a> bring down
+the child's hand along its body, which she may easily find; and
+then let her take care that the belly and face of the child be
+downwards; for if they should be upwards, there would be the same
+danger of its being stopped by the chin, over the share-bone, and
+therefore, if it be not so she must turn it to that posture; which
+may easily be done if she takes a proper hold of the body when the
+breasts and arms are forth, in the manner we have said, and draw
+it, turning it in proportion on that side it most inclines to, till
+it be turned with the face downwards, and so, having brought it to
+the shoulders, let her lose no time, desiring the woman at the same
+time to bear down, that so drawing the head at that instant may
+take its place, and not be stopped in the passage, though the
+midwife takes all possible care to prevent it. And when this
+happens, she must endeavour to draw forth the child by the
+shoulders (taking care that she separate not the body from the
+head, as I have known it done by the midwife), discharging it by
+little and little from the bones in the passage with the fingers of
+each hand, sliding them on each side opposite the other, sometimes
+above and sometimes under, till the work be ended; endeavouring to
+dispatch it as soon as possible, lest the child be suffocated, as
+it will unavoidably be, if it remain long in
+<!-- Page 288 --><a name='Page_288' id="Page_288"></a> that
+posture; and this being well and carefully effected, she may soon
+after fetch away the after-birth, as I have before directed.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. III.&mdash;<i>How to bring away the Head of the Child,
+when separated from the Body, and left behind in the Womb</i>.</h3>
+<p>Though the utmost care be taken in bringing away the child by
+the feet, yet if it happen to be dead, it is sometimes so putrid
+and corrupt, that with the least pull the head separates from the
+body and remains alone in the womb, and cannot be brought away but
+with a manual operation and great difficulty, it being extremely
+slippery, by reason of the place where it is, and from the
+roundness of its figure, on which no hold can well be taken; and so
+very great is the difficulty in this case that sometimes two or
+three very able practitioners in midwifery have, one after the
+other, left the operation unfinished, as not able to effect it,
+after the utmost industry, skill and strength; so that the woman,
+not being able to be delivered, perished. To prevent which fatal
+accident, let the following operation be observed.</p>
+<p>When the infant's head separates from the body, and is left
+alone behind, whether owing to putrefaction or otherwise, let the
+operator <!-- Page 289 --><a name='Page_289' id="Page_289"></a>
+immediately, without any delay, while the womb is yet open, direct
+up his right hand to the mouth of the head (for no other hole can
+there be had), and having found it let him put one or two of his
+fingers into it, and the thumb under its chin; then let him draw it
+little by little, holding it by the jaws; but if that fails, as
+sometimes it will when putrefied, then let him pull off the right
+hand and slide up his left, with which he must support the head,
+and with the right hand let him take a narrow instrument called a
+<i>crochet</i>, but let it be strong and with a single branch,
+which he must guide along the inside of his hand, with the point of
+it towards it, for fear of hurting the womb; and having thus
+introduced it, let him turn it towards the head to strike either in
+an eyehole, or the hole of the ear, or behind the head, or else
+between the sutures, as he finds it most convenient and easy; and
+then draw forth the head so fastened with the said instrument,
+still helping to conduct it with his left hand; but when he hath
+brought it near the passage, being strongly fastened to the
+instrument, let him remember to draw forth his hand, that the
+passage not being filled with it, may be larger and easier, keeping
+still a finger or two on the side of the head, the better to
+disengage it.</p>
+<p>There is also another method, with more ease
+<!-- Page 290 --><a name='Page_290' id="Page_290"></a> and less
+hardship than the former; let the operator take a soft fillet or
+linen slip, of about four fingers' breadth, and the length of three
+quarters of an ell or thereabouts, taking the two ends with the
+left hand, and the middle with the right, and let him so put it up
+with his right, as that it may be beyond the head, to embrace it as
+a sling does a stone, and afterwards draw forth the fillet by the
+two ends together; it will thus be easily drawn forth, the fillet
+not hindering the least passage, because it takes up little or no
+space.</p>
+<p>When the head is fetched out of the womb care must be taken that
+not the least part of it be left behind, and likewise to cleanse
+the womb of the after-burden, if yet remaining. If the burden be
+wholly separated from the side of the womb, that ought to be first
+brought away, because it may also hinder the taking hold of the
+head. But if it still adheres to the womb, it must not be meddled
+with till the head be brought away; for if one should endeavour to
+separate it from the womb, it might then cause a flooding, which
+would be augmented by the violence of the operation, the vessels to
+which it is joined remaining for the most part open as long as the
+womb is distended, which the head causeth while it is retained in
+it, and cannot be closed until this strange body be voided, and
+<!-- Page 291 --><a name='Page_291' id="Page_291"></a> this it doth
+by contracting and compressing itself together, as has been more
+fully before explained. Besides, the after-birth remaining thus
+cleaving to the womb during the operation, prevents it from
+receiving easily either bruise or hurt.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. IV.&mdash;<i>How to deliver a Woman when the child's head
+is presented to the birth</i>.</h3>
+<p>Though some may think it a natural labour when the child's head
+come first, yet, if the child's head present not the right way,
+even that is an unnatural labour; and therefore, though the head
+comes first, yet if it be the side of the head instead of the
+crown, it is very dangerous both to the mother and the child, for
+the child's neck would be broken, if born in that manner, and by
+how much the mother's pains continue to bear the child, which is
+impossible unless the head be rightly placed, the more the passages
+are stopped. Therefore, as soon as the position of the child is
+known, the woman must be laid with all speed, lest the child should
+advance further than this vicious posture, and thereby render it
+more difficult to thrust it back, which must be done, in order to
+place the head right in the passage, as it ought to be.</p>
+<p>To this purpose, therefore, place the woman
+<!-- Page 292 --><a name='Page_292' id="Page_292"></a> so that her
+buttocks may be a little higher than her head and shoulders,
+causing her to lean a little to the opposite side to the child's
+ill posture; then let the operator slide up his hand, well anointed
+with oil, by the side of the child's head; to bring it right
+gently, with his fingers between the head and the womb; but if the
+head be so engaged that it cannot be done that way, he must then
+put up his hand to the shoulders, that by so thrusting them back a
+little into the womb, sometimes on the one side, and sometimes on
+the other, he may, little by little, give a natural position. I
+confess it would be better if the operator could put back the child
+by its shoulders with both hands, but the head takes up so much
+room, that he will find much ado to put up one, with which he must
+perform this operation, and, with the help of the finger-ends of
+the other hand put forward the child's birth as in natural
+labour.</p>
+<p>Some children present their face first, having their hands
+turned back, in which posture it is extremely difficult for a child
+to be born; and if it continues so long, the face will be swelled
+and become black and blue, so that it will at first appear
+monstrous, which is occasioned as well by the compression of it in
+that place, as by the midwife's fingers in handling it, in order to
+place it in a better posture. But this blackness
+<!-- Page 293 --><a name='Page_293' id="Page_293"></a> will wear
+away in three or four days' time, by anointing it often with oil of
+sweet almonds. To deliver the birth, the same operation must be
+used as in the former, when the child comes first with the side of
+the head; only let the midwife or operator work very gently to
+avoid as much as possible the bruising the face.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. V.&mdash;<i>How to Deliver a Woman when the Child
+presents one or both Hands together with the Head</i>.</h3>
+<p>Sometimes the infant will present some other part together with
+its head; which if it does, it is usually with one or both of its
+hands; and this hinders the birth, because the hands take up part
+of that passage which is little enough for the head alone; besides
+that, when this happens, they generally cause the head to lean on
+one side; and therefore this position may be well styled unnatural.
+When the child presents thus, the first thing to be done after it
+is perceived, must be, to prevent it from coming down more, or
+engaging further in the passage; and therefore, the operator having
+placed the woman on the bed, with her head lower than her buttocks,
+must guide and put back the infant's hand with his own as much as
+may be, or both of them, if they both come
+<!-- Page 294 --><a name='Page_294' id="Page_294"></a> down, to
+give way to the child's head; and this being done, if the head be
+on one side, it must be brought into its natural posture in the
+middle of the passage, that it may come in a straight line, and
+then proceed as directed in the foregoing section.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. VI.&mdash;<i>How a Woman ought to be delivered, when the
+Hands and Feet of the Infant come together.</i></h3>
+<p>There are none but will readily grant, that when the hands and
+feet of an infant present together, the labour must be unnatural,
+because it is impossible a child should be born in that manner. In
+this case, therefore, when the midwife guides her hand towards the
+orifice of the womb she will perceive only many fingers close
+together, and if it be not sufficiently dilated, it will be a good
+while before the hands and feet will be exactly distinguished; for
+they are sometimes so shut and pressed together, that they seem to
+be all of one and the same shape, but where the womb is open enough
+to introduce the hand into it, she will easily know which are the
+hands and which are the feet; and having taken particular notice
+thereof, let her slide up her hand and presently direct it towards
+the infant's breast, which she will find very
+<!-- Page 295 --><a name='Page_295' id="Page_295"></a> near, and
+then let her gently thrust back the body towards the bottom of the
+womb, leaving the feet in the same place where she found them. And
+then, having placed the woman in a convenient posture, that is to
+say, her buttocks a little raised above her breast (and which
+situation ought also to be observed when the child is to be put
+back into the womb), let the midwife afterwards take hold of the
+child by the feet, and draw it forth, as is directed in the second
+section.</p>
+<p>This labour, though somewhat troublesome, yet is much better
+than when the child presents only its hands; for then the child
+must be quite turned about before it can be drawn forth; but in
+this they are ready, presenting themselves, and there is little to
+do, but to lift and thrust back the upper part of the body, which
+is almost done of itself, by drawing it by the feet alone.</p>
+<p>I confess there are many authors that have written of labours,
+who would have all wrong births reduced to a natural figure, which
+is, to turn it that it may come with the head first. But those that
+have written thus, are such as never understood the practical part,
+for if they had the least experience therein, they would know that
+it is impossible; at least, if it were to be done, that violence
+must necessarily be <!-- Page 296 --><a name='Page_296' id=
+"Page_296"></a> used in doing it, that would probably be the death
+both of mother and child in the operation. I would, therefore, lay
+down as a general rule, that whenever a child presents itself wrong
+to the birth, in what posture so ever, from the shoulders to the
+feet, it is the way, and soonest done, to draw it out by the feet;
+and that it is better to search for them, if they do not present
+themselves, than to try and put them in their natural posture, and
+place the head foremost; for the great endeavours necessary to be
+used in turning the child in the womb, do so much weaken both the
+mother and the child, that there remains not afterwards strength
+enough to commit the operation to the work of nature; for, usually,
+the woman has no more throes or pains fit for labour after she has
+been so wrought upon; for which reason it would be difficult and
+tedious at best; and the child, by such an operation made very
+weak, would be in extreme danger of perishing before it could be
+born. It is, therefore, much better in these cases to bring it away
+immediately by the feet, searching for them as I have already
+directed, when they do not present themselves; by which the mother
+will be prevented a tedious labour, and the child be often brought
+alive into the world, who otherwise could hardly escape death.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><!-- Page 297 --><a name='Page_297' id="Page_297"></a> SECT.
+VII.&mdash;<i>How a Woman should be delivered that has twins, which
+present themselves in different postures</i>.</h3>
+<p>We have already spoken something of the birth of twins in the
+chapter of natural labour, for it is not an unnatural labour barely
+to have twins, provided they come in the right position to the
+birth. But when they present themselves in different postures, they
+come properly under the denomination of unnatural labours; and if
+when one child presents itself in a wrong figure, it makes the
+labour dangerous and unnatural, it must needs make it much more so
+when there are several, and render it not only more painful to the
+mother and children, but to the operator also; for they often
+trouble each other and hinder both their births. Besides which the
+womb is so filled with them, that the operator can hardly introduce
+his hand without much violence, which he must do, if they are to be
+turned or thrust back, to give them a better position.</p>
+<p>When a woman is pregnant with two children, they rarely present
+to the birth together, the one being generally more forward than
+the other; and that is the reason that but one is felt, and that
+many times the midwife knows not that there are twins until the
+first is born, <!-- Page 298 --><a name='Page_298' id=
+"Page_298"></a> and that she is going to fetch away the afterbirth.
+In the first chapter, wherein I treated of natural labour, I have
+showed how a woman should be delivered of twins, presenting
+themselves both right; and before I close the chapter of unnatural
+labour, it only remains that I show what ought to be done when they
+either both come wrong or one of them only, as for the most part it
+happens; the first generally coming right, and the second with the
+feet forward, or in some worse posture. In such a case, the birth
+of the first must be hastened as much as possible and to make way
+for the second, which is best brought away by the feet, without
+endeavouring to place it right, because it has been, as well as the
+mother, already tired and weakened by the birth of the first, and
+there would be greater danger to its death, than likelihood of its
+coming out of the womb that way.</p>
+<p>But if, when the first is born naturally, the second should
+likewise offer its head to the birth, it would then be best to
+leave nature to finish what she has so well begun, and if nature
+should be too slow in her work, some of those things mentioned in
+the fourth chapter to accelerate the birth, may be properly enough
+applied, and if, after that, the second birth should be delayed,
+let a manual operation be <!-- Page 299 --><a name='Page_299' id=
+"Page_299"></a> delayed no longer, but the woman being properly
+placed, as has been before directed, let the operator direct his
+hand gently into the womb to find the feet, and so draw forth the
+second child, which will be the more easily effected, because there
+is a way made sufficiently by the birth of the first; and if the
+waters of the second child be not broke, as it often happens, yet,
+intending to bring it by its feet, he need not scruple to break the
+membranes with his fingers; for though, when the birth of a child
+is left to the operation of nature, it is necessary that the waters
+should break of themselves, yet when the child is brought out of
+the womb by art, there is no danger in breaking them, nay, on the
+contrary it becomes necessary; for without the waters are broken,
+it will be almost impossible to turn the child.</p>
+<p>But herein principally lies the care of the operator, that he be
+not deceived, when either the hands or feet of both children offer
+themselves together to the birth; in this case he ought well to
+consider the operation, of whether they be not joined together, or
+any way monstrous, and which part belongs to one child and which to
+the other; so that they may be fetched one after the other, and not
+both together, as may be, if it were not duly considered, taking
+the right foot of one and the left of the other, and
+<!-- Page 300 --><a name='Page_300' id="Page_300"></a> so drawing
+them together, as if they both belonged to one body, because there
+is a left and a right, by which means it would be impossible to
+deliver them. But a skilful operator will easily prevent this, if,
+after having found two or three of several children presenting
+together in the passage, and taking aside two of the forwardest, a
+right and a left, and sliding his arm along the legs and thighs up
+to the wrist, if forward, or to the buttocks, if backwards, he
+finds they both belong to one body; of which being thus assured, he
+may begin to draw forth the nearest, without regarding which is the
+strongest or weakest, bigger or less, living or dead, having first
+put aside that part of the other child which offers to have the
+more way, and so dispatch the first as soon as may be, observing
+the same rules as if there were but one, that is keeping the breast
+and face downwards, with every circumstance directed in that
+section where the child comes with its feet first, and not fetch
+the burden till the second child is born. And therefore, when the
+operator hath drawn forth one child, he must separate it from the
+burden, having tied and cut the navel-string, and then fetch the
+other by the feet in the same manner, and afterwards bring away the
+after-burden with the two strings as hath been before showed. If
+the children present any other part <!-- Page 301 --><a name=
+'Page_301' id="Page_301"></a> but the feet, the operator may follow
+the same method as directed in the foregoing section, where the
+several unnatural positions are fully treated of.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_VII' id=
+"EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_VII"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Directions for Child-bearing Women in their Lying-in.</i></p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>How a Woman newly Delivered ought to be
+ordered</i>.</h3>
+<p>As soon as she is laid in her bed, let her be placed in it
+conveniently for ease and rest, which she stands in great need of
+to recover herself of the great fatigue she underwent during her
+travail, and that she may lie the more easily let her hands and
+body be a little raised, that she may breathe more freely, and
+cleanse the better, especially of that blood which then comes away,
+that so it may not clot, which being retained causeth great
+pain.</p>
+<p>Having thus placed her in bed, let her take a draught of burnt
+white wine, having a drachm <!-- Page 302 --><a name='Page_302' id=
+"Page_302"></a> of spermaceti melted therein. The best vervain is
+also singularly good for a woman in this condition, boiling it in
+what she either eats or drinks, fortifying the womb so exceedingly
+that it will do it more good in two days, than any other thing does
+in double that time, having no offensive taste. And this is no more
+than what she stands in need of; for her lower parts being greatly
+distended until the birth of the infant, it is good to endeavour
+the prevention of an inflammation there. Let there also be
+outwardly applied, all over the bottom of her belly and privities,
+the following anodyne and cataplasm:&mdash;Take two ounces of oil
+of sweet almonds, and two or three new laid eggs, yolks and whites,
+stirring them together in an earthen pipkin over hot embers till
+they come to the consistence of a poultice; which being spread upon
+a cloth, must be applied to those parts indifferently warm, having
+first taken away the closures (which were put to her presently
+after her delivery), and likewise such clots of blood as were then
+left. Let this lie on for five or six hours, and then renew it
+again when you see cause.</p>
+<p>Great care ought to be taken at first, that if her body be very
+weak, she be not kept too hot, for extremity of heat weakens nature
+and dissolves the strength; and whether she be weak
+<!-- Page 303 --><a name='Page_303' id="Page_303"></a> or strong,
+be sure that no cold air comes near her at first; for cold is an
+enemy to the spermatic parts; if it get into the womb it increases
+the after pains, causes swelling in the womb and hurts the nerves.
+As to her diet, let it be hot, and let her eat but little at a
+time. Let her avoid the light for the first three days, and longer
+if she be weak, for her labour weakens her eyes exceedingly, by a
+harmony between the womb and them. Let her also avoid great noise,
+sadness and trouble of mind.</p>
+<p>If the womb be foul, which may easily be perceived by the
+impurity of the blood (which will then easily come away in clots or
+stinking, or if you suspect any of the after-burden to be left
+behind, which may sometimes happen), make her drink a feverfew,
+mugwort, pennyroyal and mother of thyme, boiled in white wine and
+sweetened with sugar.</p>
+<p>Panado and new laid eggs are the best meat for her at first, of
+which she may eat often, but not too much at a time. And let her
+nurse use cinnamon in all her meats and drinks, for it generally
+strengthens the womb.</p>
+<p>Let her stir as little as may be until after the fifth, sixth,
+or seventh day after her delivery, if she be weak; and let her talk
+as little as possible, for that weakens her very much.</p>
+<p>If she goes not well to stool, give a clyster
+<!-- Page 304 --><a name='Page_304' id="Page_304"></a> made only of
+the decoction of mallows and a little brown sugar.</p>
+<p>When she hath lain in a week or more, let her use such things as
+close the womb, of which knot-grass and comfrey are very good, and
+to them you may add a little polypodium, for it will do her good,
+both leaves and root being bruised.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. II.&mdash;<i>How to remedy those Accidents which a
+Lying-in Woman is subject to</i>.</h3>
+<p>I. The first common and usual accident that troubles women in
+their lying-in is after-pains. They proceed from cold and wind
+contained in the bowels, with which they are easily filled after
+labour, because then they have more room to dilate than when the
+child was in the womb, by which they were compressed; and also,
+because nourishment and matter, contained as well in them as in the
+stomach, have been so confusedly agitated from side to side during
+the pains of labour, by the throes which always must compress the
+belly, that they could not be well digested, whence the wind is
+afterwards generated and, by consequence, the gripes which the
+woman feels running into her belly from side to side, according as
+the wind moves more or less, and sometimes likewise from the womb,
+<!-- Page 305 --><a name='Page_305' id="Page_305"></a> because of
+the compression and commotion which the bowels make. This being
+generally the case, let us now apply a suitable remedy.</p>
+<p>1. Boil an egg soft, and pour out the yolk of it, with which mix
+a spoonful of cinnamon water, and let her drink it; and if you mix
+in it two grains of ambergris, it will be better; and yet vervain
+taken in anything she drinks, will be as effectual as the
+other.</p>
+<p>2. Give a lying-in woman, immediately after delivery, oil of
+sweet almonds and syrup of maiden-hair mixed together. Some prefer
+oil of walnuts, provided it be made of nuts that are very good; but
+it tastes worse than the other at best. This will lenify the inside
+of the intestines by its unctuousness, and by that means bring away
+that which is contained in them more easily.</p>
+<p>3. Take and boil onions well in water, then stamp them with oil
+of cinnamon, spread them on a cloth, and apply them to the region
+of the womb.</p>
+<p>4. Let her be careful to keep her belly warm, and not to drink
+what is too cold; and if the pain prove violent, hot cloths from
+time to time must be laid on her belly, or a pancake fried in
+walnut oil may be applied to it, without swathing her belly too
+strait. And for the better evacuating the wind out of the
+intestines, give her a <!-- Page 306 --><a name='Page_306' id=
+"Page_306"></a> clyster, which may be repeated as often as
+necessity requires.</p>
+<p>5. Take bay-berries, beat them to a powder, put the powder upon
+a chafing-dish of coals, and let her receive the smoke of them up
+her privities.</p>
+<p>6. Take tar and bear's grease, of each an equal quantity, boil
+them together, and whilst it is boiling, add a little pigeon's dung
+to it. Spread some of this upon a linen cloth, and apply it to the
+veins of the back of her that is troubled with afterpains, and it
+will give her speedy ease.</p>
+<p>Lastly, let her take half a drachm of bay-berries beaten into a
+powder, in a drachm of muscadel or teat.</p>
+<p>II. Another accident to which women in child-bed are subject is
+haemorrhoids or piles, occasioned through the great straining in
+bringing the child into the world. To cure this,</p>
+<p>1. Let her be let blood in the saphoena vein.</p>
+<p>2. Let her use polypodium in her meat, and drink, bruised and
+boiled.</p>
+<p>3. Take an onion, and having made a hole in the middle, of it,
+fill it full of oil, roast it and having bruised it all together,
+apply it to the fundament.</p>
+<p>4. Take a dozen of snails without shells, if you can get them,
+or else so many shell snails, and pull them out, and having bruised
+them <!-- Page 307 --><a name='Page_307' id="Page_307"></a> with a
+little oil, apply them warm as before.</p>
+<p>5. If she go not well to stool, let her take an ounce of cassia
+fistula drawn at night, going to bed; she needs no change of diet
+after.</p>
+<p>III. Retention of the menses is another accident happening to
+women in child-bed, and which is of so dangerous a consequence,
+that, if not timely remedied, it proves mortal. When this
+happens,</p>
+<p>1. Let the woman take such medicines as strongly provoke the
+terms, such as dittany, betony, pennyroyal, feverfew, centaury,
+juniper-berries, peony roots.</p>
+<p>2. Let her take two or three spoonfuls of briony water each
+morning.</p>
+<p>3. Gentian roots beaten into a powder, and a drachm of it taken
+every morning in wine, are an extraordinary remedy.</p>
+<p>4. The roots of birthwort, either long or round, so used and
+taken as the former, are very good.</p>
+<p>5. Take twelve peony seeds, and beat them into a very fine
+powder, and let her drink them in a draught of hot cardus posset,
+and let her sweat after. And if the last medicine do not bring them
+down the first time she takes it, let her take as much more three
+hours after, and it seldom fails.</p>
+<p>IV. Overflowing of the menses is another
+<!-- Page 308 --><a name='Page_308' id="Page_308"></a> accident
+incidental to child-bed women. For which,</p>
+<p>1. Take shepherd's purse, either boiled in any convenient
+liquor, or dried and beaten into a powder, and it will be an
+admirable remedy to stop them, this being especially appropriated
+to the privities.</p>
+<p>2. The flower and leaves of brambles or either of them, being
+dried and beaten into a powder, and a drachm of them taken every
+morning in a spoonful of red wine, or in a decoction of leaves of
+the same (which, perhaps, is much better), is an admirable remedy
+for the immoderate flowing of the term in women.</p>
+<p>V. Excoriations, bruises, and rents in the lower part of the
+womb are often occasioned by the violent distention and separation
+of the caruncles in a woman's labour. For the healing whereof,</p>
+<p>As soon as the woman is laid, if there be only simple contusions
+and excoriations, then let the anodyne cataplasm, formerly
+directed, be applied to the lower parts to ease the pain, made of
+the yolks and whites of new laid eggs, and oil of roses, boiled a
+little over warm embers, continually stirring it until it be mixed,
+and then spread on a fine cloth; it must be applied very warm to
+the bearing place for five or six hours, and when it is taken away,
+lay some fine <!-- Page 309 --><a name='Page_309' id=
+"Page_309"></a> rags, dipped in oil of St. John's wort twice or
+thrice a day; also foment the parts with barley water and honey of
+roses, to cleanse them from the excrements which pass. When the
+woman makes water, let them be defended with fine rags, and thereby
+hinder the urine from causing smart or pain.</p>
+<p>VI. The curding and clotting of the milk is another accident
+that happens to women in child-bed, for in the beginning of
+child-bed, the woman's milk is not purified because of the great
+commotions her body suffered during her labour, which affected all
+the parts, and it is then affected with many humours. Now this
+clotting of the milk does, for the most part, proceed from the
+breasts not being fully drawn, and that, either because she has too
+much milk, and that the infant is too small and weak to suck it
+all, or because she doth not desire to be a nurse, for the milk in
+those cases remaining in the breasts after concoction, without
+being drawn, loses its sweetness and the balsamic qualities it had,
+and by reason of the heat it requires, and the too long stay it
+makes there, is sours, curds and clots, in like manner as we see
+rennet put into ordinary milk to turn it into curds. The curding of
+the milk may also be caused by having taken a great cold, and not
+keeping the breasts well covered.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 310 --><a name='Page_310' id="Page_310"></a> But from
+what cause so ever this curding of the milk proceeds, the most
+certain remedy is, to draw the breasts until it is emitted and
+dried. But in regard that the infant by reason of weakness, cannot
+draw strength enough, the woman being hard marked when her milk is
+curded, it will be most proper to get another woman to draw her
+breasts until the milk comes freely, and then she may give her
+child suck. And that she may not afterwards be troubled with a
+surplus of milk, she must eat such diet as give but little
+nourishment, and keep her body open.</p>
+<p>But if the case be such that the woman neither can nor will be a
+nurse, it is necessary to apply other remedies for the curing of
+this distemper; for then it will be best not to draw the breasts,
+for that will be the way to bring more milk into them. For which
+purpose it will be necessary to empty the body by bleeding the
+arms, besides which, let the humours be drawn down by strong
+clysters and bleeding at the foot; nor will it be amiss to purge
+gently, and to digest, dissolve and dissipate the curded milk, four
+brans dissolved in a decoction of sage, milk, smallage and fennel,
+mixing with it oil of camomile, with which oil let the breasts be
+well anointed. The following liniment is also good to scatter and
+dissipate the milk.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 311 --><a name='Page_311' id="Page_311"></a></p>
+<h4><i>A Liniment to Scatter and Dissipate the Milk.</i></h4>
+<p>That the milk flowing back to the breast may without offence be
+dissipated, you must use this ointment:&mdash;"Take pure wax, two
+ounces, linseed, half a pound; when the wax is melted, let the
+liniment be made, wherein linen cloths must be clipped, and,
+according to their largeness, be laid upon the breasts; and when it
+shall be dispersed, and pains no more, let other linen cloths be
+laid in the distilled water of acorns, and put upon them.</p>
+<p><i>Note.</i>&mdash;That the cloths dipped into distilled water
+of acorns must be used only by those who cannot nurse their own
+children; but if a swelling in the breast of her who gives such do
+arise, from abundance of milk, threatens an inflammation, let her
+use the former ointment, but abstain from using the distilled water
+of acorns.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_VIII' id=
+"EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_VIII"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 312 --><a name='Page_312' id="Page_312"></a> CHAPTER
+VIII</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Directions for the Nurses, in ordering Newly-born
+Children</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>When the child's navel-string hath been cut according to the
+rules prescribed, let the midwife presently cleanse it from the
+excrements and filth it brings into the world with it; of which
+some are within the body, as the urine in the bladder, and the
+excrements found in the guts; and the others without, which are
+thick, whitish and clammy, proceeding from the sliminess of the
+waters. There are sometimes children covered all over with this,
+that one would think they were rubbed over with soft cheese, and
+some women are of so easy a belief, that they really think it so,
+because they have eaten some while they were with child. From these
+excrements let the child be cleansed with wine and water a little
+warmed, washing every part therewith, but chiefly the head because
+of the hair, also the folds of the groin, and the cods or
+privities; which parts must be gently cleansed with a linen rag, or
+a soft sponge dipped in lukewarm wine. If this clammy or viscous
+excrement stick so close that it will not easily be washed off from
+those places, it may be fetched off with oil of sweet almond, or a
+little fresh butter <!-- Page 313 --><a name='Page_313' id=
+"Page_313"></a> melted with wine, and afterwards well dried off;
+also make tents of fine rags, and wetting them in this liquor,
+clear the ears and nostrils; but for the eyes, wipe them only with
+a dry, soft rag, not dipping it in the wine, lest it should make
+them smart.</p>
+<p>The child being washed, and cleansed from the native blood and
+impurities which attend it into the world, it must in the next
+place be searched to see whether all things be right about it, and
+that there is no fault nor dislocation; whether its nose be
+straight, or its tongue tied, or whether there be any bruise or
+tumour of the head; or whether the mold be not over shot; also
+whether the scrotum (if it be a male) be not blown up and swelled,
+and, in short, whether it has suffered any violence by its birth,
+in any part of its body, and whether all the parts be well and duly
+shaped; that suitable remedies may be applied if anything be found
+not right. Nor is it enough to see that all be right without, and
+that the outside of the body be cleansed, but she must also observe
+whether it dischargeth the excrements contained within, and whether
+the passage be open; for some have been born without having been
+perforated. Therefore, let her examine whether the conduits of the
+urine and stool be clear, for want of which some have died, not
+being <!-- Page 314 --><a name='Page_314' id="Page_314"></a> able
+to void their excrements, because timely care was not taken at
+first. As to the urine all children, as well males as females, do
+make water as soon as they are born, if they can, especially if
+they feel the heat of the fire, and also sometimes void the
+excrements, but not so soon as the urine. If the infant does not
+ordure the first day, then put into its fundament a small
+suppository, to stir it up to be discharged, that it may not cause
+painful gripes, by remaining so long in the belly. A sugar almond
+may be proper for this purpose, anointed all over with a little
+boiled honey; or else a small piece of castile-soap rubbed over
+with fresh butter; also give the child for this purpose a little
+syrup of roses or violets at the mouth, mixed with some oil of
+sweet almonds, drawn without a fire, anointing the belly also, with
+the same oil or fresh butter.</p>
+<p>The midwife having thus washed and cleansed the child, according
+to the before mentioned directions, let her begin to swaddle it in
+swathing clothes, and when she dresses the head, let her put small
+rags behind the ears, to dry up the filth which usually engenders
+there, and so let her do also in the folds of the armpits and
+groins, and so swathe it; then wrap it up warm in a bed with
+blankets, which there is scarcely any woman so ignorant but knows
+well enough how <!-- Page 315 --><a name='Page_315' id=
+"Page_315"></a> to do; only let me give them this caution, that
+they swathe not the child too tightly in its blankets, especially
+about the breast and stomach, that it may breathe the more freely,
+and not be forced to vomit up the milk it sucks, because the
+stomach cannot be sufficiently distended to contain it; therefore
+let its arms and legs be wrapped in its bed, stretched and straight
+and swathed to keep them so, viz., the arms along its sides, and
+its legs equally both together with a little of the bed between
+them, that they may not be galled by rubbing each other; then let
+the head be kept steady and straight, with a stay fastened each
+side of the blanket, and then wrap the child up in a mantle and
+blankets to keep it warm. Let none think this swathing of the
+infant is needless to set down, for it is necessary it should be
+thus swaddled, to give its little body a straight figure, which is
+most proper and decent for a man, and to accustom him to keep upon
+his feet, who otherwise would go upon all fours, as most animals
+do.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_IX' id=
+"EXPERIENCED_MIDWIFE_CHAPTER_IX"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 316 --><a name='Page_316' id="Page_316"></a> CHAPTER
+IX</h2>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>Of Gripes and Pains in the, Bellies of
+Young Children</i>.</h3>
+<p>This I mention first, as it is often the first and most common
+distemper which happens to little infants, after their birth; many
+children being so troubled therewith, that it causes them to cry
+day and night and at last die of it. The cause of it for the most
+part comes from the sudden change of nourishment, for having always
+received it from the umbilical vessel whilst in the mother's womb,
+they come on a sudden not only to change the manner of receiving
+it, but the nature and quality of what they received, as soon as
+they are born; for instead of purified blood only, which was
+conveyed to them by means of the umbilical vein, they are now
+obliged to be nourished by their mother's milk, which they suck
+with their mouths, and from which are engendered many excrements,
+causing gripes and pains; and not only because it is not so pure as
+the blood with which it was nourished in the womb, but because the
+stomach and the intestines cannot make a good digestion, being
+unaccustomed to it. It is sometimes caused also by a rough phlegm,
+and sometimes by worms; for physicians affirm that worms
+<!-- Page 317 --><a name='Page_317' id="Page_317"></a> have been
+bred in children even in their mother's belly.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. The remedy must be suited to the cause. If it
+proceed from the too sudden change of nourishment, the remedy must
+be to forbear giving the child suck for some days, lest the milk be
+mixed with phlegm, which is then in the stomach corrupt; and at
+first it must suck but little, until it is accustomed to digest it.
+If it be the excrements in the intestines, which by their long stay
+increase their pains, give them at the month a little oil of sweet
+almonds and syrup of roses; if it be worms, lay a cloth dipped in
+oil of wormwood mixed with ox-gall, upon the belly, or a small
+cataplasm, mixed with the powder of rue, wormwood, coloquintida,
+aloes, and the seeds of citron incorporated with ox-gall and the
+powder of lupines. Or give it oil of sweet almonds and syrup of
+roses; if it be worms, lay a cloth, dipped in oil of wormwood mixed
+with ox-gall, upon the belly, or a small cataplasm mixed with the
+powder of rue, wormwood, coloquintida, aloes, and the seeds of
+citron incorporated with ox-gall and the powder of lupines. Or give
+it oil of sweet almonds with sugar-candy, and a scruple of aniseed;
+it purgeth new-born babes from green cholera and stinking phlegm,
+and, if it be given with sugar-pap, it allays the griping pains of
+<!-- Page 318 --><a name='Page_318' id="Page_318"></a> the belly.
+Also anoint the belly with oil of dill, or lay pelitory stamped
+with oil of camomile to the belly.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. II.&mdash;<i>Of Weakness In Newly-born Infants</i>.</h3>
+<p>Weakness is an accident that many children bring into the world
+along with them, and is often occasioned by the labour of the
+mother; by the violence and length whereof they suffer so much,
+that they are born with great weakness, and many times it is
+difficult to know whether they are alive or dead, their body
+appearing so senseless, and their face so blue and livid, that they
+seem to be quite choked; and even after some hours, then-showing
+any signs of life is attended with weakness, that it looks like a
+return from death, and that they are still in a dying
+condition.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. Lay the infant speedily in a warm blanket, and
+carry it to the fire, and then let the midwife take a little wine
+in her mouth and spout it into its mouth, repeating it often, if
+there be occasion. Let her apply linen dipped in urine to the
+breast and belly, and let the face be uncovered, that it may
+breathe the more freely; also, let the midwife keep its mouth a
+little open, cleanse the nostrils with small
+<!-- Page 319 --><a name='Page_319' id="Page_319"></a> linen
+tents<a name='FNanchor_11_11' id="FNanchor_11_11"></a> <a href=
+'#Footnote_11_11'><sup>[11]</sup></a> dipt in white wine, that so
+it may receive the smell of it; and let her chafe every part of its
+body well with warm cloths, to bring back its blood and spirits,
+which being retired inwards through weakness, often puts him in
+danger of being choked. By the application of these means, the
+infant will gradually recover strength, and begin to stir its limbs
+by degrees, and at length to cry; and though it be but weakly at
+first, yet afterwards, as it breathes more freely, its cry will
+become more strong.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. III.&mdash;<i>Of the Fundament being closed up in a
+newly-born Infant</i>.</h3>
+<p>Another defect that new-born infants are liable to is, to have
+their fundaments closed up, by which they can neither evacuate the
+new excrements engendered by the milk they suck, nor that which was
+amassed in their intestines before birth, which is certainly mortal
+without a speedy remedy. There have been some
+<!-- Page 320 --><a name='Page_320' id="Page_320"></a> female
+children who have their fundaments quite closed, and yet have
+voided the excrements of the guts by an orifice which nature, to
+supply the defect, had made within the neck of the womb.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. Here we must take notice, that the fundament is
+closed two ways; either by a single skin, through which one may
+discover some black and blue marks, proceeding from the excrements
+retained, which, if one touch with the finger, there is a softness
+felt within, and thereabout it ought to be pierced; or else it is
+quite stopped by a thick, fleshy substance, in such sort that there
+appears nothing without, by which its true situation may be known.
+When there is nothing but the single skin which makes the closure,
+the operation is very easy, and the children may do very well; for
+then an aperture or opening may be made with a small
+incision-knife, cross-ways, that it may the better receive a round
+form, and that the place may not afterwards grow together, taking
+care not to prejudice the sphincter or muscle of the rectum. The
+incision being thus made, the excrements will certainly have issue.
+But if, by reason of their long stay in the belly, they become so
+dry that the infant cannot void them, then let a clyster be given
+to moisten and bring them away; afterwards put a linen tent into
+the <!-- Page 321 --><a name='Page_321' id="Page_321"></a> new-made
+fundament, which at first had best be anointed with honey of roses,
+and towards the end, with a drying, cicatrizing ointment, such as
+unguentum album or ponphilex, observing to cleanse the infant of
+its excrement, and dry it again as soon and as often as it
+evacuates them, that so the aperture may be prevented from turning
+into a malignant ulcer.</p>
+<p>But if the fundament be stopped up in such a manner, that
+neither mark nor appearance of it can be seen or felt, then the
+operation is much more difficult, and, even when it is done, the
+danger is much greater that the infant will not survive it. Then,
+if it be a female, and it sends forth its excrements by the way I
+mentioned before, it is better not to meddle than, by endeavouring
+to remedy an inconvenience, run an extreme hazard of the infant's
+death. But when there is no vent for the excrements, without which
+death is unavoidable, then the operation is justifiable.</p>
+<p><i>Operation</i>. Let the operator, with a small incision-knife
+that hath but one edge, enter into the void place, and turning the
+back of it upwards, within half a finger's breadth of the child's
+rump, which is the place where he will certainly find the
+intestines, let him thrust it forward, that it may be open enough
+to give free vent to matter there contained, being especially
+<!-- Page 322 --><a name='Page_322' id="Page_322"></a> careful of
+the sphincter; after which, let the wound be dressed according to
+the method directed.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. IV.&mdash;<i>Of the Thrush, or Ulcers In the Mouth of the
+Infant</i>.</h3>
+<p>The thrush is a distemper that children are very subject to, and
+it arises from bad milk, or from foul humour in the stomach; for
+sometimes, though there be no ill humour in the milk itself, yet it
+may corrupt the child's stomach because of its weakness or some
+other indisposition; in which, acquiring an acrimony, instead of
+being well digested, there arise from it thrice biting vapours,
+which forming a thick viscosity, do thereby produce this
+distemper.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. It is often difficult, as physicians tell us,
+because it is seated in hot and moist places, where the
+putrefaction is easily augmented; and because the remedies applied
+cannot lodge there, being soon washed with spittle. But if it
+arises from too hot quality in the nurse's milk, care must be taken
+to temper and cool, prescribing her cool diet, bleeding and purging
+her also, if there be occasion.</p>
+<p>Take lentils, husked, powder them, and lay a little of them upon
+the child's gums. Or <!-- Page 323 --><a name='Page_323' id=
+"Page_323"></a> take bdellium flowers, half an ounce, and with oil
+of roses make a liniment. Also wash the child's mouth with barley
+and plantain-water, and honey of roses, mixing with them a little
+verjuice of lemons, as well to loosen and cleanse the vicious
+humours which cleave to the inside of the infant's mouth, as to
+cool those parts which are already over-heated. It may be done by
+means of a small fine rag, fastened to the end of a little stick,
+and dipped therein, wherewith the ulcers may be gently rubbed,
+being careful not to put the child in too much pain, lest an
+inflammation make the distemper worse. The child's body must also
+be kept open, that the humours being carried to the lower parts,
+the vapours may not ascend, as is usual for them to do when the
+body is costive, and the excrements too long retained.</p>
+<p>If the ulcers appear malignant, let such remedies be used as do
+their work speedily, that the evil qualities that cause them, being
+thereby instantly corrected, their malignity may be prevented; and
+in this case, touch the ulcers with plantain water, sharpened with
+spirits of vitriol; for the remedy must be made sharp, according to
+the malignity of the distemper. It will be necessary to purge these
+ill humours out of the whole habit of the child, by giving half an
+ounce of succory and rhubarb.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><!-- Page 324 --><a name='Page_324' id="Page_324"></a> SECT.
+V.&mdash;<i>Of Pains in the Ears, Inflammation, Moisture,
+etc</i>.</h3>
+<p>The brain in infants is very moist, and hath many excrements
+which nature cannot send out at the proper passages; they get often
+to the ears, and there cause pains, flux of blood, with
+inflammation and matter with pain; this in children is hard to be
+known as they have no other way to make it known but by constant
+crying; you will perceive them ready to feel their ears themselves,
+but will not let others touch them, if they can prevent; and
+sometimes you may discern the parts about the ears to be very
+red.</p>
+<p>These pains, if let alone, are of dangerous consequences,
+because they may bring forth watchings and epilepsy; for the
+moisture breeds worms there, and fouls the spongy bones, and by
+degrees causes incurable deafness.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. Allay the pain with all convenient speed, but have
+a care of using strong remedies. Therefore, only use warm milk
+about the ears, with the decoction of poppy tops, or oil of
+violets; to take away the moisture, use honey of roses, and let
+aqua mollis be dropped into the ears; or take virgin honey, half an
+ounce; red wines two ounces; alum, saffron, saltpetre,
+<!-- Page 325 --><a name='Page_325' id="Page_325"></a> each a
+drachm, mix them at the fire; or drop in hemp seed oil with a
+little wine.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. VI.&mdash;<i>Of Redness and Inflammation of the Buttocks,
+Groin and the Thighs of a Young Child.</i></h3>
+<p>If there be no great care taken to change and wash the child's
+bed as soon as it is fouled with the excrements, and to keep the
+child very clean, the acrimony will be sure to cause redness, and
+beget a smarting in the buttocks, groin and thighs of the child,
+which, by reason of the pain, will afterwards be subject to
+inflammations, which follow the sooner, through the delicacy and
+tenderness of their skin, from which the outward skin of the body
+is in a short time separated and worn away.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. First, keep the child cleanly, and secondly, take
+off the sharpness of its urine. As to keeping it cleanly, she must
+be a sorry nurse who needs to be taught how to do it; for if she
+lets it but have dry, warm and clean beds and cloths, as often and
+as soon as it has fouled and wet them, either by its urine or its
+excrements, it will be sufficient. And as to taking off the
+sharpness of the child's urine, that must be done by the nurse's
+taking a cool diet, that her milk may have the same quality; and,
+<!-- Page 326 --><a name='Page_326' id="Page_326"></a> therefore,
+she ought to abstain from all things that may tend to heat it.</p>
+<p>But besides these, cooling and drying remedies are requisite to
+be applied to the inflamed parts; therefore let the parts be bathed
+in plantain-water, with a fourth of lime water added to it, each
+time the child's excrements are wiped off; and if the pain be very
+great, let it only be fomented with lukewarm milk. The powder of a
+post to dry it, or a little mill-dust strewed upon the parts
+affected, may be proper enough, and is used by many women. Also,
+unguentum album, or diapompholigos, spread upon a small piece of
+leather in form of a plaster, will not be amiss.</p>
+<p>But the chief thing must be, the nurse's taking great care to
+wrap the inflamed parts with fine rags when she opens the child,
+that these parts may not gather and be pained by rubbing
+together.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. VII.&mdash;<i>Of Vomiting in Young Children</i>.</h3>
+<p>Vomiting in young children proceeds sometimes from too much
+milk, and sometimes from bad milk, and as often from a moist, loose
+stomach; for as dryness retains so looseness lets go. This is, for
+the most part, without danger in children; for they that vomit from
+<!-- Page 327 --><a name='Page_327' id="Page_327"></a> their birth
+are the lustiest; for the stomach not being used to meat, and milk
+being taken too much, crudities are easily bred, or the milk is
+corrupted; and it is better to vomit these up than to keep them in;
+but if vomiting last long, it will cause an atrophy or consumption,
+for want of nourishment.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. If this be from too much milk, that which is
+emitted is yellow and green, or otherwise ill-coloured and
+stinking; in this case, mend the milk, as has been shown before;
+cleanse the child with honey of roses, and strengthen its stomach
+with syrup of milk and quinces, made into an electuary. If the
+humours be hot and sharp, give the syrup of pomegranates, currants
+and coral, and apply to the belly the plaster of bread, the stomach
+cerate, or bread dipped in hot wine; or take oil of mastich,
+quinces, mint, wormwood, each half an ounce; of nutmegs by
+expression, half a drachm; chemical oil of mint, three drops. Coral
+hath an occult property to prevent vomiting, and is therefore hung
+about the neck.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. VIII&mdash;<i>Of Breeding Teeth in Young
+Children</i>.</h3>
+<p>This is a very great and yet necessary evil in all children,
+having variety of symptoms <!-- Page 329 --><a name='Page_329' id=
+"Page_329"></a> <!-- Page 328 --><a name='Page_328' id=
+"Page_328"></a> joined with it. They begin to come forth, not all
+at once, but one after the other, about the sixth or seventh month;
+the fore-teeth coming first, then the eye-teeth, and last of all
+the grinders. The eye-teeth cause more pain to the child than any
+of the rest, because they have a deep root, and a small nerve which
+has communication with that which makes the eye move.</p>
+<center><img src='img/co010.jpg' alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<p>In the breeding of the teeth, first they feel an itching in
+their gums, then they are pierced as with a needle, and pricked by
+the sharp bones, whence proceed great pains, watching, inflammation
+of the gums, fever, looseness and convulsions, especially when they
+breed their eye-teeth.</p>
+<p>The signs when children breed their eye-teeth are these:</p>
+<p>1. It is known by the time, which is usually about the seventh
+month.</p>
+<p>2. Their gums are swelled, and they feel a great heat there with
+an itching, which makes them put their fingers into their mouths to
+rub them; a moisture also distils from the gums into the mouth,
+because of the pain they feel there.</p>
+<p>3. They hold the nipple faster than before.</p>
+<p>4. The gums are white when the teeth begin to come, and the
+nurse, in giving them suck, <!-- Page 330 --><a name='Page_330' id=
+"Page_330"></a> finds the mouth hotter, and that they are much
+changed, crying every moment, and cannot sleep, or but very little
+at a time.</p>
+<p>The fever that follows breeding of teeth comes from choleric
+humours, inflamed by watching, pain and heat. And the longer teeth
+are breeding, the more dangerous it is; so that many in the
+breeding of them, die of fevers and convulsions.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. Two things are to be regarded:&mdash;one is, to
+preserve the child from the evil accidents that may happen to it by
+reason of the great pain; the other, to assist as much as may be,
+the cutting of the teeth, when they can hardly cut the gums
+themselves.</p>
+<p>For the first of these, viz., the preventing of those accidents
+to the child, the nurse ought to take great care to keep a good
+diet, and to use all things that may cool and temper her milk, that
+so a fever may not follow the pain of the teeth. And to prevent the
+humour falling too much upon the inflamed gums, let the child's
+belly be always kept loose by gentle clysters, if he be bound;
+though oftentimes there is no need of them, because they are at
+those times usually troubled with a looseness; and yet, for all
+that, clysters may not be improper.</p>
+<p>As to the other, which is to assist it cutting the teeth, that
+the nurse must do from time to <!-- Page 331 --><a name='Page_331'
+id="Page_331"></a> time by mollifying and loosening them, and by
+rubbing them with her finger dipped in butter or honey; or let the
+child have a virgin-wax candle to chew upon; or anoint the gums
+with the mucilage of quince made with mallow-water, or with the
+brains of a hare; also foment the cheeks with the decoction of
+althoea, and camomile flowers and dill, or with the juice of
+mallows and fresh butter. If the gums are inflamed, add juice of
+nightshade and lettuce. I have already said, the nurse ought to
+take a temperate diet; I shall now only add, that barley-broth,
+water-gruel, raw eggs, prunes, lettuce and endive, are good for
+her; but let her avoid salt, sharp, biting and peppered meats, and
+wine.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. IX.&mdash;<i>Of the Flux of the Belly, or Looseness in
+Infants</i>.</h3>
+<p>It is very common for infants to have the flux of the belly, or
+looseness, especially upon the least indisposition; nor is it to be
+wondered at, seeing their natural moistness contributes so much
+thereto; and even if it be extraordinarily violent, such are in a
+better state of health than those that are bound. The flux, if
+violent, proceeds from divers causes, as 1. From breeding of the
+teeth, and is then <!-- Page 332 --><a name='Page_332' id=
+"Page_332"></a> commonly attended with a fever in which the
+concoction is hindered, and the nourishment corrupted. 2. From
+watching. 3. From pain. 4. From stirring up of the humours by a
+fever. 5. When they suck or drink too much in a fever. Sometimes
+they have a flux without breeding of teeth, from inward cold in the
+guts or stomach that obstructs concoction. If it be from the teeth,
+it is easily known; for the signs of breeding in teeth will
+discover it. If it be from external cold, there are signs of other
+causes. If from a humour flowing from the head there are signs of a
+catarrh, and the excrements are frothy. If crude and raw humours
+are voided, and there be wind, belching, and phlegmatic excrements,
+or if they be yellow, green and stink, the flux is from a hot and
+sharp humour. It is best in breeding of teeth when the belly is
+loose, as I have said before; but if it be too violent, and you are
+afraid it may end in a consumption, it must be stopped; and if the
+excrements that are voided be black, and attended with a fever, it
+is very bad.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. The remedy in this case, is principally in respect
+to the nurse, and the condition of the milk must be chiefly
+observed; the nurse must be cautioned that she eat no green fruit,
+nor things of hard concoction. If the child suck not, remove the
+flux with such purges as leave <!-- Page 333 --><a name='Page_333'
+id="Page_333"></a> a cooling quality behind them, as syrup of honey
+or roses, or a clyster. Take the decoction of millium, myrobolans,
+of each two or three ounces, with an ounce or two of syrup of
+roses, and make a clyster. After cleansing, if it proceed from a
+hot cause, give syrup of dried roses, quinces, myrtles and a little
+sanguis draconis. Also anoint with oil of roses, myrtles, mastich,
+each two drachms; with oil of myrtles and wax make an ointment. Or
+take red roses and moulin, of each a handful; cypress roots two
+drachms; make a bag, boil it in red wine and apply it to the belly.
+Or use the plaster bread or stomach ointment. If the cause be cold,
+and the excrements white give syrup of mastich and quinces, with
+mint-water. Use outwardly, mint, mastich, cummin; or take rose
+seeds, an ounce, cummin, aniseed, each two drachms; with oil of
+mastich, wormwood and wax, make an ointment.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. X.&mdash;<i>Of the Epilepsy and Convulsions in
+Children.</i></h3>
+<p>This is a distemper that is often fatal to young children, and
+frequently proceeds from the brain, originating either from the
+parents, or from vapours, or bad humours that twitch the membranes
+of the brain; it is also sometimes <!-- Page 334 --><a name=
+'Page_334' id="Page_334"></a> caused by other distempers and by bad
+diet; likewise, the toothache, when the brain consents, causes it,
+and so does a sudden fright. As to the distemper itself, it is
+manifest and well enough known where it is; and as to the cause
+whence it comes, you may know by the signs of the disease, whether
+it comes from bad milk, or worms, or teeth; if these are all
+absent, it is certain that the brain is first affected; if it come
+with the small-pox or measles, it ceaseth when they come forth, if
+nature be strong enough.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. For the remedy of this grievous, and often mortal
+distemper, give the following powder to prevent it, to a child as
+soon as it is born:&mdash;Take male peony roots, gathered in the
+decrease of the moon, a scruple; with leaf gold make a powder; or
+take peony roots, a drachm; peony seeds, mistletoe of the oak,
+elk's hoof, man's skull, amber, each a scruple; musk, two grains;
+make a powder. The best part of the cure is taking care of the
+nurse's diet, which must be regular, by all means. If it be from
+corrupt milk, provoke a vomit; to do which, hold down the tongue,
+and put a quill dipped in sweet almonds, down the throat. If it
+come from the worms, give such things as will kill the worms. If
+there be a fever, with respect to that also, give coral smaragad
+and elk's hoof. In the fit, give epileptic water, as lavender
+<!-- Page 335 --><a name='Page_335' id="Page_335"></a> water, and
+rub with oil of amber, or hang a peony root, and elk's hoof
+smaragad, about the child's neck.</p>
+<p>As to a convulsion, it is when the brain labours to cast out
+that which troubles it; the mariner is in the marrow of the back,
+and fountain of the nerves; it is a stubborn disease, and often
+kills.</p>
+<p>Wash the body, when in the fit, with decoction of althoea, lily
+roots, peony and camomile flowerets, and anoint it with man's and
+goose's grease, oils of worms, orris, lilies, foxes, turpentine,
+mastich, storax and calamint. The sun flower is also very good,
+boiled in water, to wash the child.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+<a name='Footnote_11_11' id="Footnote_11_11"></a> <a href=
+'#FNanchor_11_11'>[11]</a>
+<div class='note'>
+<p>Tent (<i>surgical</i>). A bunch of some fibre such as sponge or
+horsehair introduced into an opening, natural or artificial, to
+keep it open, or increase its calibre.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='PROPER_AND_SAFE_REMEDIES' id=
+"PROPER_AND_SAFE_REMEDIES"></a>
+<h1><!-- Page 336 --><a name='Page_336' id="Page_336"></a> PROPER
+AND SAFE REMEDIES<br />
+FOR<br />
+CURING ALL THOSE DISTEMPERS<br />
+THAT ARE PECULIAR<br />
+TO THE FEMALE SEX<br />
+AND ESPECIALLY THOSE OBSERVATIONS<br />
+TO BEARING OF CHILDREN</h1>
+<hr class="long" />
+<h2>BOOK II</h2>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Having finished the first part of this book, and wherein, I
+hope, amply made good my promise to the reader, I am now come to
+treat only of those distempers to which they are more subject when
+in a breeding condition, and those <!-- Page 337 --><a name=
+'Page_337' id="Page_337"></a> that keep them from being so;
+together with such proper and safe remedies as may be sufficient to
+repel them. And since amongst all the diseases to which human
+nature is subject, there is none that more diametrically opposes
+the very end of our creation, and the design of nature in the
+formation of different sexes, and the power thereby given us for
+the work of generation, than that of sterility or barrenness which,
+where it prevails, renders the most accomplished midwife but a
+useless person, and destroys the design of our book; I think,
+therefore, that barrenness is an effect that deserves our first and
+principal consideration.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='REMEDIES_CHAPTER_I' id="REMEDIES_CHAPTER_I"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Barrenness; its several Kinds; with the proper Remedies
+for it; and the Signs of Insufficiency both in Men and
+Women</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>Of Barrenness in General</i>.</h3>
+<p>Barrenness is either natural or artificial.</p>
+<p>Natural barrenness is when a woman is barren, though the
+instruments of generation are perfect both in herself and in her
+husband, and <!-- Page 338 --><a name='Page_338' id="Page_338"></a>
+no preposterous or diabolical course used to it, and neither age,
+nor disease, nor any defect hindering, and yet the woman remains
+naturally barren.</p>
+<p>Now this may proceed from a natural cause, for if the man and
+woman be of one complexion, they seldom have children, and the
+reason is clear, for the universal course of nature being formed of
+a composition of contraries, cannot be increased by a composition
+of likes; and, therefore, if the constitution of the woman be hot
+and dry, as well as the man's there can be no conception; and if,
+on the contrary, the man should be of a cold and moist
+constitution, as well as the woman, the effect would be the same;
+and this barrenness is purely natural. The only way to help this
+is, for people, before they marry, to observe each others
+constitution and complexion, if they design to have children. If
+their complexions and constitutions be alike, they are not fit to
+come together, for discordant natures only, make harmony in the
+work of generation.</p>
+<p>Another natural cause of barrenness, is want of love between man
+and wife. Love is that vivid principle that ought to inspire each
+organ in the act of generation, or else it will be spiritless and
+dull; for if their hearts be not united in love, how should their
+seed unite to cause <!-- Page 339 --><a name='Page_339' id=
+"Page_339"></a> Conception? And this is sufficiently evinced, in
+that there never follows conception on a rape. Therefore, if men
+and women design to have children, let them live so, that their
+hearts as well as their bodies may be united, or else they may miss
+their expectations.</p>
+<p>A third cause of natural barrenness, is the letting virgins
+blood in the arm before their natural courses are come down, which
+is usually in the fourteenth and fifteenth year of their age;
+sometimes, perhaps before the thirteenth, but never before the
+twelfth. And because usually, they are out of order, and indisposed
+before their purgations come down, their parents run to the doctor
+to know what is the matter; and he, if not skilled, will naturally
+prescribe opening a vein in the arm, thinking fullness of blood the
+cause; and thus she seems recovered for the present: and when the
+young virgin happens to be in the same disorder, the mother applies
+again to the surgeon, who uses the same remedy; and by these means
+the blood is so diverted from its proper channel, that it comes not
+down the womb as usual, and so the womb dries up, and she is for
+ever barren. To prevent this, let no virgin blood in the arm before
+her courses come down well; for that will bring the blood
+downwards, and by that means provoke the <i>menstrua</i> to come
+down.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 340 --><a name='Page_340' id="Page_340"></a> Another
+cause of natural barrenness, is debility in copulation. If persons
+perform not that act with all the bent and ardour that nature
+requires, they may as well let it alone; for frigidity and coldness
+never produces conception. Of the cure of this we will speak by and
+by, after I have spoken of accidental barrenness, which is
+occasioned by some morbific matter or infirmity in the body, either
+of the man or of the woman, which being removed they become
+fruitful. And since, as I have before noted, the first and great
+law of creation, was to increase and multiply, and barrenness is in
+direct opposition to that law, and frustrates the end of our
+creation, and often causes man and wife to have hard thoughts one
+of another, I shall here, for the satisfaction of well meaning
+people, set down the signs and causes of insufficiency both in men
+and women; premising first that when people have no children, they
+must not presently blame either party, for neither may be in
+fault.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. II.&mdash;<i>Signs and Causes of Insufficiency in
+Men</i>.</h3>
+<p>One cause may be in some viciousness of the yard, as if the same
+be crooked, or any ligaments thereof distorted and broken, whereby
+the ways <!-- Page 341 --><a name='Page_341' id="Page_341"></a> and
+passages, through which the seed should flow, come to be stopped or
+vitiated.</p>
+<p>Another cause may be, too much weakness of the yard, and
+tenderness thereof, so that it is not strong enough erected to
+inject seed into the womb; for the strength and stiffness of the
+yard very much conduces to conception, by reason of the forcible
+injection of the seed.</p>
+<p>Also, if the stones have received any hurt, so that they cannot
+exercise the proper gift in producing seed, or if they be oppressed
+with an inflammation, tumour, wound or ulcer, or drawn up within
+the belly, and not appearing outwardly.</p>
+<p>Also, a man may be barren by reason of the defect of seed, as
+first, if he cast forth no seed at all, or less in substance than
+is needful. Or, secondly, if the seed be vicious, or unfit for
+generation; as on the one side, it happens in bodies that are gross
+and fat, the matter of it being defective; and on the other side,
+too much leanness, or continual wasting or consumption of the body,
+destroys seed; nature turning all the matter and substance thereof
+into the nutriment of the body.</p>
+<p>Too frequent copulation is also one great cause of barrenness in
+men; for it attracteth the seminal moisture from the stones, before
+it is sufficiently prepared and concocted. So if any
+<!-- Page 342 --><a name='Page_342' id="Page_342"></a> one, by
+daily copulation, do exhaust and draw out all their moisture of the
+seed, then do the stones draw the moist humours from the superior
+veins unto themselves; and so, having but a little blood in them,
+they are forced of necessity to cast it out raw and unconcocted,
+and thus the stones are violently deprived of the moisture of their
+veins, and the superior veins, and all the other parts of the body,
+of their vital spirits; therefore it is no wonder that those who
+use immoderate copulation are very weak in their bodies, seeing
+their whole body is deprived of the best and purest blood, and of
+the spirit, insomuch that many who have been too much addicted to
+that pleasure, have killed themselves in the very act.</p>
+<p>Gluttony, drunkenness, and other excesses, do so much hinder men
+from fruitfulness, that it makes them unfit for generation.</p>
+<p>But among other causes of barrenness of men, this also is one,
+and makes them almost of the nature of eunuchs, and that is the
+incision or the cutting of the veins behind their ears, which in
+case of distempers is oftentimes done; for, according to the
+opinions of most physicians and anatomists, the seed flows from the
+brain by those veins behind the ears, more than any part of the
+body. From whence it is very probable, that the transmission of the
+seed is hindered <!-- Page 343 --><a name='Page_343' id=
+"Page_343"></a> by the cutting of the veins behind the ears, so
+that it cannot descend to the testicles, or may come thither very
+crude and raw.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. III.&mdash;<i>Signs and Causes of Insufficiency or
+Barrenness in Women</i>.</h3>
+<p>Although there are many causes of the barrenness of women, yet
+the chief and principal are internal, respecting either the privy
+parts, the womb or menstruous blood.</p>
+<p>Therefore, Hippocrates saith (speaking as well of easy as
+difficult conception in women) the first consideration is to be had
+of their species; for little women are more apt to conceive than
+great, slender than gross, white and fair than ruddy and high
+coloured, black than wan, those that have their veins conspicuous,
+than others; but to be very fleshy is evil, and to have great
+swelled breasts is good.</p>
+<p>The next thing to be considered is, the monthly purgations,
+whether they have been duly every month, whether they flow
+plentifully, are of a good colour, and whether they have been equal
+every month.</p>
+<p>Then the womb, or place of conception, is to be considered. It
+ought to be clean and sound, dry and soft, not retracted or drawn
+up; not prone or descending downward; nor the mouth
+<!-- Page 344 --><a name='Page_344' id="Page_344"></a> thereof
+turned away, nor too close shut up. But to speak more
+particularly:&mdash;</p>
+<p>The first parts to be spoken of are the <i>pudenda</i>, or
+privities, and the womb; which parts are shut and enclosed either
+by nature or against nature; and from hence, such women are called
+<i>imperforate</i>; as in some women the mouth of their womb
+continues compressed, or closed up, from the time of their birth
+until the coming down of their courses, and then, on a sudden, when
+their terms press forward to purgation, they are molested with
+great and unusual pains. Sometimes these break of their own accord,
+others are dissected and opened by physicians; others never break
+at all, which bring on disorders that end in death.</p>
+<p>All these <i>Aetius</i> particularly handles, showing that the
+womb is shut three manner of ways, which hinders conception. And
+the first is when the <i>pudenda</i> grow and cleave together. The
+second is, when these certain membranes grow in the middle part of
+the matrix within. The third is, when (though the lips and bosom of
+the <i>pudenda</i> may appear fair and open), the mouth of the womb
+may be quite shut up. All which are occasions of barrenness, as
+they hinder the intercourse with man, the monthly courses, and
+conception.</p>
+<p>But amongst all causes of barrenness in
+<!-- Page 345 --><a name='Page_345' id="Page_345"></a> women, the
+greatest is in the womb, which is the field of generation; and if
+this field is corrupt, it is in vain to expect any fruit, be it
+ever so well sown. It may be unfit for generation by reason of many
+distempers to which it is subject; as for instance, overmuch heat
+and overmuch cold; for women whose wombs are too thick and cold,
+cannot conceive, because coldness extinguishes the heat of the
+human seed. Immoderate moisture of the womb also destroys the seed
+of man, and makes it ineffectual, as corn sown in ponds and
+marshes; and so does overmuch dryness of the womb, so that the seed
+perisheth for want of nutriment. Immoderate heat of the womb is
+also a cause of barrenness for it scorcheth up the seed as corn
+sown in the drought of summer; for immoderate heat burns all parts
+of the body, so that no conception can live in the womb.</p>
+<p>When unnatural humours are engendered, as too much phlegm,
+tympanies, wind, water, worms, or any other evil humour abounding
+contrary to nature, it causes barrenness as do all terms not coming
+down in due order.</p>
+<p>A woman may also have accidental causes of barrenness (at least
+such as may hinder her conception), as sudden frights, anger, grief
+and perturbation of mind; too violent exercises, as leaping,
+dancing, running, after copulation, <!-- Page 346 --><a name=
+'Page_346' id="Page_346"></a> and the like. But I will now add some
+signs, by which these things may be known.</p>
+<p>If the cause of barrenness be in the man, through overmuch heat
+in the seed, the woman may easily feel that in receiving it.</p>
+<p>If the nature of the woman be too hot, and so unfit for
+conception, it will appear by her having her terms very little, and
+the colour inclining to yellowness; she is also very hasty,
+choleric and crafty; her pulse beats very swift, and she is very
+desirous of copulation.</p>
+<p>To know whether the fault is in the man or in the woman,
+sprinkle the man's urine upon a lettuce leaf, and the woman's urine
+upon another, and that which dries away first is unfruitful. Also
+take five wheaten corns and seven beans, put them into an earthen
+pot, and let the party make water therein; let this stand seven
+days, and if in that time they begin to sprout, then the party is
+fruitful; but if they sprout not, then the party is barren, whether
+it be the man or the woman; this is a certain sign.</p>
+<p>There are some that make this experiment of a woman's
+fruitfulness; take myrrh, red storax and some odoriferous things,
+and make a perfume of which let the woman receive into the neck of
+the womb through a funnel; if the woman feels the smoke ascend
+through her body to the nose, then she is fruitful; otherwise
+<!-- Page 347 --><a name='Page_347' id="Page_347"></a> she is
+barren. Some also take garlic and beer, and cause the woman to lie
+upon her back upon it, and if she feel the scent thereof in her
+nose, it is a sign of her being fruitful.</p>
+<p>Culpepper and others also give a great deal of credit to the
+following experiment. Take a handful of barley, and steep half of
+it in the urine of a man, and the other half in the urine of the
+woman, for the space of twenty-four hours; then take it out, and
+put the man's by itself, and the woman's by itself; set it in a
+flower-pot, or some other thing, where let it dry; water the man's
+every morning with his own urine, and the woman's with hers, and
+that which grows first is the most fruitful; but if they grow not
+at all, they are both naturally barren.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. If the barrenness proceeds from stoppage of the
+menstrua, let the woman sweat, for that opens the parts; and the
+best way to sweat is in a hot-house. Then let the womb be
+strengthened by drinking a draught of white wine, wherein a handful
+of stinking arrach, first bruised, has been boiled, for by a secret
+magnetic virtue, it strengthens the womb, and by a sympathetic
+quality, removes any disease thereof. To which add also a handful
+of vervain, which is very good to strengthen both the womb and the
+head, which are commonly <!-- Page 348 --><a name='Page_348' id=
+"Page_348"></a> afflicted together by sympathy. Having used these
+two or three days, if they come not down, take of calamint,
+pennyroyal, thyme, betony, dittany, burnet, feverfew, mugwort,
+sage, peony roots, juniper berries, half a handful of each, or as
+many as can be got; let these be boiled in beer, and taken for her
+drink.</p>
+<p>Take one part of gentian-root, two parts of centaury, distil
+them with ale in an alembic after you have bruised the
+gentian-roots and infused them well. This water is an admirable
+remedy to provoke the terms. But if you have not this water in
+readiness, take a drachm of centaury, and half a drachm of
+gentian-roots bruised, boiled in posset drink, and drink half a
+drachm of it at night going to bed. Seed of wild navew beaten to
+powder, and a drachm of it taken in the morning in white wine, also
+is very good; but if it answers not, she must be let blood in the
+legs. And be sure you administer your medicines a little before the
+full of the moon, by no means in the wane of the moon; if you do,
+you will find them ineffectual.</p>
+<p>If barrenness proceed from the overflowing of the menstrua, then
+strengthen the womb as you were taught before; afterwards anoint
+the veins of the back with oil of roses, oil of myrtle and oil of
+quinces every night, and then wrap a piece of white baise about
+your veins, <!-- Page 349 --><a name='Page_349' id="Page_349"></a>
+the cotton side next to the skin and keep the same always to it.
+But above all, I recommend this medicine to you. Take
+comfrey-leaves or roots, and clown woundwort, of each a handful;
+bruise them well, and boil them in ale, and drink a good draught of
+it now and then. Or take cinnamon, cassia lignea, opium, of each
+two drachms; myrrh, white pepper, galbanum, of each one drachm;
+dissolve the gum and opium in white wine; beat the rest into powder
+and make pills, mixing them together exactly, and let the patient
+take two each night going to bed; but let the pills not exceed
+fifteen grains.</p>
+<p>If barrenness proceed from a flux in the womb, the cure must be
+according to the cause producing it, or which the flux proceeds
+from, which may be known by signs; for a flux of the womb, being a
+continual distillation from it for a long time together, the colour
+of what is voided shows what humour it is that offends; in some it
+is red, and that proceeds from blood putrified, in some it is
+yellow, and that denotes choler; in others white and pale, and
+denotes phlegm. If pure blood comes out, as if a vein were opened,
+some corrosion or gnawing of the womb is to be feared. All these
+are known by the following signs:</p>
+<p>The place of conception is continually moist
+<!-- Page 350 --><a name='Page_350' id="Page_350"></a> with the
+humours, the face ill-coloured, the party loathes meat and breathes
+with difficulty, the eyes are much swollen, which is sometimes
+without pain. If the offending humour be pure blood, then you must
+let blood in the arm, and the cephalic vein is fittest to draw back
+the blood; then let the juice of plantain and comfrey be injected
+into the womb. If phlegm be a cause, let cinnamon be a spice used
+in all her meats and drinks, and let her take a little Venice
+treacle or mithridate every morning. Let her boil burnet, mugwort,
+feverfew and vervain in all her broths. Also, half a drachm of
+myrrh, taken every morning, is an excellent remedy against this
+malady. If choler be the cause, let her take burrage, buglos, red
+roses, endive and succory roots, lettuce and white poppy-seed, of
+each a handful; boil these in white wine until one half be wasted;
+let her drink half a pint every morning to which half pint add
+syrup of chicory and syrup of peach-flowers, of each an ounce, with
+a little rhubarb, and this will gently purge her. If it proceed
+from putrified blood, let her be bled in the foot, and then
+strengthen the womb, as I have directed in stopping the
+menstrua.</p>
+<p>If barrenness be occasioned by the falling out of the womb, as
+sometimes it happens, let her apply sweet scents to the nose, such
+as civet, <!-- Page 351 --><a name='Page_351' id="Page_351"></a>
+galbanum, storax, calamitis, wood of aloes; and such other things
+as are of that nature; and let her lay stinking things to the womb,
+such as asafoetida, oil of amber, or the smoke of her own hair,
+being burnt; for this is a certain truth, that the womb flies from
+all stinking, and to all sweet things. But the most infallible cure
+in this case is; take a common burdock leaf (which you may keep
+dry, if you please, all the year), apply this to her head and it
+will draw the womb upwards. In fits of the mother, apply it to the
+soles of the feet, and it will draw the womb downwards. But seed
+beaten into a powder, draws the womb which way you please,
+accordingly as it is applied.</p>
+<p>If barrenness in the woman proceed from a hot cause, let her
+take whey and clarify it; then boil plantain leaves and roots in
+it, and drink it for her ordinary drink. Let her inject plantain
+juice into her womb with a syringe. If it be in the winter, when
+you cannot get the juice, make a strong decoction of the leaves and
+roots in water, and inject that up with a syringe, but let it be
+blood warm, and you will find this medicine of great efficacy. And
+further, to take away barrenness proceeding from hot causes, take
+of conserve of roses, cold lozenges, make a tragacanth, the
+confections of trincatelia; and use, to smell to, camphor,
+rosewater <!-- Page 352 --><a name='Page_352' id="Page_352"></a>
+and saunders. It is also good to bleed the basilica or liver vein,
+and take four or five ounces of blood, and then take this purge;
+take electuarium de epithymo de succo rosarum, of each two drachms
+and a half; clarified whey, four ounces; mix them well together,
+and take it in the morning fasting; sleep after it about an hour
+and a half, and fast for four hours after; and about an hour before
+you eat anything, drink a good draught of whey. Also take
+lilywater, four ounces; mandragore water, one ounce; saffron, half
+a scruple; beat the saffron to a powder, and mix it with waters,
+drink them warm in the morning; use these eight days together.</p>
+<h4><i>Some apparent Remedy against Barrenness and to cause
+Fruitfulness</i>.</h4>
+<p>Take broom flowers, smallage, parsley seed, cummin, mugwort,
+feverfew, of each half a scruple; aloes, half an ounce; Indian
+salt, saffron, of each half a drachm; beat and mix them together,
+and put it to five ounces of feverfew water warm; stop it up, and
+let it stand and dry in a warm place, and this do, two or three
+times, one after the other; then make each drachm into six pills,
+and take one of them every night before supper.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 353 --><a name='Page_353' id="Page_353"></a> For a
+purging medicine against barrenness, take conserve of benedicta
+lax, a quarter of an ounce; depsillo three drachms, electuary de
+rosarum, one drachm; mix them together with feverfew water, and
+drink it in the morning betimes. About three days after the patient
+hath taken this purge, let her be bled, taking four or five ounces
+from the median, or common black vein in the foot; and then give
+for five successive days, filed ivory, a drachm and a half, in
+feverfew water; and during the time let her sit in the following
+bath an hour together, morning and night. Take mild yellow sapes,
+daucas, balsam wood and fruit, ash-keys, of each two handfuls, red
+and white behen, broom flowers, of each a handful; musk, three
+grains; amber, saffron, of each a scruple; boiled in water
+sufficiently; but the musk, saffron, amber and broom flowers must
+be put into the decoction, after it is boiled and strained.</p>
+<h4><i>A Confection very good against Barrenness</i>.</h4>
+<p>Take pistachia, eringoes, of each half an ounce; saffron, one
+drachm; lignum aloes, galengal, mace, coriophilla, balm flowers,
+red and white behen, of each four scruples; syrup of confected
+ginger, twelve ounces; white sugar, six ounces, decoct all these in
+twelve ounces of balm water, and stir them well together; then
+<!-- Page 354 --><a name='Page_354' id="Page_354"></a> put in it
+musk and amber, of each a scruple; take thereof the quantity of a
+nutmeg three times a day; in the morning, an hour before noon and
+an hour after supper.</p>
+<p>But if the cause of barrenness, either in man or woman, be
+through scarcity or diminution of the natural seed, then such
+things are to be taken as do increase the seed, and incite to stir
+up to venery, and further conception; which I shall here set down,
+and then conclude the chapter concerning barrenness.</p>
+<p>For this, yellow rape seed baked in bread is very good; also
+young, fat flesh, not too much salted; also saffron, the tails of
+stincus, and long pepper prepared in wine. But let such persons
+eschew all sour, sharp, doughy and slimy meats, long sleep after
+meat, surfeiting and drunkenness, and so much as they can, keep
+themselves from sorrow, grief, vexation and anxious care.</p>
+<p>These things following increase the natural seed, stir up the
+venery and recover the seed again when it is lost, viz., eggs,
+milk, rice, boiled in milk, sparrows' brains, flesh, bones and all;
+the stones and pizzles of bulls, bucks, rams and bears, also cocks'
+stones, lambs' stones, partridges', quails' and pheasants' eggs.
+And this is an undeniable aphorism, that whatever any creature is
+addicted unto, they move or incite <!-- Page 355 --><a name=
+'Page_355' id="Page_355"></a> the man or the woman that eats them,
+to the like, and therefore partridges, quails, sparrows, etc.,
+being extremely addicted to venery, they work the same effect on
+those men and women that eat them. Also, take notice, that in what
+part of the body the faculty that you would strengthen, lies, take
+that same part of the body of another creature, in whom the faculty
+is strong, as a medicine. As for instance, the procreative faculty
+lies in the testicles; therefore, cocks' stones, lambs' stones,
+etc., are proper to stir up venery. I will also give you another
+general rule; all creatures that are fruitful being eaten, make
+them fruitful that eat them, as crabs, lobsters, prawns, pigeons,
+etc. The stones of a fox, dried and beaten to a powder, and a
+drachm taken in the morning in sheep's milk, and the stones of a
+boar taken in like manner, are very good. The heart of a male quail
+carried about a man, and the heart of a female quail carried about
+a woman, causes natural love and fruitfulness. Let them, also, that
+would increase their seed, eat and drink of the best, as much as
+they can; for <i>sine Cerere el Libero, friget Venus</i>, is an old
+proverb, which is, "without good meat and drink, Venus will be
+frozen to death."</p>
+<p>Pottages are good to increase the seed; such as are made of
+beans, peas, and lupins, mixed <!-- Page 356 --><a name='Page_356'
+id="Page_356"></a> with sugar. French beans, wheat sodden in broth,
+aniseed, also onions, stewed garlic, leeks, yellow rapes, fresh
+mugwort roots, eringo roots confected, ginger connected, etc. Of
+fruits, hazel nuts, cyprus nuts, pistachio, almonds and marchpanes
+thereof. Spices good to increase seed are cinnamon, galengal, long
+pepper, cloves, ginger, saffron and asafoetida, a drachm and a half
+taken in good wine, is very good for this purpose.</p>
+<p>The weakness and debility of a man's yard, being a great
+hindrance to procreation let him use the following ointment to
+strengthen it: Take wax, oil of beaver-cod, marjoram, gentle and
+oil of costus, of each a like quantity, mix them into an ointment,
+and put it to a little musk, and with it anoint the yard, cods,
+etc. Take of house emmets, three drachms, oil of white safannum,
+oil of lilies, of each an ounce; pound and bruise the ants, and put
+them to the oil and let them stand in the sun six days; then strain
+out the oil and add to it euphorbium one scruple, pepper and rue,
+of each one drachm, mustard seed half a drachm, set this altogether
+in the sun two or three days, then anoint the instrument of
+generation therewith.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='REMEDIES_CHAPTER_II' id="REMEDIES_CHAPTER_II"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 357 --><a name='Page_357' id="Page_357"></a> CHAPTER
+II</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>The Diseases of the Womb</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>I have already said, that the womb is the field of generation;
+and if this field be corrupted, it is vain to expect any fruit,
+although it be ever so well sown. It is, therefore, not without
+reason that I intend in this chapter to set down the several
+distempers to which the womb is obnoxious, with proper and safe
+remedies against them.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>Of the Hot Distemper of the Womb</i>.</h3>
+<p>The distemper consists in excess of heat; for as heat of the
+womb is necessary for conception, so if it be too much, it
+nourisheth not the seed, but it disperseth its heat, and hinders
+the conception. This preternatural heat is sometimes from the
+birth, and causeth barrenness, but if it be accidental, it is from
+hot causes, that bring the heat and the blood to the womb; it
+arises also from internal and external medicines, and from too much
+hot meat, drink and exercise. Those that are troubled with this
+distemper <!-- Page 358 --><a name='Page_358' id="Page_358"></a>
+have but few courses, and those are yellow, black, burnt or sharp,
+have hair betimes on their privities, are very prone to lust,
+subject to headache, and abound with choler, and when the distemper
+is strong upon them, they have but few terms, which are out of
+order, being bad and hard to flow, and in time they become
+hypochondriacal, and for the most part barren, having sometimes a
+phrenzy of the womb.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. The remedy is to use coolers, so that they offend
+not the vessels that most open for the flux of the terms.
+Therefore, take the following inwardly; succory, endive, violets,
+water lilies, sorrel, lettuce, saunders and syrups and conserve
+made thereof. Also take a conserve of succory, violets,
+water-lilies, burrage, each an ounce; conserve of roses, half an
+ounce, diamargation frigid, diatriascantal, each half a drachm; and
+with syrup of violets, or juice of citrons, make an electuary. For
+outward applications, make use of ointment of roses, violets,
+water-lilies, gourd, Venus navel, applied to the back and
+loins.</p>
+<p>Let the air be cool, her garments thin, and her food endive,
+lettuce, succory and barley. Give her no hot meats, nor strong
+wine, unless mixed with water. Rest is good for her, but she must
+abstain from copulation, though she may sleep as long as she
+pleases.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><!-- Page 359 --><a name='Page_359' id="Page_359"></a> SECT.
+II.&mdash;<i>Of the Cold Distempers of the Womb</i>.</h3>
+<p>This distemper is the reverse of the foregoing, and equally an
+enemy to generation, being caused by a cold quality abounding to
+excess, and proceeds from a too cold air, rest, idleness and
+cooling medicines. It may be known by an aversion to venery, and
+taking no pleasure in the act of copulation when the seed is spent;
+the terms are phlegmatic, thick and slimy, and do not flow as they
+should; the womb is windy and the seed crude and waterish. It is
+the cause of obstructions and barrenness, and is hard to be
+cured.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. Take galengal, cinnamon, nutmeg mace, cloves,
+ginger, cububs, cardamom, grains of paradise, each an ounce and a
+half, galengal, six drachms, long pepper, half an ounce, Zedoary
+five drachms; bruise them and add six quarts of wine, put them into
+a cellar nine days, daily stirring them; then add of mint two
+handfuls, and let them stand fourteen days, pour off the wine and
+bruise them, and then pour on the wine again, and distil them. Also
+anoint with oil of lilies, rue, angelica, cinnamon, cloves, mace
+and nutmeg. Let her diet and air be warm, her meat of easy
+concoction, seasoned with ant-seed, fennel and thyme; and let her
+avoid raw fruits and milk diets.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><!-- Page 360 --><a name='Page_360' id="Page_360"></a> SECT.
+III.&mdash;<i>Of the Inflation of the Womb</i>.</h3>
+<p>The inflation of the womb is a stretching of it by wind, called
+by some a windy mole; the wind proceeds from a cold matter, whether
+thick or thin, contained in the veins of the womb, by which the
+heat thereof is overcome, and which either flows thither from other
+parts, or is gathered there by cold meats and drinks. Cold air may
+be a producing cause of it also, as women that lie in are exposed
+to it. The wind is contained either in the cavity of the vessels of
+the womb, or between the tumicle, and may be known by a swelling in
+the region of the womb, which sometimes reaches to the navel, loins
+and diaphragm, and rises and abates as the wind increaseth or
+decreaseth. It differs from the dropsy, in that it never swells so
+high. That neither physician nor midwife may take it for dropsy,
+let them observe the signs of the woman with the child laid down in
+a former part of this work; and if any sign be wanting, they may
+suspect it to be an inflation; of which it is a further sign, that
+in conception the swelling is invariable; also if you strike upon
+the belly, in an inflation, there will be noise, but not so in case
+there be a conception. It also differs from a mole, because in that
+there is a weight and hardness of the belly, and when the patient
+<!-- Page 361 --><a name='Page_361' id="Page_361"></a> moves from
+one side to the other she feels a great weight which moveth, but
+not so in this. If the inflation continue without the cavity of the
+womb, the pain is greater and more extensive, nor is there any
+noise, because the wind is more pent up.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. This distemper is neither of a long continuance nor
+dangerous, if looked after in time; and if it be in the cavity of
+the womb it is more easily expelled. To which purpose give her
+diaphnicon, with a little castor and sharp clysters that expel the
+wind. If this distemper happen to a woman in travail let her not
+purge after delivery, nor bleed, because it is from a cold matter;
+but if it come after child-bearing, and her terms come down
+sufficiently, and she has fullness of blood, let the saphoena vein
+be opened, after which, let her take the following electuary: take
+conserve of betony and rosemary, of each an ounce and a half;
+candied eringoes, citron peel candied, each half an ounce;
+diacimium, diagenel, each a drachm; oil of aniseed, six drops, and
+with syrup of citrons make an electuary. For outward application
+make a cataplasm of rue, mugwort, camomile, dill, calamint, new
+pennyroyal, thyme, with oil of rue, keir and camomile. And let the
+following clyster to expel the wind be put into the womb: Take
+agnus castus, cinnamon, each <!-- Page 362 --><a name='Page_362'
+id="Page_362"></a> two drachms, boil them in wine to half a pint.
+She may likewise use sulphur, Bath and Spa waters, both inward and
+outward, because they expel the wind.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. IV.&mdash;<i>Of the Straitness of the Womb and its
+Vessels.</i></h3>
+<p>This is another effect of the womb, which is a very great
+obstruction to the bearing of children, hindering both the flow of
+the menses and conception, and is seated in the vessel of the womb,
+and the neck thereof. The causes of this straitness are thick and
+rough humours, that stop the mouths of the veins and arteries.
+These humours are bred either by gross or too much nourishment,
+when the heat of the womb is so weak that it cannot attenuate the
+humours, which by reason thereof, either flow from the whole body,
+or are gathered into the womb. Now the vessels are made straiter or
+closer several ways; sometimes by inflammation, scirrhous or other
+tumours; sometimes by compressions, scars, or by flesh or membranes
+that grow after a wound. The signs by which this is known are, the
+stoppage of the terms, not conceiving, and condities abounding in
+the body which are all shown by particular signs, for if there is a
+<!-- Page 363 --><a name='Page_363' id="Page_363"></a> wound, or
+the secundine be pulled out by force phlegm comes from the wound;
+if stoppage of the terms be from an old obstruction of humours, it
+is hard to be cured; if it be only from the disorderly use of
+astringents, it is more curable; if it be from a scirrhous, or
+other tumours that compress or close the vessel, the disease is
+incurable.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. For the cure of that which is curable, obstructions
+must be taken away, phlegm must be purged, and she must be let
+blood, as will be hereafter directed in the stoppage of the terms.
+Then use the following medicines: Take of aniseed and fennel seed,
+each a drachm; rosemary, pennyroyal, calamint, betony flowers, each
+an ounce; castus, cinnamon, galengal, each half an ounce; saffron
+half a drachm, with wine. Or take asparagus roots, parsley roots,
+each an ounce; pennyroyal, calamint, each a handful; wallflowers,
+gilly-flowers, each two handfuls; boil, strain and add syrup of
+mugwort, an ounce and a half. For a fomentation, take pennyroyal,
+mercury, calamint, marjoram, mugwort, each two handfuls, sage,
+rosemary bays, camomile-flowers, each a handful, boil them in water
+and foment the groin and the bottom of the belly; or let her sit up
+to the navel in a bath, and then anoint about the groin with oil of
+rue, lilies, dill, etc.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><!-- Page 364 --><a name='Page_364' id="Page_364"></a> SECT.
+V.&mdash;<i>Of the falling of the Womb</i>.</h3>
+<p>This is another evil effect of the womb which is both very
+troublesome, and also a hindrance to conception. Sometimes the womb
+falleth to the middle of the thighs, nay, almost to the knees, and
+may be known then by its hanging out. Now, that which causeth the
+womb to change its place is, that the ligaments by which it is
+bound to the other parts, are not in order; for there are four
+ligaments, two above, broad and membranous, round and hollow; it is
+also bound to the great vessels by veins and arteries, and to the
+back by nerves; but the place is changed when it is drawn another
+way, or when the ligaments are loose, and it falls down by its own
+weight. It is drawn on one side when the menses are hindered from
+flowing, and the veins and arteries are full, namely, those that go
+to the womb. If it be a mole on one side, the liver and spleen
+cause it; by the liver vein on the right side, and the spleen on
+the left, as they are more or less filled. Others are of opinion,
+it comes from the solution of the connexion of the fibrous neck and
+the parts adjacent; and that it is from the weight of the womb
+descending; this we deny not, but the ligaments must be loose or
+broken. But women with a dropsy could not be said to have the womb
+fallen <!-- Page 365 --><a name='Page_365' id="Page_365"></a> down,
+if it came only from looseness; but in them it is caused by the
+saltness of the water, which dries more than it moistens. Now, if
+there be a little tumour, within or without the privities, it is
+nothing else but a descent of the womb, but if there be a tumour
+like a goose's egg and a hole at the bottom and there is at first a
+great pain in the parts to which the womb is fastened, as the
+loins, the bottom of the belly, and the os sacrum, it proceeds from
+the breaking or stretching of the ligaments; and a little after the
+pain is abated, and there is an impediment in walking, and
+sometimes blood comes from the breach of the vessels, and the
+excrements and urine are stopped, and then a fever and convulsion
+ensueth, oftentimes proving mortal, especially if it happen to
+women with child.</p>
+<p><i>Cure</i>. For the cure of this distemper, first put up the
+womb before the air alter it, or it be swollen or inflamed; and for
+this purpose give a clyster to remove the excrements, and lay her
+upon her back, with her legs abroad, and her thighs lifted up and
+her head down; then take the tumour in your hand and thrust it in
+without violence; if it be swelled by alteration and cold, foment
+it with the decoction of mallows, althoea, lime, fenugreek,
+camomile flowers, bay-berries, and anoint it with oil of lilies,
+and hen's grease. If there be an inflammation, do
+<!-- Page 366 --><a name='Page_366' id="Page_366"></a> not put it
+up, but fright it in, by putting a red-hot iron before it and
+making a show as if you intended to burn it; but first sprinkle
+upon it the powder of mastich, frankincense and the like; thus,
+take frankincense, mastich, each two drachms; sarcocol steeped in
+milk, drachm; mummy, pomegranate flowers, sanguisdraconis, each
+half a drachm. When it is put up, let her lie with her legs
+stretched, and one upon the other, for eight or ten days, and make
+a pessary in the form of a pear, with cork or sponge, and put it
+into the womb, dipped in sharp wine, or juice of acacia, with
+powder of sanguis, with galbanum and bdellium. Apply also a
+cupping-glass, with a great flame, under the navel or paps, or both
+kidneys, and lay this plaster to the back; take opopanax, two
+ounces, storax liquid, half an ounce; mastich, frankincense, pitch,
+bole, each two drachms; then with wax make a plaster; or take
+laudanum, a drachm and a half; mastich, and frankincense, each half
+a drachm, wood aloes, cloves, spike, each a drachm; ash-coloured
+ambergris, four grains: musk, half a scruple; make two round
+plasters to be laid on each side of the navel; make a fume of
+snails' skins salted, or of garlic, and let it be taken in by the
+funnel. Use also astringent fomentations of bramble leaves,
+plantain, horse-tails, myrtles, each two <!-- Page 367 --><a name=
+'Page_367' id="Page_367"></a> handfuls; wormseed, two handfuls;
+pomegranate flowers, half an ounce; boil them in wine and water.
+For an injection take comfrey root, an ounce; rupturewort, two
+drachms; yarrow, mugwort, each half an ounce; boil them in red
+wine, and inject with a syringe. To strengthen the womb, take
+hartshorn, bays, of each half a drachm; myrrh half a drachm; make a
+powder of two doses, and give it with sharp wine. Or you may take
+Zedoary, parsnip seed, crabs' eyes prepared, each a drachm, nutmeg,
+half a drachm; and give a drachm, in powder; but astringents must
+be used with great caution, lest by stopping the courses a worse
+mischief follow. To keep in its place, make rollers and ligatures
+as for a rupture; and put pessaries into the bottom of the womb,
+that may force it to remain. Let the diet be such as has drying,
+astringent and glueing qualities, as rice, starch, quinces, pears
+and green cheese; but let the summer fruits be avoided; and let her
+wine be astringent and red.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='REMEDIES_CHAPTER_III' id="REMEDIES_CHAPTER_III"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 368 --><a name='Page_368' id="Page_368"></a> CHAPTER
+III</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Diseases Relating to Women's Monthly Courses</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION I.&mdash;<i>Of Women's Monthly Courses in
+General.</i></h3>
+<p>That divine Providence, which, with a wisdom peculiar to itself,
+has appointed woman to conceive by coition with man, and to bear
+and bring forth children, has provided for nourishment of children
+during their recess in the womb of their mother, by that redundancy
+of the blood which is natural to all women; and which, flowing out
+at certain periods of time (when they are not pregnant) are from
+thence called <i>terms</i> and <i>menses</i>, from their monthly
+flux of excrementitious and unprofitable blood. Now, that the
+matter flowing forth is excrementitious, is to be understood only
+with respect to the redundancy and overplus thereof, being an
+excrement only with respect to its quantity; for as to its quality,
+it is as pure and incorrupt as any blood in the veins; and this
+appears from the final cause of it, which is the propagation and
+conservation of mankind, and also from the generation of it, being
+superfluity of the last aliment of the fleshy parts. If any ask, if
+the menses be not of hurtful quality, how can they cause such
+venomous effects; if they fall <!-- Page 369 --><a name='Page_369'
+id="Page_369"></a> upon trees and herbs, they make the one barren
+and mortify the other: I answer, this malignity is contracted in
+the womb, for the woman, wanting native heat to digest the
+superfluity, sends it to the matrix, where seating itself till the
+mouth of the womb be dilated, it becomes corrupt and mortified;
+which may easily be, considering the heat and moistness of the
+place; and so this blood being out of its proper vessels, offends
+in quality.</p>
+<br />
+<h3>SECT. II.&mdash;<i>Of the Terms coming out of order, either
+before or after the usual Time</i>.</h3>
+<p>Having, in the former part of this work, treated, of the
+suppression and overflowing of the monthly terms, I shall content
+myself with referring the reader thereto, and proceed to speak of
+their coming out of order, either before or after the usual
+time.</p>
+<p>Both these proceed from an ill constitution of body. Everything
+is beautiful in its order, in nature as well as in morality; and if
+the order of nature be broken, it shows the body to be out of
+order. Of each of these effects briefly.</p>
+<p>When the monthly courses come before their time, showing a
+depraved excretion, and flowing sometimes twice a month, the cause
+is in the blood, which stirs up the expulsive faculty of
+<!-- Page 370 --><a name='Page_370' id="Page_370"></a> the womb, or
+else in the whole body, and is frequently occasioned by the
+person's diet, which increases the blood too much, making it too
+sharp or too hot. If the retentive faculty of the womb be weak, and
+the expulsive faculty strong, and of a quick sense, it brings them
+forth the sooner. Sometimes they flow sooner by reason of a fall,
+stroke or some violent passion, which the parties themselves can
+best relate. If it be from heat, thin and sharp humours, it is
+known by the distemper of the whole body. The looseness of the
+vessels and the weakness of the retentive faculty, is known from a
+moist and loose habit of the body. It is more troublesome than
+dangerous, but hinders conception, and therefore the cure is
+necessary for all, but especially such as desire children. If it
+proceeds from a sharp blood, let her temper it by a good diet and
+medicines. To which purpose, let her use baths of iron water, that
+correct the distemper of the bowels, and then evacuate. If it
+proceeds from the retentive faculty, and looseness of the vessels,
+it is to be corrected with gentle astringents.</p>
+<p>As to the courses flowing after the usual time, the causes are,
+thickness of the blood, and the smallness of its quantity, with the
+stoutness of the passage, and weakness of the expulsive faculties.
+Either of these singly may stop the <!-- Page 371 --><a name=
+'Page_371' id="Page_371"></a> courses, but if they all concur, they
+render the distemper worse. If the blood abounds not in such a
+quantity as may stir up nature to expel it, its purging must
+necessarily be deferred, till there be enough. And if the blood be
+thick, the passage stopped, and the expulsive faculty weak, the
+menses must needs be out of order and the purging of them
+retarded.</p>
+<p>For the cure of this, if the quantity of blood be small, let her
+use a larger diet, and a very little exercise. If the blood be
+thick and foul, let it be made thin, and the humours mixed
+therewith, evacuated. It is good to purge, after the courses have
+done flowing, and to use calamint, and, indeed, the oftener she
+purges, the better. She may also use fumes and pessaries, apply
+cupping glasses without scarification to the inside of the thighs,
+and rub the legs and scarify the ankles, and hold the feet in warm
+water four or five days before the courses come down. Let her also
+anoint the bottom of her belly with things proper to provoke the
+terms.</p>
+<h4><i>Remedies for Diseases in Women's Paps</i>.</h4>
+<p>Make a cataplasm of bean meal and salad oil, and lay it to the
+place afflicted. Or anoint with the juice of papilaris. This must
+be done when the papa are very sore.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 372 --><a name='Page_372' id="Page_372"></a> If the
+paps be hard and swollen, take a handful of rue, colewort roots,
+horehound and mint; if you cannot get all these conveniently, any
+two will do; pound the handful in honey, and apply it once every
+day till healed.</p>
+<p>If the nipples be stiff and sore, anoint twice a day with
+Florence oil, till healed. If the paps be flabby and hanging,
+bruise a little hemlock, and apply it to the breast for three days;
+but let it not stand above seven hours. Or, which is safer, rusae
+juice, well boiled, with a little sinapios added thereto, and
+anoint.</p>
+<p>If the paps be hard and dead, make a plate of lead pretty thin,
+to answer the breasts; let this stand nine hours each day, for
+three days. Or sassafras bruised, and used in like manner.</p>
+<h4><i>Receipt for Procuring Milk</i>.</h4>
+<p>Drink arpleui, drawn as tea, for twenty-one days. Or eat of
+aniseeds. Also the juice of arbor vitae, a glassful once a day for
+eleven days, is very good, for it quickens the memory, strengthens
+the body, and causeth milk to flow in abundance.</p>
+<h4><i>Directions for Drawing of Blood</i>.</h4>
+<p>Drawing of blood was first invented for good and salutary
+purposes, although often abused <!-- Page 373 --><a name='Page_373'
+id="Page_373"></a> and misapplied. To bleed in the left arm removes
+long continued pains and headaches. It is also good for those who
+have got falls and bruises.</p>
+<p>Bleeding is good for many disorders, and generally proves a
+cure, except in some extraordinary cases, and in those cases
+bleeding is hurtful. If a woman be pregnant, to draw a little blood
+will give her ease, good health, and a lusty child.</p>
+<p>Bleeding is a most certain cure for no less than twenty-one
+disorders, without any outward or inward applications; and for many
+more with application of drugs, herbs and flowers.</p>
+<p>When the moon is on the increase, you may let blood at any time
+day or night; but when she is on the decline, you must bleed only
+in the morning.</p>
+<p>Bleeding may be performed from the month of March to November.
+No bleeding in December, January or February, unless an occasion
+require it. The months of March, April and November, are the three
+chief months of the year for bleeding in; but it may be performed
+with safety from the ninth of March to the nineteenth of
+November.</p>
+<p>To prevent the dangers that may arise from she unskilful drawing
+of blood, let none open a but a person of experience and
+practice.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 374 --><a name='Page_374' id="Page_374"></a> There are
+three sorts of people you must not let draw blood; first ignorant
+and inexperienced persons. Secondly, those who have bad sight and
+trembling hands, whether skilful or unskilled. For when the hand
+trembles, the lance is apt to start from the vein, and the flesh be
+thereby damaged, which may hurt, canker, and very much torment the
+patient. Thirdly, let no woman bleed, but such as have gone through
+a course of midwifery at college, for those who are unskilful may
+cut an artery, to the great damage of the patient. Besides, what is
+still worse, those pretended bleeders, who take it up at their own
+hand, generally keep unedged and rusty lancets, which prove
+hurtful, even in a skilful hand. Accordingly you ought to be
+cautious in choosing your physician; a man of learning knows what
+vein to open for each disorder; he knows how much blood to take as
+soon as he sees the patient, and he can give you suitable advice
+concerning your disorder.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS' id="BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS"></a>
+<h1><!-- Page 375 --><a name='Page_375' id="Page_375"></a> PART
+III<br />
+<br />
+ARISTOTLE'S BOOK OF PROBLEMS<br />
+WITH OTHER<br />
+ASTROMER, ASTROLOGERS AND<br />
+PHYSICIANS,<br />
+CONCERNING<br />
+THE STATE OF MAN'S BODY.</h1>
+<br />
+<p>Q. Among all living creatures, why hath man only his countenance
+lifted up towards Heaven. A. 1. From the will of the Creator. But
+although this answer be true, yet it seemeth not to be of force,
+because that so all questions might be easily resolved. Therefore,
+2. I answer that, for the most part, every workman doth make his
+first work worse, and then his second better! so God creating all
+other animals <!-- Page 376 --><a name='Page_376' id=
+"Page_376"></a> before man gave them their face looking down to the
+earth; and then secondly he created man, unto whom he gave an
+upright shape, lifted unto heaven, because it is drawn from
+divinity, and it is derived from the goodness of God, who maketh
+all his works both perfect and good. 3. Man only, among all living
+creatures, is ordained to the kingdom of heaven, and therefore hath
+his face elevated and lifted up to heaven, because that despising
+earthly and worldly things, he ought often to contemplate on
+heavenly things. 4. That the reasonable man is like unto angels,
+and finally ordained towards God; and therefore he hath a figure
+looking upward. 5. Man is a microcosm, that is, a little world, and
+therefore he doth command all other living creatures and they obey
+him. 6. Naturally there is unto everything and every work, that
+form and figure given which is fit and proper for its motion; as
+unto the heavens, roundness, to the fire a pyramidical form, that
+is, broad beneath and sharp towards the top, which form is most apt
+to ascend; and so man has his face towards heaven to behold the
+wonders of God's works.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the heads of men hairy? A. The hair is the ornament
+of the head, and the brain is purged of gross humours by the
+growing of the hair, from the highest to the lowest, which
+<!-- Page 377 --><a name='Page_377' id="Page_377"></a> pass through
+the pores of the exterior flesh, become dry, and are converted into
+hair. This appears to be the case, from the circumstance that in
+all man's body there is nothing drier than the hair, for it is
+drier than the bones; and it is well known that some beasts are
+nourished with bones, as dogs, but they cannot digest feathers or
+hair, but void them undigested, being too hot for nourishment. 2.
+It is answered, that the brain is purged in three different ways;
+of superfluous watery humours by the eyes, of choler by the nose,
+and of phlegm by the hair, which is the opinion of the best
+physicians.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have men longer hair on their heads than any other living
+creature? A. Arist. de Generat. Anim. says, that men have the
+moistest brain of all living creatures from which the seed
+proceedeth which is converted into the long hair of the head. 2.
+The humours of men are fat, and do not become dry easily; and
+therefore the hair groweth long on them. In beasts, the humours
+easily dry, and therefore the hair groweth not so long.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the hair take deeper root in man's skin than in that
+of any other living creatures? A. Because it has greater store of
+nourishment in man, and therefore grows more in the inward parts of
+man. And this is the <!-- Page 378 --><a name='Page_378' id=
+"Page_378"></a> reason why in other creatures the hair doth alter
+and change with the skin, and not in man, unless by a scar or
+wound.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have women longer hair than men? A. Because women are
+moister and more phlegmatic than men, and therefore there is more
+matter for hair to them, and, by consequence, the length also of
+their hair. And, furthermore, this matter is more increased in
+women than men from their interior parts, and especially in the
+time of their monthly terms, because the matter doth then ascend,
+whereby the humour that breedeth the hair, doth increase. 2.
+Because women want beards; so the matter of the beard doth go into
+that of the hair.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have some women soft hair and some hard? A. 1. The hair
+hath proportion with the skin; of which some is hard, some thick,
+some subtle and soft, some gross; therefore, the hair which grows
+out of thick, gross skin, is thick and gross; that which groweth
+out of a subtle and fine skin, is fine and soft; when the pores are
+open, then cometh forth much humour, and therefore hard hair is
+engendered; and when the pores are strait, then there doth grow
+soft and fine hair. This doth evidently appear in men, because
+women have softer hair than they; for in women the
+<!-- Page 379 --><a name='Page_379' id="Page_379"></a> pores are
+shut and strait, by reason of their coldness. 2. Because for the
+most part, choleric men have harder and thicker hair than others,
+by reason of their heat, and because their pores are always open,
+and therefore they have beards sooner than others. For this reason
+also, beasts that have hard hair are boldest, because such have
+proceeded from heat and choler, examples of which we have in the
+bear and the boar; and contrariwise, those beasts that have soft
+hair are fearful, because they are cold, as the hare and the hart.
+3. From the climate where a man is born; because in hot regions
+hard and gross hair is engendered, as appears in the Ethiopians,
+and the contrary is the case is cold countries toward the
+north.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have some men curled hair, and some smooth? A. From the
+superior degree of heat in some men, which makes the hair curl and
+grow upward; this is proved by a man's having smooth hair when he
+goes into a hot bath, and it afterwards becomes curled. Therefore
+keepers of baths have often curled hair, as also Ethiopians and
+choleric men. But the cause of this smoothness, is the abundance of
+moist humours.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do women show ripeness by hair in their privy parts, and
+not elsewhere, but men in their breasts? A. Because in men
+<!-- Page 380 --><a name='Page_380' id="Page_380"></a> and women
+there is abundance of humidity in that place, but most in women, as
+men have the mouth of the bladder in that place, where the urine is
+contained, of which the hair in the breast is engendered, and
+especially that about the navel. But of women in general, it is
+said, that the humidity of the bladder of the matrix, or womb, is
+joined and meeteth in that lower secret place, and therefore is
+dissolved and separated in that place into vapours and fumes, which
+are the cause of hair. And the like doth happen in other places, as
+in the hair under the arms.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have not women beards? A. Because they want heat; which
+is the case with some effeminate men, who are beardless from the
+same cause, to have complexions like women.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the hair grow on those that are hanged? A. Because
+their bodies are exposed to the sun, which, by its heat doth
+dissolve all moisture into the fume or vapour of which the hair
+doth grow.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the hair of the beard thicker and grosser than
+elsewhere; and the more men are shaven, the harder and thicker it
+groweth? A. Because by so much as the humours or vapours of a
+liquid are dissolved and taken away, so much the more doth the
+humour <!-- Page 381 --><a name='Page_381' id="Page_381"></a>
+remaining draw to the same; and therefore the more the hair is
+shaven, the thicker the humours gather which engender the hair, and
+cause it to wax hard.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are women smooth and fairer than men? A. Because in women
+much of the humidity and superfluity, which are the matter and
+cause of the hair of the body, is expelled with their monthly
+terms; which superfluity, remaining in men, through vapours passes
+into hair.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth man, above all other creatures, wax hoary and gray?
+A. Because man hath the hottest heart of all living creatures; and
+therefore, nature being most wise, lest a man should be suffocated
+through the heat of his heart, hath placed the heart, which is most
+hot, under the brain, which is most cold; to the end that the heat
+of the heart may be tempered by the coldness of the brain; and
+contrariwise, that the coldness of the brain may be qualified by
+the heat of the heart; and thereby there might be a temperature in
+both. A proof of this is, that of all living creatures man hath the
+worst breath when he comes to full age. Furthermore, man doth
+consume nearly half his time in sleep, which doth proceed from the
+great excess of coldness and moisture in the brain, and from his
+wanting <!-- Page 382 --><a name='Page_382' id="Page_382"></a>
+natural heat to digest and consume that moisture, which heat he
+hath in his youth, and therefore, in that age is not gray, but in
+old age, when heat faileth; because then the vapours ascending from
+the stomach remain undigested and unconsumed for want of natural
+heat, and thus putrefy, on which putrefaction of humours that the
+whiteness doth follow, which is called grayness or hoariness.
+Whereby it doth appear, that hoariness is nothing but a whiteness
+of hair, caused by a putrefaction of the humours about the roots of
+the hair, through the want of natural heat in old age. Sometimes
+all grayness is caused by the naughtiness of the complexion, which
+may happen in youth: sometimes through over great fear and care as
+appeareth in merchants, sailors and thieves.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth red hair grow white sooner than hair of any other
+colour? A. Because redness is an infirmity of the hair; for it is
+engendered of a weak and infirm matter, that is, of matter
+corrupted with the flowers of the woman; and therefore it waxes
+white sooner than any other colour.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do wolves grow grisly? A. To understand this question,
+note the difference between grayness and grisliness; grayness is
+caused through defect of natural heat, but grisliness through
+devouring and heat. The <!-- Page 383 --><a name='Page_383' id=
+"Page_383"></a> wolf being a devouring beast, he eateth
+gluttonously without chewing, and enough at once for three days; in
+consequence of which, gross vapours engendered in the wolf's body,
+which cause grisliness. Grayness and grisliness have this
+difference; grayness is only in the head, but grisliness all over
+the body.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do horses grow grisly and gray? A. Because they are for
+the most part in the sun, and heat naturally causes putrefaction;
+therefore the matter of hair doth putrefy, and in consequence they
+are quickly peeled.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do men get bald, and trees let fall their leaves in
+winter? A. The want of moisture is the cause in both, which is
+proved by a man's becoming bald through venery, because by that he
+lets forth his natural humidity and heat; and by that excess in
+carnal pleasure the moisture is consumed which is the nutriment of
+the hair. Thus, eunuchs and women do not grow bald, because they do
+not part from this moisture; and therefore eunuchs are of the
+complexion of women.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are not women bald? A. Because they are cold and moist,
+which are the causes that the hair remaineth; for moistness doth
+give nutriment to the hair, and coldness doth bind the pores.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are not blind men naturally bald?
+<!-- Page 384 --><a name='Page_384' id="Page_384"></a> A. Because
+the eye hath moisture in it, and that moisture which should pass
+through by the substance of the eyes, doth become a sufficient
+nutriment for the hair and therefore they are seldom bald.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the hair stand on end when men are afraid? A.
+Because in time of fear the heat doth go from the outward parts of
+the body into the inward to help the heart, and so the pores in
+which the hair is fastened are shut up, after which stopping and
+shutting up of the pores, the standing up of the hair doth
+follow.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Head' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Head"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Head</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why is a man's head round? A. Because it contains in it the
+moistest parts of the living creature: and also that the brain may
+be defended thereby, as with a shield.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the head not absolutely long but somewhat round? A. To
+the end that the three creeks and cells of the brain might the
+better be distinguished; that is, the fancy in the forehead, the
+discoursing or reasonable part in the middle, and memory in the
+hinder-most part.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth a man lift up his head towards the heavens when he
+doth imagine? <!-- Page 385 --><a name='Page_385' id=
+"Page_385"></a> A. Because the imagination is in the fore part of
+the head or brain, and therefore it lifteth up itself, that the
+creeks or cells of the imagination may be opened, and that the
+spirits which help the imagination, and are fit for that purpose,
+having their concourse thither, may help the imagination.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth a man, when he museth or thinketh of things past,
+look towards the earth? A. Because the cell or creek which is
+behind, is the creek or chamber of the memory; and therefore, that
+looketh towards heaven when the head is bowed down, and so the cell
+is open, to the end that the spirits which perfect the memory
+should enter it.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is not the head fleshy, like other parts of the body? A.
+Because the head would be too heavy, and would not stand steadily.
+Also, a head loaded with flesh, betokens an evil complexion.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the head subject to aches and griefs? A. By reason
+that evil humours, which proceed from the stomach, ascend up to the
+head and disturb the brain, and so cause pain in the head;
+sometimes it proceeds from overmuch filling the stomach, because
+two great sinews pass from the brain to the mouth of the stomach,
+and therefore these two parts do always suffer grief together.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 386 --><a name='Page_386' id="Page_386"></a> Q. Why
+have women the headache oftener than men? A. By reason of their
+monthly terms, which men are not troubled with, and by which a
+moist, unclean and venomous fume is produced, that seeks passage
+upwards, and so causes the headache.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the brain white? A. 1. Because it is cold, and
+coldness is the mother of white. 2. Because it may receive the
+similitude and likeness of all colours, which the white colour can
+best do, because it is most simple.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are all the senses in the head? A. Because the brain is
+there, on which all the senses depend, and are directed by it; and,
+consequently, it maketh all the spirits to feel, and governeth all
+the membranes.</p>
+<p>Q. Why cannot a person escape death if the brain or heart be
+hurt? A. Because the brain and heart are the two principal parts
+which concern life; and, therefore, if they be hurt, there is no
+remedy left for cure.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the brain moist? A. Because it may easily receive an
+impression, which moisture can best do, as it appeareth in wax,
+which doth easily receive the print of the seal when soft.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the brain cold? A. 1. Because that by this coldness it
+may clear the <!-- Page 387 --><a name='Page_387' id=
+"Page_387"></a> understanding of man and make it subtle. 2. That by
+the coldness of the brain, the heat of the heart may be
+tempered.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Eyes' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Eyes"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Eyes</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why have you one nose and two eyes? A. Because light is more
+necessary to us than smelling; and therefore it doth proceed from
+the goodness of Nature, that if we receive any hurt or loss of one
+eye, the other should remain.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have children great eyes in their youth, which become
+small as they grow up? A. It proceeds from the want of fire, and
+from the assemblage and meeting together of the light and humour;
+the eyes, being lightened by the sun, which doth lighten the easy
+humour thereof and purge them: and, in the absence of the sun,
+those humours become dark and black, and the sight not so good.</p>
+<p>Q. Why does the blueish grey eye see badly in the day-time and
+well in the night? A. Because greyness is light and shining in
+itself, and the spirits with which we see are weakened in the
+day-time and strengthened in the night.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are men's eyes of diverse colours? A. By reason of
+diversity of humours. The eye hath four coverings and three
+humours. The first covering is called consolidative, which is the
+outermost, strong and fat. The second <!-- Page 388 --><a name=
+'Page_388' id="Page_388"></a> is called a horny skin or covering,
+of the likeness of a horn; which is a clear covering. The third,
+uvea, of the likeness of a black grape. The fourth is called a
+cobweb. The first humour is called <i>albuginous</i>, from its
+likeness unto the white of an egg. The second glarial; that is,
+clear, like unto crystalline. The third vitreous, that is, clear as
+glass. And the diversity of humours causeth the diversity of the
+eyes.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are men that have but one eye, good archers? and why do
+good archers commonly shut one? And why do such as behold the stars
+look through a trunk with one eye? A. This matter is handled in the
+perspective arts; and the reason is, as it doth appear in <i>The
+Book of Causes</i>, because that every virtue and strength united
+and knit together, is stronger than when dispersed and scattered.
+Therefore, all the force of seeing dispersed in two eyes, the one
+being shut, is gathered into the other, and so the light is
+fortified in him; and by consequence he doth see better and more
+certainly with one eye being shut, than when both are open.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do those that drink and laugh much, shed most tears? A.
+Because that while they drink and laugh without measure the air
+which is drawn in doth not pass out through
+<!-- Page 389 --><a name='Page_389' id="Page_389"></a> the
+windpipe, and so with force is directed and sent to the eyes, and
+by their pores passing out, doth expel the humours of the eyes;
+which humour being expelled, brings tears.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do such as weep much, urine but little? A. Because the
+radical humidity of a tear and of urine are of one and the same
+nature, and, therefore, where weeping doth increase, urine
+diminishes. And that they are of one nature is plain to the taste,
+because they are both salt.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do some that have clear eyes see nothing? A. By reason of
+the oppilation and naughtiness of the sinews with which we see; for
+the temples being destroyed, the strength of the light cannot be
+carried from the brain to the eye.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the eye clear and smooth like glass? A. 1. Because the
+things which may be seen are better beaten back from a smooth thing
+than otherwise, that thereby the sight should strengthen. 2.
+Because the eye is moist above all parts of the body, and of a
+waterish nature; and as the water is clear and smooth, so likewise
+is the eye.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do men and beasts who have their eyes deep in their head
+best see far off? A. Because the force and power by which we see is
+dispersed in them, and both go directly to the
+<!-- Page 390 --><a name='Page_390' id="Page_390"></a> thing which
+is seen. Thus, when a man doth stand in a deep ditch or well, he
+doth see in the daytime the stars of the firmament; because then
+the power of the night and of the beams are not scattered.</p>
+<p>Q. Wherefore do those men who have eyes far out in their head
+not see far distant? A. Because the beams of the sight which pass
+from the eye, are scattered on every side, and go not directly unto
+the thing that is seen, and therefore the sight is weakened.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are so many beasts born blind, as lions' whelps and dogs'
+whelps. A. Because such beasts are not yet of perfect ripeness and
+maturity, and the course of nutriment doth not work in them. Thus
+the swallow, whose eyes, if they were taken out when they are young
+in their nest, would grow in again. And this is the case in many
+beasts who are brought forth before their time as it were dead, as
+bear's whelps.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the eyes of a woman that hath her flowers, stain new
+glass? And why doth a basilisk kill a man with his sight? A. When
+the flowers do run from a woman, then a most venomous air is
+distilled from them, which doth ascend into a woman's head; and
+she, having pain in her head, doth wrap it up with a cloth or
+handkerchief; and because the eyes <!-- Page 391 --><a name=
+'Page_391' id="Page_391"></a> are full of insensible holes, which
+are called pores, there the air seeketh a passage, and infects the
+eyes, which are full of blood. The eyes also appear dropping and
+full of tears, by reason of the evil vapour that is in them; and
+these vapours are incorporated and multiplied till they come to the
+glass before them; and by reason that such a glass is round, clear
+and smooth, it doth easily receive that which is unclean. 2. The
+basilisk is a very venomous and infectious animal, and there pass
+from his eyes vapours which are multiplied upon the thing which is
+seen by him, and even unto the eye of man; the which venomous
+vapours or humours entering into the body, do infect him, and so in
+the end the man dieth. And this is also the reason why the
+basilisk, looking upon a shield perfectly well made with fast
+clammy pitch, or any hard smooth thing, doth kill itself, because
+the humours are beaten back from the hard smooth thing unto the
+basilisk, by which beating back he is killed.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the sparkling in cats' eyes and wolves' eyes seen in
+the dark and not in the light? A. Because that the greater light
+doth darken the lesser; and therefore, in a greater light the
+sparkling cannot be seen; but the greater the darkness, the easier
+it is seen, and is more strong and shining.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 392 --><a name='Page_392' id="Page_392"></a> Q. Why is
+the sight recreated and refreshed by a green colour? A. Because
+green doth merely move the sight, and therefore doth comfort it;
+but this doth not, in black or white colours, because these colours
+do vehemently stir and alter the organ and instrument of the sight,
+and therefore make the greater violence; and by how much the more
+violent the thing is which is felt or seen the more it doth destroy
+and weaken the sense.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Nose' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Nose"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Nose</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why doth the nose stand out further than any other part of
+the body. A. 1. Because the nose is, as it were, the sink of the
+brain, by which the phlegm of the brain is purged; and therefore it
+doth stand forth, lest the other parts should be defiled. 2.
+Because the nose is the beauty of the face, and doth smell.</p>
+<p>Q. Why hath a man the worst smell of all creatures? A. Because
+man hath most brains of all creatures; and, therefore, by exceeding
+coldness and moisture, the brain wanteth a good disposition, and by
+consequence, the smelling instrument is not good, yea, some men
+have no smell.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have vultures and cormorants a keen smell? A. Because
+they have a very dry brain; and, therefore, the air carrying the
+<!-- Page 393 --><a name='Page_393' id="Page_393"></a> smell, is
+not hindered by the humidity of the brain, but doth presently touch
+its instrument; and, therefore, vultures, tigers and other ravenous
+beasts, have been known to come five hundred miles after dead
+bodies.</p>
+<p>Q. Why did nature make the nostrils? A. 1. Because the mouth
+being shut we draw breath in by the nostrils, to refresh the heart.
+2. Because the air which proceedeth from the mouth doth savour
+badly, because of the vapours which rise from the stomach, but that
+which we breathe from the nose is not noisome. 3. Because the
+phlegm which doth proceed from the brain is purged by them.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do men sneeze? A. That the expulsive virtue and power of
+the sight should thereby be purged, and the brain also from
+superfluities; because, as the lungs are purged by coughing, so is
+the sight and brain by sneezing; and therefore physicians give
+sneezing medicaments to purge the brain; and thus it is, such sick
+persons as cannot sneeze, die quickly, because it is a sign their
+brain is wholly stuffed with evil humours, which cannot be
+purged.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do such as are apoplectic sneeze, that is, such as are
+subject easily to bleed? A. Because the passages, or ventricles of
+the brain are stopped, and if they could sneeze, their apoplexy
+would be loosed.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 394 --><a name='Page_394' id="Page_394"></a> Q. Why
+does the heat of the sun provoke sneezing, and not the heat of the
+fire? A. Because the heat of the sun doth dissolve, but not
+consume, and therefore the vapour dissolved is expelled by
+sneezing; but the heat of the fire doth dissolve and consume, and
+therefore doth rather hinder sneezing than provoke it.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Ears' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Ears"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Ears</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why do beasts move their ears, and not men? A. Because there
+is a certain muscle near the under jaw which doth cause motion in
+the ear; and therefore, that muscle being extended and stretched,
+men do not move their ears, as it hath been seen in divers men; but
+all beasts do use that muscle or fleshy sinew, and therefore do
+move their ears.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is rain prognosticated by the pricking up of asses' ears?
+A. Because the ass is of a melancholic constitution, and the
+approach of rain produceth that effect on such a constitution. In
+the time of rain all beasts prick up their ears, but the ass before
+it comes.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have some animals no ears? A. Nature giveth unto
+everything that which is fit for it, but if she had given birds
+ears, their flying would have been hindered by them. Likewise fish
+want ears, because they would <!-- Page 395 --><a name='Page_395'
+id="Page_395"></a> hinder their swimming, and have only certain
+little holes through which they hear.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have bats ears, although of the bird kind? A. Because
+they are partly birds in nature, in that they fly, by reason
+whereof they have wings; and partly they are hairy and seem to be
+of the nature of mice, therefore nature hath given them ears.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have men only round ears? A. Because the shape of the
+whole and of the parts should be proportionable, and especially in
+all things of one nature; for as a drop of water is round, so the
+whole water: and so, because a man's head is round, the ears
+incline towards the same figure; but the heads of beasts are
+somewhat long, and so the ears are drawn into length likewise.</p>
+<p>Q. Why hath nature given all living creatures ears? A. 1.
+Because with them they should hear. 2. Because by the ear choleric
+superfluity is purged; for as the head is purged of phlegmatic
+superfluity by the nose, so from choleric, by the ears.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Mouth' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Mouth"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Mouth</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why hath the mouth lips to compass it? A. Because the lips
+cover and defend the teeth; for it would be unseemly if the teeth
+<!-- Page 396 --><a name='Page_396' id="Page_396"></a> were always
+seen. Also, the teeth being of a cold nature, would be soon hurt if
+they were not covered with lips.</p>
+<p>Q. Why has a man two eyes and but one mouth? A. Because a man
+should speak but little, and hear and see much. And by hearing and
+the light we see difference of things.</p>
+<p>Q. Why hath a man a mouth? A. 1. Because the mouth is the gate
+and door of the stomach. 2. Because the meat is chewed in the
+mouth, and prepared and made ready for the first digestion. 3.
+Because the air drawn into the hollow of the mouth for the
+refreshing of the heart, is made pure and subtle.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the lips moveable? A. For the purpose of forming the
+voice and words which cannot be perfectly done without them. For as
+without <i>a, b, c</i>, there is no writing, so without the lips no
+voice can well be formed.</p>
+<p>Q. What causes men to yawn or gape? A. It proceeds from the
+thick fume and vapours that fill the jaws; by the expulsion of
+which is caused the stretching out and expansion of the jaws, and
+opening of the mouth.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth a man gape when he seeth another do the same? A. It
+proceeds from the imagination. And this is proved by the similitude
+of the ass, who by reason of his melancholy, doth retain his
+superfluity for a long <!-- Page 397 --><a name='Page_397' id=
+"Page_397"></a> time, and would neither eat nor piss unless he
+should hear another doing the like.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Teeth' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Teeth"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Teeth</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why do the teeth only, amongst all ether bones, experience
+the sense of feeling? A. That they may discern heat and cold, that
+hurt them, which other bones need not.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have men more teeth than women? A. By reason of the
+abundance of heat and cold which is more in men than in women.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the teeth grow to the end of our life, and not the
+other bones? A. Because otherwise they would be consumed with
+chewing and grinding.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the teeth only come again when they fall, or be taken
+out, and other bones being taken away, grow no more? A. Because
+other bones are engendered of the humidity which is called radical,
+and so they breed in the womb of the mother, but the teeth are
+engendered of nutritive humidity, which is renewed and increased
+from day to day.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the fore-teeth fall in youth, and grow again, and not
+the cheek teeth? A. From the defect of matter, and from the figure;
+because the fore-teeth are sharp, and the others broad. Also, it is
+the office of the fore-teeth <!-- Page 398 --><a name='Page_398'
+id="Page_398"></a> to cut the meat, and therefore they are sharp;
+and the office of the others to chew the meat, and therefore they
+are broad in fashion, which is fittest for that purpose.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the fore-teeth grow soonest? A. Because we want them
+sooner in cutting than the others in chewing.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the teeth grow black in human creatures in their old
+age? A. It is occasioned by the corruption of the meat, and the
+corruption of phlegm with a choleric humour.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are colts' teeth yellow, and of the colour of saffron,
+when they are young, and become white when they grow up? A. Because
+horses have abundance of watery humours in them, which in their
+youth are digested and converted into grossness; but in old age
+heat diminishes, and the watery humours remain, whose proper colour
+is white.</p>
+<p>Q. Why did nature give living creatures teeth? A. To some to
+fight with, and for defence of their lives, as unto wolves and
+bears, unto some to eat with, as unto horses, unto some for the
+forming of the voices, as unto men.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do horned beasts want their upper teeth? A. Horns and
+teeth are caused by the same matter, that is, nutrimental humidity,
+and therefore the matter which passeth into the horns turneth not
+into teeth, consequently <!-- Page 399 --><a name='Page_399' id=
+"Page_399"></a> they want the upper teeth. And such beasts cannot
+chew well; therefore, to supply the want of teeth, they have two
+stomachs, from whence it returns and they chew it again, then it
+goes into the other to be digested.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are some creatures brought forth with teeth, as kids and
+lambs; and some without, as men? A. Nature doth not want in
+necessary things, nor abound in things superfluous; and therefore,
+because these beasts, not long after they are fallen, do need
+teeth, they are fallen with teeth; but men, being nourished by
+their mother, for a long time do not stand in need of teeth.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Tongue' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Tongue"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Tongue</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why is the tongue full of pores? A. Because the tongue is the
+means whereby which we taste; and through the mouth, in the pores
+of the tongue, doth proceed the sense of tasting. Again, it is
+observed, that frothy spittle is sent into the mouth by the tongue
+from the lungs, moistening the meat and making it ready for
+digestion.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the tongues of such as are sick of agues judge all
+things bitter? A. Because the stomachs of such persons are filled
+with <!-- Page 400 --><a name='Page_400' id="Page_400"></a>
+choleric humours; and choler is very bitter, as appeareth by the
+gall; therefore this bitter fume doth infect their tongues; and so
+the tongue, being full of these tastes, doth judge everything
+bitter.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the tongue water when we hear sour and sharp things
+spoken of? A. Because the imaginative virtue or power is of greater
+force than the power or faculty of tasting; and when we imagine a
+taste, we conceive the power of tasting as a swan; there is nothing
+felt by the taste, but by means of the spittle the tongue doth
+water.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do some persons stammer and lisp? A. Sometimes through
+the moistness of the tongue and brain, as in children, who cannot
+speak plainly nor pronounce many letters. Sometimes it happeneth by
+reason of the shrinking of certain sinews which go to the tongue,
+which are corrupted with phlegm.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the tongues of serpents and mad dogs venomous? A.
+Because of the malignity and tumosity of the venomous humour which
+predominates in them.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is a dog's tongue good for medicine, and a horse's tongue
+pestiferous? A. By reason of some secret property, or that the
+tongue of a dog is full of pores, and so doth draw
+<!-- Page 401 --><a name='Page_401' id="Page_401"></a> and take
+away the viscosity of the wound. It is observed that a dog hath
+some humour in his tongue, with which, by licking he doth heal; but
+the contrary effect is the lick of a horse's tongue.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is spittle white? A. By reason of the continual moving of
+the tongue, whereof heat is engendered, which doth make this
+superfluity white; as seen in the froth of water.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is spittle unsavoury and without taste? A. If it had a
+certain determinate taste, then the tongue would not taste at all,
+but only have the taste of spittle, and could not distinguish
+others.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the spittle of one that is fasting heal an
+imposthume? A. Because it is well digested and made subtle.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do some abound in spittle more than others? A. This doth
+proceed of a phlegmatic complexion, which doth predominate in them;
+and such are liable to a quotidian ague, which ariseth from the
+predominance of phlegm; the contrary in those that spit little,
+because heat abounds in them, which consumes the humidity of the
+spittle; and so the defect of spittle is a sign of fever.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the spittle of a man that is fasting more subtle than
+of one that is full? A. Because the spittle is without the
+viscosity of <!-- Page 402 --><a name='Page_402' id="Page_402"></a>
+meat, which is wont to make the spittle of one who is full, gross
+and thick.</p>
+<p>Q. From whence proceeds the spittle of a man? A. From the froth
+of the lungs, which according to the physicians, is the seat of the
+phlegm.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are beasts when going together for generation very full
+of froth and foam? A. Because then the lights and heart are in
+greater motion of lust; therefore there is engendered in them much
+frothy matter.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have not birds spittle? A. Because they have very dry
+lungs.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the tongue sometimes lose the use of speaking? A. It
+is occasioned by a palsy or apoplexy, which is a sudden effusion of
+blood, and by gross humours; and sometimes also by infection of
+<i>spiritus animates</i> in the middle cell of the brain which
+hinders the spirits from being carried to the tongue.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Roof_of_the_Mouth' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Roof_of_the_Mouth"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Roof of the Mouth</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why are fruits, before they are ripe, of a bitter and sour
+relish, and afterward sweet? A. A sour relish or taste proceeds
+from coldness and want of heat in gross and thick humidity; but a
+sweet taste is produced by sufficient <!-- Page 403 --><a name=
+'Page_403' id="Page_403"></a> heat; therefore in the ripe fruit
+humidity is subtle through the heat of the sun, and such fruit is
+commonly sweet; but before it is ripe, as humidity is gross or
+subtle for want of heat, the fruit is bitter or sour.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are we better delighted with sweet tastes than with
+bitter or any other? A. Because a sweet thing is hot and moist, and
+through its heat dissolves and consumes superfluous humidities, and
+by this humidity immundicity is washed away; but a sharp, eager
+taste, by reason of the cold which predominates in it, doth bind
+overmuch, and prick and offend the parts of the body in purging,
+and therefore we do not delight in that taste.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth a sharp taste, as that of vinegar, provoke appetite
+rather than any other? A. Because it is cold, and doth cool. For it
+is the nature of cold to desire to draw, and therefore it is the
+cause of appetite.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do we draw in more air than we breathe out? A. Because
+much air is drawn in that is converted into nutriment, and with the
+vital spirits is contained in the lungs. Therefore a beast is not
+suffocated as long as it receives air with its lungs, in which some
+part of the air remaineth also.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the air seem to be expelled and put forth, seeing
+the air is invisible, by <!-- Page 404 --><a name='Page_404' id=
+"Page_404"></a> reason of its variety and thinness? A. Because the
+air which is received in us, is mingled with vapours and fumes from
+the heart, by reason whereof it is made thick, and so is seen. And
+this is proved by experience, because that in winter, we see our
+breath, for the coldness of the air doth bind the air mixed with
+fume, and so it is thickened and made gross, and by consequence is
+seen.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have some persons stinking breath? A. Because of the evil
+fumes that arise from the stomach. And sometimes it doth proceed
+from the corruption of the airy parts of the body, as the lungs.
+The breath of lepers is so infected that it would poison birds if
+near them, because the inward parts are very corrupt.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are lepers hoarse? A. Because the vocal instruments are
+corrupted, that is, the lights.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do persons become hoarse? A. Because of the rheum
+descending from the brain, filling the conduit of the lights; and
+sometimes through imposthumes of the throat, or rheum gathering in
+the neck.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have the females of all living creatures the shrillest
+voices, the crow only excepted, and a woman a shriller and smaller
+voice than a man? A. By reason of the composition of the veins and
+vocal arteries the voice <!-- Page 405 --><a name='Page_405' id=
+"Page_405"></a> is formed, as appears by this similitude, that a
+small pipe sounds shriller than a great. Also in women, because the
+passage where the voice is formed is made narrow and strait, by
+reason of cold, it being the nature of cold to bind; but in men,
+the passage is open and wider through heat, because it is the
+property of heat to open and dissolve. It proceedeth in women
+through the moistness of the lungs, and weakness of the heat. Young
+and diseased men have sharp and shrill voices from the same
+cause.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the voice change in men at fourteen, and in women at
+twelve; in men they begin to yield seed, in women when their
+breasts begin to grow? A. Because then the beginning of the voice
+is slackened and loosened; and this is proved by the similitude of
+the string of an instrument let down or loosened, which gives a
+great sound, and also because creatures that are gelded, as
+eunuchs, capons., etc., have softer and slenderer voices than
+others, by the want of their stones.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do small birds sing more and louder than great ones, as
+appears in the lark and nightingale? A. Because the spirits of
+small birds are subtle and soft, and the organ conduit strait, as
+appeareth in a pipe; therefore their notes following easily at
+desire, they sing very soft.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 406 --><a name='Page_406' id="Page_406"></a> Q. Why do
+bees, wasps, locusts and many other such like insects, make a
+noise, seeing they have no lungs, nor instruments of music? A.
+Because in them there is a certain small skin, which, when struck
+by the air, causeth a sound.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do not fish make a sound? A. Because they have no lungs,
+but only gills, nor yet a heart, and therefore they need not the
+drawing in of the air, and by consequence they make no noise,
+because a voice is a percussion of the air which is drawing.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Neck' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Neck"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Neck</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why hath a living creature a neck? A. Because the neck is the
+supporter of the head, and therefore the neck is in the middle
+between the head and the body, to the intent that by it, and by its
+sinews, motion and sense of the body might be conveyed through all
+the body; and that by means of the neck, the heart, which is very
+hot, might be separated from the brain.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do some creatures want necks, as serpents and fishes? A.
+Because they want hearts, and therefore want that assistance which
+we have spoken of; or else they have a neck
+<!-- Page 407 --><a name='Page_407' id="Page_407"></a> in some
+inward part of them, which is not distinguished outwardly.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the neck full of bones and joints? A. That it may bear
+and sustain the head the better. Also, because the back bone is
+joined to the brain in the neck, and from thence it receives
+marrow, which is of the substance of the brain.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have some creatures long necks, as cranes, storks and
+such like? A. Because such birds seek their food at the bottom of
+waters. And some creatures have short necks, as sparrows, hawks,
+etc., because such are ravenous, and therefore for strength have
+short necks, as appeareth in the ox, who has a short neck and
+strong.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the neck hollow, and especially before, about the
+tongue? A. Because there are two passages, whereof the one doth
+carry the meat to the nutritive instrument, or stomach and liver,
+which is called by the Greeks <i>Aesophagus;</i> and the other is
+the windpipe.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the artery made with rings and circle? A. The better
+to bow and give a good sounding.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Shoulders_and_Arms' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Shoulders_and_Arms"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Shoulders and Arms</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why hath a man shoulders and arms? A. To lift and carry
+burdens.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 408 --><a name='Page_408' id="Page_408"></a> Q. Why
+are the arms round? A. For the swifter and speedier work.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the arms thick? A. That they may be strong to lift
+and bear burdens, and thrust and give a strong blow; so their bones
+are thick, because they contain much marrow, or they would be
+easily corrupted and injured.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the arms become small and slender in some diseases, as
+in mad men, and such as are sick of the dropsy? A. Because all the
+parts of the body do suffer the one with the other; and therefore
+one member being in grief, all the humours do concur and run
+thicker to give succour and help to the aforesaid grief.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have brute beasts no arms? A. Their fore feet are instead
+of arms, and in their place.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Hands' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Hands"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Hands</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. For what use hath a man hands, and an ape also, like unto a
+man? A. The hand is an instrument a man doth especially make use
+of, because many things are done by the hands, and not by any other
+part.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are some men ambo-dexter, that is, they use the left hand
+as the right? A. <!-- Page 409 --><a name='Page_409' id=
+"Page_409"></a> By reason of the great heat of the heart, and for
+the hot bowing of the same, for it is that which makes a man as
+nimble of the left hand as of the right.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the fingers full of joints? A. To be more fit and apt
+to receive and keep what is put in them.</p>
+<p>Q. Why hath every finger three joints, and the thumb but two? A.
+The thumb hath three, but the third is joined to the arm, therefore
+is stronger than the other fingers; and is called pollex or polico,
+that is, to excel in strength.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the fingers of the right hand nimbler than the
+fingers of the left? A. It proceedeth from the heat that
+predominates in those parts, and causeth great agility.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Nails' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Nails"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Nails</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. From whence do nails proceed? A. Of the tumosity and humours,
+which are resolved and go into the extremities of the fingers; and
+they are dried through the power of the external air, and brought
+to the hardness of horn.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the nails of old men grow black and pale? A. Because
+the heat of the heart decaying causeth their beauty to decay
+also.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 410 --><a name='Page_410' id="Page_410"></a> Q. Why
+are men judged to be good or evil complexioned by the colour of the
+nails? A. Because they give witness of the goodness or badness of
+their heart, and therefore of the complexion, for if they be
+somewhat red, they betoken choler well tempered; but if they be
+yellowish or black, they signify melancholy.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do white spots appear in the nails? A. Through mixture of
+phlegm with nutriment.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Paps_and_Dugs' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Paps_and_Dugs"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Paps and Dugs.</i></h3>
+<p>Q. Why are the paps placed upon the breasts? A. Because the
+breast is the seat of the heart, which is most hot; and therefore
+the paps grow there, to the end that the menses being conveyed
+thither as being near the heat of the heart, should the sooner be
+digested, perfected and converted with the matter and substance of
+the milk.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the paps below the breasts in beasts, and above the
+breast in women? A. Because woman goes upright, and has two legs
+only; and therefore if her paps were below her breasts, they would
+hinder her going; but beasts having four feet prevents that
+inconveniency.</p>
+<p>Q. Whether are great, small or middle-sized paps best for
+children to suck? A. In <!-- Page 411 --><a name='Page_411' id=
+"Page_411"></a> great ones the heat is dispersed, there is no good
+digestion of the milk; but in small ones the power and force is
+strong, because a virtue united is strongest; and by consequence
+there is a good digestion for the milk.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have not men as great paps and breasts as women? A.
+Because men have not monthly terms, and therefore have no vessel
+deputed for them.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the paps of young women begin to grow about thirteen
+or fifteen years of age? A. Because then the flowers have no course
+to the teats, by which the young one is nourished, but follow their
+ordinary course and therefore wax soft.</p>
+<p>Q. Why hath a woman who is with child of a boy, the right pap
+harder than the left? A. Because the male child is conceived in the
+right side of the mother; and therefore the flowers do run to the
+right pap, and make it hard.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth it show weakness of the child, when the milk doth
+drop out of the paps before the woman is delivered? A. Because the
+milk is the proper nutriment of the child in the womb of its
+mother, therefore if the milk run out, it is a token that the child
+is not nourished, and consequently is weak.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the hardness of the paps betoken
+<!-- Page 412 --><a name='Page_412' id="Page_412"></a> the health
+of the child in the womb? A. Because the flowers are converted into
+milk, and thereby strength is signified.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are women's paps hard when they be with child, and soft
+at other times? A. Because they swell then, and are puffed, and the
+great moisture which proceeds from the flowers doth run into the
+paps, which at other seasons remaineth in the matrix and womb, and
+is expelled by the place deputed for that end.</p>
+<p>Q. By what means doth the milk of the paps come to the matrix or
+womb? A. There is a certain knitting and coupling of the paps with
+the womb, and there are certain veins which the midwives do cut in
+the time of the birth of the child, and by those veins the milk
+flows in at the navel of the child, and so it receives nourishment
+by the navel.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it a sign of a male child in the womb when the milk
+that runneth out of a woman's breast is thick, and not much, and of
+a female when it is thin? A. Because a woman that goeth with a boy
+hath a great heat in her, which doth perfect the milk and make it
+thick; but she who goes with a girl hath not so much heat, and
+therefore the milk is undigested, imperfect, watery and thin, and
+will swim above the water if it be put into it.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 413 --><a name='Page_413' id="Page_413"></a> Q. Why is
+the milk white, seeing the flowers are red, of which it is
+engendered? A. Because blood which is well purged and concocted
+becomes white, as appeareth in flesh whose proper colour is white,
+and being boiled, is white. Also, because every humour which is
+engendered of the body, is made like unto that part in colour where
+it is engendered as near as it can be; but because the flesh of the
+paps is white, therefore the colour of the milk is white.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth a cow give milk more abundantly than other beasts?
+A. Because she is a great eating beast, where there is much monthly
+superfluity engendered, there is much milk; because it is nothing
+else but the blood purged and tried.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is not milk wholesome? A. 1. Because it curdeth in the
+stomach, whereof an evil breath is bred. 2. Because the milk doth
+grow sour in the stomach, where evil humours are bred, and infect
+the breath.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is milk bad for such as have the headache? A. Because it
+is easily turned into great fumosities, and hath much terrestrial
+substance in it, the which ascending, doth cause the headache.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is milk fit nutriment for infants? A. Because it is a
+natural and usual food, and <!-- Page 414 --><a name='Page_414' id=
+"Page_414"></a> they were nourished by the same in the womb.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the white-meats made of a newly milked cow good? A.
+Because milk at that time is very springy, expels fumosities, and,
+as it were, purges at that time.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the milk naught for the child, if the woman giving
+suck uses carnal copulation? A. Because in time of carnal
+copulation, the best part of the milk goes to the seed vessels, and
+to the womb, and the worst remain in the paps, which hurts the
+child.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do physicians forbid the eating of fish and milk at the
+same time? A. Because they produce a leprosy, and because they are
+phlegmatic.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have not birds and fish milk and paps? A. Because paps
+would hinder the flight of birds. And although fish have neither
+paps nor milk, the females cast much spawn, which the male touches
+with a small gut, and causes their kind to continue in
+succession.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Back' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Back"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Back</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why have beasts a back? A. 1. Because the back is the way and
+mien of the body from which are extended and spread throughout, all
+the sinews of the backbone. 2. Because <!-- Page 415 --><a name=
+'Page_415' id="Page_415"></a> it should be a guard and defence for
+the soft parts of the body, as for the stomach, liver, lights and
+such like. 3. Because it is the foundation of all the bones, as the
+ribs, fastened to the back bone.</p>
+<p>Q. Why hath the back bone so many joints or knots, called
+<i>spondyli</i>? A. Because the moving and bending it, without such
+joints, could not be done; and therefore they are wrong who say
+that elephants have no such joints, for without them they could not
+move.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do fish die after their back bones are broken? A. Because
+in fish the back bone is instead of the heart; now the heart is the
+first thing that lives and the last that dies; and when that bone
+is broken, fish can live no longer.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth a man die soon after the marrow is hurt or perished?
+A. Because the marrow proceeds from the brain, which is the
+principal part of a man.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have some men the piles? A. Those men are cold and
+melancholy, which melancholy first passes to the spleen, its proper
+seat, but there cannot be retained, for the abundancy of blood; for
+which reason it is conveyed to the back bone, where there are
+certain veins which terminate in the back, and receive the blood.
+When those veins are full of the <!-- Page 416 --><a name=
+'Page_416' id="Page_416"></a> melancholy blood, then the conduits
+of nature are opened, and the blood issues out once a month, like
+women's terms. Those men who have this course of blood, are kept
+from many infirmities, such as dropsy, plague, etc.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the Jews much subject to this disease? A. Because
+they eat much phlegmatic and cold meats, which breed melancholy
+blood, which is purged with the flux. Another reason is, motion
+causes heat and heat digestion; but strict Jews neither move,
+labour nor converse much, which breeds a coldness in them, and
+hinders digestion, causing melancholic blood, which is by this
+means purged out.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Heart' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Heart"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Heart</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why are the lungs light, spongy and full of holes? A. That
+the air may be received into them for cooling the heart, and
+expelling humours, because the lungs are the fan of the heart; and
+as a pair of bellows is raised up by taking in the air, and shrunk
+by blowing it out, so likewise the lungs draw the air to cool the
+heart, and cast it out, lest through too much air drawn in, the
+heart should be suffocated.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the flesh of the lungs white? A. Because they are in
+continual motion.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 417 --><a name='Page_417' id="Page_417"></a> Q. Why
+have those beasts only lungs that have hearts? A. Because the lungs
+be no part for themselves, but for the heart, and therefore, it
+were superfluous for those creatures to have lungs that have no
+hearts.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do such creatures as have no lungs want a bladder? A.
+Because such drink no water to make their meat digest and need no
+bladder for urine; as appears in such birds as do not drink at all,
+viz., the falcon and sparrow hawk.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the heart in the midst of the body? A. That it may
+import life to all, parts of the body, and therefore it is compared
+to the sun, which is placed in the midst of the planets, to give
+light to them all.</p>
+<p>Q. Why only in men is the heart on the left side? A. To the end
+that the heat of the heart may mitigate the coldness of the spleen;
+for the spleen is the seat of melancholy, which is on the left side
+also.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the heart first engendered; for the heart doth live
+first and die last? A. Because the heart is the beginning and
+original of life, and without it no part can live. For of the seed
+retained in the matrix, there is first engendered a little small
+skin, which compasses the seed; whereof first the heart is made of
+the purest blood; then of blood not so pure,
+<!-- Page 418 --><a name='Page_418' id="Page_418"></a> the liver;
+and of thick and cold blood the marrow and brain.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are beasts bold that have little hearts? A. Because in a
+little heart the heat is well united and vehement, and the blood
+touching it, doth quickly heat it and is speedily carried to the
+other parts of the body, which give courage and boldness.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are creatures with a large heart timorous, as the hare?
+A. The heart is dispersed in such a one, and not able to heat the
+blood which cometh to it; by which means fear is bred.</p>
+<p>Q. How is it that the heart is continually moving? A. Because in
+it there is a certain spirit which is more subtle than air, and by
+reason of its thickness and rarefaction, seeks a larger space,
+filling the hollow room of the heart; hence the dilating and
+opening of the heart, and because the heart is earthly the
+thrusting and moving ceasing, its parts are at rest, tending
+downwards. As a proof of this, take an acorn, which, if put into
+the fire, the heat doth dissolve its humidity, therefore occupies a
+greater space, so that the rind cannot contain it, but puffs up,
+and throws it into the fire. The like of the heart. Therefore the
+heart of a living creature is triangular, having its least part
+towards its left side, and <!-- Page 419 --><a name='Page_419' id=
+"Page_419"></a> the greater towards the right; and doth also open
+and shut in the least part, by which means it is in continual
+motion; the first motion is called <i>diastole</i>, that is
+extending the heart or breast; the other <i>systole</i>, that is,
+shutting of the heart; and from these all the motions of the body
+proceed, and that of the pulse which the physicians feel.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes it that the flesh of the heart is so compact and
+knit together? A. Because in thick compacted substances heat is
+commonly received and united. And because the heart with its heat
+should moderate the coldness of the brain, it is made of that fat
+flesh apt to keep a strong heat.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes the heart to be the hottest part of all living
+creatures? A. It is so compacted as to receive the heat best, and
+because it should mitigate the coldness of the brain.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the heart the beginning of life? A. It is plain that
+in it the vital spirit is bred, which is the heat of life; and
+therefore the heart having two receptacles, viz., the right and the
+left the right hath more blood than spirits; which spirit is
+engendered to give life and vivify the body.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the heart long and sharp like a pyramid? A. The round
+figure hath an <!-- Page 420 --><a name='Page_420' id=
+"Page_420"></a> angle, therefore the heart is round, for fear any
+poison or hurtful matter should be retained in it; and because that
+figure is fittest for motion.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes the blood chiefly to be in the heart? A. The blood
+in the heart has its proper or efficient place, which some
+attribute to the liver; and therefore the heart doth not receive
+blood from any other parts but all other parts of it.</p>
+<p>Q. How happens it that some creatures want a heart? A. Although
+they have no heart, yet they have somewhat that answers for it, as
+appears in eels and fish that have the back bone instead of the
+heart.</p>
+<p>Q. Why does the heart beat in some creatures after the head is
+cut off, as in birds and hens? A. Because the heart lives first and
+dies last, and therefore beats longer than other parts.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the heat of the heart sometimes fail of a sudden,
+and in those who have the falling sickness? A. This proceeds from
+the defect of the heart itself, and of certain small skins with
+which it is covered, which, being infected and corrupted, the heart
+faileth on a sudden; sometimes only by reason of the parts
+adjoining; and therefore, when any venomous humour goes out of the
+stomach <!-- Page 421 --><a name='Page_421' id="Page_421"></a> that
+turns the heart and parts adjoining, that causeth this
+fainting.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Stomach' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Stomach"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Stomach</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. For what reason is the stomach large and wide? A. Because in
+it the food is first concocted or digested as it were in a pot, to
+the end that which is pure should be separated from that which is
+not; and therefore, according to the quantity of food, the stomach
+is enlarged.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes it that the stomach is round? A. Because if it had
+angles and corners, food would remain in them and breed
+ill-humours, so that a man would never want agues, which humours
+are evacuated and consumed, and not hid in any such corners, by the
+roundness of the stomach.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes the stomach to be full of sinews? A. Because the
+sinews can be extended and enlarged, and so is the stomach when it
+is full; but when empty it is drawn together, and therefore nature
+provides the sinews.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes the stomach to digest? A. Because of the heat which
+is in it, and comes from the parts adjoining, that is, the liver
+and the heart. For as we see in metals the heat
+<!-- Page 422 --><a name='Page_422' id="Page_422"></a> of the fire
+takes away the rust and dross from iron, the silver from tin, and
+gold from copper; so also by digestion the pure is separated from
+the impure.</p>
+<p>Q. For what reason doth the stomach join the liver? A. Because
+the liver is very hot, and with its heat helps digestion, and
+provokes appetite.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are we commonly cold after dinner? A. Because then the
+heat goes to the stomach to further digestion, and so the other
+parts grow cold.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it hurtful to study soon after dinner? A. Because when
+the heat labours to help the imagination in study, it ceases from
+digesting the food, which remains undigested; therefore people
+should walk sometimes after meals.</p>
+<p>Q. How cometh the stomach slowly to digest meat? A. Because it
+swims in the stomach. Now, the best digestion is in the bottom of
+the stomach, because the fat descends not there; such as eat fat
+meat are very sleepy by reason that digestion is hindered.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is all the body wrong when the stomach is uneasy? A.
+Because the stomach is knit with the brain, heart and liver, which
+are the principal parts in man; and when it is not well, the others
+are indisposed. <!-- Page 423 --><a name='Page_423' id=
+"Page_423"></a> Again, if the first digestion be hindered, the
+others are also hindered; for in the first digestion is the
+beginning of the infirmity in the stomach.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are young men sooner hungry than old men? A. Young men do
+digest for three causes; 1. For growing; 2. For restoring life; and
+3. For conservation of life. Also, young men are hot and dry, and
+therefore the heat doth digest more, and by consequence they desire
+more.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do physicians prescribe that men should eat when they
+have an appetite? A. Because much hunger and emptiness will fill
+the stomach with naughty rotten humours, which are drawn in instead
+of meat; for, if we fast over night we have an appetite to meat,
+but none in the morning; as then the stomach is filled with naughty
+humours, and especially its mouth, which is no true filling, but a
+deceitful one. And, therefore, after we have eaten a little, our
+stomach comes to us again; for the first morsel, having made clean
+the mouth of the stomach, doth provoke the appetite.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do physicians prescribe that we should not eat too much
+at a time, but little by little? A. Because when the stomach is
+full, the meat doth swim in it, which is a dangerous thing. Another
+reason is, that as very <!-- Page 424 --><a name='Page_424' id=
+"Page_424"></a> green wood doth put out the fire, so much meat
+chokes the natural heat and puts it out; and therefore the best
+physic is to use temperance in eating and drinking.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do we desire change of meals according to the change of
+times; as in winter, beef, mutton; in summer light meats, as veal,
+lamb, etc.? A. Because the complexion of the body is altered and
+changed according to the time of year. Another reason is, that this
+proceeds from the quality of the season: because the cold in winter
+doth cause a better digestion.</p>
+<p>Q. Why should not the meat we eat be as hot as pepper and
+ginger? A. Because as hot meat doth inflame the blood, and dispose
+it to a leprosy, so, on the contrary, meat too cold doth mortify
+and chill the blood. Our meat should not be over sharp, because it
+wastes the constitution; too much sauce doth burn the entrails, and
+inclineth to too often drinking; raw meat doth the same; and over
+sweet meats to constipate and cling the veins together.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it a good custom to eat cheese after dinner, and pears
+after all meat? A. Because, by reason of its earthliness and
+thickness it tendeth down towards the bottom of the stomach, and so
+put down the meat; and the like of pears. Note, that new cheese is
+<!-- Page 425 --><a name='Page_425' id="Page_425"></a> better than
+old, and that old soft cheese is very bad, and causeth the headache
+and stopping of the liver; and the older the worse. Whereof it is
+said that cheese digesteth all things but itself.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are nuts good after cheese, as the proverb is, "After
+fish nuts, and after flesh cheese?" A. Because fish is of hard
+digestion, and doth easily putrefy and corrupt; and nuts are a
+remedy against poison.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it unwholesome to wait long for one dish after
+another, and to eat of divers kinds of meat? A. Because the first
+begins to digest when the last is eaten, and so digestion is not
+equally made. But yet this rule is to be noted; dishes light of
+digestion, as chickens, kids, veal, soft eggs and such like, should
+be first eaten; because, if they should be first served and eaten
+and were digested, they would hinder the digestion of the others;
+and the light meats not digested would be corrupted in the stomach
+and kept in the stomach violently, whereof would follow belching,
+loathing, headache, bellyache and great thirst. It is very hurtful
+too, at the same meal to drink wine and milk, because they are
+productive of leprosy.</p>
+<p>Q. Whether is meat or drink best for the stomach? A. Drink is
+sooner digested than meat, because meat is of greater substance,
+<!-- Page 426 --><a name='Page_426' id="Page_426"></a> and more
+material than drink, and therefore meat is harder to digest.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it good to drink after dinner? A. Because the drink
+will make the meat readier to digest. The stomach is like unto a
+pot which doth boil meat, and therefore physicians do counsel to
+drink at meals.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it good to forbear a late supper? A. Because there is
+little moving or stirring after supper, and so the meat is not sent
+down to the bottom of the stomach, but remaineth undigested, and so
+breeds hurts; therefore a light supper is best.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Blood' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Blood"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Blood</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why is it necessary that every living creature that hath
+blood have also a liver? A. Because the blood is first made in the
+liver, its seat, being drawn from the stomach by certain principal
+veins, and so engendered.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the blood red? A. 1. It is like the part in which it
+is made, viz., the liver, which is red. 2. It is likewise sweet,
+because it is well digested and concocted; but if it hath a little
+earthly matter mixed with it, that makes it somewhat salt.</p>
+<p>Q. How is women's blood thicker than <!-- Page 427 --><a name=
+'Page_427' id="Page_427"></a> men's? Their coldness thickens,
+binds, congeals, and joins together.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes the blood to all parts of the body through the
+liver, and by what means? A. Through the principal veins, as the
+veins of the head, liver, etc., to nourish the body.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Urine' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Urine"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Urine</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. How doth the urine come into the bladder, seeing the bladder
+is shut? A. Some say sweatings; others, by a small skin in the
+bladder, which opens and lets in the urine. Urine is a certain and
+not deceitful messenger of the health or infirmity of man. Men make
+white urine in the morning, and before dinner red, but after dinner
+pale, and also after supper.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it hurtful to drink much cold water? A. Because one
+contrary doth hinder and expel another; water is very cold, and
+lying so in the stomach, doth hinder digestion.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it unwholesome to drink new wine? A. 1. It cannot be
+digested; therefore it causeth the belly to swell, and a kind of
+bloody flux. 2. It hinders making water.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do physicians forbid us to labour presently after dinner?
+A. 1. Because the motion hinders the virtue and power of digestion.
+<!-- Page 428 --><a name='Page_428' id="Page_428"></a> 2. Because
+stirring immediately after dinner causes the different parts of the
+body to draw the meat to them, which often breeds sickness. 3.
+Because motion makes the food descend before it is digested. And
+after supper it is good to walk a little, that the food may go to
+the bottom of the stomach.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it good to walk after dinner? A. Because it makes a
+man well disposed, and fortifies and strengthens the natural heat,
+causing the superfluity of the stomach to descend.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it wholesome to vomit? A. It purges the stomach of all
+naughty humours, expelling them, which would breed again if they
+should remain in it; and purges the eyes and head, clearing the
+brain.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes sleep to strengthen the stomach and the digestive
+faculty? A. Because in sleep the heat draws inwards, and helps
+digestion; but when we awake, the heat returns, and is dispersed
+through the body.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Gall_and_Spleen' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Gall_and_Spleen"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Gall and Spleen</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. How come living creatures to have a gall? A. Because choleric
+humours are received into it, which through their acidity helps
+<!-- Page 429 --><a name='Page_429' id="Page_429"></a> the guts to
+expel superfluities; also it helps digestion.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes the jaundice to proceed from the gall? A. The
+humour of the gall is bluish and yellow; therefore when its pores
+are stopped the humour cannot go into the sack thereof, but are
+mingled with the blood, wandering throughout all the body and
+infecting the skin.</p>
+<p>Q. Why hath a horse, mule, ass or cow a gall? A. Though these
+creatures have no gall in one place, as in a purse or vessel, yet
+they have one dispersed in small veins.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes the spleen to be black? A. It is occasioned by
+terrestrial and earthy matter of a black colour. According to
+physicians, the spleen is the receptacle of melancholy, and that is
+black.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is he lean who hath a large spleen? A. Because the spleen
+draws much water to itself, which would turn to fat; therefore, men
+that have a small spleen are fat.</p>
+<p>Q. Why does the spleen cause men to laugh, as says Isidorus; "We
+laugh with the spleen, we are angry with the gall, we are wise with
+the heart, we love with the liver, we feel with the brain, and
+speak with the lungs"? A. The reason is, the spleen draws much
+melancholy to it, being its proper seat, the which melancholy
+proceeds from sadness, and is there <!-- Page 430 --><a name=
+'Page_430' id="Page_430"></a> consumed; and the cause failing, the
+effect doth so likewise. And by the same reason the gall causes
+anger, for choleric men are often angry, because they have much
+gall.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Carnal_Copulation' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Carnal_Copulation"></a>
+<h3><i>Of Carnal Copulation</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why do living creatures use carnal copulation? A. Because it
+is most natural in them to get their like.</p>
+<p>Q. What is carnal copulation? A. It is a mutual action of male
+and female, with instruments ordained for that purpose to propagate
+their kind.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is this action good in those that use it lawfully and
+moderately? A. Because it eases and lightens the body, clears the
+mind, comforts the head and senses, and expels melancholy.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is immoderate carnal copulation hurtful? A. Because it
+destroys the sight, dries the body, and impairs the brain, often
+causes fevers and shortens life also.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth carnal copulation injure melancholic or choleric
+men, especially thin men? A. Because it dries the bones much which
+are naturally so. On the contrary, it is good for the phlegmatic
+and sanguine, because <!-- Page 431 --><a name='Page_431' id=
+"Page_431"></a> they abound with that substance which by nature, is
+necessarily expelled.</p>
+<p>Q. Why should not the act be used when the body is full? A.
+Because it hinders digestion; and it is not good for a hungry
+belly, because it weakens.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it not good soon after a bath? A. Because then the
+pores are open, and the heat dispersed through the body: for after
+bathing, it cools the body too much.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it not proper after vomiting or looseness? A. Because
+it is dangerous to purge twice a day; for in this act the veins are
+purged, and the guts by the vomit.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is there such delight in the act of venery? A. Because
+this act is such a contemptible thing in itself, that all creatures
+would naturally abhor it were there no pleasure in it; and
+therefore nature readily uses it, that all kinds of living things
+should be maintained and kept up.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do such as use it often take less delight in it than
+those who come to it seldom? A. 1. The passages of the seed are
+over large and wide; and therefore it makes no stay there, which
+would cause the delight. 2. Through often evacuation there is
+little seed left, and therefore no delight. 3. Because such,
+instead of seed there is cast out blood, <!-- Page 432 --><a name=
+'Page_432' id="Page_432"></a> undigested and raw, or some other
+watery substance, which is not hot, and therefore affords no
+delight.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Seed_of_Man_and_Beasts' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Seed_of_Man_and_Beasts"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Seed of Man and Beasts</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. How, and of what cometh the seed of man? A. Some philosophers
+and physicians say, it is superfluous humours; others say, that the
+seed is pure blood, flowing from the brain, concocted and whitened
+in the testicles; but sweat, urine, spittle, phlegm, choler, and
+the like, and blood dispersed throughout the whole body, come
+chiefly from the heart, liver and brain, because those parts are
+greatly weakened by casting seed; and therefore it appears that
+frequent carnal copulation is not good.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is a man's seed white, and a woman's red? A. It is white
+in men by reason of great heat and quick digestion, because it is
+rarefied in the testicles; but a woman's is red, because her terms
+corrupt the undigested blood, and it hath its colour.</p>
+<p>Q. How come females to have monthly courses? A. Because they are
+cold in respect of men, and because all their nourishment cannot be
+converted into blood, a great part <!-- Page 433 --><a name=
+'Page_433' id="Page_433"></a> of which turns to menses, which are
+monthly expelled.</p>
+<p>Q. For what reason do the menses not come down in females before
+the age of thirteen? A. Because young women are hot, and digest all
+their nourishment.</p>
+<p>Q. For what reason do they leave off at about fifty? A. Because
+nature is then so exhausted, they cannot expel them by reason of
+weakness.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have not breeding women the menses? A. Because that then
+they turn into milk, and into the nourishment of the child: for if
+a woman with child have them, it is a sign that she will
+miscarry.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are they termed <i>menstrua</i>, from the word
+<i>mensis</i>, a month? A. Because it is a space of time that
+measures the moon, as she ends her course in twenty-nine days, and
+fourteen hours.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do they continue longer with some than others, as with
+some six or seven, but commonly with all three days? A. The first
+are cold, therefore they increase most in them, and consequently
+are longer expelling; other women are hot, and therefore have fewer
+and are sooner expelled.</p>
+<p>Q. Are the menses which are expelled, and those by which the
+child is engendered, all one? <!-- Page 434 --><a name='Page_434'
+id="Page_434"></a> A. No, because the one are unclean, and unfit
+for that purpose; but the other very pure and clear, therefore the
+fittest for generation.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have not women their menses all one and the same time,
+but some in the new moon, some in the full, and others at the wane?
+A. From their several complexions, and though all women (in respect
+of men) are phlegmatic, yet some are more sanguine than others,
+some more choleric; and as the moon hath her quarters, so have
+women their complexions; the first sanguine, the second
+choleric.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do women easily conceive after their menses? A. Because
+the womb being cleansed, they are better prepared for
+conception.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do women look pale when they first have their menses upon
+them? A. Because the heat goes from the outward parts of the body
+to the inward, to help nature to expel their terms, which
+deprivation of heat doth cause a paleness in the face. Or, because
+that flux is caused of raw humours, which, when they run, make the
+face colourless.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do they at that time abhor their meat? A. Because nature
+labours more to expel their terms than digest; and, therefore, if
+they should eat, their food would remain raw in the stomach.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 435 --><a name='Page_435' id="Page_435"></a> Q. Why
+are some women barren and do not conceive? A. 1. It proceeds
+sometimes from the man who may be of a cold nature, so that his
+seed is unfit for generation. 2. Because it is waterish, and so
+doth not stay in the womb. 3. By reason that the seed of them both
+hath not a like proportion, as if the man be melancholy and the
+woman sanguine, or the man choleric and the woman phlegmatic.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do fat women seldom conceive? A. Because they have a
+slippery womb, and the seed will not stay in it. Or, because the
+mouth of the matrix is very strait, and the seed cannot enter it,
+or, if it does, it is so very slowly that it grows cold and unfit
+for generation.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do those of a hot constitution seldom conceive? A.
+Because the seed in them is extinguished or put out, as water cast
+into fire; whereof we find that women who vehemently desire the
+flesh seldom conceive.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are whores never with child? A. By reason of divers
+seeds, which corrupt and spoil the instruments of conception, for
+it makes them so slippery, that they cannot retain seed. Or, else,
+it is because one man's seed destroys another's, so neither is good
+for generation.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do women conceive twins? A. Because there are seven cells
+or receptacles in the womb; wherefore they may naturally have
+<!-- Page 436 --><a name='Page_436' id="Page_436"></a> so many
+children at once as there falls seed into these cells.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are twins but half men, and not so strong as others? A.
+The seed that should have been for one, is divided into two and
+therefore they are weakly and seldom live long.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Hermaphrodites' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Hermaphrodites"></a>
+<h3><i>Of Hermaphrodites</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. How are hermaphrodites begotten? A. Nature doth always tend
+to that which is best, and always intendeth to beget the male and
+not the female, because the female is only for the male's mate.
+Therefore the male is sometimes begotten in all its principal
+parts; and, yet, through the indisposition of the womb and object,
+and inequality of the seeds, when nature cannot perfect the male,
+she brings forth the female too. And therefore natural philosophers
+say, that an hermaphrodite is impotent in the privy parts of a man,
+as appears by experience.</p>
+<p>Q. Is an hermaphrodite accounted a man or a woman? A. It is to
+be considered in which member he is fittest for copulation; if he
+be fittest in the woman's, then he is a woman; if in a man's, then
+he is a man.</p>
+<p>Q. Should he be baptized in the name of a
+<!-- Page 437 --><a name='Page_437' id="Page_437"></a> man or a
+woman? A. In the name of a man, because names are given <i>ad
+placitum</i>, and therefore he should be baptized, according to the
+worthiest name, because every agent is worthier than its
+patient.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Monsters' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Monsters"></a>
+<h3><i>Of Monsters</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Doth nature make any monsters? A. She doth; if she did not,
+then would she be deprived of her end. For of things possible, she
+doth always propose to bring forth that which is most perfect and
+best; but in the end, through the evil disposition of the matter,
+not being able to bring forth that which she intended, she brings
+forth that which she can. As it happened in Albertus's time, when
+in a certain village, a cow brought forth a calf, half a man; then
+the countrymen suspecting a shepherd, would have burnt him with the
+cow; but Albertus, being skilled in astronomy, said that this did
+proceed from a certain constellation, and so delivered the shepherd
+from their hands.</p>
+<p>Q. Are they one or two? A. To find out, you must look into the
+heart, if there be two hearts, there be two men.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are some children like their father, some like their
+mother, some to both and some <!-- Page 438 --><a name='Page_438'
+id="Page_438"></a> to neither? A. If the seed of the father wholly
+overcome that of the mother the child doth resemble the father; but
+if the mother's predominate, then it is like the mother; but if he
+be like neither, that doth sometimes happen through the four
+qualities, sometimes through the influence of some heavenly
+constellation.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are children oftener like the father than the mother? A.
+It proceeds from the imagination of the mother in the act of
+copulation, as appeared in a queen who had her imagination on a
+blackamoor; and in the Ethiopian queen who brought forth a white
+child, because her imagination was upon a white colour; as is seen
+in Jacob's skill in casting rods of divers colours into the water,
+when his sheep went to ram.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do children born in the eighth month for the most part
+die quickly, and why are they called the children of the moon? A.
+Because the moon is a cold planet, which has dominion over the
+child, and therefore doth bind it with coldness, which is the cause
+of its death.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth a child cry as soon as it is born? A. Because of the
+sudden change from heat to cold: which cold doth affect its
+tenderness. Another reason is, because the child's soft and tender
+body is wringed and put together coming <!-- Page 439 --><a name=
+'Page_439' id="Page_439"></a> out of the narrow and strait passage
+of the matrix, and especially, the brain being moist, and the head
+being pressed and wrinkled together, is the cause that some humours
+distil by the eyes, which are the cause of tears and weeping.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the child put its fingers into its mouth as soon as
+it cometh into the world? A. Because that coming out of the womb it
+cometh out of a hot bath, and entering into the cold, puts them
+into its mouth for want of heat.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Child_in_the_Womb' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_the_Child_in_the_Womb"></a>
+<h3><i>Of the Child in the Womb</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. How is the child engendered in the womb? A. The first six
+days the seed hath this colour of milk, but in the six following a
+red colour, which is near unto the disposition of the flesh; and
+then it is changed into a thick substance of blood. But in the
+twelve days following, this substance becomes so thick and round
+that it is capable of receiving shape and form.</p>
+<p>Q. Doth the child in the womb void excrements or make water? No.
+Because it hath not the first digestion which is in the stomach. It
+receives no food by the mouth, but by the navel; therefore, makes
+no urine but sweats, <!-- Page 440 --><a name='Page_440' id=
+"Page_440"></a> which is but little, and is received in a skin in
+the matrix, which at the birth is cast out.</p>
+<br />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Abortion_and_Untimely_Birth' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Abortion_and_Untimely_Birth"></a>
+<h3><i>Of Abortion and Untimely Birth</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why do women that eat unwholesome meats, easily miscarry? A.
+Because they breed putrefied seed, which the mind abhorring doth
+cast it out of the womb as unfit for the shape which is adapted to
+receive the soul.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth wrestling and leaping cause the casting of the
+child, as some subtle women do on purpose? A. The vapour is
+burning, and doth easily hurt the tender substance of the child,
+entering in at the pores of the matrix.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth much joy cause a woman to miscarry? A. Because in
+the time of joy, a woman is destitute of heat, and so a miscarriage
+doth follow.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do women easily miscarry when they are first with child,
+viz., the first, second or third month? A. As apples and pears
+easily fall at first, because the knots and ligaments are weak, so
+it is with a child in the womb.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is it hard to miscarry in the third, fourth, fifth and
+sixth month? A. Because the ligaments are stronger and well
+fortified.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><!-- Page 441 --><a name='Page_441' id="Page_441"></a> <a name=
+'BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Divers_Matters' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_Of_Divers_Matters"></a> <i>Of Divers
+Matters</i>.</h3>
+<p>Q. Why has not a man a tail like a beast? A. Because man is a
+noble creature, whose property is to sit; which a beast, having a
+tail, cannot.</p>
+<p>Q. Why does hot water freeze sooner than cold? A. Hot water is
+thinner, and gives better entrance to the frost.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is every living creature dull after copulation? A. By
+reason that the act is filthy and unclean; and so every living
+creature abhors it. When men do think upon it, they are ashamed and
+sad.</p>
+<p>Q. Why cannot drunken men judge of taste as well as sober men?
+A. Because the tongue, being full of pores and spongy, receives
+more moisture into it, and more in drunken men than in sober;
+therefore, the tongue, through often drinking, is full of bad
+humours, and so the faculty of tasting is rendered out of order;
+also, through the thickening of the taste itself, drink taken by
+drunkards is not presently felt. And by this may also be understood
+why drunkards have not a perfect speech.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have melancholy beasts long ears? A. The ears proceed
+from a dry and cold substance, called gristle, which is apt to
+become bone; and because melancholy beasts do
+<!-- Page 442 --><a name='Page_442' id="Page_442"></a> abound with
+this kind of substance, they have long ears.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do hares sleep with their eyes open? A. 1. They have
+their eyes standing out, and their eyelids short, therefore, never
+quite shut. 2. They are timorous, and as a safe-guard to
+themselves, sleep with their eyes open.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do not crows feed their young till they be nine days old?
+A. Because seeing them of another colour, they think they are of
+another kind.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are sheep and pigeons mild? A. They want galls, the cause
+of anger.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have birds their stones inward? A. Because if outward,
+they would hinder their flying and lightness.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes it that birds do not piss? A. Because that
+superfluity which would be converted into urine, is turned into
+feathers.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do we hear better in the night than by day? A. Because
+there is a greater quietness in the night than in the day, for the
+sun doth not exhale the vapours by night, but it doth in the day,
+therefore the moon is more fit than in the day; and the moon being
+fit, the motion is better received, which is said to be caused by a
+sound.</p>
+<p>Q. For what reason doth a man laugh sooner
+<!-- Page 443 --><a name='Page_443' id="Page_443"></a> when touched
+in the armpits than in any other part of the body? A. Because there
+is in that place a meeting of many sinews, and the mean we touch,
+which is the flesh, is more subtle than in other parts, and
+therefore of finer feeling. When a man is moderately and gently
+touched there the spirits that are dispersed run into the face and
+causes laughter.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do some women love white men and some black men? A. 1.
+Some have weak sight, and such delight in black, because white doth
+hurt the sight more than black. 2. Because like delight in like;
+but some women are of a hot nature, and such are delighted with
+black, because blackness followeth heat; and others are of a cold
+nature, and those are delighted with white, because cold produces
+white.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do men incline to sleep after labour? A. Because, through
+continual moving, the heat is dispersed to the external parts of
+the body, which, after labour, is gathered together in the internal
+parts, there to digest; and from digestion, vapours arise from the
+heart to the brain, which stop the passage by which the natural
+heat should be dispersed to the external part; and then, the
+external parts being cold and thick, by reason of the coldness of
+the brain sleep is easily procured. By this it appeareth
+<!-- Page 444 --><a name='Page_444' id="Page_444"></a> that such as
+eat and drink too much, do sleep much and long, because there are
+great store of humours and vapours bred in such persons which
+cannot be consumed and digested by the natural heat.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are such as sleep much, evil disposed and ill-coloured?
+A. Because in too much sleep moisture is gathered together, which
+cannot be consumed, and so it doth covet to go out through the
+superficial parts of the body, and especially it resorts to the
+face, and therefore is the cause of bad colours, as appeareth in
+such as are phlegmatic and who desire more sleep than others.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do some imagine in their sleep that they eat and drink
+sweet things? A. Because the phlegm drawn up by the jaws doth
+distil and drop to the throat; and this phlegm is sweet after a
+sore sweat, and that seemeth so to them.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do some dream in their sleep that they are in the water
+and drowned, and some that they were in the water and not drowned;
+especially such as are phlegmatic? A. Because when the phlegmatic
+substance doth turn to the high parts of the body, then many think
+they are in the water and drowned; but when that substance draweth
+into the internal parts, then they think they escape. Another
+<!-- Page 445 --><a name='Page_445' id="Page_445"></a> reason may
+be, overmuch repletion and drunkenness: and therefore, when men are
+overmuch filled with meat, the fumes and vapours ascend and gather
+together, and they think they are drowned and strangled; but if
+they cannot ascend so high then they seem to escape.</p>
+<p>Q. May a man procure a dream by an external cause? A. It may be
+done. If a man speak softly in another man's ear and awake him not,
+then of his stirring of the spirits there are thunderings and
+buzzings in the head, which cause dreamings.</p>
+<p>Q. How many humours are there in a man's body? A. Four, whereof
+every one hath its proper place. The first is choler, called by
+physicians <i>flava bilis</i>, which is placed in the liver. The
+second is melancholy, called <i>atra bilis</i>, whose seat is in
+the spleen. The third is phlegm, whose place is in the head. The
+fourth is blood, whose place is in the heart.</p>
+<p>Q. What condition and quality hath a man of a sanguine
+complexion? A. It is fair and beautiful; hath his hair for the most
+part smooth; is bold; retaineth that which he hath conceived; is
+shame-faced, given to music, a lover of sciences, liberal,
+courteous, and not desirous of revenge.</p>
+<p>Q. What properties do follow those of a phlegmatic complexion?
+A. They are dull <!-- Page 446 --><a name='Page_446' id=
+"Page_446"></a> of wit, their hair never curls, they are seldom
+very thirsty, much given to sleep, dream of things belonging to
+water, are fearful, covetous, given to heap up riches, and are weak
+in the act of venery.</p>
+<p>Q. What are the properties of a choleric man? A. He is brown in
+complexion, unquiet, his veins hidden, eateth little and digesteth
+less, dreameth of dark and confused things, is sad, fearful,
+exceedingly covetous, and incontinent.</p>
+<p>Q. What dreams do follow these complexions? A. Pleasant, merry
+dreams do follow the sanguine; fearful dreams, the melancholic; the
+choleric dream of children fighting and fire; the phlegmatic dream
+of water. This is the reason why a man's complexion is said to be
+known by his dreams.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the reason that if you cover an egg over with salt,
+and let it lie in it a few days, all the meat within is consumed?
+A. A great dryness of the salt consumes the substance of the
+egg.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the melancholic complexion the worst? A. Because it
+proceeds from the dregs of the blood, is an enemy to mirth and
+bringeth on aged appearance and death, being cold and dry.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the cause that some men die <!-- Page 447 --><a name=
+'Page_447' id="Page_447"></a> joyful, and some in extreme grief? A.
+Over-great joy doth overmuch heat the internal parts of the body;
+and overmuch grief doth drown and suffocate the heart, which
+failing, a man dieth.</p>
+<p>Q. Why hath a man so much hair on his head? A. The hair on his
+head proceeds from the vapours which arise from the stomach, and
+ascend to the head, and also of the superfluities which are in the
+brain; and those two passing through the pores of the head are
+converted into hair, by reason of the heat and dryness of the head.
+And because man's body is full of humours, and he hath more brains
+than any other living creatures.</p>
+<p>Q. How many ways is the brain purged and other hidden places of
+the body? A. Four; the watery and gross humours are purged by the
+eyes, melancholy by the ears, choler by the nose, and phlegm by the
+hair.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the reason that such as are very fat in their youth,
+are in danger of dying on a sudden? A. Such have very small and
+close veins, by reason of their fatness, so that the air and the
+breath can hardly have free course in them; and thereupon the
+natural heat wanting the refreshment of air, is put out, and as it
+were, quenched.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do garlic and onions grow after <!-- Page 448 --><a name=
+'Page_448' id="Page_448"></a> they are gathered? A. It proceedeth
+from the humidity that is in them.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do men feel cold sooner than women? A. Because men, being
+more hot than women, have their pores more open, and therefore it
+doth sooner enter into them than women.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are not old men so subject to the plague as young men and
+children? A. They are cold, and their pores are not so open as in
+youth; and therefore the infecting air doth not penetrate so soon
+by reason of their coldness.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do we cast water in a man's face when he swooneth? A.
+Because through the coldness of water the heat may run to the
+heart, and so give strength.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are those waters best and most delicate which run towards
+the rising sun? A. Because they are soonest stricken with the
+sunbeams, and made pure and subtle, the sun having them under it,
+and by that means taking off the coldness and gross vapours which
+they gather from the ground they run through.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have women such weak and small voices? A. Because their
+instruments and organs of speaking, by reason of their coldness,
+are small and narrow; and therefore, receiving but little air,
+cause the voice to be effeminate.</p>
+<p>Q. Whereof doth it proceed that want of
+<!-- Page 449 --><a name='Page_449' id="Page_449"></a> sleep doth
+weaken the brain and body? A. Much watching doth engender choler,
+the which being hot both dry up and lessen the humours which serve
+the brain, the head, and other parts of the body.</p>
+<p>Q. Wherefore doth vinegar so readily staunch blood? A. From its
+cold virtue, for all cold is naturally binding, and vinegar being
+cold, hath the like property.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is sea-water salter in summer than in winter? A. From the
+heat of the sun, seeing by experiment that a salt thing being
+heated becometh more salt.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do men live longer in hot regions than in cold? A.
+Because they may be more dry, and by that means the natural heat is
+better preserved in them than in cold countries.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is well-water seldom or ever good? A. All water which
+standeth still in the spring and is never heated by the sunbeams,
+is very heavy, and hath much matter in it, and therefore wanting
+the heat of the sun, is naught.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do men sleep better and more at ease on the right side
+than on the left? A. Because when they be on the left side, the
+lungs do lie upon and cover the heart, which is on that side under
+the pap; now the heart, the fountain of life, being thus occupied
+and hindered with the lungs, cannot exercise its own
+<!-- Page 450 --><a name='Page_450' id="Page_450"></a> proper
+operation, as being overmuch heated with the lungs lying upon it,
+and therefore wanting the refreshment of the air which the lungs do
+give it, like the blowing of a pair of bellows, is choked and
+suffocated, but by lying on the right side, those inconveniences
+are avoided.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the reason that old men sneeze with great difficulty?
+A. Because that through their coldness their arteries are very
+narrow and close, and therefore the heat is not of force to expel
+the cold.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth a drunken man think that all things about him do
+turn round? A. Because the spirits which serve the sight are
+mingled with vapours and fumes, arising from the liquors he has
+drunk; the overmuch heat causeth the eye to be in continual motion,
+and the eye being round, causeth all things about it to seem to go
+round.</p>
+<p>Q. Wherefore doth it proceed, that bread which is made with salt
+is lighter than that which is made without it, considering that
+salt is very heavy of itself? A. Although bread is very heavy of
+itself, yet the salt dries it and makes it light, by reason of the
+heat which it hath; and the more heat there is in it, the better
+the bread is, and the lighter and more wholesome for the body.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 451 --><a name='Page_451' id="Page_451"></a> Q. Why is
+not new bread good for the stomach? A. Because it is full of
+moistness, and thick, hot vapours, which do corrupt the blood, and
+hot bread is blacker than cold, because heat is the mother of
+blackness, and because the vapours are not gone out of it.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do lettuces make a man sleep? A. Because they engender
+gross vapours.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do the dregs of wine and oil go to the bottom, and those
+of honey swim uppermost? A. Because the dregs of wine and oil are
+earthly, and therefore go to the bottom; but honey is a liquid that
+cometh from the stomach and belly of the bee; and is there in some
+sort putrefied and made subtle; on which account the dregs are most
+light and hot, and therefore go uppermost.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do cats' and wolves' eyes shine in the night, and not in
+the day? A. The eyes of these beasts are by nature more crystalline
+than the eyes of other beasts, and therefore do so shine in
+darkness; but the brightness of the sun doth hinder them from being
+seen in the day-time.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the reason that some men, if they see others dance,
+do the like with their hands and feet, or by other gestures of the
+body? A. Because the sight having carried and represented unto the
+mind that action, and judging <!-- Page 452 --><a name='Page_452'
+id="Page_452"></a> the same to be pleasant and delightful, and
+therefore the imagination draweth the like of it in conceit and
+stirs up the body by the gestures.</p>
+<p>Q. Why does much sleep cause some to grow fat and some lean? A.
+Those who are of ill complexion, when they sleep, do consume and
+digest the superfluities of what they have eaten, and therefore
+become fat. But such as are of good complexion, when they sleep are
+more cold, and digest less.</p>
+<p>Q. How much, and from what cause do we suffer hunger better than
+thirst? A. When the stomach hath nothing else to consume, it
+consumeth the phlegm and humours which it findeth most ready and
+most at hand; and therefore we suffer hunger better than thirst,
+because the heat hath nothing to refresh itself with.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the hair fall after a great sickness? A. Where the
+sickness is long, as in the ague, the humours of the head are dried
+up through overmuch heat, and, therefore, wanting nourishment, the
+hair falls.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the hair of the eyebrows grow long in old men? A.
+Because through their age the bones are thin through want of heat,
+and therefore the hair doth grow there, by reason of the rheum of
+the eye.</p>
+<p>Q. Whereof proceedeth gaping? A. Of <!-- Page 453 --><a name=
+'Page_453' id="Page_453"></a> gross vapours, which occupy the vital
+spirits of the head, and of the coldness of the senses causing
+sleepiness.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the reason that some flowers do open with the sun
+rising, and shut with the sun setting? A. Cold doth close and shut,
+as hath been said, but the heat of the sun doth open and enlarge.
+Some compare the sun to the soul of the body; for as the soul
+giveth life, so the sun doth give life, and vivificate all things;
+but cold bringeth death, withering and decaying all things.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth grief cause men to grow old and grey? A. Age is
+nothing else but dryness and want of humours in the body; grief
+then causeth alteration, and heat dryness; age and greyness follow
+immediately.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are gelded beasts weaker than such as are not gelded? A.
+Because they have less heat, and by that means less force and
+strength.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_MARCUS_ANTONINUS_SANCTIPERTIAS' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_MARCUS_ANTONINUS_SANCTIPERTIAS"></a>
+<!-- Page 454 --><a name='Page_454' id="Page_454"></a>
+<h2>THE PROBLEMS OF<br />
+MARCUS ANTONINUS SANCTIPERTIAS</h2>
+<br />
+<p>Q. Why is it esteemed, in the judgment of the most wise, the
+hardest thing to know a man's self? A. Because nothing can be known
+that is of so great importance to man for the regulation of his
+conduct in life. Without this knowledge, man is like the ship
+without either compass or rudder to conduct her to port, and is
+tossed by every passion and prejudice to which his natural
+constitution is subjected. To know the form and perfection of man's
+self, according to the philosophers, is a task too hard; and a man,
+says Plato, is nothing, or if he be anything, he is nothing, but
+his soul.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is a man, though endowed with reason, the most unjust of
+all living creatures? A. Because only man is desirous of honour;
+and so it happens that every one covets to seem
+<!-- Page 455 --><a name='Page_455' id="Page_455"></a> good, and
+yet naturally shuns labour, though he attain no virtue by it.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth immoderate copulation do more hurt than immoderate
+letting of blood? A. The seed is full of nutriment, and better
+prepared for the nurture of the body, than the blood; for the blood
+is nourished by the seed.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the reason that those that have long yards cannot
+beget children? A. The seed, in going a long distance, doth lose
+the spirit, and therefore becomes cold and unfit.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do such as are corpulent cast forth but little seed in
+the act of copulation, and are often barren? A. Because the seed of
+such goeth to nourish the body. For the same reason corpulent women
+have but few menses.</p>
+<p>Q. How come women to be prone to venery in the summer time and
+men in the winter? A. In summer the man's testicles hang down and
+are feebler than in winter, or because hot natures become more
+lively in the cold season; for a man is hot and dry, and a woman
+cold and moist; and therefore in summer the strength of men decays,
+and that of women increases, and they grow livelier by the benefit
+of the contrary quality.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is man the proudest of all living creatures? A. By reason
+of his great knowledge; or, as philosophers say, all intelligent
+<!-- Page 456 --><a name='Page_456' id="Page_456"></a> beings
+having understanding, nothing remains that escapes man's knowledge
+in particular; or it is because he hath rule over all earthly
+creatures, and all things seem to be brought under his
+dominion.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have beasts their hearts in the middle of their breasts,
+and man his inclining to the left? A. To moderate the cold on that
+side.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the woman love the man best who has got her
+maidenhead? A. By reason of shame-facedness; Plato saith,
+shame-facedness doth follow love, or, because it is the beginning
+of great pleasure, which doth bring a great alteration in the whole
+body, whereby the powers of the mind are much delighted, and stick
+and rest immoveable in the same.</p>
+<p>Q. How come hairy people to be more lustful than any other? A.
+Because they are said to have greater store of excrements and seed
+as philosophers assert.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the cause that the suffocation of the matrix, which
+happens to women through strife and contention, is more dangerous
+than the detaining of the flowers? A. Because the more perfect an
+excrement is in its natural disposition, the worse it is when it is
+altered from that disposition, and drawn to the contrary quality;
+as is seen in vinegar, which is <!-- Page 457 --><a name='Page_457'
+id="Page_457"></a> sharpest when it is made of the best wine. And
+so it happens that the more men love one another the more they fall
+into variance and discord.</p>
+<p>Q. How come women's bodies to be looser, softer and less than
+man's; and why do they want hair? A. By reason of their menses; for
+with them their superfluities go away, which would produce hair;
+and thereby the flesh is filled, consequently the veins are more
+hid in women than in men.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the reason that when we think upon a horrible thing,
+we are stricken with fear? A. Because the conceit or imagination of
+things has force and virtue. For Plato saith, the fancy of things
+has some affinity with things themselves; for the image and
+representation of cold and heat is such as the nature of things
+are. Or it is this, because when we comprehend any dreadful matter,
+the blood runneth to the internal parts; and therefore the external
+parts are cold and shake with fear.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth a radish root help digestion and yet itself
+remaineth undigested? A. Because the substance consisteth of divers
+parts; for there are some thin parts in it, which are fit to digest
+meat, the which being dissolved, there doth remain some thick and
+close substance in it, which the heat cannot digest.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 458 --><a name='Page_458' id="Page_458"></a> Q. Why do
+such as cleave wood, cleave it easier in the length than athwart?
+A. Because in the wood there is a grain, whereby, if it be cut in
+length, in the very cutting, one part naturally separateth from
+another.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the reason, that if a spear be stricken on the end,
+the sound cometh sooner to one who standeth near, than to him who
+striketh? A. Because, as hath been said, there is a certain long
+grain in wood, directly forward, filled with air, but on the other
+side there is none, and therefore a beam or spear being stricken on
+the end, the air which is hidden receiveth a sound in the aforesaid
+grain which serveth for its passage; and, seeing the sound cannot
+go easily out of it is carried into the ear of him who is opposite;
+as those passages do not go from side to side, a sound cannot be
+distinctly heard there.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the thighs and calves of the legs of men flesh,
+seeing the legs of beasts are not so? A. Because men only go
+upright; and therefore nature hath given the lower parts
+corpulency, and taken it away from the upper; and thus she hath
+made the buttocks, the thighs, and calves of the legs fleshy.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are the sensible powers in the heart; yet if the hinder
+part of the brain be hurt, the memory suffereth by it; if the
+forepart, the <!-- Page 459 --><a name='Page_459' id=
+"Page_459"></a> imagination; if the middle, the cogitative part? A.
+It is because the brain is appointed by nature to cool the blood of
+the heart; whereof it is, that in divers of its parts it serveth
+the powers and instruments with their heart, for every action of
+the soul doth not proceed from one measure of heat.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_ALEXANDER_APHRODISEUS' id=
+"BOOK_OF_PROBLEMS_ALEXANDER_APHRODISEUS"></a>
+<h2>THE PROBLEMS OF<br />
+ALEXANDER APHRODISEUS</h2>
+<br />
+<p>Q. Why doth the sun make a man black and dirt white, wax soft
+and dirt hard? A. By reason of the disposition of the substance
+that doth suffer. All humours, phlegm excepted, when heated above
+measure, do seem black about the skin; and dirt, being full either
+of <!-- Page 460 --><a name='Page_460' id="Page_460"></a>
+saltpetre, or salt liquor, when the sun hath consumed its dregs and
+filth, doth become white again. When the sun hath stirred up and
+drawn the humidity of the wax, it is softened; but in the dirt, the
+sun doth consume the humidity, which is very much and makes it
+hard.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are round ulcers hard to be cured? A. Because they are
+bred of a sharp choler, which eats and gnaws; and because it doth
+run, dropping and gnawing, it makes a round ulcer; for which reason
+it requires dry medicines, as physicians assert.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is honey sweet to all men, but to such as have jaundice?
+A. Because they have much bitter choler all over their bodies,
+which abounds in the tongue; whence it happens when they eat honey
+the humours are stirred, and the taste itself, by the bitterness of
+choler, causes an imagination that the honey is bitter.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth water cast on serpents, cause them to fly? A.
+Because they are dry and cold by nature, having but little blood,
+and therefore fly from excessive coldness.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth an egg break if roasted, and not if boiled? A. When
+moisture comes near the fire, it is heated very much, and so breeds
+wind, which being put up in little room, forces its way out, and
+breaks the shell: the like <!-- Page 461 --><a name='Page_461' id=
+"Page_461"></a> happens in tubs or earthen vessels when new wine is
+put into them; too much phlegm breaks the shell of an egg in
+roasting; it is the same with earthen pots too much heated;
+wherefore some people wet an egg when they intend to roast it. Hot
+water, by its softness, doth dissipate its humidity by little and
+little, and dissolves it through the thinness and passages of the
+shell.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do men wink in the act of copulation, and find a little
+alteration in all other senses? A. Because, being overcome by the
+effect of that pleasure, they do comprehend it the better.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have children gravel breeding in their bladders, and old
+men in their kidneys and veins? A. Because children have straight
+passages in their kidneys, and an earthly thick humour is thrust
+with violence by the urine to the bladder, which hath wide conduits
+or passages, that give room for the urine and humour whereof gravel
+is engendered, which waxes thick, and seats itself, as the manner
+of it is. In old men it is the reverse, for they have wide passages
+of the veins, back and kidneys, that the urine may pass away, and
+the earthly humour congeal and sink down; the colour of the gravel
+shows the humour whereof the stone comes.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 462 --><a name='Page_462' id="Page_462"></a> Q. Why is
+it, if the stone do congeal and wax hard through heat, we use not
+contrary things to dissolve it by coldness, but light things, as
+parsley, fennel and the like? A. It is thought, to fall out by an
+excessive scorching heat, by which the stones do crumble into sand,
+as in the manner of earthen vessels, which, when they are
+overheated or roasted, turn to sand. And by this means it happens
+that small stones are avoided, together with sand, in making water.
+Sometimes cold drink thrusts out the stone, the kidneys being
+stretched and casting it out by a great effort; thus easing the
+belly of its burden. Besides, it often happens that immoderate heat
+of the kidneys, or of the veins of the back (through which the
+stone doth grow) is quenched with coldness.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is the curing of an ulcer or bile in the kidneys or
+bladder very hard? A. Because the urine being sharp, doth ulcerate
+the sore. Ulcers are worse to cure in the bladder than in the
+kidneys, because urine stays in the former, but runs away from the
+latter.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do chaff and straw keep water hot, but make snow cold? A.
+Because the nature of chaff wants a manifest quantity; seeing,
+therefore that of its own nature, it can easily be mingled, and
+consumed by that which it is annexed onto, it easily assumes the
+same nature, <!-- Page 463 --><a name='Page_463' id="Page_463"></a>
+and being put into hot things, it is easily hot, heats again, and
+keeps hot; and on the contrary, being made cold by the snow, and
+making the snow cold it keeps in its coldness.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have we oftentimes a pain in making water? A. Because
+sharp choler issuing out, and pricking the bladder of the urine,
+doth provoke and stir up the whole body to ease the part offended,
+and to expel the humour moderately. This doth happen most of all
+unto children, because they have moist excrements by reason of
+their often drinking.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have some medicines of one kind contrary effects, as
+experience proves; for mastich doth expel, dissolve and also knit;
+and vinegar cools and heats? A. Because there are some small
+invisible bodies in them, not in confusion, but by interposition;
+as sand moistened doth clog together and seem to be but one body,
+though indeed there are many small bodies in sand. And since this
+is so, it is not absurd that the contrary qualities and virtues
+should be hidden in mastich, and that nature hath given that virtue
+to these bodies.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do nurses rock and move their children when they would
+rock them to sleep? A. To the end that the humours being scattered
+by moving, may move the brains; but those of more years cannot
+endure this.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 464 --><a name='Page_464' id="Page_464"></a> Q. Why
+doth oil, being drunk, cause one to vomit, and especially yellow
+choler? A. Because being light, and ascending upwards it provoketh
+the nutriment in the stomach, and lifteth it up; and so, the
+stomach being grieved, summoneth the ejective virtue to vomit, and
+especially choler, because that is light and consisteth of subtle
+parts, and therefore the sooner carried upward; for when it is
+mingled with any moist thing, it runneth into the highest room.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth not oil mingle with moist things? A. Because, being
+pliant, soft and thick in itself, it cannot be divided into parts,
+and so cannot be mingled; neither if it be put on the earth can it
+enter into it.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are water and oil frozen in cold weather, and wine and
+vinegar not? A. Because that oil being without quality, and fit to
+be compounded with anything, is cold quickly and so extremely that
+it is most cold. Water being cold of nature, doth easily freeze
+when it is made colder than its own nature. Wine being hot, and of
+subtle parts, suffereth no freezing.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do contrary things in quality bring forth the same
+effect? A. That which is moist is hardened and bound alike by heat
+and cold. Snow and liquid do freeze with cold; a
+<!-- Page 465 --><a name='Page_465' id="Page_465"></a> plaster and
+gravel in the bladder are made dry with heat. The effect indeed is
+the same, but by two divers actions; the heat doth consume and eat
+the abundance of moisture; but the cold stopping and shutting with
+its over much thickness, doth wring out the filthy humidity, like
+as a sponge wrung with the hand doth cast out the water which it
+hath in the pores and small passages.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth a shaking or quivering seize us oftentimes when any
+fearful matter doth happen, as a great noise or a crack made, the
+sudden downfall of water, or the fall of a large tree? A. Because
+that oftentimes the humours being digested and consumed by time and
+made thin and weak, all the heat vehemently, suddenly and sharply
+flying into the inward part of the body, consumeth the humours
+which cause the disease. So treacle hath this effect, and many such
+like, which are hot and dry when taken after connexion.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do steel glasses shine so clearly? A. Because they are
+lined in the inside with white lead, whose nature is shining, and
+being put to glass, which is lucid and transparent, doth shine much
+more; and casts its beams through its passages, and without the
+body of the glass; and by that means the glass is very shining and
+clear.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 466 --><a name='Page_466' id="Page_466"></a> Q. Why do
+we see ourselves in glasses and clear water? A. Because the quality
+of the sight, passing into the bright bodies by reflection, doth
+return again on the beam of the eyes, as the image of him who
+looketh on it.</p>
+<p>Q. What is the reason that if you cast a stone in standing water
+which is near the surface of the earth, it causes many circles, and
+not if the water be deep in the earth? A. Because the stone, with
+the vehemence of the cast, doth agitate the water in every part of
+it, until it come to the bottom; and if there be a very great
+vehemence in the throw, the circle is still greater, the stone
+going down to the bottom causing many circles. For, first of all,
+it doth divide the outermost and superficial parts of the water in
+many parts, and so, always going down to the bottom, again dividing
+the water, it maketh another circle, and this is done successively
+until the stone resteth; and because the vehemence of the stone is
+slackened, still as it goes down, of necessity the last circle is
+less than the first, because by that and also by its force the
+water is divided.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are such as are deaf by nature, dumb? A. Because they
+cannot speak and express that which they never hear. Some
+physicians do say, that there is one knitting and uniting of sinews
+belonging to the like disposition. <!-- Page 467 --><a name=
+'Page_467' id="Page_467"></a> But such as are dumb by accident are
+not deaf at all, for then there ariseth a local passion.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth itching arise when an ulcer doth wax whole and
+phlegm ceases? A. Because the part which is healed and made sound
+doth pursue the relic of the humours which remained there against
+nature, and which was the cause of the bile, and so going out
+through the skin, and dissolving itself, doth originally cause the
+itch.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes a man to sneeze oftener and more vehemently than a
+beast? A. Because he uses more meats and drinks, and of more
+different sorts, and that more than is requisite; the which, when
+he cannot digest as he would, he doth gather together much air and
+spirit, by reason of much humidity; the spirits then very subtle,
+ascending into the head, often force a man to void them, and so
+provoke sneezing. The noise caused thereby proceeds from a vehement
+spirit or breath passing through the conduit of the nostrils, as
+belching doth from the stomach or farting by the fundament, the
+voice by the throat, and a sound by the ear.</p>
+<p>Q. How come the hair and nails of dead people to grow? A.
+Because the flesh rotting, withering and falling away, that which
+was hidden about the root of the hair doth now
+<!-- Page 468 --><a name='Page_468' id="Page_468"></a> appear as
+growing. Some say that it grows indeed, because carcasses are
+dissolved in the beginning to many excrements and superfluities by
+putrefaction. These going out at the uppermost parts of the body by
+some passages, do increase the growth of the hair.</p>
+<p>Q. Why does not the hair of the feet soon grow grey? A. For this
+reason, because that through great motion they disperse and
+dissolve the superfluous phlegm that breeds greyness. The hair of
+the secrets grows very late, because of the place, and because that
+in carnal copulation it dissolves the phlegm also.</p>
+<p>Q. Why, if you put hot burnt barley upon a horse's sore, is the
+hair which grows upon the sore not white, but like the other hair?
+A. Because it hath the force of expelling; and doth drive away and
+dissolve the phlegm, as well as all other unprofitable matter that
+is gathered together through the weakness of the parts, or condity
+of the sore.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the hair never grow on an ulcer or bile? A. Because
+man hath a thick skin, as is seen by the thickness of his hair; and
+if the scar be thicker than the skin itself, it stops the passages
+from whence the hair should grow. Horses have thinner skins, as is
+plain by their hair; therefore all passages are not stopped in
+their wounds and sores; and after the excrements
+<!-- Page 469 --><a name='Page_469' id="Page_469"></a> which were
+gathered together have broken a passage through those small pores
+the hair doth grow.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is Fortune painted with a double forehead, the one side
+bald and the other hairy? A. The baldness signifies adversity, and
+hairiness prosperity, which we enjoy when it pleaseth her.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have some commended flattery? A. Because flattery setteth
+forth before our eyes what we ought to be, though not what we
+are.</p>
+<p>Q. Wherefore should virtue be painted girded? A. To show that
+virtuous men should not be slothful, but diligent and always in
+action.</p>
+<p>Q. Why did the ancients say it was better to fall into the hands
+of a raven than a flatterer? A. Because ravens do not eat us till
+we be dead, but flatterers devour us alive.</p>
+<p>Q. Why have choleric men beards before others? A. Because they
+are hot, and their pores large.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes it that such as have the hiccups do ease themselves
+by holding their breath? A. The breath retained doth heat the
+interior parts of the body, and the hiccups proceeds from cold.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes it that old men remember <!-- Page 470 --><a name=
+'Page_470' id="Page_470"></a> well what they have seen and done in
+their youth, and forget such things as they see and do in their old
+age? A. Things learned in youth take deep root and habitude in a
+person, but those learned in age are forgotten because the senses
+are then weakened.</p>
+<p>Q. What kind of covetousness is best? A. That of time when
+employed as it ought to be.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is our life compared to a play? A. Because the dishonest
+do occupy the place of the honest, and the worst sort the room of
+the good.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do dolphins, when they appear above the water, denote a
+storm or tempest approaching? A. Because at the beginning of a
+tempest there do arise from the bottom of the sea, certain hot
+exhalations and vapours which heat the dolphins, causing them to
+rise up for cold air.</p>
+<p>Q. Why did the Romans call Fabius Maximus the target of the
+people, and Marcellus the sword? A. Because the one adapted himself
+to the service of the commonwealth, and the other was very eager to
+revenge the injuries of his country; and yet they were in the
+senate joined together, because the gravity of the one would
+moderate the courage and boldness of the other.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth the shining of the moon hurt
+<!-- Page 471 --><a name='Page_471' id="Page_471"></a> the head? A.
+Because it moves the humours of the brain, and cannot afterwards
+dissolve them.</p>
+<p>Q. If water do not nourish, why do men drink it? A. Because
+water causeth the nutriment to spread through the body.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is sneezing good? A. Because it purgeth the brain as milk
+is purged by the cough.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is hot water lighter than cold? A. Because boiling water
+has less ventosity and is more light and subtle, the earthly and
+heavy substance being separated from it.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes marsh and pond water to be bad? A. By reason they
+are phlegmatic, and do corrupt in summer; the fineness of water is
+turned into vapours, and the earthiness doth remain.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are studious and learned men soonest bald? A. It proceeds
+from a weakness of the spirits, or because warmth of digestion
+cause phlegm to abound in them.</p>
+<p>Q. Why doth much watching make the brain feeble? A. Because it
+increases choler, which dries and extenuates the body.</p>
+<p>Q. Why are boys apt to change their voices about fourteen years
+of age? A. Because that then nature doth cause a great and sudden
+change of voice; experience proves this to
+<!-- Page 472 --><a name='Page_472' id="Page_472"></a> be true; for
+at that time we may see that women's paps do grow great, do hold
+and gather milk, and also those places that are above their hips,
+in which the young fruit would remain. Likewise men's breasts and
+shoulders, which then can bear great and heavy burdens; also their
+stones in which their seed may increase and abide, and in their
+privy members, to let out the seed with ease. Further all the body
+is made bigger and dilated, as the alteration and change of every
+part doth testify, and the harshness of the voice and hoarseness;
+for the rough artery, the wind pipe, being made wide in the
+beginning, and the exterior and outward part being unequal to the
+throat, the air going out the rough, unequal and uneven pipe doth
+then become unequal and sharp, and after, hoarse, something like
+unto the voice of a goat, wherefore it has its name called
+Bronchus. The same doth also happen to them unto whose rough artery
+distillation doth follow; it happens by reason of the drooping
+humidity that a slight small skin filled unequally causes the
+uneven going forth of the spirit and air. Understand, that the
+windpipe of goats is such by reason of the abundance of humidity.
+The like doth happen unto all such as nature hath given a rough
+artery, as unto cranes. After the age of fourteen they leave off
+that voice, because the <!-- Page 473 --><a name='Page_473' id=
+"Page_473"></a> artery is made wider and reacheth its natural
+evenness and quality.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do hard dens, hollow and high places, send back the
+likeness and sound of the voice? A. Because that in such places
+also by reflection do return back the image of a sound, for the
+voice doth beat the air, and the air the place, which the more it
+is beaten the more it doth bear, and therefore doth cause the more
+vehement sound of the voice; moist places, and as it were, soft,
+yielding to the stroke, and dissolving it, give no sound again; for
+according to the quantity of the stroke, the quality and quantity
+of the voice is given, which is called an echo. Some do idly fable
+that she is a goddess; some say that Pan was in love with her,
+which without doubt is false. He was some wise man, who did first
+desire to search out the cause of the voice, and as they who love,
+and cannot enjoy that love, are grieved, so in like manner was he
+very sorry until he found out the solution of that cause; as
+Endymion also, who first found out the course of the moon, watching
+all night, and observing her course, and searching her motion, did
+sleep in the daytime, and that she came to him when he was asleep,
+because she did give the philosopher the solution of the course
+herself. They say also that he was a shepherd, because that
+<!-- Page 474 --><a name='Page_474' id="Page_474"></a> in the
+desert and high places, he did mark the course of the moon. And
+they gave him also the pipe because that the high places are blown
+with wind, or else because he sought out the consonancy of figures.
+Prometheus also, being a wise man, sought the course of the star,
+which is called the eagle in the firmament, his nature and place;
+and when he was, as it were, wasted with the desire of learning,
+then at last he rested, when Hercules did resolve unto him all
+doubts with his wisdom.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do not swine cry when they are carried with their snouts
+upwards? A. Because that of all other beasts they bend more to the
+earth. They delight in filth, and that they seek, and therefore in
+the sudden change of their face, they be as it were strangers, and
+being amazed with so much light do keep that silence; some say the
+windpipe doth close together by reason of the straitness of it.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do swine delight in dirt? A. As physicians do say, they
+are naturally delighted with it, because they have a great liver,
+in which desire it, as Aristotle saith, the wideness of their snout
+is the case, for he that hath smelling which doth dissolve itself,
+and as it were strive with stench.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do many beasts when they see <!-- Page 475 --><a name=
+'Page_475' id="Page_475"></a> their friends, and a lion and a bull
+beat their sides when they are angry? A. Because they have the
+marrow of their backs reaching to the tail, which hath the force of
+motion in it, the imagination acknowledging that which is known to
+them, as it were with the hand, as happens to men, doth force them
+to move their tails. This doth manifestly show some secret force to
+be within them, which doth acknowledge what they ought. In the
+anger of lions and bulls, nature doth consent to the mind, and
+causeth it to be greatly moved, as men do sometimes when they are
+angry, beating their hands on other parts; when the mind cannot be
+revenged on that which doth hurt, it presently seeks out some other
+source, and cures the malady with a stroke or blow.</p>
+<p>Q. How come steel glasses to be better for the sight than any
+other kind? A. Because steel is hard, and doth present unto us more
+substantially the air that receiveth the light.</p>
+<p>Q. How doth love show its greater force by making the fool to
+become wise, or the wise to become a fool? A. In attributing wisdom
+to him that has it not; for it is harder to build than to pull
+down; and ordinarily love and folly are but an alteration of the
+mind.</p>
+<p>Q. How comes much labour and fatigue to
+<!-- Page 476 --><a name='Page_476' id="Page_476"></a> be bad for
+the sight? A. Because it dries the blood too much.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is goat's milk reckoned best for the stomach? A. Because
+it is thick, not slimy, and they feed on wood and boughs rather
+than on grass.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do grief and vexation bring grey hairs? A. Because they
+dry, which bringeth on greyness.</p>
+<p>Q. How come those to have most mercy who have the thickest
+blood? A. Because the blood which is fat and thick makes the
+spirits firm and constant, wherein consists the force of all
+creatures.</p>
+<p>Q. Whether it is hardest, to obtain a person's love, or to keep
+it when obtained? A. It is hardest to keep it, by reason of the
+inconstancy of man, who is quickly angry, and soon weary of a
+thing; hard to be gained and slippery to keep.</p>
+<p>Q. Why do serpents shun the herb rue? A. Because they are cold,
+dry and full of sinews, and that herb is of a contrary nature.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is a capon better to eat than a cock? A. Because a capon
+loses not his moisture by treading of the hens.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is our smell less in winter than in summer? A. Because
+the air is thick, and less moveable.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 477 --><a name='Page_477' id="Page_477"></a> Q. Why
+does hair burn so quickly? A. Because it is dry and cold.</p>
+<p>Q. Why is love compared to a labyrinth? A. Because the entry and
+coming in is easy, and the going out almost impossible or hard.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='PHSIOGNOMY' id="PHSIOGNOMY"></a> <!-- Page 479 --><a name=
+'Page_479' id="Page_479"></a> <!-- Page 478 --><a name='Page_478'
+id="Page_478"></a>
+<h1>PART IV<br />
+DISPLAYING THE SECRETS OF<br />
+NATURE<br />
+RELATING TO<br />
+PHYSIOGNOMY</h1>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_I' id="PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_I"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<br />
+<h3>SECTION 1.&mdash;<i>Of Physiognomy, showing what it is, and
+whence it is derived</i>.</h3>
+<p>Physiognomy is an ingenious science, or knowledge of nature, by
+which the inclinations and dispositions of every creature are
+understood, and because some of the members are uncompounded, and
+entire of themselves, as the tongue, the heart, etc., and some are
+of a mixed nature, <!-- Page 480 --><a name='Page_480' id=
+"Page_480"></a> as the eyes, the nose and others, we therefore say
+that there are signs which agree and live together, which inform a
+wise man how to make his judgment before he be too rash to deliver
+it to the world.</p>
+<p>Nor is it to be esteemed a foolish or idle art, seeing it is
+derived from the superior bodies; for there is no part of the face
+of man but what is under the peculiar influence or government, not
+only of the seven planets but also of the twelve signs of Zodiac;
+and the dispositions, vices, virtues and fatality, either of a man
+or woman are plainly foretold, if the person pretending to the
+knowledge thereof be an artist, which, that my readers may hereby
+attain it I shall set these things in a clearer light.</p>
+<p>The reader should remember that the forehead is governed by
+Mars; the right eye is under the domination of Sol; the left is
+ruled by the Moon; the right ear is under Jupiter; the left,
+Saturn, the rule of the nose is claimed by Venus, which, by the
+way, is one reason that in all unlawful venereal encounters, the
+nose is too subject to bear the scars that are gotten in those
+wars; and nimble Mercury, the significator of eloquence claims the
+dominion of the mouth, and that very justly.</p>
+<p>Thus have the seven planets divided the face among them, but not
+with so absolute a way <!-- Page 481 --><a name='Page_481' id=
+"Page_481"></a> but that the twelve signs of the Zodiac do also
+come in with a part (see the engraving) and therefore the sign
+Cancer presides in the upper part of the forehead, and Leo attends
+upon the right eyebrow, as Saggittarius does upon the right eye,
+and Libra upon the right ear, upon the left eyebrow you will find
+Aquarius; and Gemini and Aries taking care of the left ear; Taurus
+rules in the middle of the forehead, and Capricorn the chin;
+Scorpio takes upon him the protection of the nose; Virgo claims the
+precedence of the right cheek, Pisces the left. And thus the face
+of man is cantoned out amongst the signs and planets; which being
+carefully <!-- Page 482 --><a name='Page_482' id="Page_482"></a>
+attended to, will sufficiently inform the artist how to pass a
+judgment. For according to the sign or planet ruling so also is the
+judgment to be of the part ruled, which all those that have
+understanding know easily how to apply.</p>
+<center><img src='img/bw481.png' alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<p>In the judgment that is to be made from physiognomy, there is a
+great difference betwixt a man and a woman; the reason is, because
+in respect of the whole composition men more fully comprehend it
+than women do, as may evidently appear by the manner and method we
+shall give. Wherefore the judgments which we shall pass in every
+chapter do properly concern a man, as comprehending the whole
+species, and but improperly the woman, as being but a part thereof,
+and derived from the man, and therefore, whoever is called to give
+judgment on such a face, ought to be wary about all the lines and
+marks that belong to it, respect being also had to the sex, for
+when we behold a man whose face is like unto a woman's and we pass
+a judgment upon it, having diligently observed it, and not on the
+face only, but on other parts of the body, as hands, etc., in like
+manner we also behold the face of a woman, who in respect to her
+flesh and blood is like unto a man, and in the disposure also of
+the greatest part of the body. But does physiognomy give the same
+judgment on her, as it <!-- Page 483 --><a name='Page_483' id=
+"Page_483"></a> does of a man that is like unto her? By no means,
+but far otherwise, in regard that the conception of the woman is
+much different from that of a man, even in those respects which are
+said to be common. Now in those common respects two parts are
+attributed to a man, and a third part to a woman.</p>
+<p>Wherefore it being our intention to give you an exact account,
+according to the rule of physiognomy of all and every part of the
+members of the body, we will begin with the head, as it hath
+relation only to man and woman, and not to any other creature, that
+the work may be more obvious to every reader.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_II' id="PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_II"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Judgment of Physiognomy</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Hair that hangs down without curling, if it be of a fair
+complexion, thin and soft withal, signifies a man to be naturally
+faint-hearted, and of a weak body, but of a quiet and harmless
+disposition. Hair that is big, and thick and
+<!-- Page 484 --><a name='Page_484' id="Page_484"></a> short
+withal, denotes a man to be of a strong constitution, secure, bold,
+deceitful and for the most part, unquiet and vain, lusting after
+beauty, and more foolish than wise, though fortune may favour him.
+He whose hair is partly curled and partly hanging down, is commonly
+wise or a very great fool, or else as very a knave as he is a fool.
+He whose hair grows thick on his temples and his brow, one may
+certainly at first sight conclude that such a man is by nature
+simple, vain, luxurious, lustful, credulous, clownish in his speech
+and conversation and dull in his apprehension. He whose hair not
+only curls very much, but bushes out, and stands on end, if the
+hair be white or of a yellowish colour, he is by nature proud and
+bold, dull of apprehension, soon angry, and a lover of venery, and
+given to lying, malicious and ready to do any mischief. He whose
+hair arises in the corners of the temples, and is gross and rough
+withal, is a man highly conceited of himself, inclined to malice,
+but cunningly conceals it, is very courtly and a lover of new
+fashions. He who hath much hair, that is to say, whose hair is
+thick all over his head, is naturally vain and very luxurious, of a
+good digestion, easy of belief, and slow of performance, of a weak
+memory and for the most part unfortunate. He whose hair is of a
+reddish complexion, <!-- Page 485 --><a name='Page_485' id=
+"Page_485"></a> is for the most part, if not always, proud,
+deceitful, detracting and full of envy. He whose hair is
+extraordinarily fair, is for the most part a man fit for the most
+praiseworthy enterprises, a lover of honour, and much more inclined
+to do good than evil; laborious and careful to perform whatsoever
+is committed to his care, secret in carrying on any business, and
+fortunate. Hair of a yellowish colour shows a man to be good
+conditioned, and willing to do anything, fearful, shamefaced and
+weak of body, but strong in the abilities of the mind, and more apt
+to remember, than to avenge an injury. He whose hair is of a
+brownish colour, and curled not too much nor too little, is a
+well-disposed man, inclined to that which is good, a lover of
+peace, cleanliness and good manners. He whose hair turns grey or
+hoary in the time of his youth, is generally given to women, vain,
+false, unstable, and talkative. [Note. That whatever signification
+the hair has in men, it has the same in women also.]</p>
+<p>The forehead that riseth in a round, signifies a man liberally
+merry, of a good understanding, and generally inclined to virtue.
+He whose forehead is fleshy, and the bone of the brow jutting out,
+and without wrinkles, is a man much inclined to suits of law,
+contentious, vain, deceitful, and addicted to follow ill courses.
+<!-- Page 486 --><a name='Page_486' id="Page_486"></a> He whose
+forehead is very low and little, is of a good understanding,
+magnanimous, but extremely bold and confident, and a great
+pretender to love and honour. He whose forehead seems sharp, and
+pointed up in the corners of his temples, so that the bone seems to
+jut forth a little, is a man naturally weak and fickle, and weak in
+the intellectuals. He whose brow upon the temples is full of flesh,
+is a man of a great spirit, proud, watchful and of a gross
+understanding. He whose brow is full of wrinkles, and has as it
+were a seam coming down the middle of the forehead, so that a man
+may think he has two foreheads, is one that is of a great spirit, a
+great wit, void of deceit, and yet of a hard fortune. He who has a
+full, large forehead, and a little round withal, destitute of hair,
+or at least that has little on it is bold, malicious, full of
+choler and apt to transgress beyond all bounds, and yet of a good
+wit and very apprehensive. He whose forehead is long and high and
+jutting forth, and whose face is figured, almost sharp and peaked
+towards the chin, is one reasonably honest, but weak and simple,
+and of a hard fortune.</p>
+<p>Those eyebrows that are much arched, whether in man or woman,
+and which by frequent motion elevate themselves, show the person to
+be proud, high-spirited, vain-glorious, bold and
+<!-- Page 487 --><a name='Page_487' id="Page_487"></a> threatening,
+a lover of beauty, and indifferently inclined to either good or
+evil. He whose eyelids bend down when he speaks to another or when
+he looks upon him, and who has a kind of skulking look, is by
+nature a penurious wretch, close in all his actions, of a very few
+words, but full of malice in his heart. He whose eyebrows are
+thick, and have but little hair upon them, is but weak in his
+intellectuals, and too credulous, very sincere, sociable, and
+desirous of good company. He whose eyebrows are folded, and the
+hair thick and bending downwards, is one that is clownish and
+unlearned, heavy, suspicious, miserable, envious, and one that will
+cheat and cozen you if he can. He whose eyebrows have but short
+hair and of a whitish colour is fearful and very easy of belief,
+and apt to undertake anything. Those, on the other side, whose
+eyebrows are black, and the hair of them thin, will do nothing
+without great consideration, and are bold and confident of the
+performance of what they undertake; neither are they apt to believe
+anything without reason for so doing.</p>
+<p>If the space between the eyebrows be of more than the ordinary
+distance, it shows the person to be hard-hearted, envious, close,
+cunning, apprehensive, greedy of novelties, of a vain fortune,
+addicted to cruelty more than love. <!-- Page 488 --><a name=
+'Page_488' id="Page_488"></a> But those men whose eyebrows are at a
+lesser distance from each other, are for the most part of a dull
+understanding; yet subtle enough in their dealings, and of an
+uncommon boldness, which is often attended with great felicity; but
+that which is most commendable in them is, that they are most sure
+and constant in their friendship.</p>
+<p>Great and full eyes in either man or woman, show the person to
+be for the most part slothful, bold, envious, a bad concealer of
+secrets, miserable, vain, given to lying, and yet a bad memory,
+slow in invention, weak in his intellectuals, and yet very much
+conceited of that little knack of wisdom he thinks himself master
+of. He whose eyes are hollow in his head, and therefore discerns
+well at a great distance, is one that is suspicious, malicious,
+furious, perverse in his conversation, of an extraordinary memory,
+bold, cruel, and false, both in words and deeds, threatening,
+vicious, luxurious, proud, envious and treacherous; but he whose
+eyes are, as it were, starting out of his head, is a simple,
+foolish person, shameless, very fertile and easy to be persuaded
+either to vice or virtue. He who looks studiously and acutely, with
+his eyes and eyelids downwards, denotes thereby to be of a
+malicious nature, very treacherous, false, unfaithful, envious,
+miserable, impious towards <!-- Page 489 --><a name='Page_489' id=
+"Page_489"></a> God, and dishonest towards men. He whose eyes are
+small and conveniently round, is bashful and weak, very credulous,
+liberal to others, and even in his conversation. He whose eyes look
+asquint, is thereby denoted to be a deceitful person, unjust,
+envious, furious, a great liar, and as the effect of all that is
+miserable. He who hath a wandering eye and which is rolling up and
+down, is for the most part a vain, simple, deceitful, lustful,
+treacherous, or high-minded man, an admirer of the fair sex, and
+one easy to be persuaded to virtue or vice. He or she whose eyes
+are twinkling, and which move forward or backward, show the person
+to be luxurious, unfaithful and treacherous, presumptuous, and hard
+to believe anything that is spoken. If a person has any greenness
+mingled with the white of his eye, such is commonly silly, and
+often very false, vain and deceitful, unkind to his friends, a
+great concealer of his own secrets, and very choleric. Those whose
+eyes are every way rolling up and down, or they who seldom move
+their eyes, and when they do, as it were, draw their eyes inwardly
+and accurately fasten them upon some object, such are by their
+inclinations very malicious, vain-glorious, slothful, unfaithful,
+envious, false and contentious. They whose eyes are addicted to
+blood-shot, are naturally proud, disdainful,
+<!-- Page 490 --><a name='Page_490' id="Page_490"></a> cruel,
+without shame, perfidious and much inclined to superstition. But he
+whose eyes are neither too little nor too big, and inclined to
+black, do signify a man mild, peaceable, honest, witty, and of a
+good understanding; and one that, when need requires, will be
+serviceable to his friends.</p>
+<p>A long and thin nose, denotes a man bold, furious, angry, vain,
+easy to be persuaded either to good or evil, weak and credulous. A
+long nose extended, the tip of it bending downwards, shows the
+person to be wise, discreet, secret and officious, honest, faithful
+and one that will not be over-reached in bargaining.</p>
+<p>A bottle-nose is what denotes a man to be impetuous in the
+obtaining of his desires, also a vain, false, luxurious, weak and
+uncertain man; apt to believe and easy to be persuaded. A broad
+nose in the middle, and less towards the end, denotes a vain,
+talkative person, a liar, and one of hard fortune. He who hath a
+long and great nose is an admirer of the fair sex, and well
+accomplished for the wars of Venus, but ignorant of the knowledge
+of anything that is good, extremely addicted to vice; assiduous in
+the obtaining what he desires, and very secret in the prosecution
+of it; and though very ignorant, would fain be thought very
+knowing.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 491 --><a name='Page_491' id="Page_491"></a> A nose
+very sharp on the tip of it, and neither too long nor too short,
+too thick nor too thin, denotes the person, if a man, to be of a
+fretful disposition, always pining and peevish; and if a woman, a
+scold, or contentious, wedded to her own humours, of a morose and
+dogged carriage, and if married, a plague to her husband. A nose
+very round at the end of it, and having but little nostrils, shows
+the person to be munificent and liberal, true to his trust, but
+withal, very proud, credulous and vain. A nose very long and thin
+at the end of it, and something round, withal, signifies one bold
+in his discourse, honest in his dealings, patient in receiving, and
+slow in offering injuries, but yet privately malicious. He whose
+nose is naturally more red than any other part of his face, is
+thereby denoted to be covetous, impious, luxurious, and an enemy to
+goodness. A nose that turns up again, and is long and full at the
+tip of it, shows the person that has it to be bold, proud,
+covetous, envious, luxurious, a liar and deceiver, vain, glorious,
+unfortunate and contentious. He whose nose riseth high in the
+middle, is prudent and polite, and of great courage, honourable in
+his actions, and true to his word. A nose big at the end shows a
+person to be of a peaceable disposition, industrious and faithful,
+and of a good understanding. A very wide <!-- Page 492 --><a name=
+'Page_492' id="Page_492"></a> nose, with wide nostrils, denotes a
+man dull of apprehension, and inclined more to simplicity than
+wisdom, and withal vain, contentious and a liar.</p>
+<p>When the nostrils are close and thin, they denote a man to have
+but little testicles, and to be very desirous of the enjoyment of
+women, but modest in his conversation. But he whose nostrils are
+great and wide, is usually well hung and lustful; but withal of an
+envious, bold and treacherous disposition and though dull of
+understanding, yet confident enough.</p>
+<p>A great and wide mouth shows a man to be bold, warlike,
+shameless and stout, a great liar and as great a talker, also a
+great eater, but as to his intellectuals, he is very dull, being
+for the most part very simple.</p>
+<p>A little mouth shows the person to be of a quiet and pacific
+temper, somewhat reticent, but faithful, secret, modest, bountiful,
+and but a little eater.</p>
+<p>He whose mouth smells of a bad breath, is one of a corrupted
+liver and lungs, is oftentimes vain, wanton, deceitful, of
+indifferent intellect, envious, covetous, and a promise-breaker. He
+that has a sweet breath, is the contrary.</p>
+<p>The lips, when they are very big and blubbering, show a person
+to be credulous, foolish, <!-- Page 493 --><a name='Page_493' id=
+"Page_493"></a> dull and stupid, and apt to be enticed to anything.
+Lips of a different size denote a person to be discreet, secret in
+all things, judicious and of a good wit, but somewhat hasty. To
+have lips, well coloured and more thin than thick, shows a person
+to be good-humoured in all things and more easily persuaded to good
+than evil. To have one lip bigger than the other, shows a variety
+of fortunes, and denotes the party to be of a dull, sluggish
+temper, but of a very indifferent understanding, as being much
+addicted to folly.</p>
+<p>When the teeth are small, and but weak in performing their
+office, and especially if they are short and few, though they show
+the person to be of a weak constitution, yet they denote him to be
+of a meek disposition, honest, faithful and secret in whatsoever he
+is intrusted with. To have some teeth longer and shorter than
+others, denotes a person to be of a good apprehension, but bold,
+disdainful, envious and proud. To have the teeth very long, and
+growing sharp towards the end, if they are long in chewing, and
+thin, denotes the person to be envious, gluttonous, bold,
+shameless, unfaithful and suspicious. When the teeth look very
+brown or yellowish, whether they be long or short, it shows the
+person to be of a suspicious temper, envious, deceitful and
+turbulent. To <!-- Page 494 --><a name='Page_494' id=
+"Page_494"></a> have teeth strong and close together, shows the
+person to be of a long life, a desirer of novelties, and things
+that are fair and beautiful, but of a high spirit, and one that
+will have his humour in all things; he loves to hear news, and to
+repeat it afterwards, and is apt to entertain anything on his
+behalf. To have teeth thin and weak, shows a weak, feeble man, and
+one of a short life, and of a weak apprehension; but chaste,
+shame-faced, tractable and honest.</p>
+<p>A tongue to be too swift of speech shows a man to be downright
+foolish, or at best but a very vain wit. A stammering tongue, or
+one that stumbles in the mouth, signifies a man of a weak
+understanding, and of a wavering mind, quickly in a rage, and soon
+pacified. A very thick and rough tongue denotes a man to be
+apprehensive, subtle and full of compliments, yet vain and
+deceitful, treacherous, and prone to impiety. A thin tongue shows a
+man of wisdom and sound judgment, very ingenious and of an affable
+disposition, yet somewhat timorous and too credulous.</p>
+<p>A great and full voice in either sex shows them to be of a great
+spirit, confident, proud and wilful. A faint and weak voice,
+attended with but little breath, shows a person to be of good
+understanding, a nimble fancy, a little <!-- Page 495 --><a name=
+'Page_495' id="Page_495"></a> eater, but weak of body, and of a
+timorous disposition. A loud and shrill voice, which sounds clearly
+denotes a person provident, sagacious, true and ingenious, but
+withal capricious, vain, glorious and too credulous. A strong voice
+when a man sings denotes him to be of a strong constitution, and of
+a good understanding, a nimble fancy, a little eater, but weak of
+body, and of a timorous disposition.</p>
+<p>A strong voice when a man sings, denotes him to be of a strong
+constitution, and of a good understanding, neither too penurious
+nor too prodigal, also ingenious and an admirer of the fair sex. A
+weak and trembling voice shows the owner of it to be envious,
+suspicious, slow in business, feeble and fearful. A loud, shrill
+and unpleasant voice, signifies one bold and valiant, but
+quarrelsome and injurious and altogether wedded to his own humours,
+and governed by his own counsels. A rough and hoarse voice, whether
+in speaking or singing, declares one to be a dull and heavy person,
+of much guts and little brains. A full and yet mild voice, and
+pleasing to the hearer, shows the person to be of a quiet and
+peaceable disposition (which is a great virtue and rare to be found
+in a woman), and also very thrifty and secret, not prone to anger,
+but of a yielding temper. A voice beginning low or in the bass, and
+ending <!-- Page 496 --><a name='Page_496' id="Page_496"></a> high
+in the treble, denotes a person to be violent, angry, bold and
+secure.</p>
+<p>A thick and full chin abounding with too much flesh, shows a man
+inclined to peace, honest and true to his trust, but slow in
+invention, and easy to be drawn either to good or evil. A peaked
+chin and reasonably full of flesh, shows a person to be of a good
+understanding, a high spirit and laudable conversation. A double
+chin shows a peaceable disposition, but dull of apprehension, vain,
+credulous, a great supplanter, and secret in all his actions. A
+crooked chin, bending upwards, and peaked for want of flesh, is by
+the rules of physiognomy, according to nature, a very bad man,
+being proud, imprudent, envious, threatening, deceitful, prone to
+anger and treachery, and a great thief.</p>
+<p>The hair of young men usually begins to grow down upon their
+chins at fifteen years of age, and sometimes sooner. These hairs
+proceed from the superfluity of heat, the fumes whereof ascend to
+their chin, like smoke to the funnel of a chimney; and because it
+cannot find an open passage by which it may ascend higher, it vents
+itself forth in the hairs which are called the beard. There are
+very few, or almost no women at all, that have hairs on their
+cheeks; and the reason is, that those humours which
+<!-- Page 497 --><a name='Page_497' id="Page_497"></a> cause hair
+to grow on the cheeks of a man are by a woman evacuated in the
+monthly courses, which they have more or less, according to the
+heat or coldness of their constitution, and the age and motion of
+the moon, of which we have spoken at large in the first part of
+this book. Yet sometimes women of a hot constitution have hair to
+be seen on their cheeks, but more commonly on their lips, or near
+their mouths, where the heat most aboundeth. And where this
+happens, such women are much addicted to the company of men, and of
+a strong and manly constitution. A woman who hath little hair on
+her cheeks, or about her mouth and lips, is of a good complexion,
+weak constitution, shamefaced, mild and obedient, whereas a woman
+of a more hot constitution is quite otherwise. But in a man, a
+beard well composed and thick of hair, signifies a man of good
+nature, honest, loving, sociable and full of humanity; on the
+contrary, he that hath but a little beard, is for the most part
+proud, pining, peevish and unsociable. They who have no beards,
+have always shrill and a strange kind of squeaking voices, and are
+of a weak constitution, which is apparent in the case of eunuchs,
+who, after they are deprived of their virility are transformed from
+the nature of men into the condition of women.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 498 --><a name='Page_498' id="Page_498"></a> Great and
+thick ears are a certain sign of a foolish person, or a bad memory
+and worse understanding. But small and thin ears show a person to
+be of a good wit, grave, sweet, thrifty, modest, resolute, of a
+good memory, and one willing to serve his friend. He whose ears are
+longer than ordinary, is thereby signified to be a bold man,
+uncivil, vain, foolish, serviceable to another more than to
+himself, and a man of small industry, but of a great stomach.</p>
+<p>A face apt to sweat on every motion, shows a person to be of a
+very hot constitution, vain and luxurious, of a good stomach, but
+of a bad understanding, and a worse conversation. A very fleshy
+face shows the person to be of a fearful disposition, but a merry
+heart, and withal bountiful and discreet, easy to be entreated, and
+apt to believe everything. A lean face, by the rules of
+physiognomy, denotes the person to be of a good understanding, but
+somewhat capricious and disdainful in his conversation. A little
+and round face, shows a person to be simple, very fearful, of a bad
+memory, and a clownish disposition. A plump face, full of
+carbuncles, shows a man to be a great drinker of wine, vain,
+daring, and soon intoxicated. A face red or high coloured, shows a
+man much inclined to choler, and one that will be soon angry and
+not easily pacified. A long and lean <!-- Page 499 --><a name=
+'Page_499' id="Page_499"></a> face, shows a man to be both bold,
+injurious and deceitful. A face every way of a due proportion,
+denotes an ingenious person, one fit for anything and very much
+inclined to what is good. One of a broad, full, fat face is, by the
+rules of physiognomy, of a dull, lumpish, heavy constitution, and
+that for one virtue has three vices. A plain, flat face, without
+any rising shows a person to be very wise, loving and courtly in
+his carriage, faithful to his friend and patient in adversity. A
+face sinking down a little, with crosses in it, inclining to
+leanness, denotes a person to be very laborious, but envious,
+deceitful, false, quarrelsome, vain and silly, and of a dull and
+clownish behaviour. A face of a handsome proportion, and more
+inclining to fat than lean, shows a person just in his actions,
+true to his word, civil, and respectful in his behaviour, of an
+indifferent understanding, and of an extraordinary memory. A
+crooked face, long and lean, denotes a man endued with as bad
+qualities as the face is with ill features. A face broad about the
+brows, and sharper and less as it grows towards the chin, shows a
+man simple and foolish in managing his affairs, vain in his
+discourse, envious in his nature, deceitful, quarrelsome and rude
+in his conversation. A face well-coloured, full of good features,
+and of an exact symmetry, and a just proportion in all
+<!-- Page 500 --><a name='Page_500' id="Page_500"></a> its parts,
+and which is delightful to look upon, is commonly the index of a
+fairer mind and shows a person to be well disposed; but withal
+declares that virtue is not so impregnably seated there, but that
+by strong temptations (especially by the fair sex) it may be
+supplanted and overcome by vice. A pale complexion, shows the
+person not only to be fickle, but very malicious, treacherous,
+false, proud, presumptuous, and extremely unfaithful. A face
+well-coloured, shows the person to be of a praiseworthy disposition
+and a sound complexion, easy of belief, and respectful to his
+friend, ready to do a courtesy, and very easy to be drawn to
+anything.</p>
+<p>A great head, and round, withal, denotes the person to be
+secret, and of great application in carrying on business, and also
+ingenious and of a large imaginative faculty and invention; and
+likewise laborious, constant and honest. The head whose gullet
+stands forth and inclines towards the earth, signifies a person
+thrifty, wise, peaceable, secret, of a retired temper, and constant
+in the management of his affairs. A long head and face, and great,
+withal, denotes a vain, foolish, idle and weak person, credulous
+and very envious. To have one's head always shaking and moving from
+side to side, denotes a shallow, weak person, unstable in all his
+actions, given to lying, a great deceiver, a great talker,
+<!-- Page 501 --><a name='Page_501' id="Page_501"></a> and prodigal
+in all his fortunes. A big head and broad face, shows a man to be
+very courageous, a great hunter after women, very suspicious, bold
+and shameless. He who hath a very big head, but not so
+proportionate as it ought to be to the body, if he hath a short
+neck and crooked gullet is generally a man of apprehension, wise,
+secret, ingenious, of sound judgment, faithful, true and courteous
+to all. He who hath a little head, and long, slender throat, is for
+the most part a man very weak, yet apt to learn, but unfortunate in
+his actions. And so much shall suffice with respect to judgment
+from the head and face.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_III' id="PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_III"></a>
+<!-- Page 502 --><a name='Page_502' id="Page_502"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Judgments drawn from several other parts of Man's
+Body</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>In the body of man the head and feet are the principal parts,
+being the index which heaven has laid open to every one's view to
+make a judgment therefrom, therefore I have been the larger in my
+judgment from the several parts thereof. But as to the other parts,
+I shall be much more brief as not being so obvious to the eyes of
+men; yet I would proceed in order.</p>
+<p>The throat, if it be white, whether it be fat or lean, shows a
+man to be vain-glorious, timorous, wanton, and very much subject to
+choler. If the throat be so thin and lean that the veins appear, it
+shows a man to be weak, slow, and a dull and heavy
+constitution.</p>
+<p>A long neck shows one to have a long and slender foot, and that
+the person is stiff and inflexible either to good or evil. A short
+neck shows one to be witty and ingenious, but deceitful and
+inconstant, well skilled in the use of arms, and yet cares not to
+use them, but is a great lover of peace and quietness.</p>
+<p>A lean shoulder bone, signifies a man to be weak, timorous,
+peaceful, not laborious, and <!-- Page 503 --><a name='Page_503'
+id="Page_503"></a> yet fit for any employment. He whose shoulder
+bones are of a great bigness is commonly, by the rule of
+physiognomy, a strong man, faithful but unfortunate; somewhat dull
+of understanding, very laborious, a great eater and drinker, and
+one equally contented in all conditions. He whose shoulder bone
+seems to be smooth, is by the rule of nature, modest in his look,
+and temperate in all his actions, both at bed and board. He whose
+shoulder bone bends, and is crooked inwardly, is commonly a dull
+person and deceitful.</p>
+<p>Long arms, hanging down and touching the knees, though such arms
+are rarely seen, denotes a man liberal, but withal vain-glorious,
+proud and inconstant. He whose arms are very short in respect to
+the stature of his body, is thereby signified to be a man of high
+and gallant spirit, of a graceful temper, bold and warlike. He
+whose arms are full of bones, sinews and flesh, is a great desirer
+of novelties and beauties, and one that is very credulous and apt
+to believe anything. He whose arms are very hairy, whether they be
+lean or fat, is for the most part a luxurious person, weak in body
+and mind, very suspicious and malicious withal. He whose arms have
+no hair on them at all, is of a weak judgment, very angry, vain,
+wanton, credulous, easily deceived himself, yet a great deceiver of
+<!-- Page 504 --><a name='Page_504' id="Page_504"></a> others, no
+fighter, and very apt to betray his dearest friends.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_IV' id="PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_IV"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of Palmistry, showing the various Judgments drawn from the
+Hand</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Being engaged in this fourth part to show what judgment may be
+drawn, according to physiognomy, from the several parts of the
+body, and coming in order to speak of the hands, it has put me
+under the necessity of saying something about palmistry, which is a
+judgment made of the conditions, inclinations, and fortunes of men
+and women, from the various lines and characters nature has
+imprinted in their hands, which are almost as serious as the hands
+that have them.</p>
+<p>The reader should remember that one of the lines of the hand,
+and which indeed is reckoned the principal, is called the line of
+life; this line encloses the thumb, separating it from the hollow
+of the hand. The next to it, which is called the natural line,
+takes its beginning from the rising of the forefinger, near the
+line of life, and reaches to the table line, and generally makes a
+triangle. The table line, commonly <!-- Page 505 --><a name=
+'Page_505' id="Page_505"></a> called the line of fortune, begins
+under the little finger, and ends near the middle finger. The
+girdle of Venus, which is another line so called begins near the
+first joint of the little finger, and ends between the fore-finger
+and the middle finger. The line of death is that which plainly
+appears in a counter line to that of life, and is called the sister
+line, ending usually as the other ends; for when the line of life
+is ended, death comes, and it can go no farther. There are lines in
+the fleshy parts, as in the ball of the thumb, which is called the
+mount of Venus; under each of the fingers are also mounts, which
+are governed by several planets; and the hollow of the hand is
+called the plain of Mars.</p>
+<p>I proceed to give judgment from these several lines:&mdash;In
+palmistry, the left hand is chiefly to be regarded, because therein
+the lines are most visible, and have the strictest communication
+with the heart and brain. In the next place, observe the line of
+life, and if it be fair, extended to its full length, and not
+broken with an intermixture of cross lines, it shows long life and
+health, and it is the same if a double line appears, as there
+sometimes does. When the stars appear in this line, it is a
+signification of great losses and calamities; if on it there be the
+figures of two O's or a Q, it threatens the person with blindness;
+if it wraps itself about <!-- Page 506 --><a name='Page_506' id=
+"Page_506"></a> the table line, then does it promise wealth and
+honour to be attended by prudence and industry. If the line be cut
+and jagged at the upper end, it denotes much sickness; if this line
+be cut by any lines coming from the mount of Venus, it declares the
+person to be unfortunate in love and business also, and threatens
+him with sudden death. A cross below the line of life and the table
+line, shows the person to be very liberal and charitable, one of a
+noble spirit. Let us now see the signification of the table
+line.</p>
+<p>The table line, when broad and of a lively colour, shows a
+healthful constitution, and a quiet contented mind, and a
+courageous spirit, but if it has crosses towards the little finger,
+it threatens the party with much affliction by sickness. If the
+line be double, or divided into three parts at any of the
+extremities, it shows the person to be of a generous temper, and of
+a good fortune to support it; but if this line be forked at the
+end, it threatens the person shall suffer by jealousies and doubts,
+and loss of riches gotten by deceit. If three points such as these
+<sup>*</sup><sub>*</sub><sup>*</sup> are found in it, they denote
+the person prudent and liberal, a lover of learning, and of a good
+temper, if it spreads towards the fore and middle finger and ends
+blunt, it denotes preferment. Let us now see what is signified by
+the middle line. This line has in it oftentimes (for
+<!-- Page 507 --><a name='Page_507' id="Page_507"></a> there is
+scarce a hand in which it varies not) divers very significant
+characters. Many small lines between this and the table line
+threaten <!-- Page 508 --><a name='Page_508' id="Page_508"></a> the
+party with sickness, and also gives him hopes of recovery. A half
+cross branching into this line, declares the person shall have
+honour, riches, and good success in all his undertakings. A half
+moon denotes cold and watery distempers; but a sun or star upon
+this line, denotes prosperity and riches; this line, double in a
+woman, shows she will have several husbands, but no children.</p>
+<center><img src='img/bw507.png' alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<p>The line of Venus, if it happens to be cut or divided near the
+forefinger, threatens ruin to the party, and that it shall befall
+him by means of lascivious women and bad company. Two crosses upon
+the line, one being on the forefinger and the other bending towards
+the little finger, show the party to be weak, and inclined to
+modesty and virtue, indeed it generally denotes modesty in women;
+and therefore those who desire such, usually choose them by this
+standard.</p>
+<p>The liver line, if it be straight and crossed by other lines,
+shows the person to be of a sound judgment, and a piercing
+understanding, but if it be winding, crooked and bending outward,
+it draws deceit and flattery, and the party is not to be trusted.
+If it makes a triangle or quadrangle, it shows the person to be of
+a noble descent, and ambitious of honour and promotion. If it
+happens that this line and the middle <!-- Page 509 --><a name=
+'Page_509' id="Page_509"></a> line begin near each other, it
+denotes a person to be weak in his judgment, if a man; but if a
+woman, in danger by hard labour.</p>
+<p>The plain of Mars being in the hollow of the hand, most of the
+lines pass through it, which renders it very significant. This
+plain being crooked and distorted, threatens the party to fall by
+his enemies. When the lines beginning at the wrist are long within
+the plain, reaching to the brawn of the hand, that shows the person
+to be much given to quarrelling, often in broils and of a hot and
+fiery spirit, by which he suffers much damage. If deep and long
+crosses be in the middle of the plain, it shows the party shall
+obtain honour by martial exploits; but if it be a woman, she shall
+have several husbands and easy labour with her children.</p>
+<p>The line of Death is fatal, when crosses or broken lines appear
+in it; for they threaten the person with sickness and a short life.
+A clouded moon appearing therein, threatens a child-bed woman with
+death. A bloody spot in the line, denotes a violent death. A star
+like a comet, threatens ruin by war, and death by pestilence. But
+if a bright sun appears therein, it promises long life and
+prosperity.</p>
+<p>As for the lines of the wrist being fair, they denote good
+fortune; but if crossed and broken, the contrary.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_V' id="PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_V"></a>
+<h2><!-- Page 510 --><a name='Page_510' id="Page_510"></a> CHAPTER
+V</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Judgments according to Physiognomy, drawn from the several
+parts of the Body, from the Hands to the Feet</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>A large and full breast, shows a man valiant and courageous, but
+withal proud and hard to deal with, quickly angry, and very
+apprehensive of an injury; he whose breast is narrow, and which
+riseth a little in the middle of it, is, by the best rule of
+physiognomy, of a clear spirit, of a great understanding, good in
+counsel, very faithful, clean both in mind and body, yet as an
+enemy to this, he is soon angry, and inclined long to keep it. He
+whose breast is somewhat hairy, is very luxurious, and serviceable
+to another. He who hath no hair upon his breast, is a man weak by
+nature, of a slender capacity and very timorous, but of a laudable
+life and conversation, inclined to peace, and much retired to
+himself.</p>
+<p>The back of the chin bone, if the flesh be anything hairy and
+lean, and higher than any other part that is behind, signifies a
+man shameless, beastly and withal malicious. He whose back is
+large, big and fat, is thereby denoted to be a strong and stout
+man, but of a heavy disposition, vain, slow and full of deceit.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 511 --><a name='Page_511' id="Page_511"></a> He or she
+whose belly is soft over all the body, is weak, lustful, and
+fearful upon little or no occasion, of a good understanding, and an
+excellent invention, but little eaters, faithful, but of various
+fortune, and meet with more adversity than prosperity. He whose
+flesh is rough and hard, is a man of strong constitution and very
+bold, but vain, proud and of a cruel temper. A person whose skin is
+smooth, fat and white, is a person, curious, vain-glorious,
+timorous, shame-faced, malicious, false, and too wise to believe
+all he hears.</p>
+<p>A thigh, full of strong, bristly hair, and the hair inclined to
+curl, signifies one lustful, licentious, and fit for copulation.
+Thighs with but little hair, and those soft and slender, show the
+person to be reasonably chaste, and one that has no great desire to
+coition, and who will have but few children.</p>
+<p>The legs of both men and women have a fleshy substance behind,
+which are called calves, which nature hath given them (as in our
+book of living creatures we have observed), in lieu of those long
+tails which other creatures have pendant behind. Now a great calf,
+and he whose legs are of great bone, and hair withal, denotes the
+person to be strong, bold, secure, dull in understanding and slow
+in business, inclined to procreation, and for the most part
+<!-- Page 512 --><a name='Page_512' id="Page_512"></a> fortunate in
+his undertakings. Little legs, and but little hair on them, show
+the person to be weak, fearful, of a quick understanding, and
+neither luxurious at bed nor board. He whose legs do much abound
+with hair, shows he has great store in another place, and that he
+is lustful and luxurious, strong, but unstable in his resolution,
+and abounding with ill humours.</p>
+<p>The feet of either men or women, if broad and thick with flesh,
+and long in figure, especially if the skin feels hard, they are by
+nature of a strong constitution, and gross nutriment, but of weak
+intellect, which renders the understanding vain. But feet that are
+thin and lean, and of a soft skin, show the person to be but weak
+of body, but of a strong understanding and an excellent wit.</p>
+<p>The soles of the feet do administer plain and evident signs,
+whereby the disposition and constitution of men and women may be
+known, as do the palms of their hands, as being full of lines, by
+which lines all the fortunes and misfortunes of men and women may
+be known, and their manners and inclinations made plainly to
+appear. But this in general we may take notice, as that many long
+lines and strokes do presage great affliction, and a very
+troublesome life, attended with much grief and toil, care, poverty,
+and misery; but short lines, if they <!-- Page 513 --><a name=
+'Page_513' id="Page_513"></a> are thick and full of cross lines,
+are yet worse in every degree. Those, the skin of whose soles is
+very thick and gross, are, for the most part, able, strong and
+venturous. Whereas, on the contrary, those the skin of whose soles
+of their feet is thin, are generally weak and timorous.</p>
+<p>I shall now, before I conclude (having given an account of what
+judgments may be made by observing the several parts of the body,
+from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet), give an
+account of what judgments may be drawn by the rule of physiognomy
+from things extraneous which are found upon many, and which indeed
+to them are parts of the body, but are so far from being necessary
+parts that they are the deformity and burden of it, and speak of
+the habits of the body, as they distinguish persons.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><i>Of Crooked and Deformed Persons</i>.</h3>
+<p>A crooked breast and shoulder, or the exuberance of flesh in the
+body either of man or woman, signifies the person to be extremely
+parsimonious and ingenious, and of a great understanding, but very
+covetous and scraping after the things of the world, attended also
+with a very bad memory, being also very deceitful and malicious;
+they are seldom in <!-- Page 514 --><a name='Page_514' id=
+"Page_514"></a> a medium, but either virtuous or extremely vicious.
+But if the person deformed hath an excrescence on his breast
+instead of on the back, he is for the most part of a double heart,
+and very mischievous.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><i>Of the divers Manners of going, and particular Posture both
+of Men and Women</i>.</h3>
+<p>He or she that goes slowly, making great steps as they go, are
+generally persons of bad memory, and dull of apprehension, given to
+loitering, and not apt to believe what is told them. He who goes
+apace, and makes short steps, is most successful in all his
+undertakings, swift in his imagination, and humble in the
+disposition of his affairs. He who makes wide and uneven steps, and
+sidelong withal, is one of a greedy, sordid nature, subtle,
+malicious, and willing to do evil.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><i>Of the Gait or Motion in Men and Women</i>.</h3>
+<p>Every man hath a certain gait or motion, and so in like manner
+hath every woman; for a man to be shaking his head, or using any
+light motion with his hands or feet, whether he stands or sits, or
+speaks, is always accompanied with an extravagant motion,
+unnecessary, superfluous and unhandsome. Such a man, by the rule of
+physiognomy is vain, unwise, unchaste, <!-- Page 515 --><a name=
+'Page_515' id="Page_515"></a> a detractor, unstable and unfaithful.
+He or she whose motion is not much when discoursing with any one,
+is for the most part wise and well bred, and fit for any
+employment, ingenious and apprehensive, frugal, faithful and
+industrious in business. He whose posture is forwards and
+backwards, or, as it were, whisking up and down, mimical, is
+thereby denoted to be a vain, silly person, of a heavy and dull
+wit, and very malicious. He whose motion is lame and limping, or
+otherwise imperfect, or that counterfeits an imperfection is
+denoted to be envious, malicious, false and detracting.</p>
+<br />
+<h3><i>Judgment drawn from the Stature of Man</i>.</h3>
+<p>Physiognomy draws several judgments also from the stature of
+man, which take as followeth; if a man be upright and straight,
+inclined rather to leanness than fat, it shows him to be bold,
+cruel, proud, clamorous, hard to please, and harder to be
+reconciled when displeased, very frugal, deceitful, and in many
+things malicious. To be of tall stature and corpulent with it,
+denotes him to be not only handsome but valiant also, but of no
+extraordinary understanding, and which is worst of all, ungrateful
+and trepanning. He who is extremely tall and very lean and thin is
+a projecting man, that designs no good to himself, and suspects
+every <!-- Page 516 --><a name='Page_516' id="Page_516"></a> one to
+be as bad as himself, importunate to obtain what he desires, and
+extremely wedded to his own humour. He who is thick and short, is
+vain, envious, suspicious, and very shallow of apprehension, easy
+of belief, but very long before he will forget an injury. He who is
+lean and short but upright withal, is, by the rules of physiognomy,
+wise and ingenious, bold and confident, and of a good
+understanding, but of a deceitful heart. He who stoops as he goes,
+not so much by age as custom, is very laborious, a retainer of
+secrets, but very incredulous and not easy to believe every vain
+report he hears. He that goes with his belly stretching forth, is
+sociable, merry, and easy to be persuaded.</p>
+<hr class="long" />
+<a name='PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_VI' id="PHSIOGNOMY_CHAPTER_VI"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+<div class='blkquot'>
+<p><i>Of the Power of the Celestial Bodies over Men and
+Women</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<br />
+<p>Having spoken thus largely of Physiognomy, and the judgment
+given thereby concerning the dispositions and inclinations of men
+and women, it will be convenient here to show how all these things
+come to pass; and how it is that the secret inclinations and future
+fate of men and women may be known from the consideration
+<!-- Page 517 --><a name='Page_517' id="Page_517"></a> of the
+several parts of the bodies. They arise from the power and dominion
+of superior powers to understand the twelve signs of the Zodiac,
+whose signs, characters and significations are as
+follows:&mdash;</p>
+<center><img src='img/bw517.png' alt=''
+title='' /></center>
+<p><i>Aries</i>, the Ram, which governs the head and face.</p>
+<p><i>Taurus</i>, the Bull, which governs the neck.</p>
+<p><i>Gemini</i>, the Twins, which governs the hands and arms.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 518 --><a name='Page_518' id="Page_518"></a>
+<i>Cancer</i>, the Crab, governs the breast and stomach.</p>
+<p><i>Leo</i>, the Lion, governs the back and heart</p>
+<p><i>Virgo</i>, the Virgin, governs the belly and bowels.</p>
+<p><i>Libra</i>, the Balance, governs the veins and loins.</p>
+<p><i>Scorpio</i>, the Scorpion, governs the secret parts.</p>
+<p><i>Sagittary</i>, the Centaur, governs the thighs.</p>
+<p><i>Capricorn</i>, the Goat, governs the knees.</p>
+<p><i>Aquarius</i>, the Water-Bearer, governs the legs and
+ankles.</p>
+<p><i>Pisces</i>, the Fish, governs the feet.</p>
+<p>It is here furthermore necessary to let the reader know, that
+the ancients have divided the celestial sphere into twelve parts,
+according to the number of these signs, which are termed houses; as
+in the first house, Aries, in the second Taurus, in the third
+Gemini, etc. And besides their assigning the twelve signs of the
+twelve houses, they allot to each house its proper business.</p>
+<p>To the first house they give the signification of life.</p>
+<p>The second house has the signification of wealth, substances, or
+riches.</p>
+<p>The third is the mansion of brethren.</p>
+<p>The fourth, the house of parentage.</p>
+<p><!-- Page 519 --><a name='Page_519' id="Page_519"></a> The fifth
+is the house of children.</p>
+<p>The sixth is the house of sickness or disease.</p>
+<p>The seventh is the house of wedlock, and also of enemies,
+because oftentimes a wife or husband proves the worst enemy.</p>
+<p>The eighth is the house of death.</p>
+<p>The ninth is the house of religion.</p>
+<p>The tenth is the signification of honours.</p>
+<p>The eleventh of friendship.</p>
+<p>The twelfth is the house of affliction and woe.</p>
+<p>Now, astrologically speaking, a house is a certain place in the
+heaven or firmament, divided by certain degrees, through which the
+planets have their motion, and in which they have their residence
+and are situated. And these houses are divided by thirty degrees,
+for every sign has so many degrees. And these signs or houses are
+called the houses of such and such planets as make their residence
+therein, and are such as delight in them, and as they are deposited
+in such and such houses are said to be either dignified or
+debilitated. For though the planets in their several revolutions go
+through all the houses, yet there are some houses which they are
+more properly said to delight in. As for instance, Aries and
+Scorpio are the houses of Mars; Taurus and Libra of Venus; Gemini
+and Virgo of Mercury; Sagittarius <!-- Page 520 --><a name=
+'Page_520' id="Page_520"></a> and Pisces are the houses of Jupiter;
+Capricorn and Aquarius are the houses of Saturn; Leo is the house
+of the Sun; and Cancer is the house of the Moon.</p>
+<p>Now to sum up the whole, and show how this concerns Physiognomy,
+is this:&mdash;as the body of man, as we have shown, is not only
+governed by the signs and planets, but every part is appropriated
+to one or another of them, so according to the particular influence
+of each sign and planet, so governing is the disposition,
+inclination, and nature of the person governed. For such and such
+tokens and marks do show a person to be born under such and such a
+planet; so according to the nature, power and influences of the
+planets, is the judgment to be made of that person. By which the
+reader may see that the judgments drawn from physiognomy are
+grounded upon a certain verity.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Aristotle the Famous
+Philosopher, by Anonymous
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Aristotle the Famous
+Philosopher, by Anonymous
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher
+       Containing his Complete Masterpiece and Family Physician; his
+       Experienced Midwife, his Book of Problems and his Remarks on
+       Physiognomy
+
+
+Author: Anonymous
+
+Release Date: June 24, 2004 [EBook #12699]
+Last Updated: February 18, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF ARISTOTLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE WORKS OF
+
+ARISTOTLE
+
+THE FAMOUS PHILOSOPHER
+
+Containing his Complete Masterpiece and
+Family Physician; his Experienced
+Midwife, his Book of Problems
+and his Remarks on
+Physiognomy
+
+COMPLETE EDITION, WITH ENGRAVINGS
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE MIDWIFE'S VADE-MECUM
+
+Containing
+
+PARTICULAR DIRECTIONS FOR MIDWIVES, NURSES, ETC.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SOME GENUINE RECIPES FOR CAUSING SPEEDY DELIVERY.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+APPROVED DIRECTIONS FOR NURSES.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: Medical Knowledge]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PART I.--BOOK I
+
+THE MASTERPIECE
+
+     _On marriage and at what age young men and virgins are capable of
+     it: and why so much desire it. Also, how long men and women are
+     capable of it._
+
+
+There are very few, except some professional debauchees, who will not
+readily agree that "Marriage is honourable to all," being ordained by
+Heaven in Paradise; and without which no man or woman can be in a
+capacity, honestly, to yield obedience to the first law of the creation,
+"Increase and Multiply." And since it is natural in young people to
+desire the embraces, proper to the marriage bed, it behoves parents to
+look after their children, and when they find them inclinable to
+marriage, not violently to restrain their inclinations (which, instead
+of allaying them, makes them but the more impetuous) but rather provide
+such suitable matches for them, as may make their lives comfortable;
+lest the crossing of those inclinations should precipitate them to
+commit those follies that may bring an indelible stain upon their
+families. The inclination of maids to marriage may be known by many
+symptoms; for when they arrive at puberty, which is about the fourteenth
+or fifteenth year of their age, then their natural purgations begin to
+flow; and the blood, which is no longer to augment their bodies,
+abounding, stirs up their minds to venery. External causes may also
+incline them to it; for their spirits being brisk and inflamed, when
+they arrive at that age, if they eat hard salt things and spices, the
+body becomes more and more heated, whereby the desire to veneral
+embraces is very great, and sometimes almost insuperable. And the use of
+this so much desired enjoyment being denied to virgins, many times is
+followed by dismal consequences; such as the green weesel colonet,
+short-breathing, trembling of the heart, etc. But when they are married
+and their veneral desires satisfied by the enjoyment of their husbands,
+these distempers vanish, and they become more gay and lively than
+before. Also, their eager staring at men, and affecting their company,
+shows that nature pushes them upon coition; and their parents
+neglecting to provide them with husbands, they break through modesty and
+satisfy themselves in unlawful embraces. It is the same with brisk
+widows, who cannot be satisfied without that benevolence to which they
+were accustomed when they had their husbands.
+
+At the age of 14, the menses, in virgins, begin to flow; then they are
+capable of conceiving, and continue generally until 44, when they cease
+bearing, unless their bodies are strong and healthful, which sometimes
+enables them to bear at 65. But many times the menses proceed from some
+violence done to nature, or some morbific matter, which often proves
+fatal. And, hence, men who are desirous of issue ought to marry a woman
+within the age aforesaid, or blame themselves if they meet with
+disappointment; though, if an old man, if not worn out with diseases and
+incontinency, marry a brisk, lively maiden, there is hope of him having
+children to 70 or 80 years.
+
+Hippocrates says, that a youth of 15, or between that and 17, having
+much vital strength, is capable of begetting children; and also that the
+force of the procreating matter increases till 45, 50, and 55, and then
+begins to flag; the seed, by degrees, becoming unfruitful, the natural
+spirits being extinguished, and the humours dried up. Thus, in general,
+but as to individuals, it often falls out otherwise. Nay, it is
+reported by a credible author, that in Swedland, a man was married at
+100 years of age to a girl of 30 years, and had many children by her;
+but his countenance was so fresh, that those who knew him not, imagined
+him not to exceed 50. And in Campania, where the air is clear and
+temperate, men of 80 marry young virgins, and have children by them;
+which shows that age in them does not hinder procreation, unless they be
+exhausted in their youths and their yards be shrivelled up.
+
+If any would know why a woman is sooner barren than a man, they may be
+assured that the natural heat, which is the cause of generation, is more
+predominant in the man than in the woman; for since a woman is more
+moist than a man, as her monthly purgations demonstrate, as also the
+softness of her body; it is also apparent that he does not much exceed
+her in natural heat, which is the chief thing that concocts the humours
+in proper aliment, which the woman wanting grows fat; whereas a man,
+through his native heat, melts his fat by degrees and his humours are
+dissolved; and by the benefit thereof are converted into seed. And this
+may also be added, that women, generally, are not so strong as men, nor
+so wise or prudent; nor have so much reason and ingenuity in ordering
+affairs; which shows that thereby the faculties are hindered in
+operations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+     _How to beget a male or female child; and of the Embryo and perfect
+     Birth; and the fittest time for the copula._
+
+
+When a young couple are married, they naturally desire children; and
+therefore adopt the means that nature has appointed to that end. But
+notwithstanding their endeavours they must know that the success of all
+depends on the blessing of the Gods: not only so, but the sex, whether
+male or female, is from their disposal also, though it cannot be denied,
+that secondary causes have influence therein, especially two. First, the
+general humour, which is brought by the arteria praeparantes to the
+testes, in form of blood, and there elaborated into seed, by the
+seminifical faculty residing in them. Secondly, the desire of coition,
+which fires the imagination with unusual fancies, and by the sight of
+brisk, charming beauty, may soon inflame the appetite. But if nature be
+enfeebled, some meats must be eaten as will conduce to afford such
+aliment as makes the seed abound, and restores the exhaustion of nature
+that the faculties may freely operate, and remove impediments
+obstructing the procreating of children. Then, since diet alters the
+evil state of the body to a better, those subject to barrenness must eat
+such meats as are juicy and nourish well, making the body lively and
+full of sap; of which faculty are all hot moist meats. For, according to
+Galen, seed is made of pure concocted and windy superfluity of blood,
+whence we may conclude, that there is a power in many things, to
+accumulate seed, and also to augment it; and other things of force to
+cause desire, as hen eggs, pheasants, woodcocks, gnat-snappers,
+blackbirds, thrushes, young pigeons, sparrows, partridges, capons,
+almonds, pine nuts, raisins, currants, strong wines taken sparingly,
+especially those made of the grapes of Italy. But erection is chiefly
+caused by scuraum, eringoes, cresses, crysmon, parsnips, artichokes,
+turnips, asparagus, candied ginger, acorns bruised to powder and drank
+in muscadel, scallion, sea shell fish, etc. But these must have time to
+perform their operation, and must be used for a considerable time, or
+you will reap but little benefit from them. The act of coition being
+over, let the woman repose herself on her right side, with her head
+lying low, and her body declining, that by sleeping in that posture,
+the cani, on the right side of the matrix, may prove the place of
+conception; for therein is the greatest generative heat, which is the
+chief procuring cause of male children, and rarely fails the
+expectations of those that experience it, especially if they do but keep
+warm, without much motion, leaning to the right, and drinking a little
+spirit of saffron and juice of hissop in a glass of Malaga or Alicant,
+when they lie down and arise, for a week.
+
+For a female child, let the woman lie on her left side, strongly
+fancying a female in the time of procreation, drinking the decoction of
+female mercury four days from the first day of purgation; the male
+mercury having the like operation in case of a male; for this concoction
+purges the right and left side of the womb, opens the receptacles, and
+makes way for the seminary of generation. The best time to beget a
+female is, when the moon is in the wane, in Libra or Aquaries. Advicenne
+says, that when the menses are spent and the womb cleansed, which is
+commonly in five or seven days at most, if a man lie with his wife from
+the first day she is purged to the fifth, she will conceive a male; but
+from the fifth to the eighth a female; and from the eighth to the
+twelfth a male again: but after that perhaps neither distinctly, but
+both in an hermaphrodite. In a word, they that would be happy in the
+fruits of their labour, must observe to use copulation in due distance
+of time, not too often nor too seldom, for both are alike hurtful; and
+to use it immoderately weakens and wastes the spirits and spoils the
+seed. And this much for the first particular.
+
+The second is to let the reader know how the child is formed in the
+womb, what accidents it is liable to there, and how nourished and
+brought forth. There are various opinions concerning this matter;
+therefore, I shall show what the learned say about it.
+
+Man consists of an egg, which is impregnated in the testicles of the
+woman, by the more subtle parts of the man's seed; but the forming
+faculty and virtue in the seed is a divine gift, it being abundantly
+imbued with vital spirit, which gives sap and form to the embryo, so
+that all parts and bulk of the body, which is made up in a few months
+and gradually formed into the likely figure of a man, do consist in, and
+are adumbrated thereby (most sublimely expressed, Psalm cxxxix.: "I will
+praise Thee, O Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.")
+
+Physicians have remarked four different times at which a man is framed
+and perfected in the womb; the first after coition, being perfectly
+formed in the week if no flux happens, which sometimes falls out
+through the slipperiness of the head of the matrix, that slips over like
+a rosebud that opens suddenly. The second time of forming is assigned
+when nature makes manifest mutation in the conception, so that all the
+substance seems congealed, flesh and blood, and happens twelve or
+fourteen days after copulation. And though this fleshy mass abounds with
+inflamed blood, yet it remains undistinguishable, without form, and may
+be called an embryo, and compared to seed sown in the ground, which,
+through heat and moisture, grows by degrees to a perfect form in plant
+or grain. The third time assigned to make up this fabric is when the
+principal parts show themselves plain; as the heart, whence proceed the
+arteries, the brain, from which the nerves, like small threads, run
+through the whole body; and the liver, which divides the chyle from the
+blood, brought to it by the vena porta. The two first are fountains of
+life, that nourish every part of the body, in framing which the faculty
+of the womb is bruised, from the conception of the eighth day of the
+first month. The fourth, and last, about the thirtieth day, the outward
+parts are seen nicely wrought, distinguished by joints, from which time
+it is no longer an embryo, but a perfect child.
+
+Most males are perfect by the thirtieth day, but females seldom before
+the forty-second or forty-fifth day, because the heat of the womb is
+greater in producing the male than the female. And, for the same reason,
+a woman going with a male child quickens in three months, but going with
+a female, rarely under four, at which time its hair and nails come
+forth, and the child begins to stir, kick and move in the womb, and then
+the woman is troubled with a loathing for meat and a greedy longing for
+things contrary to nutriment, as coals, rubbish, chalk, etc., which
+desire often occasions abortion and miscarriage. Some women have been so
+extravagant as to long for hob nails, leather, horse-flesh, man's flesh,
+and other unnatural as well as unwholesome food, for want of which thing
+they have either miscarried or the child has continued dead in the womb
+for many days, to the imminent hazard of their lives. But I shall now
+proceed to show by what means the child is maintained in the womb, and
+what posture it there remains in.
+
+The learned Hippocrates affirms that the child, as he is placed in the
+womb, has his hands on his knees, and his head bent to his feet, so that
+he lies round together, his hands upon his knees and his face between
+them, so that each eye touches each thumb, and his nose betwixt his
+knees. And of the same opinion in this matter was Bartholinus. Columbus
+is of opinion that the figure of the child in the womb is round, the
+right arm bowed, the fingers under the ear, and about the neck, the head
+bowed so that the chin touches the breast, the left arm bowed above both
+breast and face and propped up by the bending of the right elbow; the
+legs are lifted upwards, the right so much that the thigh touches the
+belly, the knee the navel, the heel touches the left buttock, and the
+foot is turned back and covers the secrets; the left thigh touches the
+belly, and the leg lifted up to the breast.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+     _The reason why children are like their parents; and that the
+     Mother's imagination contributes thereto; and whether the man or
+     the woman is the cause of the male or female child._
+
+
+In the case of similitude, nothing is more powerful than the imagination
+of the mother; for if she fix her eyes upon any object it will so
+impress her mind, that it oftentimes so happens that the child has a
+representation thereof on some part of the body. And, if in act of
+copulation, the woman earnestly look on the man, and fix her mind on
+him, the child will resemble its father. Nay, if a woman, even in
+unlawful copulation, fix her mind upon her husband, the child will
+resemble him though he did not beget it. The same effect has imagination
+in occasioning warts, stains, mole-spots, and dartes; though indeed they
+sometimes happen through frights, or extravagant longing. Many women, in
+being with child, on seeing a hare cross the road in front of them,
+will, through the force of imagination, bring forth a child with a hairy
+lip. Some children are born with flat noses and wry mouths, great
+blubber lips and ill-shaped bodies; which must be ascribed to the
+imagination of the mother, who has cast her eyes and mind upon some
+ill-shaped creature. Therefore it behoves all women with child, if
+possible, to avoid such sights, or at least, not to regard them. But
+though the mother's imagination may contribute much to the features of
+the child, yet, in manners, wit, and propension of the mind, experience
+tells us, that children are commonly of the condition with their
+parents, and possessed of similar tempers. But the vigour or disability
+of persons in the act of copulation many times cause it to be otherwise;
+for children begotten through the heat and strength of desire, must
+needs partake more of the nature and inclination of their parents, than
+those begotten at a time when desires are weaker; and, therefore, the
+children begotten by men in their old age are generally weaker than,
+those begotten by them in their youth. As to the share which each of the
+parents has in begetting the child, we will give the opinions of the
+ancients about it.
+
+Though it is apparent that the man's seed is the chief efficient being
+of the action, motion, and generation: yet that the woman affords seed
+and effectually contributes in that point to the procreation of the
+child, is evinced by strong reasons. In the first place, seminary
+vessels had been given her in vain, and genital testicles inverted, if
+the woman wanted seminal excrescence, for nature does nothing in vain;
+and therefore we must grant, they were made for the use of seed and
+procreation, and placed in their proper parts; both the testicles and
+the receptacles of seed, whose nature is to operate and afford virtue to
+the seed. And to prove this, there needs no stronger argument, say they,
+than that if a woman do not use copulation to eject her seed, she often
+falls into strange diseases, as appears by young men and virgins. A
+second reason they urge is, that although the society of a lawful bed
+consists not altogether in these things, yet it is apparent the female
+sex are never better pleased, nor appear more blythe and jocund, than
+when they are satisfied this way; which is an inducement to believe they
+have more pleasure and titulation therein than men. For since nature
+causes much delight to accompany ejection, by the breaking forth of the
+swelling spirits and the swiftness of the nerves; in which case the
+operation on the woman's part is double, she having an enjoyment both by
+reception and ejection, by which she is more delighted in.
+
+Hence it is, they say, that the child more frequently resembles the
+mother than the father, because the mother contributes more towards it.
+And they think it may be further instanced, from the endeared affection
+they bear them; for that, besides their contributing seminal matters,
+they feed and nourish the child with the purest fountain of blood, until
+its birth. Which opinion Galen affirms, by allowing children to
+participate most of the mother; and ascribes the difference of sex to
+the different operations of the menstrual blood; but this reason of the
+likeness he refers to the power of the seed; for, as the plants receive
+more nourishment from fruitful ground, than from the industry of the
+husbandman, so the infant receives more abundance from the mother than
+the father. For the seed of both is cherished in the womb, and then
+grows to perfection, being nourished with blood. And for this reason it
+is, they say, that children, for the most part, love their mothers best,
+because they receive the most of their substance from their mother; for
+about nine months she nourishes her child in the womb with the purest
+blood; then her love towards it newly born, and its likeness, do clearly
+show that the woman affords seed, and contributes more towards making
+the child than the man.
+
+But in this all the ancients were very erroneous; for the testicles, so
+called in women, afford not only seed, but are two eggs, like those of
+fowls and other creatures; neither have they any office like those of
+men, but are indeed the ovaria, wherein the eggs are nourished by the
+sanguinary vessels disposed throughout them; and from thence one or more
+as they are fecundated by the man's seed is separated and conveyed into
+the womb by the ovaducts. The truth of this is plain, for if you boil
+them the liquor will be of the same colour, taste and consistency, with
+the taste of birds' eggs. If any object that they have no shells, that
+signifies nothing: for the eggs of fowls while they are on the ovary,
+nay, after they are fastened into the uterus, have no shell. And though
+when they are laid, they have one, yet that is no more than a defence
+with which nature has provided them against any outward injury, while
+they are hatched without the body; whereas those of women being hatched
+within the body, need no other fence than the womb, by which they are
+sufficiently secured. And this is enough, I hope, for the clearing of
+this point.
+
+As for the third thing proposed, as whence grow the kind, and whether
+the man or the woman is the cause of the male or female infant--the
+primary cause we must ascribe to God as is most justly His due, who is
+the Ruler and Disposer of all things; yet He suffers many things to
+proceed according to the rules of nature by their inbred motion,
+according to usual and natural courses, without variation; though indeed
+by favour from on high, Sarah conceived Isaac; Hannah, Samuel; and
+Elizabeth, John the Baptist; but these were all extraordinary things,
+brought to pass by a Divine power, above the course of nature. Nor have
+such instances been wanting in later days; therefore, I shall wave them,
+and proceed to speak of things natural.
+
+The ancient physicians and philosophers say that since these two
+principles out of which the body of man is made, and which renders the
+child like the parents, and by one or other of the sex, viz., seed
+common to both sexes and menstrual blood, proper to the woman only; the
+similitude, say they, must needs consist in the force of virtue of the
+male or female, so that it proves like the one or the other, according
+to the quantity afforded by either, but that the difference of sex is
+not referred to the seed, but to the menstrual blood, which is proper to
+the woman, is apparent; for, were that force altogether retained in the
+seed, the male seed being of the hottest quality, male children would
+abound and few of the female be propagated; wherefore, the sex is
+attributed to the temperament or to the active qualities, which consists
+in heat and cold and the nature of the matter under them--that is, the
+flowing of the menstruous blood. But now, the seed, say they, affords
+both force to procreate and to form the child, as well as matter for its
+generation; and in the menstruous blood there is both matter and force,
+for as the seed most helps the maternal principle, so also does the
+menstrual blood the potential seed, which is, says Galen, blood well
+concocted by the vessels which contain it. So that the blood is not only
+the matter of generating the child, but also seed, it being impossible
+that menstrual blood has both principles.
+
+The ancients also say that the seed is the stronger efficient, the
+matter of it being very little in quantity, but the potential quality of
+it is very strong; wherefore, if these principles of generation,
+according to which the sex is made were only, say they, in the menstrual
+blood, then would the children be all mostly females; as were the
+efficient force in the seed they would be all males; but since both have
+operation in menstrual blood, matter predominates in quantity and in the
+seed force and virtue. And, therefore, Galen thinks that the child
+receives its sex rather from the mother than the father, for though his
+seed contributes a little to the natural principle, yet it is more
+weakly. But for likeliness it is referred rather to the father than to
+the mother. Yet the woman's seed receiving strength from the menstrual
+blood for the space of nine months, overpowers the man's in that
+particular, for the menstrual blood rather cherishes the one than the
+other; from which it is plain the woman affords both matter to make and
+force and virtue to perfect the conception; though the female's be fit
+nutriment for the male's by reason of the thinness of it, being more
+adapted to make up conception thereby. For as of soft wax or moist clay,
+the artificer can frame what he intends, so, say they, the man's seed
+mixing with the woman's and also with the menstrual blood, helps to
+make the form and perfect part of man.
+
+But, with all imaginary deference to the wisdom of our fathers, give me
+leave to say that their ignorance of the anatomy of man's body have led
+them into the paths of error and ran them into great mistakes. For their
+hypothesis of the formation of the embryo from commixture of blood being
+wholly false, their opinion in this case must of necessity be likewise.
+I shall therefore conclude this chapter by observing that although a
+strong imagination of the mother may often determine the sex, yet the
+main agent in this case is the plastic or formative principle, according
+to those rules and laws given us by the great Creator, who makes and
+fashions it, and therein determines the sex, according to the council of
+his will.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+     _That Man's Soul is not propagated by their parents, but is infused
+     by its Creator, and can neither die nor corrupt. At what time it is
+     infused. Of its immortality and certainty of its resurrection._
+
+
+Man's soul is of so divine a nature and excellency that man himself
+cannot comprehend it, being the infused breath of the Almighty, of an
+immortal nature, and not to be comprehended but by Him that gave it. For
+Moses, relating the history of man, tells us that "God breathed into his
+nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul." Now, as for
+all other creatures, at His word they were made and had life, but the
+creature that God had set over His works was His peculiar workmanship,
+formed by Him out of the dust of the earth, and He condescended to
+breathe into his nostrils the breath of life, which seems to denote both
+care and, if we may so term it, labour, used about man more than about
+all other living creatures, he only partaking and participating of the
+blessed divine nature, bearing God's image in innocence and purity,
+whilst he stood firm; and when, by his fall, that lively image was
+defaced, yet such was the love of the Creator towards him that he found
+out a way to restore him, the only begotten son of the Eternal Father
+coming into the world to destroy the works of the devil, and to raise up
+man from that low condition to which sin and his fall had reduced him,
+to a state above that of the angels.
+
+If, therefore, man would understand the excellency of his soul, let him
+turn his eyes inwardly and look unto himself and search diligently his
+own mind, and there he shall see many admirable gifts and excellent
+ornaments, that must needs fill him with wonder and amazement; as
+reason, understanding, freedom of will, memory, etc., that clearly show
+the soul to be descended from a heavenly original, and that therefore it
+is of infinite duration and not subject to annihilation.
+
+Yet for its many operations and offices while in the body it goes under
+several denominations: for when it enlivens the body it is called the
+soul; when it gives knowledge, the judgment of the mind; and when it
+recalls things past, the memory; when it discourses and discerns,
+reason; when it contemplates, the spirit; when it is the sensitive part,
+the senses. And these are the principal offices whereby the soul
+declares its powers and performs its actions. For being seated in the
+highest parts of the body it diffuses its force into every member. It is
+not propagated from the parents, nor mixed with gross matter, but the
+infused breath of God, immediately proceeding from Him; not passing from
+one to another as was the opinion of Pythagoras, who held a belief in
+transmigration of the soul; but that the soul is given to every infant
+by infusion, is the most received and orthodox opinion. And the learned
+do likewise agree that this is done when the infant is perfected in the
+womb, which happens about the twenty-fourth day after conception;
+especially for males, who are generally born at the end of nine months;
+but in females, who are not so soon formed and perfected, through defect
+of heat, until the fiftieth day. And though this day in either case
+cannot be truly set down, yet Hippocrates has given his opinion, that it
+is so when the child is formed and begins to move, when born in due
+season. In his book of the nature of infants, he says, if it be a male
+and be perfect on the thirtieth day, and move on the seventieth, he will
+be born in the seventh month; but if he be perfectly formed on the
+thirty-fifth day, he will move on the seventieth and will be born in the
+eighth month. Again, if he be perfectly formed on the forty-fifth day,
+he will move on the ninetieth and be born in the ninth month. Now from
+these paring of days and months, it plainly appears that the day of
+forming being doubled, makes up the day of moving, and the day, three
+times reckoned, makes up the day of birth. As thus, when thirty-five
+perfects the form, if you double it, makes seventy the day of motion;
+and three times seventy amounts to two hundred and ten days; while
+allowing thirty days to a month makes seven months, and so you must
+consider the rest. But as to a female the case is different; for it is
+longer perfecting in the womb, the mother ever going longer with a girl
+than with a boy, which makes the account differ; for a female formed in
+thirty days does not move until the seventieth day, and is born in the
+seventh month; when she is formed on the fortieth day, she does not move
+till the eightieth and is born in the eighth month; but, if she be
+perfectly formed on the forty-fifth day she moves on the ninetieth, and
+the child is born in the ninth month; but if she that is formed on the
+sixtieth day, moves on the one hundred and tenth day, she will be born
+in the tenth month. I treat the more largely of love that the reader may
+know that the reasonable soul is not propagated by the parents, but is
+infused by the Almighty, when the child has its perfect form, and is
+exactly distinguished in its lineaments.
+
+Now, as the life of every other creature, as Moses shows, is in the
+blood, so the life of man consists in the soul, which although subject
+to passion, by reason of the gross composures of the body, in which it
+has a temporary confinement, yet it is immortal and cannot in itself
+corrupt or suffer change, it being a spark of the Divine Mind. And that
+every man has a peculiar soul plainly appears by the vast difference
+between the will, judgment, opinions, manners, and affections in men.
+This David observes when he says: "God hath fashioned the hearts and
+minds of men, and has given to every one his own being and a soul of its
+own nature." Hence Solomon rejoiced that God had given him a soul, and a
+body agreeable to it. It has been disputed among the learned in what
+part of the body the soul resides; some are of opinion its residence is
+in the middle of the heart, and from thence communicates itself to every
+part, which Solomon (Prov. iv. 23) seems to confirm when he says: "Keep
+thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." But
+many curious physicians, searching the works of nature in man's anatomy,
+do affirm that its chief seat is in the brain, from whence proceed the
+senses, the faculties, and actions, diffusing the operations of the soul
+through all parts of the body, whereby it is enlivened with heat and
+force to the heart, by the arteries, corodities, or sleepy arteries,
+which part upon the throat; which, if they happen to be broken or cut,
+they cause barrenness, and if stopped an apoplexy; for there must
+necessarily be ways through which the spirits, animal and vital, may
+have intercourse and convey native heat from the soul. For though the
+soul has its chief seat in one place, it operates in every part,
+exercising every member which are the soul's instruments, by which she
+discovers her power. But if it happen that any of the original parts are
+out of tune, its whole work is confused, as appears in idiots and mad
+men; though, in some of them, the soul, by a vigorous exertion of its
+power, recovers its innate strength and they become right after a long
+despondency in mind, but in others it is not recovered again in this
+life. For, as fire under ashes, or the sun obscured from our sight by
+thick clouds, afford not their native lustre, so the soul, overwhelmed
+in moist or morbid matter, is darkened and reason thereby overclouded;
+and though reason shines less in children than it does in such as are
+arrived at maturity, yet no man must imagine that the soul of an infant
+grows up with the child, for then would it again decay; but it suits
+itself to nature's weakness, and the imbecility of the body wherein it
+is placed, that it may operate the better. And as the body is more
+capable of recovering its influence, so the soul does more and more
+exert its faculties, having force and endowment at the time it enters
+the form of a child in the womb; for its substance can receive nothing
+less. And thus much to prove that the soul does not come from the
+parents, but is infused by God. I shall next prove its immortality and
+demonstrate the certainty of our resurrection.
+
+
+
+OF THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
+
+That the soul of man is a Divine ray, infused by the Sovereign Creator,
+I have already proved, and now come to show that whatever immediately
+proceeds from Him, and participates of His nature, must be as immortal
+as its original; for, though all other creatures are endowed with life
+and motion, they yet lack a reasonable soul, and from thence it is
+concluded that their life is in their blood, and that being corruptible
+they perish and are no more; but man being endowed with a reasonable
+soul and stamped with a Divine image, is of a different nature, and
+though his body is corruptible, yet his soul being of an immortal nature
+cannot perish; but at the dissolution of the body returns to God who
+gave it, either to receive reward or punishment. Now, that the body can
+sin of itself is impossible, because wanting the soul, which is the
+principle of life, it cannot act nor proceed to anything either good or
+evil; for could it do so, it might even sin in the grave. But it is
+plain that after death there is a cessation; for as death leaves us so
+judgment will find us.
+
+Now, reason having evidently demonstrated the soul's immortality, the
+Holy Scriptures do abundantly give testimony of the truth of the
+resurrection, as the reader may see by perusing the 14th and 19th
+chapters of Job and 5th of John. I shall, therefore, leave the further
+discussion of this matter to divines, whose province it is, and return
+to treat of the works of nature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+     _Of Monsters and Monstrous Births; and the several reasons thereof,
+     according to the opinions of the Ancients. Also, whether the
+     Monsters are endowed with reasonable Souls; and whether the Devils
+     can engender; is here briefly discussed._
+
+
+By the ancients, monsters are ascribed to depraved conceptions, and are
+designated as being excursions of nature, which are vicious in one of
+these four ways: either in figure, magnitude, situation, or number.
+
+In figure, when a man bears the character of a beast, as did the beast
+in Saxony. In magnitude, when one part does not equalise with another;
+as when one part is too big or too little for the other parts of the
+body. But this is so common among us that I need not produce a
+testimony.
+
+[Illustration: There was a Monster at Ravenna in Italy of this kind, in
+the year 1512.]
+
+I now proceed to explain the cause of their generation, which is either
+divine or natural. The divine cause proceeds from God's permissive will,
+suffering parents to bring forth abominations for their filthy and
+corrupt affections, which are let loose unto wickedness like brute
+beasts which have no understanding. Wherefore it was enacted among the
+ancient Romans that those who were in any way deformed, should not be
+admitted into religious houses. And St. Jerome was grieved in his time
+to see the lame and the deformed offering up spiritual sacrifices to God
+in religious houses. And Keckerman, by way of inference, excludes all
+that are ill-shapen from this presbyterian function in the church. And
+that which is of more force than all, God himself commanded Moses not to
+receive such to offer sacrifice among his people; and he also renders
+the reason Leviticus, xxii. 28, "Lest he pollute my sanctuaries."
+Because of the outward deformity, the body is often a sign of the
+pollution of the heart, as a curse laid on the child for the
+incontinency of its parents. Yet it is not always so. Let us therefore
+duly examine and search out the natural cause of their generation, which
+(according to the ancients who have dived into the secrets of nature) is
+either in the mother or in the agent, in the seed, or in the womb.
+
+The matter may be in default two ways--by defect or by excess: by
+defect, when the child has only one arm; by excess, when it has four
+hands or two heads. Some monsters are begotten by a woman's unnatural
+lying with beasts; as in the year 1603, there was a monster begotten by
+a woman's generating with a dog; which from the navel upwards had the
+perfect resemblance of its mother: but from its navel downwards it
+resembled a dog.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The agent or womb may be in fault three ways; firstly, the formative
+faculty, which may be too strong or too weak, by which is procured a
+depraved figure; secondly, to the instrument or place of conception, the
+evil confirmation or the disposition whereof will cause a monstrous
+birth; thirdly, in the imaginative power at the time of conception;
+which is of such a force that it stamps the character of the thing
+imagined on the child. Thus the children of an adulteress may be like
+her husband, though begotten by another man, which is caused through the
+force of imagination that the woman has of her own husband at the act
+of coition. And I have heard of a woman, who, at the time of conception,
+beholding the picture of a blackamoor, conceived and brought forth an
+Ethiopian. I will not trouble you with more human testimonies, but
+conclude with a stronger warrant. We read (Gen. xxx. 31) how Jacob
+having agreed with Laban to have all the spotted sheep for keeping his
+flock to augment his wages, took hazel rods and peeled white streaks on
+them, and laid them before the sheep when they came to drink, which
+coupling together there, whilst they beheld the rods, conceived and
+brought forth young.
+
+[Illustration:
+    "Where children thus are born with hairy coats
+    Heaven's wrath unto the kingdom it denotes"]
+
+Another monster representing a hairy child. It was all covered with hair
+like a beast. That which made it more frightful was, that its navel was
+in the place where its nose should stand, and its eyes placed where the
+mouth should have been, and its mouth placed in the chin. It was of the
+male kind, and was born in France, in the year 1597, at a town called
+Arles in Provence, and lived a few days, frightening all that beheld it.
+It was looked upon as a forerunner of desolations which soon after
+happened to that kingdom, in which men to each other were more like
+brutes than human creatures.
+
+There was a monster born at Nazara in the year 1530. It had four arms
+and four legs.
+
+The imagination also works on the child, after conception, of which we
+have a pregnant instance.
+
+A worthy gentlewoman in Suffolk, who being with child and passing by a
+butcher who was killing his meat, a drop of blood sprung on her face,
+whereupon she said her child would have a blemish on its face, and at
+the birth it was found marked with a red spot.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Likewise in the reign of Henry III, there was a woman delivered of a
+child having two heads and four arms, and the bodies were joined at the
+back; the heads were so placed that they looked contrary ways; each had
+two distinct arms and hands. They would both laugh, both speak, and
+both cry, and be hungry together; sometimes the one would speak and the
+other keep silence, and sometimes both speak together. They lived
+several years, but one outlived the other three years, carrying the dead
+one (for there was no parting them) till the survivor fainted with the
+burden, and more with the stench of the dead carcase.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It is certain that monstrous births often happen by means of undue
+copulation; for some there are, who, having been long absent from one
+another, and having an eager desire for enjoyment, consider not as they
+ought, to do as their circumstances demand. And if it happen that they
+come together when the woman's menses are flowing, and notwithstanding,
+proceed to the act of copulation, which is both unclean and unnatural,
+the issue of such copulation does often prove monstrous, as a just
+punishment for doing what nature forbids. And, therefore, though men
+should be ever so eager for it, yet women, knowing their own condition,
+should at such times positively refuse their company. And though such
+copulations do not always produce monstrous birth, yet the children,
+thus begotten, are generally heavy, dull, and sluggish, besides
+defective in their understandings, lacking the vivacity and loveliness
+with which children begotten in proper season are endowed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In Flanders, between Antwerp and Mechlin, in a village called Uthaton, a
+child was born which had two heads, four arms, seeming like two girls
+joined together, having two of their arms lifted up between and above
+their heads, the thighs being placed as it were across one another,
+according to the figure on p. 39. How long they lived I had no account
+of.
+
+By the figure on p. 40 you may see that though some of the members are
+wanting, yet they are supplied by other members.
+
+It remains now that I make some inquiry whether those that are born
+monsters have reasonable souls, and are capable of resurrection. And
+here both divines and physicians are of opinion that those who,
+according to the order of generations deduced from our first parents,
+proceed by mutual means from either sex, though their outward shape be
+deformed and monstrous, have notwithstanding a reasonable soul, and
+consequently their bodies are capable of resurrection, as other men's
+and women's are; but those monsters that are not begotten by men, but
+are the product of women's unnatural lusts in copulating with other
+creatures shall perish as the brute beasts by whom they were begotten,
+not having a reasonable soul nor any breath of the Almighty infused into
+them; and such can never be capable of resurrection. And the same is
+also true of imperfect and abortive births.
+
+Some are of opinion that monsters may be engendered by some infernal
+spirit. Of this mind was Adigus Fariur, speaking of a deformed monster
+born at Craconia; and Hieronimus Cardamnus wrote of a maid that was got
+with child by the devil, she thinking it had been a fair young man. The
+like also is recorded by Vicentius, of the prophet Merlin, that he was
+begotten by an evil spirit. But what a repugnance it would be both to
+religion and nature, if the devils could beget men; when we are taught
+to believe that not any was ever begotten without human seed, except the
+Son of God. The devil then being a spirit and having no corporeal
+substance, has therefore no seed of generation; to say that he can use
+the act of generation effectually is to affirm that he can make
+something out of nothing, and consequently to affirm the devil to be
+God, for creation belongs to God only. Again, if the devil could assume
+to himself a human body and enliven the faculties of it, and cause it to
+generate, as some affirm he can, yet this body must bear the image of
+the devil. And it borders on blasphemy to think that God should so far
+give leave to the devil as out of God's image to raise his own
+diabolical offspring. In the school of Nature we are taught the
+contrary, viz., that like begets like; therefore, of a devil cannot man
+be born. Yet, it is not denied, but the devils, transforming themselves
+into human shapes, may abuse both men and women, and, with wicked
+people, use carnal copulation; but that any unnatural conjunction can
+bring forth a human creature is contrary to nature and all religion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+     _Of the happy state of matrimony, as it is appointed by God, the
+     true felicity that rebounds thereby to either sex; and to what end
+     it is ordained._
+
+
+Without doubt the uniting of hearts in holy wedlock is of all conditions
+the happiest; for then a man has a second self to whom he can reveal his
+thoughts, as well as a sweet companion in his labours, toils, trials,
+and difficulties. He has one in whose breast, as in a safe cabinet, he
+can confide his inmost secrets, especially where reciprocal love and
+inviolable faith is centred; for there no care, fear, jealousy, mistrust
+or hatred can ever interpose. For base is the man that hateth his own
+flesh! And truly a wife, if rightly considered, as Adam well observed,
+is or ought to be esteemed of every honest man as "Bone of his bone and
+flesh of his flesh," etc. Nor was it the least care of the Almighty to
+ordain so near a union, and that for two causes; the first, for the
+increase of posterity; the second, to restrain man's wandering desires
+and affections; nay, that they might be yet happier, when God has joined
+them together, he "blessed them," as in Gen. ii. An ancient writer,
+contemplating this happy state, says, in the economy of Xenophon, "that
+the marriage bed is not only the most pleasant, but also profitable
+course of life, that may be entered on for the preservation and increase
+of posterity. Wherefore, since marriage is the most safe, and delightful
+situation of man he does in no ways provide amiss for his own
+tranquillity who enters into it, especially when he comes to maturity of
+years."
+
+There are many abuses in marriage contrary to what is ordained, the
+which in the ensuing chapter I shall expose to view. But to proceed:
+Seeing our blessed Saviour and His holy apostles detested unlawful
+lusts, and pronounced those to be excluded the kingdom of heaven that
+polluted themselves with adultery and whoring, I cannot conceive what
+face people have to colour their impieties, who hating matrimony, make
+it their study how they may live licentiously: for, in so doing, they
+take in themselves torment, enmity, disquietude, rather than certain
+pleasure, not to mention the hazard of their immortal soul; and certain
+it is that mercenary love (or as the wise man called it harlot-smiles)
+cannot be true and sincere and therefore not pleasant, but rather a net
+laid to betray such as trust in them with all mischief, as Solomon
+observes of the young man void of understanding, who turned aside to the
+harlot's house, "as a bird to the snare of the fowler, or as an ox to
+the slaughter, till a dart was struck through his liver." Nor in this
+case can they have children, those endearing pledges of conjugal
+affection; or if they have, they will rather redound to their shame than
+comfort, bearing the odious brand of bastards. Harlots, likewise are
+like swallows, flying in the summer season of prosperity; but the black
+stormy weather of adversity coming, they take wing and fly into other
+regions--that is, seek other lovers; but a virtuous, chaste wife, fixing
+her entire love upon her husband, and submitting to him as her head and
+king, by whose directions she ought to steer in all lawful courses,
+will, like a faithful companion, share patiently with him in all
+adversities, run with cheerfulness through all difficulties and dangers,
+though ever so hazardous, to preserve and assist him, in poverty,
+sickness, or whatsoever misfortunes befall him, acting according to her
+duty in all things; but a proud, imperious harlot will do no more than
+she lists, in the sunshine of prosperity; and like a horse-leech, ever
+craving, and never satisfied; still seeming displeased, if all her
+extravagant cravings be not answered; not regarding the ruin and misery
+she brings on him by those means, though she seems to doat upon him,
+used to confirming her hypocrisy with crocodile tears, vows and
+swoonings, when her cully has to depart awhile, or seems but to deny
+immediate desires; yet this lasts no longer than she can gratify her
+appetite, and prey upon his fortune.
+
+Now, on the contrary, a loving, chaste and even-tempered wife, seeks
+what she may to prevent such dangers, and in every condition does all
+she can to make him easy. And, in a word, as there is no content in the
+embraces of a harlot, so there is no greater joy in the reciprocal
+affection and endearing embraces of a loving, obedient, and chaste wife.
+Nor is that the principal end for which matrimony was ordained, but that
+the man might follow the law of his creation by increasing his kind and
+replenishing the earth; for this was the injunction laid upon him in
+Paradise, before his fall. To conclude, a virtuous wife is a crown and
+ornament to her husband, and her price is above all rubies: but the
+ways of a harlot are deceitful.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+     _Of Errors in Marriages; Why they are, and the Injuries caused by
+     them._
+
+
+By errors in marriage, I mean the unfitness of the persons marrying to
+enter into this state, and that both with respect to age and the
+constitution of their bodies; and, therefore, those who design to enter
+into that condition ought to observe their ability and not run
+themselves into inconveniences; for those that marry too young may be
+said to marry unseasonably, not considering their inability, nor
+examining the forces of nature; for some, before they are ripe for the
+consummation of so weighty a matter, who either rashly, of their own
+accord, or by the instigation of procurers or marriage-brokers, or else
+forced thereto by their parents who covet a large dower take upon them
+this yoke to their prejudice; by which some, before the expiration of a
+year, have been so enfeebled, that all their vital moisture has been
+exhausted; which had not been restored again without great trouble and
+the use of medicines. Therefore, my advice is: that it is not convenient
+to suffer children, or such as are not of age, to marry, or get
+children.
+
+He that proposes to marry, and wishes to enjoy happiness in that state,
+should choose a wife descended from honest and temperate parents, she
+being chaste, well bred, and of good manners. For if a woman has good
+qualities, she has portion enough. That of Alcmena, in Plautus, is much
+to the purpose, where he brings in a young woman speaking thus:--
+
+    "I take not that to be my dowry, which
+    The vulgar sort do wealth and honour call;
+    That all my wishes terminate in this:----
+    I'll obey my husband and be chaste withall;
+    To have God's fear, and beauty in my mind,
+    To do those good who are virtuously inclined."
+
+And I think she was in the right, for such a wife is more precious than
+rubies.
+
+It is certainly the duty of parents to bring up their children in the
+ways of virtue, and to have regard to their honour and reputation; and
+especially to virgins, when grown to be marriageable. For, as has been
+noted, if through the too great severity of parents, they may be crossed
+in their love, many of them throw themselves into the unchaste arms of
+the first alluring tempter that comes in the way, being, through the
+softness and flexibility of their nature, and the strong desire they
+have after what nature strongly incites them to, easily induced to
+believe men's false vows of promised marriage, to cover their shame: and
+then too late, their parents repent of their severity which has brought
+an indelible stain upon their families.
+
+[Illustration:
+    Conception
+    First Month
+    Second Month
+    Third Month
+    Fourth Month]
+
+[Illustration:
+    Fifth Month
+    Sixth Month
+    Seventh Month
+    Eighth Month
+   Ninth Month]
+
+Another error in marriage is, the inequality of years in the parties
+married; such as for a young man, who, to advance his fortune, marries a
+woman old enough to be his grandmother: between whom, for the most part,
+strife, jealousies, and dissatisfaction are all the blessings which
+crown the genial bed, is being impossible for such to have any children.
+The like may be said, though with a little excuse, when an old doting
+widower marries a virgin in the prime of her youth and her vigour, who,
+while he vainly tries to please her, is thereby wedded to his grave.
+For, as in green youth, it is unfit and unseasonable to think of
+marriage, so to marry in old age is just the same; for they that enter
+upon it too soon are soon exhausted, and fall into consumptions and
+divers other diseases; and those who procrastinate and marry
+unseemingly, fall into the like troubles; on the other side having only
+this honour, if old men, they become young cuckolds, especially if their
+wives have not been trained up in the paths of virtue, and lie too much
+open to the importunity and temptation of lewd and debauched men. And
+thus much for the errors of rash and inconsiderate marriages.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+     _The Opinion of the Learned concerning Children conceived and born
+     within Seven Months; with Arguments upon the Subject to prevent
+     Suspicion of Incontinency, and bitter Contest on that Account. To
+     which are added Rules to Know the Disposition of Man's Body by the
+     Genital Parts._
+
+
+Many bitter quarrels happen between men and their wives upon the man's
+supposition that the child comes too soon, and by consequence, that he
+could not be the father; whereas, it is the want of understanding the
+secrets of nature which brings the man into that error; and which, had
+he known, might have cured him of his suspicion and jealousy.
+
+To remove which, I shall endeavour to prove, that it is possible, and
+has been frequently known, that children have been born at seven months.
+Paul, the Counsel, has this passage in the 19th Book of Pleadings, viz.:
+"It is now a received truth, that a perfect child may be born in the
+seventh month, by the authority of the learned Hippocrates; and
+therefore, we must believe that a child born at the end of the seventh
+month in lawful matrimony may be lawfully begotten."
+
+Galen is of opinion that there is no certain time set for the bearing of
+children; and that from Pliny's authority, who makes mention of a woman
+that went thirteen months with child; but as to what concerns the
+seventh month, a learned author says, "I know several married people in
+Holland that had twins born in the seventh month, who lived to old age,
+having lusty bodies and lively minds. Wherefore their opinion is absurd,
+who assert that a child at seven months cannot be perfect and long
+lived; and that it cannot in all parts be perfect until the ninth
+month." Thereupon the author proceeds to tell a passage from his own
+knowledge, viz.: "Of late there happened a great disturbance among us,
+which ended not without bloodshed; and was occasioned by a virgin, whose
+chastity had been violated, descending from a noble family of unspotted
+fame. Several charged the fact upon the Judge, who was president of a
+city in Flanders, who firmly denied it, saying he was ready to take his
+oath that he never had any carnal copulation with her, and that he would
+not father that, which was none of his; and farther argued, that he
+verily believed it was a child born in seven months, himself being many
+miles distant from the mother of it when it was conceived. Upon which
+the judges decreed that the child should be viewed by able physicians
+and experienced women, and that they should make their report. They
+having made diligent inquiry, all of them with one mind, concluded the
+child, without discussing who was the father, was born within the space
+of seven months, and that it was carried in the mother's womb but
+twenty-seven weeks and some odd days; but if she should have gone full
+nine months, the child's parts and limbs would have been more firm and
+strong, and the structure of the body more compact; for the skin was
+very loose, and the breast bone that defends the heart, and the gristles
+that lay over the stomach, lay higher than naturally they should be,
+not plain, but crooked and sharp, rigid or pointed, like those of a
+young chicken hatched in the beginning of spring. And being a female, it
+wanted nails upon the joints of the fingers; upon which, from the
+masculous cartilaginous matter of the skin, nails that are very smooth
+do come, and by degrees harden; she had, instead of nails, a thin skin
+or film. As for her toes, there were no signs of nails upon them,
+wanting the heat which was expanded to the fingers from the nearness of
+the heart. All this was considered, and above all, one gentlewoman of
+quality that assisted, affirming that she had been the mother of
+nineteen children, and that divers of them had been born and lived at
+seven months, though within the seventh month. For in such cases, the
+revolution of the month ought to be observed, which perfects itself in
+four bare weeks, or somewhat less than twenty-eight days; in which space
+of the revolution, the blood being agitated by the force of the moon,
+the courses of women flow from them; which being spent, and the matrix
+cleansed from the menstruous blood which happens on the fourth day,
+then, if a man on the seventh day lie with his wife, the copulation is
+most natural, and then the conception is best: and the child thus
+begotten may be born in the seventh month and prove very healthful. So
+that on this report, the supposed father was pronounced innocent; the
+proof that he was 100 miles distant all that month in which the child
+was begotten; as for the mother she strongly denied that she knew the
+father, being forced in the dark; and so, through fear and surprise, was
+left in ignorance."
+
+As for coition, it ought not to be used unless the parties be in health,
+lest it turn to the disadvantage of the children so begotten, creating
+in them, through the abundance of ill humours, divers languishing
+diseases. Wherefore, health is no better discerned than by the genitals
+of the man; for which reasons midwives, and other skilful women, were
+formerly wont to see the testicles of children, thereby to conjecture
+their temperature and state of body; and young men may know thereby the
+signs and symptoms of death; for if the cases of the testicles be loose
+and feeble, which are the proofs of life, are fallen, but if the secret
+parts are wrinkled and raised up, it is a sign that all is well, but
+that the event may exactly answer the prediction, it is necessary to
+consider what part of the body the disease possesseth; for if it chance
+to be the upper part that is afflicted, as the head or stomach, then it
+will not so then appear by the members, which are unconnected with such
+grievances; but the lower part of the body exactly sympathising with
+them, their liveliness, on the contrary, makes it apparent; for nature's
+force, and the spirits that have their intercourse, first manifest
+themselves therein; which occasions midwives to feel the genitals of
+children, to know in what part the gulf is residing, and whether life or
+death be portended thereby, the symptoms being strongly communicated to
+the vessels, that have their intercourse with the principal seat of
+life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+     _Of the Green-Sickness in Virgins, with its causes, signs and
+     cures; together with the chief occasions of Barrenness in Women,
+     and the Means to remove the Cause, and render them fruitful._
+
+
+The green-sickness is so common a complaint amongst virgins, especially
+those of a phlegmatic complexion, that it is easily discerned, showing
+itself by discolouring the face, making it look green, pale, and of a
+dusty colour, proceeding from raw and indigested humours; nor doth it
+only appear to the eye, but sensibly affects the person with difficulty
+of breathing, pains in the head, palpitation of the heart, with unusual
+beatings and small throbbings of the arteries in the temples, back and
+neck, which often cast them into fevers when the humour is over vicious;
+also loathing of meat and the distention of the hypochondriac part, by
+reason of the inordinate effluxion of the menstruous blood of the
+greater vessels; and from the abundance of humours, the whole body is
+often troubled with swellings, or at least the thighs, legs and ankles,
+all above the heels; there is also a weariness of the body without any
+reason for it.
+
+The Galenical physicians affirm, that this distemper proceeds from the
+womb; occasioned by the gross, vicious and rude humours arising from
+several inward causes; but there are also outward causes which have a
+share in the production of it; as taking cold in the feet, drinking of
+water, intemperance of diet, eating things contrary to nature, viz., raw
+or burnt flesh, ashes, coals, old shoes, chalk, wax, nutshells, mortar,
+lime, oatmeal, tobacco pipes, etc., which occasion both a suppression of
+the menses and obstructions through the whole body; therefore, the first
+thing necessary to vindicate the cause, is matrimonial conjunction, and
+such copulation as may prove satisfactory to her that is afflicted, for
+then the menses will begin to flow according to their natural and due
+course, and the humours being dispersed, will soon waste themselves; and
+then no more matter being admitted to increase them, they will vanish
+and a good temperament of body will return; but in case this best remedy
+cannot be had soon enough, then let blood in the ankles, and if she be
+about sixteen, you may likewise do it in the arm, but let her be bled
+sparingly, especially if the blood be good. If the disease be of any
+continuance, then it is to be eradicated by purging, preparation of the
+humour being first considered, which may be done by the virgin's
+drinking the decoction of guaiacum, with dittany of erete; but the best
+purge in this case ought to be made of aloes, agaric, senna, rhubarb;
+and for strengthening the bowels and removing obstructions, chaly-beate
+medicines are chiefly to be used. The diet must be moderate, and sharp
+things by all means avoided.
+
+And now, since barrenness daily creates discontent, and that discontent
+breeds indifference between man and wife, or, by immediate grief,
+frequently casts the woman into one or another distemper, I shall in the
+next place treat thereof.
+
+
+
+OF BARRENNESS.
+
+Formerly, before women came to the marriage-bed, they were first
+searched by the mid-wife, and those only which she allowed of as
+fruitful were admitted. I hope, therefore, it will not be amiss to show
+you how they may prove themselves and turn barren ground into fruitful
+soil. Barrenness is a deprivation of the life and power which ought to
+be in the seed to procreate and propagate; for which end men and women
+were made. Causes of barrenness may be over much cold or heat, drying up
+the seed and corrupting it, which extinguishes the life of the seed,
+making it waterish and unfit for generation. It may be caused also, by
+the not flowing or over-flowing of the courses by swellings, ulcers, and
+inflammation of the womb, by an excrescence of flesh growing about the
+mouth of the matrix, by the mouth of the matrix being turned up to the
+back or side by the fatness of the body, whereby the mouth of the matrix
+is closed up, being pressed with the omentum or caul, and the matter of
+the seed is turned to fat; if she be a lean and dry body, and though she
+do conceive, yet the fruit of her body will wither before it come to
+perfection, for want of nourishment. One main cause of barrenness is
+attributed to want of a convenient moderating quality, which the woman
+ought to have with the man; as, if he be hot, she must be cold; if he be
+dry, she must be moist; as, if they be both dry or both moist of
+constitution, they cannot propagate; and yet, simply considering of
+themselves, they are not barren, for she who was before as the barren
+fig-tree being joined to an apt constitution becomes as the fruitful
+vine. And that a man and woman, being every way of like constitution,
+cannot create, I will bring nature itself for a testimony, who hath made
+man of a better constitution than woman, that the quality of the one,
+may moderate the quality of the other.
+
+
+
+SIGNS OF BARRENNESS.
+
+If barrenness proceeds from overmuch heat, if she is a dry body, subject
+to anger, has black hair, quick pulse, and her purgations flow but
+little, and that with pain, she loves to play in the courts of Venus.
+But if it comes by cold, then the signs are contrary to the above
+mentioned. If through the evil quality of the womb, make a suffumigation
+of red styrax, myrrh, cassia-wood, nutmeg, and cinnamon; and let her
+receive the fumes into her womb, covering her very close; and if the
+odour so received passes through the body to the mouth and nostrils,
+she is fruitful. But if she feels not the fumes in her mouth and
+nostrils, it argues barrenness one of these ways--that the spirit of the
+seed is either extinguished through cold, or dissipated through heat. If
+any woman be suspected to be unfruitful, cast natural brimstone, such as
+is digged out of mines, into her urine, and if worms breed therein, she
+is not barren.
+
+
+
+PROGNOSTICS.
+
+Barrenness makes women look young, because they are free from those
+pains and sorrows which other women are accustomed to. Yet they have not
+the full perfection of health which other women enjoy, because they are
+not rightly purged of the menstruous blood and superfluous seed, which
+are the principal cause of most uterine diseases.
+
+First, the cause must be removed, the womb strengthened, and the spirits
+of the seed enlivened. If the womb be over hot, take syrup of succory,
+with rhubarb, syrup of violets, roses, cassia, purslain. Take of endive,
+water-lilies, borage flowers, of each a handful; rhubarb, mirobalans, of
+each three drachms; make a decoction with water, and to the straining of
+the syrup add electuary violets one ounce, syrup of cassia half an
+ounce, manna three drachms; make a potion. Take of syrup of mugwort one
+ounce, syrup of maiden-hair two ounces, pulv-elect triasand one drachm;
+make a julep. Take prus. salt, elect. ros. mesua, of each three drachms,
+rhubarb one scruple, and make a bolus; apply to the loins and privy
+parts fomentations of the juice of lettuce, violets, roses, malloes,
+vine leaves and nightshade; anoint the secret parts with the cooling
+unguent of Galen.
+
+If the power of the seed be extinguished by cold, take every morning two
+spoonfuls of cinnamon water, with one scruple of mithridate. Take syrup
+of calamint, mugwort and betony, of each one ounce; waters of
+pennyroyal, feverfew, hyssop and sage, of each two ounces; make a julep.
+Take oil of aniseed two scruples and a half; diacimini,
+diacliathidiamosei and diagla-ongoe, of each one drachm, sugar four
+ounces, with water of cinnamon, and make lozenges; take of them a drachm
+and a half twice a day, two hours before meals; fasten cupping glasses
+to the hips and belly. Take of styrax and calamint one ounce, mastick,
+cinnamon, nutmeg, lign, aloes, and frankincense, of each half ounce;
+musk, ten grains, ambergris, half a scruple; make a confection with
+rosewater, divide it into four equal parts; one part make a pomatum
+oderation to smell at if she be not hysterical; of the second, make a
+mass of pills, and let her take three every other night: of the third
+make a pessary, dip it in oil of spikenard, and put it up; of the
+fourth, make a suffumigation for the womb.
+
+If the faculties of the womb be weakened, and the life of the seed
+suffocated by over much humidity flowing to those parts: take of betony,
+marjoram, mugwort, pennyroyal and balm, of each a handful; roots of alum
+and fennel, of each two drachms; aniseed and cummin, of each one drachm,
+with sugar and water a sufficient quantity; make a syrup, and take three
+ounces every morning.
+
+Purge with the following things; take of the diagnidium, two grains,
+spicierum of castor, a scruple, pill foedit two scruples, with syrup of
+mugwort, make six pills. Take apeo, diagem. diamoser, diamb. of each one
+drachm; cinnamon, one drachm and a half; cloves, mace and nutmeg, of
+each half a drachm; sugar six ounces, with water of feverfew; make
+lozenges, to be taken every morning. Take of decoction of sarsaparilla
+and virga aurea, not forgetting sage, which Agrippa, wondering at its
+operation, has honoured with the name of _sacra herba_, a holy herb. It
+is recorded by Dodonoeus in the _History of Plants_, lib. ii. cap. 77,
+that after a great mortality among the Egyptians, the surviving women,
+that they might multiply quickly, were commanded to drink the juice of
+sage, and to anoint the genitals with oil of aniseed and spikenard. Take
+mace, nutmeg, cinnamon, styrax and amber, of each one drachm; cloves,
+laudanum, of each half a drachm; turpentine, a sufficient quantity;
+trochisks, to smooth the womb. Take roots of valerian and elecampane, of
+each one pound; galanga, two ounces; origan lavender, marjoram, betony,
+mugwort, bay leaves, calamint, of each a handful; make an infusion with
+water, in which let her sit, after she hath her courses.
+
+If barrenness proceed from dryness, consuming the matter of the seed;
+take every day almond milk, and goat's milk extracted with honey, but
+often of the root satyrion, candied, and electuary of diasyren. Take
+three wethers' heads, boil them until all the flesh comes from the
+bones, then take melilot, violets, camomiles, mercury, orchia with their
+roots, of each a handful; fenugreek, linseed, valerian roots, of each
+one pound; let all these be decocted in the aforesaid broth, and let the
+woman sit in the decoction up to the navel.
+
+If barrenness be caused by any proper effect of the womb, the cure is
+set down in the second book. Sometimes the womb proves barren where
+there is no impediment on either side, except only in the manner of the
+act; as when in the emission of the seed, the man is quick and the woman
+is slow, whereby there is not an emission of both seeds at the same
+instant as the rules of conception require. Before the acts of coition,
+foment the privy parts with the decoction of betony, sage, hyssop and
+calamint and anoint the mouth and neck of the womb with musk and civet.
+
+The cause of barrenness being removed, let the womb be strengthened as
+follows; Take of bay berries, mastic, nutmeg, frankincense, nuts,
+laudanum, giapanum, of each one drachm, styracis liquid, two scruples,
+cloves half a scruple, ambergris two grains, then make a pessary with
+oil of spikenard.
+
+Take of red roses, lapididis hoematis, white frankincense, of each half
+an ounce. Dragon's blood, fine bole, mastic, of each two drachms;
+nutmeg, cloves, of each one drachm; spikenard, half a scruple, with oil
+of wormwood; make a plaster for the lower part of the belly, then let
+her eat candied eringo root, and make an injection only of the roots of
+satyrion.
+
+The aptest time for conception is instantly after the menses have
+ceased, because then the womb is thirsty and dry, apt both to draw the
+seed and return it, by the roughness of the inward surface, and besides,
+in some, the mouth of the womb is turned into the back or side, and is
+not placed right until the last day of the courses.
+
+Excess in all things is to be avoided. Lay aside all passions of the
+mind, shun study and care, as things that are enemies to conception, for
+if a woman conceive under such circumstances, however wise the parents
+may be, the children, at best, will be but foolish; because the mental
+faculties of the parents, viz., the understanding and the rest (from
+whence the child derives its reason) are, as it were, confused through
+the multiplicity of cares and thought; of which we have examples in
+learned men, who, after great study and care, having connection with
+their wives, often beget very foolish children. A hot and moist air is
+most suitable, as appears by the women in Egypt, who often bring forth
+three or four children at one time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+     _Virginity, what it is, in what it consists, and how vitiated;
+     together with the Opinions of the Learned about the Change of Sex
+     in the Womb, during the Operation of Nature in forming the Body._
+
+
+There are many ignorant people that boast of their skill in the
+knowledge of virginity, and some virgins have undergone harsh censures
+through their ignorant conclusions; I therefore thought it highly
+necessary to clear up this point, that the towering imaginations of
+conceited ignorance might be brought down, and the fair sex (whose
+virtues are so illustriously bright that they excite our wonder and
+command our imitation), may be freed from the calumnies and detractions
+of ignorance and envy; and so their honour may continue as unspotted, as
+they have kept their persons uncontaminated and free from defilement.
+
+Virginity, in a strict sense, signifies the prime, the chief, the best
+of anything; and this makes men so desirous of marrying virgins,
+imagining some secret pleasure is to be enjoyed in their embraces, more
+than in those of widows, or of such as have been lain with before,
+though not many years ago, a very great personage thought differently,
+and to use his own expression:--"The getting a maidenhead was such a
+piece of drudgery, that it was fitter for a coal heaver than a
+prince."[1] But this was only his opinion, for I am sure that other men
+think differently.
+
+The curious inquirers into the secrets of Nature, have observed, that in
+young maidens in the _sinus pudoris_, or in what is called the neck of
+the womb, is that wonderful production usually called the _hymen_, but
+in French _bouton de rose_, or rosebud, because it resembles the
+expanded bud of a rose or a gilly flower. From this the word _defloro_,
+or, deflower, is derived, and hence taking away virginity is called
+deflowering a virgin, most being of the opinion that the virginity is
+altogether lost when this membrane is fractured and destroyed by
+violence; when it is found perfect and entire, however, no penetration
+has been effected; and in the opinion of some learned physicians there
+is neither hymen nor expanded skin which contains blood in it, which
+some people think, flows from the ruptured membrane at the first time of
+sexual intercourse.
+
+Now this _claustrum virginale_, or flower, is composed of four little
+buds like myrtle berries, which are full and plump in virgins, but hang
+loose and flag in women; and these are placed in the four angles of the
+_sinus pudoris_, joined together by little membranes and ligatures, like
+fibres, each of them situated in the testicles, or spaces between each
+bud, with which, in a manner, they are proportionately distended, and
+when once this membrane is lacerated, it denotes _Devirgination_. Thus
+many ignorant people, finding their wives defective in this respect on
+the first night, have immediately suspected their chastity, concluding
+that another man had been there before them, when indeed, such a rupture
+may happen in several ways accidentally, as well as by sexual
+intercourse, viz. by violent straining, coughing, or sneezing, the
+stoppage of the urine, etc., so that the entireness or the fracture of
+that which is commonly taken for a woman's virginity or maidenhead, is
+no absolute sign of immorality, though it is more frequently broken by
+copulation than by any other means.[2]
+
+And now to say something of the change of the sexes in the womb. The
+genital parts of the sexes are so unlike each other in substance,
+composition, situation, figure, action and use that nothing is more
+unlike to each other than they are, and the more, all parts of the body
+(the breasts excepted, which in women swell, because Nature ordained
+them for suckling the infant) have an exact resemblance to each other,
+so much the more do the genital parts of one sex differ, when compared
+with the other, and if they be thus different in form, how much more are
+they so in their use.
+
+The venereal feeling also proceeds from different causes; in men from
+the desire of emission, and in women from the desire of reception. All
+these things, then, considered I cannot but wonder, he adds, how any one
+can imagine that the female genital organs can be changed into the male
+organ, since the sexes can be distinguished only by those parts, nor
+can I well impute the reason for this vulgar error to anything but the
+mistake of inexpert midwives, who have been deceived by the faulty
+conformation of those parts, which in some males may have happened to
+have such small protrusions that they could not be seen, as appears by
+the example of a child who was christened in Paris under the name of
+_Ivan_, as a girl, and who afterwards turned out to be a boy, and on the
+other hand, the excessive tension of the clytoris in newly-born female
+infants may have occasioned similar mistakes. Thus far Pliny in the
+negative, and notwithstanding what he has said, there are others, such
+as Galen, who assert the affirmative. "A man," he says, "is different
+from a woman, only by having his genitals outside his body, whereas a
+woman has them inside her." And this is certain, that if Nature having
+formed a male should convert him into a female, she has nothing else to
+do but to turn his genitals inward, and again to turn a woman into a man
+by a contrary operation. This, however, is to be understood of the child
+whilst it is in the womb and not yet perfectly formed, for Nature has
+often made a female child, and it has remained so for a month or two, in
+its mother's womb; but afterwards the heat greatly increasing in the
+genital organs, they have protruded and the child has become a male, but
+nevertheless retained some things which do not befit the masculine sex,
+such as female gestures and movements, a high voice, and a more
+effeminate temper than is usual with men; whilst, on the other hand, the
+genitals have become inverted through cold humours, but yet the person
+retained a masculine air, both in voice and gesture. Now, though both
+these opinions are supported by several reasons, yet I think the latter
+are nearer the truth, for there is not that vast difference between the
+genitals of the two sexes as Pliny asserts; for a woman has, in a way,
+the same _pudenda_ as a man, though they do not appear outwardly, but
+are inverted for the convenience of generation; one being solid and the
+other porous, and that the principal reason for changing sexes is, and
+must be attributed to heat or cold, which operates according to its
+greater or lesser force.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Attributed to George IV (Translator).
+
+[2] A young man was once tried at Rutland Assizes for violating a
+virgin, and after close questioning, the girl swearing positively in the
+matter, and naming the time, place and manner of the action, it was
+resolved that she should be examined by a skilful surgeon and two
+midwives, who were to report on oath, which they did, and declared that
+the membranes were intact and unlacerated, and that, in their opinion,
+her body had not been penetrated. This had its due effect upon the jury,
+and they acquitted the prisoner, and the girl afterwards confessed that
+she swore it against him out of revenge, as he had promised to marry
+her, and had afterwards declined.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+     _Directions and Cautions for Midwives; and, first, what ought to be
+     the qualifications of a midwife._
+
+
+A midwife who wishes to acquit herself well in her employment, ought
+certainly not to enter upon it rashly or unadvisedly, but with all
+imaginable caution, remembering that she is responsible for any mischief
+which may happen through her ignorance or neglect. None, therefore,
+should undertake that duty merely because of their age or because they
+themselves have had many children, for, in such, generally, many things
+will be found wanting, which she should possess. She ought to be neither
+too old nor too young, neither very fat, nor so thin, as to be weak, but
+in a good habit of body; not subject to illness, fears, nor sudden
+frights; well-made and neat in her attire, her hands small and smooth,
+her nails kept well-trimmed and without any rings on her fingers whilst
+she is engaged in her work, nor anything upon her wrists that may
+obstruct her. And to these ought to be added activity, and a due amount
+of strength, with much caution and diligence, nor should she be given to
+drowsiness or impatience.
+
+She should be polite and affable in her manners, sober and chaste, not
+given to passion, liberal and compassionate towards the poor, and not
+greedy of gain when she attends the rich. She should have a cheerful and
+pleasant temper, so that she may be the more easily able to comfort her
+patients during labour. She must never be in a hurry, though her
+business may call her to some other case, lest she should thereby
+endanger the mother or the child.
+
+She ought to be wary, prudent, and intelligent, but above all, she ought
+to be possessed by the fear of God, which will give her both "knowledge
+and discretion," as the wise man says.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+     _Further Directions to Midwives, teaching them what they ought to
+     do, and what to avoid._
+
+
+Since the duties of a midwife have such a great influence on the
+well-doing or the contrary of both women and children, in the first
+place, she must be diligent in gaining all such knowledge as may be
+useful to her in her practice, and never to think herself so perfect,
+but that it may be possible for her to add to her knowledge by study and
+experience. She should, however, never try any experiments unless she
+has tried them, or knows that they can do no harm; practising them
+neither upon rich nor poor, but freely saying what she knows, and never
+prescribing any medicines which will procure abortion, even though
+requested; for this is wicked in the highest degree, and may be termed
+murder. If she be sent for to people whom she does not know, let her be
+very cautious before she goes, lest by attending an infectious woman,
+she runs the danger of injuring others, as sometimes happens. Neither
+must she make her dwelling a receiving-house for big-bellied women to
+discharge their load, lest it get her a bad name and she by such means
+loses her practice.
+
+In attending on women, if the birth happens to be difficult, she must
+not seem to be anxious, but must cheer the woman up and do all she can
+to make her labour easy. She will find full directions for this, in the
+second part of this book.
+
+She must never think of anything but doing well, seeing that everything
+that is required is in readiness, both for the woman and for receiving
+the child, and above all, let her keep the woman from becoming unruly
+when her pains come on, lest she endanger her own life, and the child's
+as well.
+
+She must also take care not to be hurried over her business but wait
+God's time for the birth, and she must by no means allow herself to be
+upset by fear, even if things should not go well, lest that should make
+her incapable of rendering that assistance which the woman in labour
+stands in need of, for where there is the most apparent danger, there
+the most care and prudence are required to set things right.
+
+And now, because she can never be a skilful midwife who knows nothing
+but what is to be seen outwardly, I do not think it will be amiss but
+rather very necessary, modestly to describe the generative parts of
+women as they have been anatomised by learned men, and to show the use
+of such vessels as contribute to generation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+     _The External, and Internal Organs of Generation in Women._
+
+
+If it were not for the public benefit, especially for that of the
+professors and practitioners of the art of midwifery, I would refrain
+from treating the secrets of Nature, because they may be turned to
+ridicule by lascivious and lewd people. But as it is absolutely
+necessary that they should be known for the public good, I will not omit
+them because some may make a wrong use of them. Those parts which can be
+seen at the lowest part of the stomach are the _fissure magna_, or the
+_great cleft_, with its _labia_ or lips, the _Mons Veneris_, or Mountain
+of Venus, and the hair. These together are called the _pudenda_, or
+things to be ashamed of because when they are exposed they cause a woman
+_pudor_, or shame. The _fissure magna_ reaches from the lower part of
+the _os pubis_, to within an inch of the _anus_, but it is less and
+closer in virgins than in those who have borne children, and has two
+lips, which grow thicker and fuller towards the pubis, and meeting on
+the middle of the _os pubis_, form that rising hill which is called the
+_Mons Veneris_, or the Hill of Venus.
+
+Next come the _Nymphae_ and the _Clitoris_, the former of which is a
+membrany and moist substance, spongy, soft and partly fleshy, of a red
+colour and in the shape of two wings, which are joined at an acute angle
+at their base, producing a fleshy substance there which covers the
+clitoris, and sometimes they extend so far, that an incision is required
+to make room for a man's instrument of generation.
+
+The _Clitoris_ is a substance in the upper part of the division where
+the two wings meet, and the seat of venereal pleasure, being like a
+man's _penis_ in situation, substance, composition and power of
+erection, growing sometimes to the length of two inches out of the body,
+but that never happens except through extreme lustfulness or some
+extraordinary accident. This _clitoris_ consists of two spongy and
+skinny bodies, containing a distinct original from the _os pubis_, its
+tip being covered with a tender skin, having a hole or passage like a
+man's yard or _penis_, although not quite through, in which alone, and
+in its size it differs from it.
+
+The next things are the fleshy knobs of the great neck of the womb, and
+these knobs are behind the wings and are four in number, resembling
+myrtle berries, and being placed quadrangularly one against the other,
+and here the orifice of the bladder is inserted, which opens into the
+fissures, to evacuate the urine, and one of these knobs is placed before
+it, and closes up the passage in order to secure it from cold, or any
+suchlike inconvenience.
+
+The lips of the womb, which appear next, disclose its neck, if they are
+separated, and two things may be observed in them, which are the neck
+itself and the _hymen_, or more properly, the _claustrum virginale_, of
+which I have spoken before. By the neck of the womb we must understand
+the channel that lies between the above-mentioned knobs and the inner
+bone of the womb, which receives the penis like a sheath, and so that it
+may be more easily dilated by the pleasure of procreation, the substance
+is sinewy and a little spongy. There are several folds or pleats in this
+cavity, made by tunicles, which are wrinkled like a full blown rose. In
+virgins they appear plainly, but in women who are used to copulation
+they disappear, so that the inner side of the neck of the womb appears
+smooth, but in old women it is more hard and gristly. But though this
+channel is sometimes crooked and sinks down yet at the times of
+copulation, labour, or of the monthly flow, it is erected or distended,
+which overtension occasions the pain in childbirth.
+
+The hymen, or _claustrum virginale_, is that which closes the neck of
+the womb, and is broken by the first act of copulation; its use being
+rather to check the undue menstrual flow in virgins, rather than to
+serve any other purpose, and usually when it is broken, either by
+copulation, or by any other means, a small quantity of blood flows from
+it, attended with some little pain. From this some observe that between
+the folds of the two tunicles, which constitute the neck of the womb
+there are many veins and arteries running along, and arising from, the
+vessels on both sides of the thighs, and so passing into the neck of the
+womb, being very large; and the reason for this is, that the neck of the
+bladder requires to be filled with great vigour, so as to be dilated, in
+order that it may lay hold of the penis better; for great heat is
+required in such motions, and that becomes more intense by the act of
+friction, and consumes a considerable amount of moisture, for supplying
+which large vessels are absolutely necessary.
+
+Another cause of the largeness of the vessels is, that menses make their
+way through them, which often occasions pregnant women to continue
+menstruating: for though the womb be shut up, yet the passages in the
+neck of the womb through which these vessels pass, are open. In this
+case, we may further observe, that as soon as the _pudenda_ are
+penetrated, there appear two little pits or holes which contain a
+secretion, which is expelled during copulation, and gives the woman
+great pleasure.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+     _A description of the Fabric of the Womb, the preparing Vessels and
+     Testicles in Women. Also of the Different and Ejaculatory Vessels._
+
+
+The womb is joined to its neck in the lower part of the _Hypogastrium_
+where the hips are the widest and broadest, as they are greater and
+broader there than those of men, and it is placed between the bladder
+and the straight gut, which keeps it from swaying, and yet gives it
+freedom to stretch and dilate, and again to contract, as nature
+requires. Its shape is somewhat round and not unlike a gourd, growing
+smaller and more acute towards one end, being knit together by its
+own ligaments; its neck likewise is joined by its own substance and by
+certain membranes that fasten into the _os sacrum_ and the share-bone.
+Its size varies much in different women, and the difference is
+especially great between those who have borne children and those who
+have had none. Its substance exceeds a thumb's breadth in thickness, and
+so far from decreasing conception, it rather increases; and in order to
+strengthen it it is interwoven with fibres which cross it from side to
+side, some of which are straight and some winding, and its proper
+vessels are veins, arteries and nerves. Amongst these there are two
+small veins which pass into the womb from the spermatic vessels, and two
+larger ones from the neck: the mouth of these veins pierces as far as
+the inward cavity.
+
+[Illustration: Position of a Child in the Womb just before delivery.]
+
+[Illustration: The action of quickening]
+
+The womb has two arteries on both sides of the spermatic vessels and the
+hypogastric, which accompany the veins; and besides these, there are
+several little nerves in the form of a net, which extend throughout it,
+from the bottom of the _pudenda_; their chief function is sensibility
+and pleasure, as they move in sympathy between the head and the womb.
+
+It may be further noted that the womb is occasionally moveable by means
+of the two ligaments that hang on either side of it, and often rises and
+falls. The neck of the womb is extremely sensitive, so that if it be at
+any time out of order through over fatness, moisture or relaxation, it
+thereby becomes subject to barrenness. With pregnant women, a glutinous
+matter is often found at the entrance to the womb so as to facilitate
+the birth; for at the time of delivery, the mouth of the womb is opened
+as wide as the size of the child requires, and dilates equally from top
+to bottom.
+
+The spermatic vessels in women, consist of two veins and two arteries,
+which differ from those of men only in size and the manner of their
+insertion; for the number of veins and arteries is the same as in men,
+the right vein issuing from the trunk of the hollow vein descending and
+besides them there are two arteries, which flow from the aorta.
+
+These vessels are narrower and shorter in women than in men; but it must
+be noticed that they are more intertwined and contorted than in men, and
+shrink together by reason of their shortness that they may, by their
+looseness, be better stretched out when necessary: and these vessels in
+women are carried in an oblique direction through the lesser bowels and
+testicles but are divided into two branches half way. The larger goes to
+the stones and forms a winding body, and wonderfully inoculates the
+lesser branches where it disperses itself, and especially at the higher
+part of the bottom of the womb, for its nourishment, and that part of
+the courses may pass through the vessels; and seeing that women's
+testicles are situated near the womb, for that cause those vessels do
+not fall from the peritoneum, nor do they make so much passage as in
+men, as they do not extend to the share-bone.
+
+The stones of woman, commonly called _testicles_, do not perform the
+same function as in men, for they are altogether different in position,
+size, temperature, substance, form and covering. They are situated in
+the hollow of the muscles of the loins, so that, by contracting greater
+heat, they may be more fruitful, their office being to contain the ova
+or eggs, one of which, being impregnated by the man's seed engenders the
+child. They are, however, different from those of the male in shape,
+because they are smaller and flatter at each end, and not so round or
+oval; the external superficies is also more unequal, and has the
+appearance of a number of knobs or kernels mixed together.
+
+There is a difference, also, in the substance, as they are much softer
+and more pliable, and not nearly so compact. Their size and temperature
+are also different for they are much colder and smaller than in men, and
+their covering or enclosure is likewise quite different; for as men's
+are wrapped in several covers, because they are very pendulous and would
+be easily injured unless they were so protected by nature, so women's
+stones, being internal and thus less subject to being hurt, are covered
+by only one membrane, and are likewise half covered by the peritoneum.
+
+The ejaculatory vessels are two small passages, one on either side,
+which do not differ in any respect from the spermatic veins in
+substance. They rise in one place from the bottom of the womb, and do
+not reach from their other extremity either to the stones or to any
+other part, but are shut up and impassable, and adhere to the womb as
+the colon does to the blind gut, and winding half way about; and though
+the testicles are not close to them and do not touch them, yet they are
+fastened to them by certain membranes which resemble the wing of a bat,
+through which certain veins and arteries passing from the end of the
+testicles may be said to have their passages going from the corners of
+the womb to the testicles, and these ligaments in women are the
+_cremasters_[3] in men, of which I shall speak more fully when I come to
+describe the male parts of generation.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] Muscles by which the testicles are drawn up.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+     _A Description of the Use and Action of the several Generative
+     Parts in Women._
+
+
+The external parts, commonly called the _pudenda_, are designed to cover
+the great orifice and to receive the man's penis or yard in the act of
+sexual intercourse, and to give passage to the child and to the urine.
+The use of the wings and knobs, like myrtle berries, is for the security
+of the internal parts, closing the orifice and neck of the bladder and
+by their swelling up, to cause titillation and pleasure in those parts,
+and also to obstruct the involuntary passage of the urine.
+
+The action of the clitoris in women is similar to that of the penis in
+men, viz., _erection_; and its lower end is the glans of the penis, and
+has the same name. And as the _glans_ of man are the seat of the
+greatest pleasure in copulation, so is this in the woman.
+
+The action and use of the neck on the womb is the same as that of the
+penis, viz., erection, brought about in different ways: first, in
+copulation it becomes erect and made straight for the passage of the
+penis into the womb; secondly, whilst the passage is filled with the
+vital blood, it becomes narrower for embracing the penis; and the uses
+of this erection are twofold:--first, because if the neck of the womb
+were not erected, the man's yard could find no proper passage to the
+womb, and, secondly, it hinders any damage or injury that might ensue
+through the violent striking of the _penis_ during the act of
+copulation.
+
+The use of the veins that pass through the neck of the womb, is to
+replenish it with blood and vigour, that so, as the moisture is consumed
+by the heat engendered by sexual intercourse, it may be renewed by those
+vessels; but their chief business is to convey nutriment to the womb.
+
+The womb has many properties belonging to it: first, the retention of
+the impregnated egg, and this is conception, properly so called;
+secondly, to cherish and nourish it, until Nature has fully formed the
+child, and brought it to perfection, and then it operates strongly in
+expelling the child, when the time of its remaining has expired,
+becoming dilated in an extraordinary manner and so perfectly removed
+from the senses that they cannot injuriously affect it, retaining within
+itself a power and strength to eject the foetus, unless it be rendered
+deficient by any accident; and in such a case remedies must be applied
+by skilful hands to strengthen it, and enable it to perform its
+functions; directions for which will be given in the second book.
+
+The use of the preparing vessels is this; the arteries convey the blood
+to the testicles; some part of it is absorbed in nourishing them, and in
+the production of these little bladders (which resemble eggs in every
+particular), through which the _vasa preparantia_ run, and which are
+absorbed in them; and the function of the veins is to bring back
+whatever blood remains from the above mentioned use. The vessels of this
+kind are much shorter in women than in men, because they are nearer to
+the testicles; this defect is, however, made good by the many intricate
+windings to which those vessels are subject; for they divide themselves
+into two branches of different size in the middle and the larger one
+passes to the testicles.
+
+The stones in women are very useful, for where they are defective, the
+work of generation is at an end. For though those bladders which are on
+the outer surface contain no seed, as the followers of Galen and
+Hippocrates wrongly believed, yet they contain several eggs, generally
+twenty in each testicle; one of which being impregnated by the animated
+part of the man's seed in the act of copulation, descends through the
+oviducts into the womb, and thus in due course of time becomes a living
+child.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+     _Of the Organs of Generation in Man._
+
+
+Having given a description of the organs of generation in women, with
+the anatomy of the fabric of the womb, I shall now, in order to finish
+the first part of this treatise, describe the organs of generation in
+men, and how they are fitted for the use for which Nature intended them.
+
+The instrument of generation in men (commonly called the yard, in Latin,
+_penis_, from _pendo_, to hang, because it hangs outside the belly), is
+an organic part which consists of skin, tendons, veins, arteries, sinews
+and great ligaments; and is long and round, and on the upper side
+flattish, seated under the _os pubis_, and ordained by Nature partly for
+the evacuation of urine, and partly for conveying the seed into the
+womb; for which purpose it is full of small pores, through which the
+seed passes into it, through the _vesicula seminalis_,[4] and discharges
+the urine when they make water; besides the common parts, viz., the two
+nervous bodies, the septum, the urethra, the glans, four muscles and the
+vessels. The nervous bodies (so called) are surrounded with a thick
+white, penetrable membrane, but their inner substance is spongy, and
+consists chiefly of veins, arteries, and nervous fibres, interwoven like
+a net. And when the nerves are filled with animal vigour and the
+arteries with hot, eager blood, the penis becomes distended and erect;
+also the neck of the _vesicula urinalis_,[5] but when the influx of
+blood ceases, and when it is absorbed by the veins, the penis becomes
+limp and flabby. Below those nervous bodies is the urethra, and whenever
+they swell, it swells also. The penis has four muscles; two shorter ones
+springing from the _Cox endix_ and which serve for erection, and on that
+account they are called _erectores_; two larger, coming from _sphincters
+ani_, which serve to dilate the urethra so as to discharge the semen,
+and these are called dilatantes, or wideners. At the end of the penis is
+the _glans_, covered with a very thin membrane, by means of which, and
+of its nervous substance, it becomes most extremely sensitive, and is
+the principal seat of pleasure in copulation. The outer covering of the
+_glans_ is called the _preputium_ (foreskin), which the Jews cut off in
+circumcision, and it is fastened by the lower part of it to the _glans_.
+The penis is also provided with veins, arteries and nerves.
+
+The _testiculi_, stones or testicles (so called because they testify one
+to be a man), turn the blood, which is brought to them by the spermatic
+arteries into seed. They have two sorts of covering, common and proper;
+there are two of the common, which enfold both the testes. The outer
+common coat, consists of the _cuticula_, or true skin, and is called the
+scrotum, and hangs from the abdomen like a purse; the inner is the
+_membrana carnosa_. There are also two proper coats--the outer called
+_cliotrodes_, or virginales; the inner _albugidia_; in the outer the
+cremaster is inserted. The _epididemes_, or _prostatae_ are fixed to the
+upper part of the testes, and from them spring the _vasa deferentia_, or
+_ejaculatoria_, which deposit the seed into the _vesicule seminales_
+when they come near the neck of the bladder. There are two of these
+_vesiculae_, each like a bunch of grapes, which emit the seed into the
+urethra in the act of copulation. Near them are the _prostatae_, about
+the size of a walnut, and joined to the neck of the bladder. Medical
+writers do not agree about the use of them, but most are of the opinion
+that they produce an oily and sloppy discharge to besmear the urethra so
+as to defend it against the pungency of the seed and urine. But the
+vessels which convey the blood to the testes, from which the seed is
+made, are the _arteriae spermaticae_ and there are two of them also.
+There are likewise two veins, which carry off the remaining blood, and
+which are called _venae spermaticae_.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] Seminal vesicle.
+
+[5] Urinary vesicle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+     _A word of Advice to both Sexes, consisting of several Directions
+     with regard to Copulation._
+
+
+As Nature has a mutual desire for copulation in every creature, for the
+increase and propagation of its kind, and more especially in man, the
+lord of creation and the masterpiece of Nature, in order that such a
+noble piece of divine workmanship should not perish, something ought to
+be said concerning it, it being the foundation of everything that we
+have hitherto been treating of, since without copulation there can be no
+generation. Seeing, therefore, so much depends upon it, I have thought
+it necessary, before concluding the first book, to give such directions
+to both sexes, for the performance of that act, as may appear
+efficacious to the end for which nature designed it, but it will be done
+with such caution as not to offend the chastest ear, nor to put the fair
+sex to the blush when they read it.
+
+In the first place, then, when a married couple from the desire of
+having children are about to make use of those means that Nature has
+provided for that purpose, it is well to stimulate the body with
+generous restoratives, that it may be active and vigorous. And the
+imagination should be charmed with sweet music, and if all care and
+thoughts of business be drowned in a glass of rosy wine, so that their
+spirit may be raised to the highest pitch of ardour, it would be as
+well, for troubles, cares or sadness are enemies to the pleasures of
+Venus. And if the woman should conceive when sexual intercourse takes
+place at such times of disturbance, it would have a bad effect upon the
+child. But though generous restoratives may be employed for invigorating
+nature, yet all excess should be carefully avoided, for it will check
+the briskness of the spirits and make them dull and languid, and as it
+also interferes with digestion, it must necessarily be an enemy _to_
+copulation; for it is food taken moderately and that is well digested,
+which enables a man to perform the dictates of Nature with vigour and
+activity, and it is also necessary, that in their mutual embraces they
+meet each other with equal ardour, for, if not, the woman either will
+not conceive, or else the child may be weak bodily, or mentally
+defective. I, therefore, advise them to excite their desires mutually
+before they begin their conjugal intercourse, and when they have done
+what nature requires, a man must be careful not to withdraw himself from
+his wife's arms too soon, lest some sudden cold should strike into the
+womb and occasion miscarriage, and so deprive them of the fruits of
+their labour.
+
+And when the man has withdrawn himself after a suitable time, the woman
+should quietly go to rest, with all calmness and composure of mind, free
+from all anxious and disturbing thoughts, or any other mental worry. And
+she must, as far as possible, avoid turning over from the side on which
+she was first lying, and also keep from coughing and sneezing, because
+as it violently shakes the body, it is a great enemy to conception.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+A
+
+PRIVATE LOOKING-GLASS
+
+FOR THE
+
+FEMALE SEX
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PART II
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+     _Treating of the several Maladies incident to the womb, with proper
+     remedies for the cure of each._
+
+
+The womb is placed in the _hypogastrium_, or lower part of the body, in
+the cavity called the _pelvis_, having the straight gut on one side to
+protect it against the hardness of the backbone, and the bladder on the
+other side to protect it against blows. Its form or shape is like a
+virile member, with this exception, that the man's is outside, and the
+woman's inside.
+
+It is divided into the neck and body. The neck consists of a hard fleshy
+substance, much like cartilage, and at the end of it there is a membrane
+placed transversely, which is called the hymen. Near the neck there is a
+prominent pinnacle, which is called the door of the womb, because it
+preserves the _matrix_ from cold and dust. The Greeks called it
+_clitoris_, and the Latins _praeputium muliebre_, because the Roman
+women abused these parts to satisfy their mutual unlawful lusts, as St.
+Paul says, Romans 1. 26.
+
+The body of the womb is where the child is conceived, and this is not
+altogether round, but dilates itself into two angles; the outward part
+is full of sinews, which are the cause of its movements, but inside it
+is fleshy. It is wrongly said, that in the cavity of the womb there are
+seven divided cells or receptacles for the male seed, but anatomists
+know that there are only two, and also that those two are not divided by
+a partition, but only by a line or suture running through the middle of
+it.
+
+At the bottom of the cavity there are little holes called
+_cotyledones_, which are the ends of certain veins or arteries, and
+serve breeding women to convey nourishment to the child, which is
+received by the umbilical and other veins, to carry the courses to the
+_matrix_.
+
+As to menstruation, it is defined as a monthly flow of bad and useless
+blood, and of the super-abundance of it, for it is an excrement in
+quality, though it is pure and incorrupt, like the blood in the veins.
+And that the menstruous blood is pure in itself, and of the same quality
+as that in the veins, is proved in two ways.--First, from the final
+object of the blood, which is the propagation and preservation of
+mankind, that man might be conceived; and that, being begotten, he might
+be comforted and preserved both in and out of the womb, and all allow
+that it is true that a child in the matrix is nourished by the blood.
+And it is true that when it is out of it, it is nourished by the same;
+for the milk is nothing but the menstruous blood made white in the
+breast. Secondly, it is proved to be true by the way it is produced, as
+it is the superfluity of the last aliment of the fleshy parts.
+
+The natural end of man and woman's being is to propagate. Now, in the
+act of conception one must be an active agent and the other passive, for
+if both were similarly constituted, they could not propagate. Man,
+therefore, is hot and dry, whilst woman is cold and moist: he is the
+agent, and she the passive or weaker vessel, that she may be subject to
+the office of the man. It is necessary that woman should be of a cold
+constitution, because a redundancy of Nature for the infant that depends
+on her is required of her; for otherwise there would be no surplus of
+nourishment for the child, but no more than the mother requires, and the
+infant would weaken the mother, and like as in the viper, the birth of
+the infant would be the death of the parent.
+
+The monthly purgations continue from the fifteenth to the forty-sixth or
+fiftieth year; but a suppression often occurs, which is either natural
+or morbid: the courses are suppressed naturally during pregnancy, and
+whilst the woman is suckling. The morbid suppression remains to be
+spoken of.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+     _Of the Retention of the Courses._
+
+
+The suppression of the menstrual periods, is an interruption of that
+accustomed evacuation of blood, which comes from the matrix every month,
+and the part affected is the womb.
+
+
+
+CAUSE.
+
+The cause of this suppression is either external or internal. The
+external cause may be heat or dryness of air, want of sleep, too much
+work, violent exercise, etc., whereby the substance is so consumed, and
+the body so exhausted that nothing is left over to be got rid of, as is
+recorded of the Amazons who, being active and constantly in motion, had
+their courses very little, if at all. Or it may be brought about by cold
+which is very frequent, as it vitiates and thickens the blood, and binds
+up the passages, so that it cannot flow out.
+
+The internal cause is either instrumental or material; in the womb or in
+the blood. In the womb, it may be in various ways; by humours, and
+abscesses and ulcers, by the narrowness of the veins and passages, or by
+the adipose membrane in fat bodies, pressing on the neck of the matrix,
+but then they must have hernia, zirthilis, for in men the membrane does
+not reach so low; by too much cold or heat, the one vitiating the
+action, and the other consuming the matter through the wrong formation
+of the uterine parts; by the neck of the womb being turned aside, and
+sometimes, though rarely, by a membrane or excrescence of the flesh
+growing at the mouth or neck of the womb. The blood may be in fault in
+two ways, in quantity and in quality; in quantity, when it is so
+consumed that no surplus is left over, as in viragoes or virile women,
+who, through their heat and natural strength, consume it all in their
+last nourishment; as Hippocrates writes of Prethusa, for when her
+husband praised her overmuch, her courses were suppressed, her voice
+changed and she got a beard with a manly face. But I think, rather that
+these must be _Gynophagi_, or woman-eaters, rather than women-breeders,
+because they consume one of the principles of generation, which gives a
+being to the world, viz., the menstruous blood. The blood may likewise
+be lost, and the courses checked by nosebleeding, by bleeding piles, by
+dysentery, commonly called the bloody flux, by many other discharges,
+and by chronic diseases. Secondly, the matter may be vitiated in
+quality, and if it be sanguineous, sluggish, bilious or melancholy, and
+any of these will cause an obstruction in the veins.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+Signs which manifest the disease are pains in the head, neck, back and
+loins; weariness of the whole body (but especially of the hips and legs,
+because the womb is near those parts); palpitation of the heart. The
+following are particular signs:--If the suppression arises from a cold,
+the woman becomes heavy, sluggish, pale and has a slow pulse; Venus'
+combats are neglected, the urine is thick, the blood becomes watery and
+great in quantity, and the bowels become constipated. If it arises from
+heat, the signs are just the opposite. If the retention be natural and
+arises from conception, this may be known by drinking hydromel, i.e.,
+water and honey, after supper, before going to bed, by the effect which
+it has; for if after taking it, she feels a heating pain about the navel
+and the lower parts of the abdomen, it is a sign that she has conceived,
+and that the suppression is natural.
+
+
+
+PROGNOSTICS.
+
+The whole body is affected by any disorder of the womb, and especially
+the heart, the liver and the brain, and there is a singular sympathy
+between the womb and those three organs. Firstly, the womb communicates
+with the heart by the mediation of those arteries which come from the
+aorta. Hence, when menstruation is suppressed, fainting, swooning, a
+very low pulse, and shortness of breath will ensue. Secondly, it
+communicates with the liver by the veins derived from the hollow vein.
+Obstructions, jaundice, dropsy, induration of the spleen will follow.
+Thirdly, it communicates with the brain by the nerves and membranes of
+the back; hence arise epilepsy, madness, fits of melancholy, pains in
+the back of the head, unaccountable fears and inability to speak. I may,
+therefore, well agree with Hippocrates that if menstruation be
+suppressed, many dangerous diseases will follow.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+In the cure of this, and of all the other following cases, I shall
+observe the following order:--The cures will be taken from surgical,
+pharmaceutical and diuretical means. The suppression has a plethoric
+effect, and must be removed by the evacuation; therefore we begin with
+bleeding. In the middle of the menstrual period, open the liver vein,
+and two days before, open the saphena in both feet; if the repletion is
+not very great apply cupping glasses to the legs and thighs, although
+there may be no hope of removing the suppression. As in some women, the
+cotyledones are so closed up that nothing but copulation will open them,
+yet it will be well to relieve the woman as much as possible by opening
+the hemoroid veins by applying a leech. After bleeding let the place be
+prepared and made flexible with syrup of stychas, calamint, betony,
+hyssop, mugwort, horehound, fumitary, maidenhair. Bathe the parts with
+camomiles, pennyroyal, savias, bay-leaves, juniper-berries, rue,
+marjoram, feverfew. Take a handful each of nep, maidenhair, succory and
+betony leaves and make a decoction, and take three ounces of it, syrup
+of maidenhair, mugwort and succory, half an ounce of each. After she
+comes out of her bath, let her drink it off. Purge with _Pill agaric,
+fleybany, corb, feriae_. In this case, Galen recommends _pilulae of
+caberica coloquintida_; for, as they are good for purging the bad
+humours, so also they open the passages of the womb, and strengthen it
+by their aromatic qualities.
+
+If the stomach be over-loaded, let her take an emetic, yet such a one as
+may work both ways, lest if it only works upwards, it should check the
+humours too much. Take two drachms of trochisks of agaric, infuse this
+in two ounces of oxymel in which dissolve one scruple and a half of
+_electuary dissarum_, and half an ounce of _benedic laxit_. Take this as
+a purge.
+
+After the humour has been got rid of, proceed to more suitable and
+stronger remedies. Take a drachm and a half of trochisk of myrrh; ten
+grains of musk with the juice of smallage; make twelve pills and take
+six every morning, or after supper, on going to bed. Take half an ounce
+of cinnamon, two drachms each of smirutium, or rogos, valerin
+aristolochia; two scruples each of astrumone root and saffron; two
+drachms of spec. diambia; four scruples of trochisk of myrrh; two
+scruples tartari vitriolari; make half into a powder; make lozenges with
+mugwort water and sugar, and take one drachm of them every morning; or
+mix a drachm of the powder with one drachm of sugar, and take it in
+white wine. Take two drachms each of prepared steel and spec. hair; one
+scruple each of borax and spec. of myrrh, with savine juice; make it up
+into eighty-eight lozenges and take three every other day before dinner.
+Take one scruple of castor, half a drachm of wild carrot seed with syrup
+of mugwort, and make four pills, take them in the morning fasting, for
+three days following, before the usual time of purging. Take five
+drachms each of agaric, aristolochia, and juice of horehound; six
+drachma each of rhubarb, spikenard, aniseed, guidanum, asafoetida,
+mallow-root, gentian, of the three peppers and of liquorice: make an
+electuary with honey, and take three drachms for a dose. For phlegmatic
+constitutions nothing can be better than the decoction of guaiacum wood
+with a little disclaim, taken fasting in the morning, for twelve days
+consecutively, without producing sweating.
+
+Treat the lower parts of the body to suffumigating, pessaries, ointments
+and injections; for fumigating use cinnamon, nutmeg, the berries of the
+bay tree, mugwort, galbanum, molanthium, amber, etc. Make pessaries of
+figs and the bruised leaves of dog's mercury, rolled up in lint, and if
+a stronger one is required, make one of myrrh, opopanax, ammoniac,
+galbanum, sagepanum, mithridate, agaric, coloquintida, tec. Make
+injections of a decoction of origane mugwort, dog's mercury, betony, and
+eggs; inject into the womb with a female syringe. Take half an ounce
+each of oil of almonds, lilies, capers, camomiles; two drachms each of
+laudanum and oil of myrrh; make a salve with wax, with which anoint the
+place; make injections of fenugreek, camomiles, melilot, dill, marjoram,
+pennyroyal, feverfew, juniper berries and calamint; but if the
+suppression arises from a lack of matter, then the courses ought not to
+be brought on until the spirits be raised and the amount of blood
+increased; or if it arises from affections of the womb itself, as dropsy
+or inflammation, then particular care must be used; but I will not lay
+stress on this here, but will mention the remedies in their order.
+
+If the retention comes from repletion or fullness, if the air be hot and
+dry, take moderate exercise before meals, and very light diet and
+drinks, and with your food take garden savory--thyme and origane, if it
+arises from emptiness and defect of matter: if the weather be moist and
+moderately hot, avoid exercise and late hours; let your food be
+nourishing and easy of digestion, such as raw eggs, lamb, chickens,
+almonds, milk and the like.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+     _Of Excessive Menstruation._
+
+
+The learned say, that truth is manifested by comparing contraries, and
+so, as I have above spoken of the suppression of menstruation, it is now
+necessary that I should treat of excessive menstruation, which is no
+less dangerous than the former. This immoderate monthly flow is defined
+as a sanguineous discharge, as it consists merely of blood, wherein it
+differs from the false courses or whites, of which I shall speak further
+on. Secondly, it is said to proceed from the womb; for there are two
+ways in which the blood issues forth; one by the internal veins of the
+body of the womb (and this is properly called the monthly flow), the
+other is by those veins which terminate in the neck of the matrix, which
+Aetius calls haemorrhoids of the womb. In quantity, Hippocrates said, it
+should be about eighteen ounces, and they should last about three days:
+and when the faculties of the body are weakened by their flow, we may
+take it that the discharge is inordinate. In bodies which abound in
+gross humours, this immoderate flow sometimes unburdens nature of her
+load and ought not to be checked without a physician's advice.
+
+
+
+CAUSE.
+
+The cause is either internal or external. The internal cause is
+threefold; in the substance, the instrument or the power. The matter,
+which is the blood, may be vitiated in two ways; first, by the heat of
+the constitution, climate or season, heating the blood, whereby the
+passages are dilated, and the power weakened so that it cannot retain
+the blood. Secondly, by falls, blows, violent motions, rupture of the
+veins, etc. The external cause may be the heat of the air, heavy
+burdens, unnatural childbirth, etc.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+In this excessive flow the appetite is lessened, conception is checked
+and all the functions weakened; the feet swell, the colour of the face
+changes, and the whole body is weakened. If the flow comes from the
+rupture of a vein, the body is sometimes cold, the blood flows out in
+streams, suddenly, and causes great pain. If it arises from heat, and
+the orifice of the vein is dilated, there is little or no pain, but yet
+the blood flows faster than it does when caused by erosion, but not so
+fast as it does in a rupture. If caused by erosion, the woman feels a
+scalding of the passage, and it differs from the other two, in so much
+as it does not flow so quickly or so freely as they do. If it is caused
+by weakness of the womb, the woman feels a dislike for sexual
+intercourse. Lastly, if it proceeds from the defective quality of the
+blood let some of it drop into a cloth, and when it is dry, you may
+judge, of the quality by the colour. If it be passionate it will be
+yellow; if melancholy, it will be black, and if phlegmatic, it will be
+waterish and whitish.
+
+
+
+PROGNOSTICS.
+
+If convulsions are joined to the flow, it is dangerous, because that
+intimates that the noble parts are affected, convulsions caused by
+emptiness are deadly. If they continue long, they will be very difficult
+to cure, and it was one of the miracles which our Saviour Christ
+wrought, to cure a woman of this disease of twelve years standing.
+
+To conclude, if the flow be excessive, many diseases will follow, which
+will be almost impossible to cure; the blood, being consumed together
+with the innate heat, either morbid, dropsical, or paralytical diseases
+will follow.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+The cure consists in three particulars. First, in expelling and
+carrying away the blood. Secondly, in connecting and removing the
+fluxibility of the matter. Thirdly, in incorporating the veins and
+faculties. For the first, to get rid of the superfluous blood, open a
+vein in the arm, and draw off as much blood as the strength of the
+patient will allow; not all at one time, but at intervals, for by those
+means the spirits are less weakened, and the reaction so much the
+greater.
+
+Apply cupping glasses to the breasts and also over the liver, and to
+correct the flexibility of the matter, purgative means, moderated by
+astringents, may be employed.
+
+If it is caused by erosion, and salt phlegm, prepare with syrup of
+violets, wormwood, roses, citron peel, succory, etc. Then make the
+following purge:--mirabolans, half an ounce; trochisks of agaric, one
+drachm; make a decoction with the plantain-water, and add syrup of roses
+lax. three ounces, and make a draught.
+
+If caused by any mental excitement, prepare the body by syrup of roses,
+myrtles, sorrel and parsley, mixed with plantain-water, knot-grass and
+endive. Then purge with the following draught:--Take one drachm each of
+the void of mirabolans, and rhubarb, cinnamon fifteen grains; infuse for
+a night in endive water; add to the strained water half an ounce of pulp
+of tamarinds and of cassia, and make a draught. If the blood be
+waterish as it is in dropsical subjects and flows out easily on account
+of its thinness, it will be a good plan to draw off the water by purging
+with agaric, elaterium and coloquintida. Sweating is also useful in this
+case, as by it the noxious matter is carried off, and the motion of the
+blood to other parts. To produce sweating, employ cardus water, and
+mithridate, or a decoction of guaiacum and sarsaparilla. Gum guaiacum is
+also a great producer of perspiration, and sarsaparilla pills, taken
+every night before going to bed are also highly to be recommended. If
+the blood pours out, without any evil quality in itself, then
+strengthening means only should be employed, which is a thing to be done
+in cases of inordinate discharge.
+
+Take one scruple of ol. ammoniac, one drachm of treacle, half an ounce
+of conserve of roses and make an electuary with syrup of myrtle, or if
+the discharge be of long standing take two drachms of matrix, one drachm
+of olilanum troch. de carbara, a scruple of balustium; make into a
+powder and form into pills with syrup of quinces, and take one before
+every meal. Take two scruples each of troch. dechambede, scoriaferri,
+coral and frankincense; pound these to a fine powder, and make into
+lozenges with sugar and plantain water. Asses' dung is also approved
+of, whether taken inwardly with syrup of quinces or applied outwardly
+with steeled water. Galen by sending the juice of it into the womb by
+means of a syringe for four days consecutively, cured this immediate
+flow, which could not be checked in any other way. Let the patient take
+one scruple and a half of pilon in water before going to bed; make a
+fumigation for the womb of mastic, frankincense and burnt frogs, adding
+the hoof of a mule. Take an ounce each of the juice of knot-grass,
+comfoly and quinces; a drachm of camphor; dip a piece of silk or cotton
+into it and apply it to the place. Take half an ounce each of oil of
+mastic, myrtle, and quinces; a drachm each of fine bole and troch.
+decardas, and a sufficient quantity of dragon's blood, make an ointment
+and apply it before and behind. Take an ounce and a half each of
+plantain, shepherd's purse and red rose leaves; an ounce of dried mint,
+and three ounces of bean flour; boil all these in plantain water and
+make two plasters:--apply one before and one behind. If the blood flows
+from those veins which are terminated at the neck of the matrix, then it
+is not called an undue discharge of the _menses_, but haemorrhoids of
+the womb. The same remedy, however, will serve for both, only the
+instrumental cure will be a little different; for in uterine
+haemorrhoids, the ends of the veins hang over like teats, which must
+be removed by cutting, and then the veins closed with aloes, fine bole,
+burnt alum, myrrh, mastic, with comfoly-juice and knot grass, laid upon
+it like a plaster.
+
+[Illustration: _Position of the Embryos in a plural conception_]
+
+[Illustration: Process of Delivery.]
+
+The air should be cold and dry, and all motion of the body should be
+prohibited. Her diet should consist of pheasants, partridges, grouse,
+rabbits, calves' feet, etc., and her drink should be mixed with the
+juice of pomegranates and quinces.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+     _Of the Weeping of the Womb._
+
+
+The weeping of the womb is an unnatural flow of blood, coming from it in
+drops, like tears, and causing violent pains in it, and occurring at no
+fixed period or time. By some it is supposed to be produced by the
+excessive flow of the courses, as they flow copiously and freely; this
+is continued, though only little at a time, and accompanied by great
+pain and difficulty of passing it, and on this account it is compared
+to the strangury.
+
+The cause is in the power, instrument or matter; in the power, on
+account of its being enfeebled so that it cannot expel the blood, and
+which, remaining there, makes that part of the womb grow hard, and
+distends the vessels, and from that, pains in the womb arise. In the
+instrument, from the narrowness of the passage. Lastly, it may be the
+matter of the blood which is at fault, and which may be in too great
+quantities; or the quality may be bad, so that it is thick and gross and
+cannot flow out as it ought to do, but only in drops. The signs will
+best be ascertained by the patient's own account, but there will be
+pains in the head, stomach and back, with inflammation, difficulty of
+breathing and excoriation of the matrix. If the patient's strength will
+permit it, first open a vein in the arm, rub the upper parts and let a
+cord be fastened tightly round the arm, so that the force of the blood
+may be carried backward; then apply such things as may relax the womb,
+and assuage the heat of the blood, as poultices made of bran, linseed,
+mallows, dog's mercury and artiplex. If the blood be viscous and thick,
+add mugwort, calamint, dictain and betony to it, and let the patient
+take about the size of a nutmeg of Venic treacle, and syrup of mugwort
+every morning; make an injection of aloes, dog's mercury, linseed,
+groundsel, mugwort, fenugreek, with sweet almond oil.
+
+Sometimes it is caused by wind, and then bleeding must not be had
+recourse to, but instead take one ounce of syrup of feverfew; half an
+ounce each of honey, syrup of roses, syrup of stachus; an ounce each of
+calamint water, mugwort, betony and hyssop, and make a julep. If the
+pain continues, use this purge:--Take a drachm of spec. Hitrae, half an
+ounce of diacatholicon, one ounce of syrup of roses and laxative, and
+make a draught with a decoction of mugwort and the four cordial flowers.
+If it proceeds from weakness, she must be strengthened, but if from
+grossness of blood, let the quality of it be altered, as I have shown in
+the preceding chapter. Lastly, if her bowels are confined, move them by
+an injection of a decoction of camomiles, betony, feverfew, mallows,
+linseed, juniper-berries, cumminseed, aniseed, melilot, and add to it
+half an ounce of diacatholicon; two drachms of hiera piera, an ounce
+each of honey and oil and a drachm and a half of sol. nitre. The patient
+must abstain from salt, acid and windy food.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+     _The false Courses, or Whites._
+
+
+From the womb, not only the menstruous blood proceeds, but many
+evacuations, which were summed up by the ancients under the title of
+_rhoos gunaikeios_,[6] which is the distillation of a variety of corrupt
+humours through the womb, which flow from the whole body or a part of
+it, varying both in courses and colour.
+
+
+
+CAUSE.
+
+The cause is either promiscuously in the whole body, by a cacochymia; or
+weakness of it, or in some of its parts, as in the liver, which by a
+weakness of the blood producing powers, cause a production of corrupt
+blood, which then is reddish. Sometimes, when the fall is sluggish in
+its action, and does not get rid of those superfluities engendered in
+the liver, the matter is yellowish. Sometimes it is in the spleen when
+it does not cleanse the blood of the dregs and rejected particles, and
+then the matter which flows forth is blackish. It may also come from a
+cold in the head, or from any other decayed or corrupted member, but if
+the discharge be white, the cause lies either in the stomach or loins.
+In the stomach, by some crude substance there, and vitiated by grief,
+melancholy or some other mental disturbance; for otherwise, if the
+matter were only crude phlegm and noways corrupt, being taken into the
+liver it might be converted into the blood; for phlegm in the ventricle
+is called nourishment half digested; but being corrupt, though sent into
+the liver it cannot be turned into nutriment, for the second decoction
+in the stomach cannot correct that which the first corrupted; and
+therefore the liver sends it to the womb, which can neither digest nor
+reject it, and so it is voided out with the same colour which it had in
+the ventricle. The cause may also be in the veins being overheated
+whereby the spermatical matter flows out because of its thinness. The
+external causes may be moistness of the air, eating bad food, anger,
+grief, sloth, too much sleep, costiveness.
+
+The signs are bodily disturbances, shortness of breathing, and foul
+breath, a distaste for food, swollen eyes and feet, and low spirits;
+discharges of different colours, as red, black, green, yellow and white
+from the womb. It differs from the flowing of the courses and from too
+abundant menstruation, in so far as it keeps no certain period, and is
+of many colours, all of which spring from blood.
+
+If the flux be phlegmatic, it will last long and be hard to cure, but if
+sickness or diarrhoea supervene, it carries off the humour and cures the
+disease. If it is abundant it does not last so long, but it is more
+dangerous, for it will cause a cleft in the neck of the womb, and
+sometimes also an excoriation of the matrix; if melancholy, it must be
+dangerous and obstinate. The flux of the haemorrhoids, however, assists
+the cure.
+
+If the matter which flows out be reddish, open a vein in the arm; if
+not, apply ligatures to the arms and shoulders. Galen boasts that he
+cured the wife of Brutus, who was suffering from this disease, by
+rubbing the upper part with honey.
+
+If it is caused by the brain, take syrup of betony and marjoram. Give as
+a purgative _Pill. coch._ or _Agaric_; make nasalia of sage, or hyssop
+juice, betony, flagella, with one drop of oil of _Elect. Dianth. Rosat.
+Diambrae, diamosci dulus_, one drachm of each, and make lozenges to be
+taken every morning and evening. _Auri Alexandrina_, half a drachm at
+night on going to bed. If these things have no effect, try suffumigation
+and plasters, as they are prescribed above.
+
+If it arises from crudities of the stomach or from a cold, disordered
+liver, take a decoction of _lignum sanctum_ every morning, purge with
+_pill de agaric, de hermadact, de hiera, diacolinthis, foetid-agrigatio_;
+take two drachms of elect. aromet-roses, one scruple each of dried
+citron peel, nutmeg, long pepper; one drachm of draglanga; half a
+scruple each of _fantalum album_, ling, aloes; six ounces of sugar, with
+mint water: make lozenges of it, and take them before meals. If there be
+repletion besides the rigidity of the liver, purging by means of an
+emetic is to be recommended, for which take three drachms of the
+electuary diasatu. Galen allows diuretical remedies, such as _aqua
+petrofolma_.
+
+If the discharge be angry, treat it with syrup of roses, violets, endive
+and succory; give a purge of mirabolans, manna, rhubarb, and cassia.
+Take two drachms of rhubarb, one of aniseed, and one scruple and a half
+of cinnamon; infuse them into six ounces of syrup of prunes, and add one
+ounce of strained manna, and take it in the morning as required. Take
+one drachm each of the following drugs: _diatonlanton, diacorant,
+diarthod, abbaris, dyacydomei_, four ounces of sugar, and make into
+lozenges with plantain water. If the gall be sluggish, and does not stir
+the bowels, give warm injections of a decoction of the four mollifying
+herbs, with honey of roses and aloes.
+
+If the flow be bilious, treat the patient with syrup of maiden-hair;
+epithynium, polypody, borage, buglos, fumitary, hart's tongue and
+syrups, bisantius, which must be made without vinegar, else it will
+assist the disease instead of nature, for melancholy is increased by the
+use of vinegar, and both Hippocrates, Silvius and Avenzoar reject it as
+injurious for the womb, and therefore not to be used internally in
+uterine diseases. _Pilulae sumariae, pilulae lud. delupina, lazuli
+diosena_ and _confetio hamec_ are purges of bile. Take two ounces of
+pounded prunes, one drachm of senna, a drachm and a half each of
+epithimium, polypody and fumitary, and an ounce of sour dates, and make
+a decoction with endive water; take four ounces of it and add three
+drachms of hamesech and three of manna. Or take a scruple each of _pil.
+indic. foetid, agarici, trochis ati_; one scruple of rhubarb pills, six
+grains of lapis lazuli, make into pills with epithimium, and take them
+once a week. Take three drachms of elect. loetificans. Galen three
+drachms, a drachm each of _diamargaritum, calimi, diamosci dulus_; a
+drachm of conserve of borage, violets and burglos; one drachm of candied
+citron peel, seven ounces of sugar, and make into lozenges with rose
+water.
+
+Lastly let the womb be cleansed of all corrupt matter, and then be
+strengthened. In order to purify it, make injections of the decoction of
+betony, feverfew, spikenard, bismust, mercury and sage, and add two
+ounces each of sugar and sweet almond oil; pessaries may also be made of
+silk or cotton, softened in the juice of the above mentioned herbs.
+
+You must prepare trochisks, thus, to strengthen the womb. Take one ounce
+each of mugwort, feverfew, myrrh, amber, mace, storax, ling aloes and
+red roses, and make lozenges or troches with mucilage of tragacanth;
+throw one of them on to hot coals and fumigate the womb with red wine,
+in which mastic, fine bole, malustia and red roots have been decocted;
+anoint the matrix with oil of quinces and myrtles, and apply a plaster
+to it, for the womb; and let the woman take _diamosdum dulco_, _aract_,
+and _slemoticum_ every morning.
+
+A drying diet is recommended as best, because in these cases the body
+abounds with phlegmatic and crude humours. On this account, Hippocrates
+advises the patient to go to bed supperless. Her food should consist of
+partridges, pheasant and grouse, roasted rather than boiled, too much
+sleep must be prohibited whilst moderate exercise is very advisable.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] The female flowing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+     _The Suffocation of the Mother._
+
+
+This, which if simply considered, will be found to be merely the cause
+of an effect, is called in English, "the suffocation of the mother," not
+because the womb is strangled, but because by its retraction towards the
+midriff and stomach, which presses it up, so that the instrumental cause
+of respiration, the midriff, is suffocated, and acting with the brain,
+cause the animating faculty, the efficient cause of respiration, also to
+be interrupted, when the body growing cold, and the action weakened, the
+woman falls to the ground as if she were dead.
+
+Some women remain longer in those hysterical attacks than others, and
+Rabbi Moses mentions some who lay in the fit for two days. Rufus writes
+of one who continued in it for three days and three nights, and revived
+at the end of the three days. And I will give you an example so that we
+may take warning by the example of other men. Paroetus mentions a
+Spanish woman who was suddenly seized with suffocation of the womb, and
+was thought to be dead. Her friends, for their own satisfaction, sent
+for a surgeon in order to have her opened, and as soon as he began to
+make an incision, she began to move, and come to herself again with
+great cries, to the horror and surprise of all those present.
+
+In order that the living may be distinguished from the dead, old writers
+prescribe three experiments. The first is, to lay a feather on the
+mouth, and by its movements you may judge whether the patient be alive
+or dead; the second is, to place a glass of water on the breast, and if
+it moves, it betokens life; the third is, to hold a bright, clean,
+looking-glass to the mouth and nose, and if the glass be dimmed with a
+little moisture on it, it betokens life. These three experiments are
+good, but you must not depend upon them too much, for though the feather
+and the glass do not move, and the looking-glass continues bright and
+clear, yet it is not a necessary consequence that she is dead. For the
+movement of the lungs, by which breathing is produced, may be checked,
+so that she cannot breathe, and yet internal heat may remain, which is
+not evident by the motion of the breast or lungs, but lies hidden in the
+heart and arteries.
+
+Examples of this we find in flies and swallows, who seem dead to all
+outward appearances, breathless and inanimate, and yet they live by that
+heat which is stored up in the heart and inward arteries. At the
+approach of summer, however, the internal heat, being restored to the
+outer parts, they are then brought to life again, out of their sleeping
+trance.
+
+Those women, therefore, who apparently die suddenly, and from no visible
+cause, should not be buried until the end of three days, lest the living
+be buried instead of the dead.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+The part affected is the womb, of which there are two motions--natural
+and symptomatic. The natural motion is, when the womb attracts the male
+seed, or expels the infant, and the symptomatical motion, of which we
+are speaking, is a convulsive drawing up of the womb.
+
+The cause is usually in the retention of the seed, or in the suppression
+of the menses, which causes a repletion of the corrupt humours of the
+womb, from which a windy refrigeration arises, which produces a
+convulsion of the ligaments of the womb. And just as it may arise from
+humidity or repletion, so also, as it is a convulsion, it may be caused
+by dryness or emptiness. Lastly also, it may arise from abortion or from
+difficult childbirth.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+On the approach of suffocation of the womb the face becomes pale, there
+is a weakness of the legs, shortness of breathing, frigidity of the
+whole body, with a spasm in the throat, and then the woman falls down,
+bereft of sense and motion; the mouth of the womb is closed up, and
+feels hard when touched with the finger. When the paroxysm or the fit is
+over, she opens her eyes, and as she feels an oppression of the stomach,
+she tries to vomit. And lest any one should be deceived into taking one
+disease for another, I will show how it may be distinguished from those
+diseases which most resemble it.
+
+It differs from apoplexy, as it comes without the patient crying out; in
+hysterical fits also the sense of feeling is not altogether destroyed
+and lost, as it is in apoplexy; and it differs from epilepsy, as the
+eyes are not distorted, and there is spongy froth from the mouth. That
+convulsive motion also, which is frequently accompanied by symptoms of
+suffocation, is not universal, as it is in epilepsy, but there is some
+convulsion, but that without any violent agitation. In syncope both
+breathing and the pulse fail, the face grows pale, and the woman faints
+suddenly; but in hysterical attacks there are usually both breathing
+and pulse, though these are indistinct; the face is red and she has a
+forewarning of the approaching fit. It cannot, however, be denied that
+syncope may accompany this feeling of suffocation. Lastly, it can be
+distinguished from lethargy by the pulse, which is rapid in the former,
+but weak in the latter.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+In the cure of this affection, two things must be taken care of:--_In
+the first place_, nature must be stimulated to expel these hurtful
+humours which obscure the senses, so that the woman may be brought back
+from that sleepy fit. _Secondly_, during the intervals of the attack,
+proper remedies must be employed, in order to remove the cause.
+
+To stimulate nature, apply cupping-glasses to the hips and navel: apply
+ligatures to the thighs, rub the extremities with salt, mustard and
+vinegar, and shout and make a great noise in her ears. Hold asafoetida
+to the nose, or sacopenium steeped in vinegar; make her sneeze by
+blowing castor-powder, white pepper and hellebore up her nose; hold
+burnt feathers, hair, leather, or anything else with a strong, stinking
+smell under her nose, for bad odours are unpleasant to nature, and the
+animal spirits so strive against them, that the natural heat is restored
+by their means. The brain is sometimes so oppressed, that it becomes
+necessary to burn the outer skin of the head with hot oil, or with a hot
+iron, and strong injections and suppositories are useful. Take a handful
+each of sage, calamint, horehound, feverfew, marjoram, betony and
+hyssop; half an ounce of aniseed; two drachma each of coloquintida,
+white hellebore and salgem; boil these in two quarts of water till
+reduced to half; add two ounces of castor oil and two drachms of hiera
+piera and make an injection of it. Or take two ounces of boiled honey,
+half a scruple of spurge, four grains of coloquint, two grains of
+hellebore and drachm of salt; make a suppository. Hippocrates mentions a
+hysterical woman who could only be relieved of the paroxysms by pouring
+cold water on her: yet this is a strange cure, and should only be
+administered in the heat of summer, when the sun is in the tropic of
+Cancer.
+
+If it be caused by the retention and corruption of the seed, let the
+mid-wife take oil of lilies, marjoram and bay leaves, and dissolve two
+grains of civet in them, and the same quantity of musk, and at the
+moment of the paroxysm let her dip her finger into the mixture and put
+it into the neck of the womb, and tickle and rub it with it.
+
+When the fit is over, proceed to remove the cause. If it arises from
+suppression of the menses, look in Chapter XI, p. 102, for the cure. If
+it arises from the retention of the seed, a good husband will administer
+the cure, but those who cannot honourably obtain that remedy, must use
+such means as will dry up and diminish the seed, as diaciminum,
+diacalaminthes, etc. The seed of the agnus castus is highly valued as a
+draught, whether taken inwardly, applied outwardly or used as a
+suffumigation. It was held in high esteem by the Athenian women, for by
+its means they remained as pure vessels and preserved their chastity, by
+only strewing it on the bed on which they lay, and hence the name of
+_agnus castus_, which was given to it, as denoting its effects. Make an
+issue on the inside of each leg, four inches below the knee, and then
+make lozenges of two scruples of agric, half a scruple each of wild
+carrot seed and ligne aloes; three drachms of washed turpentine, and
+make a bolus with a conserve of flowers. Eight drachms of castor taken
+in white wine are very useful in this case, or you may make pills of it
+with dog's tooth, and take them on going to bed. Take an ounce of white
+briony root dried and cut up like carrots, put it into a little wine and
+place it on the fire, and drink when warm. Take one scruple each of
+myrrh, castor and asafoetida; four grains each of saffron and rue-seed,
+and make eight pills and take two every night on going to bed.
+
+Galen, from his own experience, recommends powdered agaric, of which he
+frequently gave one scruple in white wine. Put a head of bruised garlic
+on the navel at bed time, and fasten it with a swathing band. Make a
+girdle for the waist of galbanum, and also a plaster for the stomach,
+and put civet and musk on one part of it, which must be applied to the
+navel. Take two drachms each of pulvis benedict, and of troches of
+agaric, a sufficient quantity of mithridate, and make two pessaries, and
+that will purge the matrix of wind and phlegm; foment the private parts
+with salad oil in which some feverfew and camomiles have been boiled.
+Take a handful of roseleaves and two scruples of cloves, sew them in a
+little cloth and boil them for ten minutes in malmsey; then apply them,
+as hot as they can be borne, to the mouth of the womb, but do not let
+the smell go up her nose. A dry diet must still be adhered to and the
+moderate use of Venus is advisable. Let her eat aniseed biscuits
+instead of bread, and roast meat instead of boiled.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+     _Of the Descending or Falling of the Womb._
+
+
+The descent of the womb is caused by a relaxation of the ligatures,
+whereby the matrix is carried backward, and in some women it protrudes
+to the size of an egg, and there are two kinds of this, distinguished by
+a descending and a precipitation. The descending of the womb is, when it
+sinks down to the entrance of the private parts, and appears either very
+little or not at all, to the eye. Its precipitation is when it is turned
+inside out like a purse, and hangs out between the thighs, like a
+cupping glass.
+
+
+
+CAUSE.
+
+This is either external or internal. The external cause is difficult
+childbirth, violent pulling away, or inexperience in drawing away the
+child, violent coughing, sneezing, falls, blows, and carrying heavy
+burdens. The internal cause, is generally the flow of too much moisture
+into these parts, which hinders the operation of the womb, whereby the
+ligaments by which the womb is supported are relaxed. The particular
+cause, however, lies in the retention of the _semen_, or in the
+suppression of the monthly courses.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+The principal gut and the bladder are often so crushed, that the passage
+of both evacuations is hindered. If the urine flows out white and thick,
+and the midriff is interfered with, the loins suffer, the private parts
+are in pain, and the womb descends to them, or else comes clean out.
+
+
+
+PROGNOSTICS.
+
+If an old woman is thus affected, the cure is very difficult, because it
+weakens the womb, and therefore, though it may be put back into its
+proper place, yet it is apt to get displaced again, by a very slight
+amount of illness. And also with younger women, if this disease is
+inveterate, and if it is caused by putrefaction of the nerves, it is
+incurable.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+The womb, being placed by nature between the straight gut and the
+bladder, ought not to be put back again until the powers of both are
+excited. Now that nature is relieved of her burden, let the woman be
+laid on her back so that her legs may be higher than her head; let her
+feet be drawn up towards her private parts, and her knees spread open.
+Then apply oil of sweet almonds and lilies, or a decoction of mallows,
+beet, fenugreek and linseed, to the swelling; when the inflammation is
+reduced, let the midwife rub her hand with oil of mastic, and restore
+the womb to its proper place. When the matrix is up, the patient's
+position must be changed. Her legs must be put out quite straight and
+laid together, and apply six cupping glasses to her breast and navel.
+Boil feverfew, mugwort, red rose leaves and comfrey in red wine; make a
+suffumigation for the matrix, and apply sweet scents to her nose. When
+she comes out of her bath, give her an ounce of syrup of feverfew with a
+drachm of dog's tooth (_mithridate_). Take three drachms each of
+laudanum and mastic, and make a plaster for the navel of it, and then
+make pessaries of asafoetida, saffron, comfrey, and mastic, adding a
+little castor oil.--Parius in such cases makes his pessaries only of
+cork, shaped like a small egg; he covered them with wax and mastic
+dissolved together, and fastening them to a thread, he put them into the
+womb.
+
+The immediate danger being now removed and the matrix returned to its
+natural place the remote cause must be got rid of. If she be of full
+habit of body open a vein, after preparing her with syrup of betony,
+calamint, hyssop and feverfew. Give a purge, and if the stomach be
+oppressed with any crude matter relieve it by emetics and by sudorifics
+of lignum sanctum and sassafras taken twenty days consecutively, which
+dry up the superfluous moisture, and consequently suppress the cause of
+the disease.
+
+The air should be hot and dry, and her diet hot and attenuating. Let her
+abstain from dancing, jumping, sneezing, as well as from all mental and
+bodily emotions, eat sparingly, not drink much, and be moderate in her
+sleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+     _Of the Inflammation of the Womb._
+
+
+The phlegmon, or inflammation of the matrix, is a humour which affects
+the whole womb, and is accompanied by unnatural heat, by obstruction and
+by an accumulation of corrupt blood.
+
+
+
+CAUSE.
+
+The cause of this affection is suppression of the courses, fullness of
+body, the immoderate use of sexual intercourse, frequent handling the
+genitals, difficult child-birth, violent motions of the body, falls,
+blows, to which may be added, the use of strong pessaries, whereby the
+womb is frequently inflamed, cupping glasses, also, fastened to the
+_pubis_ and _hypogastrium_, draw the humours of the womb.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+The signs are pains in the lower parts of the body and head, humours,
+sickness, coldness in the knees, throbbing in the neck, palpitation of
+the heart. Often, also, there is shortness of breath because of the
+heart which is close to the midriff, and the breasts sympathising with
+the swollen and painful womb. Besides this, if the front of the matrix
+be inflamed, the privates suffer, and the urine is suppressed, or only
+flows with difficulty. If the hinder part be inflamed, the loins and
+back suffer, and the bowels are very costive; if the right side be
+inflamed, the right hip suffers, and the right leg is heavy and moves
+slowly, so that at times she seems almost lame. If, however, the left
+side of the womb be inflamed, then the left hip suffers and the left leg
+is weaker than the right. If the neck of the womb is affected, by
+putting her finger in, the midwife feels that its mouth is contracted
+and closed up, and that it is hard round it.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+In the cure, first of all, let the humours which flow to the womb be
+expelled. To effect this, after the bowels have been loosened by cooling
+clysters bleeding will be necessary. Therefore, open a vein in the arm,
+if she is not with child; the day after strike the saphena in both feet,
+fasten ligatures and cupping glasses to the arm, and rub the upper part.
+Purge gently with cassia, rhubarb, senna and myrobalan. Take one drachm
+of senna, a scruple of aniseed, myrobalan, half an ounce, with a
+sufficient quantity of barley water. Make a decoction and dissolve syrup
+of succory in it, and two ounces of rhubarb; pound half an ounce of
+cassia with a few drops of oil of aniseed and make a draught. At the
+commencement of the disease, anoint the private parts and loins with oil
+of roses and quinces: make plasters of plantain, linseed, barley meal,
+melilot, fenugreek, white of eggs, and if the pain be intense, a little
+laudanum; foment the genitals with a decoction of poppy-heads, purslace,
+knot-grass and water-lilies. Make injections of goat's milk, rose water,
+clarified whey and honey of roses. When the disease is on a decline, use
+injections of sage, linseed, mugwort, pennyroyal, horehound, fenugreek,
+and anoint the lower parts of the stomach with oil of camomiles and
+violets.
+
+Take four ounces each of lily and mallow roots, a handful of dog's
+mercury, a handful and a half each of mugwort, feverfew, camomile
+flowers and melilot, bruise the herbs and roots, and boil them in a
+sufficient quantity of milk; then add two ounces each of fresh butter,
+oil of camomiles and lilies, with a sufficient quantity of bran, make
+two plasters, and apply one before and the other behind.
+
+If the tumour cannot be removed, but seems inclined to suppurate, take
+three drachms each of fenugreek, mallow roots, boiled figs, linseed,
+barley meal, dove's dung and turpentine; half a drachm of deer's suet,
+half a scruple of opium and make a plaster of wax.
+
+Take bay leaves, sage, hyssop, camomiles, and mugwort, and make an
+infusion in water.
+
+Take half a handful of wormwood and betony and half a pint each of white
+wine and milk, boil them until reduced to half; then take four ounces of
+this decoction and make an injection, but you must be careful that the
+humours are not brought down into the womb. Take three drachms each of
+roast figs, and bruised dog's mercury; three drachms each of turpentine
+and duck's grease, and two grains of opium; make a pessary with wax.
+
+The room must be kept cool, and all motions of the body, especially of
+the lower parts, must be prohibited. Wakefulness is to be recommended,
+for humours are carried inward by sleep, and thus inflammation is
+increased. Eat sparingly, and drink only barley water or clarified whey,
+and eat chickens and chicken broth, boiled with endive, succory, sorrel,
+bugloss and mallows.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+     _Of Scirrhous Tumours, or Hardness of the Womb._
+
+
+A _scirrhus_, or a hard unnatural swelling of the matrix is generally
+produced by neglected, or imperfectly cured phlegm, which, insensibly,
+hinders the functions of the womb, and predisposes the whole body to
+listlessness.
+
+
+
+CAUSE.
+
+One cause of this disease may be ascribed to want of judgment on the
+part of the physician, as many empirics when attending to inflammation
+of the womb, chill the humour so much that it can neither pass backward
+nor forward, and hence, the matter being condensed, turns into a hard,
+stony substance. Other causes may be suppression of the menses,
+retention of the _Lochein_, commonly called the after purging; eating
+decayed meat, as in the disordered longing after the _pleia_ to which
+pregnant women are often subject. It may, however, also proceed from
+obstructions and ulcers in the matrix or from some evil affections of
+the stomach or spleen.
+
+If the bottom of the womb be affected, she feels, as it were, a heavy
+burden representing a mole,[7] yet differing from it, in that the
+breasts are attenuated, and the whole body grows less. If the neck of
+the womb be affected, no outward humours will appear; its mouth is
+retracted and feels hard to the touch, nor can the woman have sexual
+intercourse without great pain.
+
+
+
+PROGNOSTICS.
+
+Confirmed scirrhus is incurable, and will turn to cancer or incurable
+dropsy, and when it ends in cancer it proves fatal, because as the
+innate heat of these parts is almost smothered, it can hardly be
+restored again.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+Where there is repletion, bleeding is advisable, therefore open a vein
+in one arm and in both feet, more especially if the menses are
+suppressed.
+
+Treat the humours with syrup of borage, succory made with a poultice,
+and then take the following pills, according to the patient's strength.
+
+Hiera piera six drachms, two and a half drachms each of black hellebore
+and polypody; a drachm and a half each of agaric, lapis lazuli, sal
+Indiae, coloquintida, mix them and make two pills. After purging,
+mollify the hardness as follows:--the privy parts and the neck of the
+womb with an ointment of decalthea and agrippa; or take two drachms each
+of opopanax, bdellium, ammoniac and myrrh, and half a drachm of saffron;
+dissolve the gum in oil of lilies and sweet almond and make an ointment
+with wax and turpentine. Apply diacatholicon ferellia below the navel,
+and make infusions of figs, mugwort, mallows, pennyroyal, althea, fennel
+roots, melilot, fenugreek and the four mollifying herbs, with oil of
+dill, camomiles and lilies dissolved in it. Take three drachms of gum
+bdellium, put the stone pyrites on the coals, and let her take the fumes
+into her womb. Foment the privy parts with a decoction of the roots and
+leaves of dane wort. Take a drachm each of gum galbanum and opopanax,
+half an ounce each of juice of dane wort and mucilage of fenugreek, an
+ounce of calve's marrow, and a sufficient quantity of wax, and make a
+pessary. Or make a pessary of lead only, dip it in the above mentioned
+things, and put it up.
+
+The atmosphere must be kept temperate, and gross and salt meats such as
+pork, bull beef, fish and old cheese, must be prohibited.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[7] _Mole_: "A somewhat shapeless, compact fleshy mass occurring in the
+uterus, due to the retention and continued life of the whole or a part
+of the foetal envelopes, after the death of the foetus (a _maternal or
+true mole_); or being some other body liable to be mistaken for this, or
+perhaps a polypus or false mole." (_Whitney's Century Dictionary_.)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+     _Of Dropsy of the Womb._
+
+
+Uterine dropsy is an unnatural swelling, caused by the collection of
+wind or phlegm in the cavity, membranes or substance of the womb, on
+account of the want of innate heat and of sufficient alimentation, and
+so it turns into an excrescence. The causes are, too much cold and
+moisture of the milt and liver, immoderate drinking, eating
+insufficiently cooked meat, all of which by causing repletion, overpower
+the natural heat. It may likewise be caused by undue menstruation, or by
+any other immoderate evacuation. To these may be added abortions,
+subcutaneous inflammations and a hardened swelling of the womb.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+The signs of this affection are as follows:--The lower parts of the
+stomach, with the genitals, are swollen and painful; the feet swell, the
+natural colour of the face is lost, the appetite becomes depraved, and
+there is a consequent heaviness of the whole body. If the woman turns
+over in bed a noise like flowing water is heard, and sometimes water is
+discharged from the womb. If the swelling is caused by wind and the
+stomach feels hot, it sounds like a drum; the bowels rumble, and the
+wind escapes through the neck of the womb with a murmuring noise. This
+affection may be distinguished from true conception in many ways, as
+will be shown in the chapter on _conception_. It is distinguished from
+common dropsy, by the lower parts of the stomach being most swollen.
+Again, it does not appear so injurious in this blood-producing
+capability, nor is the urine so pale, nor the face so altered. The upper
+parts are also not so reduced, as in usual dropsy.
+
+
+
+PROGNOSTICS.
+
+This affection foretells the ruin of the natural functions, by that
+peculiar sympathy it has with the liver, and that, therefore,
+_kathydria_, or general dropsy will follow.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+In the cure of this disease, imitate the practice of Hippocrates, and
+first mitigate the pain with fomentations of melilot, dog's mercury,
+mallows, linseed, camomiles and althoea. Then let the womb be prepared
+with syrup of stoebis, hyssop, calamint, mugwort, with distilled water,
+a decoction of elder, marjoram, sage, origan, spearage, pennyroyal, and
+betony. Purge with senna, agaric, rhubarb, and claterium. Take spicierum
+hier, a scruple each of rhubarb, agaric lozenges, and make into pills
+with iris juice.
+
+When diseases arise from moistness, purge with pills, and in those
+affections which are caused by emptiness or dryness, purge by means of a
+draught. Apply cupping glasses to the stomach and also to the navel,
+especially if the swelling be flatulent. Put a seton on to the inside of
+each leg, the width of a hand below the knee. Take two drachms each of
+sparganium, diambrae, diamolet, diacaliminti, diacinamoni, myrrh
+lozenges, and a pound of sugar; make these into lozenges with betony
+water, and take them two hours before meals. Apply a little bag of
+camomiles, cummin and melilot boiled in oil of rue, to the bottom of the
+stomach as hot as it can be borne; anoint the stomach and the privates
+with unguent agripp, and unguent aragon. Mix iris oil with it, and cover
+the lower part of the stomach with a plaster of bay berries, or a
+cataplasm made of cummin, camomiles, briony root, adding cows' and
+goats' dung.
+
+Our modern medical writers ascribe great virtues to tobacco-water,
+injected into the womb by means of a clyster. Take a handful each of
+balm of southernwood, origanum, wormwood, calamint, bay berries and
+marjoram, and four drachms of juniper berries; make a decoction of these
+in water, and use this for fomentations and infusions. Make pessaries of
+storax, aloes, with the roots of dictam, aristolochia and gentian, but
+instead of this you may use the pessary prescribed at the end of Chapter
+XVII. Let her take aromatic electuary, disatyrion and candied eringo
+roots, every morning.
+
+The air must be hot and dry, moderate exercise is to be taken and too
+much sleep prohibited. She may eat the flesh of partridges, larks,
+grouse, hares, rabbits, etc., and let her drink diluted urine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+     _Of Moles[8] and False Conceptions._
+
+
+This disease may be defined as an inarticulate shapeless piece of flesh,
+begotten in the womb as if it were true conception. In this definition
+we must note two things: (1) because a mole is said to be inarticulate
+or jointless, and without shape, it differs from monstrosities which are
+both _formata_ and _articulata_; (2) it is said to be, as it were a true
+conception, which makes a difference between a true conception, and a
+mole, and this difference holds good in three ways. First, in its genus,
+because a mole cannot be said to be an animal: secondly, in the species,
+because it has not a human figure and has not the character of a man;
+thirdly, in the individual, for it has no affinity to the parent, either
+in the whole body, or in any particular part of it.
+
+
+
+CAUSE.
+
+There is a great difference of opinion amongst learned writers as to the
+cause of this affection. Some think, that if the woman's seed goes into
+the womb, and not the man's, that the mole is produced thereby. Others
+declare that it springs from the menstruous blood, but if these two
+things were granted, then virgins, by having their courses or through
+nocturnal pollutions, might be liable to the same things, which none
+have ever been yet. The true cause of this fleshy mole is due both to
+the man and from the menstruous blood in the woman both mixing together
+in the cavity of the womb. Nature finding herself weak there (and yet
+wishing to propagate her species), labours to bring forth a defective
+conception rather than nothing and instead of a living creature produces
+a lump of flesh.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+The signs of a mole are these. The _menses_ are suppressed, the appetite
+becomes depraved, the breasts swell and the stomach becomes inflated and
+hard. So far the symptoms in a pregnant woman and in one that has a mole
+are the same, but now this is how they differ. The first sign of
+difference is in the movements of a mole. It may be felt moving in the
+womb before the third month, whereas an infant cannot be so felt; yet
+this motion cannot proceed from any intelligent power in the mole, but
+from the capabilities of the womb, and of the seminal vigour,
+distributed through the substance of the mole, for it does not live an
+animal, but a vegetable life, like a plant. _Secondly_, in a mole the
+stomach swells suddenly, but in true conception it is first contracted,
+and then rises by degrees. _Thirdly_, if the stomach is pressed with the
+hand, the mole gives way, and returns to its former position as soon as
+the hand is removed. But a child in the womb does not move immediately
+though pressed with the hand, and when the hand is removed it returns
+slowly or not at all. _Lastly_, no child continues in the womb more than
+eleven months, but a mole continues for four or five years, more or
+less, sometimes according as it is fastened to the matrix; and I have
+known a mole pass away in four or five months. If, however, it remains
+until the eleventh month, the woman's legs grow weak and the whole body
+wastes away, but the stomach still increases, which makes some women
+think that they are dropsical, though there is no reason for it, for in
+dropsy the legs swell and grow big, but in a mole they wither and fall
+away.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+In the school of Hippocrates we are taught that bleeding causes
+abortion, by taking all the nourishment which should preserve the life
+of the embryo. In order, therefore, that this faulty conception may be
+deprived of that nourishing sap by which it lives, open the liver vein
+and saphena in both feet, apply cupping glasses to the loins and sides
+of the stomach, and when that has been done, let the uterine parts be
+first softened, and then the expulsive powers be stimulated to get rid
+of the burden.
+
+In order to relax the ligatures of the mole, take three handfuls of
+mallows with their roots, two handfuls each of camomiles, melilot,
+pellitory of the wall, violet leaves, dog's mercury, fennel roots,
+parsley, and one pound each of linseed and fenugreek; boil them in oil
+and let the patient sit in it up to her navel. When she comes out of her
+bath, she should anoint her private parts and loins with the following
+ointment:--"Take one ounce each of oil of camomiles, lilies and sweet
+almonds: half an ounce each of fresh butter, laudanum and ammoniac, and
+make an ointment with oil of lilies. Or, instead of this, you may use
+unguentum agrippae or dialthea. Take a handful of dog's mercury and
+althea roots; half a handful of flos brochae ursini; six ounces of
+linseed and barley meal. Boil all these together in honey and water and
+make a plaster, and make pessaries of gum galbanum, bdellium, ammoniac,
+figs, pig's fat and honey.
+
+After the ligaments of the mole are loosened, let the expulsive powers
+be stimulated to expel the mole, and for doing this, all those drugs may
+be used which are adapted to bring on the courses. Take one ounce of
+myrrh lozenges, half an ounce each of castor, astrolachia, gentian and
+dittany and make them into a powder, and take one drachm in four ounces
+of mugwort water. Take calamint, pennyroyal, betony, hyssop, sage,
+horehound, valerian, madder and savine; make a decoction in water and
+take three ounces of it, with one and a half ounces of feverfew. Take
+three scruples each of mugwort, myrrh, gentian and pill. coch.; a drachm
+each of rue, pennyroyal and opopanax, and the same of asafoetida,
+cinnamon, juniper-berries and borage, and make into pills with savine
+juice, to be taken every morning. Make an infusion of hyssop, bay
+leaves, bay berries, calamint, camomiles, mugwort and savine. Take two
+scruples each of sacopenium, mugwort, savine, cloves, nutmeg, bay
+berries; one drachm of galbanum; one scruple each of hiera piera and
+black hellebore, and make a pessary with turpentine.
+
+But if these medicaments are not procurable, then the mole must be
+pulled out by means of an instrument called the _pes gryphis_,[9] which
+may be done without much danger if it be performed by a skilful surgeon.
+After she has been delivered of the mole (because the woman will have
+lost much blood already), let the flow of blood be stopped as soon as
+possible.
+
+Apply cupping glasses to the shoulders and ligatures to the arms, and if
+this be not effective, open the liver vein in the arm.
+
+The atmosphere of the room must be kept tolerably dry and warm, and she
+must be put on a dry diet, to soothe the system; she must, however,
+drink white wine.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] _Mole_: "A somewhat shapeless, compact fleshy mass occurring in the
+uterus, due to the retention and continued life of the whole or a part
+of the foetal envelopes, after the death of the foetus (_a maternal or
+true mole_); or being some other body liable to be mistaken for this, or
+perhaps a polypus or false mole." (_Whitney's Century Dictionary_.)
+
+[9] _Griffin's claw_, a peculiar hooked instrument.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+     _Of Conception and its Signs, and How a Woman may know whether it
+     be Male or Female._
+
+
+Ignorance often makes women the murderesses of the fruit of their own
+body, for many, having conceived and finding themselves out of order,
+and not rightly knowing the cause, go to the shop of their own conceit
+and take whatever they think fit, or else (as the custom is) they send
+to the doctor for a remedy, and he, not perceiving the cause of their
+trouble, for nothing can be diagnosed accurately by the urine,
+prescribes what he thinks best; perhaps some diuretic or cathartic,
+which destroy the embryo. Therefore Hippocrates says, it is necessary
+that women should be instructed in the signs of conception, so that the
+parent as well as the child may be saved from danger. I shall,
+therefore, lay down some rules, by which every woman may know whether
+she is pregnant or not, and the signs will be taken from the woman, from
+her urine, from the child and from experiments.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+The first day after conception, she feels a slight quivering and
+chilliness throughout her body; there is a tickling of the womb and a
+little pain in the lower parts of her stomach. Ten or twelve days after
+she feels giddy and her eyes dim and with circles round them; the
+breasts swell and grow hard, with some pain and pricking in them, whilst
+the stomach rises and sinks again by degrees, and there is a hardness
+about the navel. The nipples grow red, the heart beats unusually
+strongly, the natural appetite abates, and the woman has a craving after
+strange food. The neck of the womb is contracted, so that it can
+scarcely be felt when the finger is put in. And the following is an
+infallible sign; she is alternately in high spirits and melancholy; the
+monthly courses cease without any apparent cause, the evacuations from
+the bowels are retained unusually long, by the womb pressing on the
+large gut, and her desire for sexual intercourse is diminished. The
+surest sign is taken from the infant, which begins to move in the womb
+in the third or fourth month, and not in the manner of a mole, mentioned
+above, from side to side like a stone, but gently, as may be perceived
+by applying the hand cold upon the stomach.
+
+
+
+SIGNS TAKEN FROM THE URINE.
+
+The best writers affirm that the water of a pregnant woman is white and
+has little specks in it, like those in a sunbeam, ascending and
+descending in it, of an opal colour, and when the sediment is disturbed
+by shaking the urine, it looks like carded wool. In the middle of
+gestation it turns yellow, then red and lastly black, with a red film.
+At night on going to bed, let her drink water and honey, and if
+afterwards she feels a beating pain in her stomach and about the navel,
+she has conceived. Or let her take the juice of cardius, and if she
+brings it up again, that is a sign of conception. Throw a clean needle
+into the woman's urine, put it into a basin and let it stand all night.
+If it is covered with red spots in the morning, she has conceived, but
+if it has turned black and rusty, she has not.
+
+
+
+SIGNS TAKEN FROM THE SEX, TO SHOW WHETHER IT BE A MALE OR FEMALE.
+
+If it is a male, the right breast swells first, the right eye is
+brighter than the left, the face is high-coloured, because the colour is
+such as the blood is, and as the male is conceived of purer blood and of
+more perfect seed than the female, red specks in the urine, and making a
+sediment, show that a male has been conceived, but if they are white, a
+female. Put the urine of the woman into a glass bottle, let it stand
+tightly stoppered for two days, then strain it through a fine cloth,
+and you will find little animals in it. If they are red, it is a male,
+but if white, it is a female.
+
+The belly is rounder and lies higher with a boy than with a girl, and
+the right breast is harder and plumper than the left, and the right
+nipple redder, and the woman's colour is clearer than when she has
+conceived a girl.
+
+To conclude, the most certain sign to give credit to, is the motion of
+the child, for the male moves in the third month, and the female not
+until the fourth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+     _Of Untimely Births._
+
+
+When the fruit of the womb comes forth before the seventh month (that
+is, before it comes to maturity), it is said to be abortive; and, in
+effect, the children prove abortive, that is, do not live, that are born
+in the eighth month. Why children born in the seventh or ninth month
+should live, and not those born in the eighth, may seem strange, and yet
+it is true. The cause of it is ascribed by some to the planet under
+which the child is born; for every month, from conception to birth, is
+governed by its own planet, and in the eighth month Saturn predominates,
+which is dry and cold; and coldness, being an utter enemy to life,
+destroys the natural constitution of the child. Hippocrates gives a
+better reason, viz.:--The infant, being every way perfect and complete
+in the seventh month, wants more air and nourishment than it had before,
+and because it cannot obtain this, it tries for a passage out. But if it
+have not sufficient strength to break the membranes and to come out as
+ordained by nature, it will continue in the womb until the ninth month,
+so that by that time it may be again strengthened. But if it returns to
+the attempt in the eighth month and be born, it cannot live, because the
+day of its birth is either past or is to come. For in the eighth month
+Avicunus says, it is weak and infirm, and therefore on being brought
+into the cold air, its vitality must be destroyed.
+
+
+
+CURE.
+
+Untimely births may be caused by cold, for as it causes the fruit of the
+tree to wither and fall before it is ripe, so it nips the fruit of the
+womb before it comes to perfection, or makes it abortive;--sometimes by
+humidity, which weakens its power, so that the fruit cannot be retained
+until the proper time. It may be caused by dryness or emptiness, which
+rob the child of its nourishment, or by an alvine discharge, by bleeding
+or some other evacuation, by inflammation of the womb, and other severe
+disease. Sometimes it is caused by joy, anger, laughter and especially
+by fear, for then the heat forsakes the womb, and goes to the heart, and
+so the cold sinks into the womb, whereby the ligaments are relaxed, and
+so abortion follows. On this account, Plato recommended that the woman
+should avoid all temptations to excessive joy and pleasure, as well as
+all occasions for fear and grief. Abortion may also be caused by the
+pollution of the air by filthy odours, and especially by the smell of
+the smouldering wick of a candle, and also by falls, blows, violent
+exercise, jumping, dancing, etc.
+
+
+
+SIGNS.
+
+Signs of coming abortion are a falling away of the breast, with a flow
+of watery milk, pains in the womb, heaviness in the head, unusual
+weariness in the hips and thighs, and a flowing of the courses. Signs
+denoting that the fruit is dead in the womb are sunken eyes, pains in
+the head, frights, paleness of the face and lips, gnawing at the
+stomach, no movements of the infant; coldness and looseness of the
+mouth of the womb. The stomach falls down, whilst watery and bloody
+discharges come from the womb.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+     _Directions for Pregnant Women._
+
+
+The prevention of untimely births consists in removing the
+aforementioned causes, which must be effected both before and after
+conception.
+
+Before conception, if the body be too hot, dry or moist, employ such
+treatment as to counteract the symptoms; if the blood be vitiated purify
+it, if plethoric, open the liver vein; if gross, reduce it; if too thin
+strengthen and nourish it. All the diseases of the womb must be removed
+as I have shown.
+
+After conception, let the atmosphere be kept temperate, do not sleep too
+much, avoid late hours, too much bodily exercise, mental excitement,
+loud noises and bad smells, and sweet smells must also be avoided by
+those who are hysterical. Refrain from all things that may provoke
+either urine or menstruation, also salt, sour, and windy food, and keep
+to a moderate diet.
+
+If the bowels are confined, relieve the stomach with injections made of
+a decoction of mallows and violets, with sugar and salad oil; or make a
+broth with borage, buglos, beetroot, and mallows, and add a little manna
+to it. If, on the other hand, she be troubled with looseness of the
+bowels, do not check it with medical advice, for all the uterine fluxes
+have some bad qualities in them, which must be evacuated before the
+discharge is stopped.
+
+A cough is another thing to which pregnant women are frequently liable,
+and which causes them to run great danger of miscarrying, by the shock
+and continual drain upon the vein. To prevent this shave off the hair
+from the coronal commissures, and apply the following plaster to the
+place.
+
+Take half an ounce of resin, a drachm of laudanum, a drachm each of
+citron peel, lignaloes and galbanum, with a sufficient quantity of
+liquid and dry styrax. Dissolve the gum in vinegar and make a plaster,
+and at night let her inhale the fumes of these lozenges, thrown upon
+bright coals. Take also a drachm and a half each of frankincense, styrax
+powder and red roses: eight drachms of sandrich, a drachm each of
+mastic, benjamin and amber; make into lozenges with turpentine, and
+apply a cautery to the nape of the neck. And every night let her take
+the following pills:--Half an ounce each of hypocistides, terrae
+sigilatae and fine bole; two drachms each of bistort, alcatia, styrax
+and calamint, and one drachm of cloves, and make into pills with syrup
+of myrtles.
+
+In pregnant women, a corrupt matter is generated which, flowing to the
+ventricle, spoils the appetite and causes sickness. As the stomach is
+weak, and cannot digest this matter, it sometimes sends it to the bowels
+which causes a flux of the stomach, which greatly adds to the weakness
+of the womb. To prevent all these dangers the stomach must be
+strengthened by the following means:--Take one drachm each of lignaloes
+and nutmeg; a scruple each of mace, cloves, mastic, laudanum; an ounce
+of oil of spikenard; two grains of musk, half an ounce each of oil of
+mastic, quinces and wormwood, and make into an ointment for the stomach,
+to be applied before meals. Instead of this, however, you may use
+cerocum stomachile Galeni. Take half an ounce each of conserve of
+borage, buglos and atthos; two drachms each of confection of hyacinths,
+candied lemon peel, specierum, diamarg, pulo. de genunis: two scruples
+each of nutmeg and diambra; two drachma each of peony roots and
+diacoratum, and make into an electuary with syrup of roses, which she
+must take twice a day before meals. Another affection which troubles a
+pregnant woman is swelling of the legs, which happens during the first
+three months, by the superfluous humours descending from the stomach and
+liver. To cure this, take two drachms of oil of roses, and one drachm
+each of salt and vinegar; shake them together until the salt is
+dissolved, and anoint the legs with it hot, rubbing it well in with the
+hand. It may be done without danger during the fourth, fifth and sixth
+months of pregnancy; for a child in the womb is compared to an apple on
+the tree. For the first three months it is a weak and tender subject,
+like the apple, to fall away; but afterwards, when the membranes become
+strengthened, the fruit remains firmly fastened to the womb, and not
+subject to mischances, and so it remains, until the seventh month, until
+when it is near the time, the ligaments are again relaxed (like the
+apple that is almost ripe).
+
+They grow looser every day, until the appointed time for delivery; if,
+therefore, the body is in real need of purging, the woman may do it
+without danger in the fourth, fifth or sixth month, but neither before
+nor after that unless in the case of some violent illness, in which it
+is possible that both mother and child may perish. Apply plasters and
+ointments to the loins in order to strengthen the fruit in the womb.
+Take one drachm each of gum Arabic, galangale, bistort, hypocistid and
+storax, a drachm and a half each of fine bole, nutmeg, mastic, balaust,
+dragon's blood and myrtle berries, and a sufficient quantity of wax and
+turpentine and make into a plaster. Apply it to the loins in the winter,
+and remove it every twenty-four hours, lest the loins should become
+overheated by it. In the interim, anoint the private parts and loins
+with _countess' balsam_ but if it be summer time and the loins hot, the
+following plaster will be more suitable. Take a pound of red roses, two
+drachms each of mastic and red Sanders, one drachm each of bole ammoniac
+and red coral, two drachms and a half each of pomegranate seed and
+prepared coriander seed, two scruples of barberries, one ounce each of
+oil of mastic and of quinces, and plantain-juice.
+
+Anoint the loins also with sandalwood ointment, and once a week wash
+them with two parts of rose-water and one of white wine mixed together
+and warmed at the fire. This will assuage the heat of the loins, get rid
+of the oil of the plaster from the pores of the skin, and cause the
+fresh ointment or plaster to penetrate more easily, and to strengthen
+the womb. Some think that a load-stone laid upon the navel, keeps a
+woman from abortion. The same thing is also stated of the stone called
+_aetites_ or eagle-stone, if it is hung round the neck. Samian stone has
+the same virtue.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+     _Directions for Women when they are taken in Labour, to ensure
+     their safe Delivery, and Directions for Midwives._
+
+
+Having thus given the necessary directions to pregnant women, how to
+manage their health during their pregnancy, I will now add what is
+necessary for them to do, in order that they may be safely delivered.
+
+When the time of birth draws near, the woman must be sure to send for a
+skilful midwife, and that rather too soon than too late. She must have a
+pallet bed ready to place it near the fire, so that the midwife and
+those who are to help her, may be able to pass round it, and give
+assistance on either side, as may be required. A change of linen must be
+in readiness, and a small stool to rest her feet against, as she will
+have more power when her legs are bent, than when they are straight.
+
+When everything is thus ready, and when the woman feels the pains coming
+on, if the weather be not cold, she should walk about the room, rest on
+the bed occasionally, waiting for the breaking of the waters, which is a
+fluid contained in one of the outward membranes, and which flows out
+thence, when the membrane is broken by the struggles of the child. There
+is no special time for this discharge, though it generally takes place
+about two hours before the birth. Movements will also cause the womb to
+open and dilate, and when lying long in bed will be uncomfortable. If
+she be very weak she may take some mild cordial to give her strength, if
+her pain will permit her; and if the labour be tedious, she may be
+revived with chicken or mutton broth, or she may take a poached egg; but
+she must be very careful not to eat to excess.
+
+There are many postures in which women are delivered; some sitting in a
+chair, supported by others, or resting on the bed; some again upon their
+knees and resting on their arms; but the safest and most commodious way,
+is in the bed, and then the midwife ought to observe the following
+rules:--Let her lay the woman upon her back, with her head a little
+raised by means of a pillow, with similar supports for her loins and
+buttocks, which latter should also be raised, for if she lies low, she
+cannot be delivered so easily. Then let her keep her knees and thighs as
+far apart as she can, her legs bent inward towards each other, and her
+buttocks, the soles of her feet and her heels being placed upon a small
+rest, placed for the purpose, so that she may be able to strain the
+stronger. In case her back should be very weak, a swathing band should
+be placed under it, the band being doubled four times and about four
+inches broad. This must be held by two persons who must raise her up a
+little every time her pains come on, with steady hands and in even time,
+but if they be not exact in their movements, they had better leave her
+alone. At the same time two women must hold her shoulders so that she
+may strain out the foetus more easily; and to facilitate this let one
+stroke or press the upper part of her stomach gently and by degrees. The
+woman herself must not be nervous or downhearted, but courageous, and
+forcing herself by straining and holding her breath.
+
+When delivery is near, the midwife must wait patiently until the child's
+head, or some limb, bursts the membranes, for if the midwife through
+ignorance, or through haste to go to some other woman, as some have
+done, tears the membrane with her nails, she endangers both the woman
+and the child; for by lying dry and lacking that slipperiness which
+should make it easy, it comes forth with severe pains.
+
+When the head appears, the midwife must hold it gently between her
+hands, and draw the child, whenever the woman's pains are upon her, but
+at no other times; slipping her forefingers under its armpits by
+degrees, and not using a rough hand in drawing it out, lest the tender
+infant might become deformed by such means. As soon as the child is
+taken out, which is usually with its face downwards,--it should be laid
+upon its back, that it may receive external respiration more freely;
+then cut the navel string about three inches from the body, tying the
+end which adheres to it with a silk string, as closely as you can; then
+cover the child's head and stomach well, allowing nothing to touch its
+face.
+
+When the child has been thus brought forth, if it be healthy lay it
+aside, and let the midwife attend to the patient by drawing out the
+afterbirth; and this she may do by wagging and stirring it up and down,
+and afterwards drawing it out gently. And if the work be difficult, let
+the woman hold salt in her hands, close them tightly and breathe hard
+into them, and by that she will know whether the membranes are broken or
+not. It may also be known by making her strain or vomit; by putting her
+fingers down her throat, or by straining or moving her lower parts, but
+let all be done immediately. If this should fail, let her take a draught
+of elder water, or the yolk of a new laid egg, and smell a piece of
+asafoetida, especially if she is troubled with a windy colic. If she
+happen to take cold, it is a great obstruction to the afterbirth; in
+such cases the midwife ought to chafe the woman's stomach gently, so as
+to break, not only the wind, but also to force the secundine to come
+down. But if these should prove ineffectual, the midwife must insert her
+hand into the orifice of the womb and draw it out gently.
+
+Having thus discussed common births, or such as are generally easy, I
+shall now give directions in cases of extremity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+     _What ought to be done in cases of extremity, especially in women
+     who, in labour, are attacked by a flux of blood, convulsions and
+     fits of wind._
+
+
+If the woman's labour be hard and difficult, greater care must be taken
+than at other times. And, first of all, the situation of the womb and
+her position in lying must be across the bed, and she must be held by
+strong persons to prevent her from slipping down or moving during the
+surgeon's operations. Her thighs must be put as far apart as possible,
+and held so, whilst her head must rest upon a bolster, and her loins be
+supported in the same manner. After her rump and buttocks have been
+raised, be careful to cover her stomach, belly and thighs with warm
+clothes, to keep them from the cold.
+
+When the woman is in this position, let the operator put up his or her
+hand, if the neck of the womb be dilated, and remove the coagulated
+blood that obstructs the passage of the birth; and by degrees make way
+gently, let him remove the infant tenderly, having first anointed his
+hand with butter or some harmless salve. And if the waters have not come
+down, they may then be let out without difficulty. Then, if the infant
+should attempt to come out head foremost, or crosswise, he should turn
+it gently, to find the feet. Having done this, let him draw out one and
+fasten it with ribbon and then put it up again, and by degrees find the
+other, bringing them as close together and as even as possible, and
+between whiles let the woman breathe, and she should be urged to strain
+so as to help nature in the birth, that it may be brought forth. And to
+do this more easily, and that the hold may be surer, wrap a linen cloth
+round the child's thighs, taking care to bring it into the hand face
+downwards.
+
+In case of flux of blood, if the neck of the womb be open, it must be
+considered whether the infant or the _secundine_, generally called the
+afterbirth, comes first, and as the latter happens to do so
+occasionally, it stops the mouth of the womb and hinders the birth, and
+endangers both the woman's and the child's life. In this case the
+afterbirth must be removed by a quick turn. They have deceived many
+people, who, feeling their softness, have supposed that the womb was not
+dilated, and by that means the woman and child, or at least the latter,
+have been lost. When the afterbirth has been removed, the child must be
+sought for and drawn out, as directed above; and if the woman or the
+child die in such a case, the midwife or the surgeon are blameless
+because they have used their best endeavours.
+
+If it appears upon examination that the afterbirth comes first, let the
+woman be delivered as quickly as possible, because a great flow of blood
+will follow, for the veins are opened, and on this account two things
+have to be considered.
+
+_First_:--The manner in which the afterbirth advances, whether it be
+much or little. If the former, and the head of the child appears first,
+it may be guided and directed towards the neck of the womb, as in the
+case of natural birth, but if there appears any difficulty in the
+delivery, the best way is to look for the feet, and draw it out by them;
+but if the latter, the afterbirth may be put back with a gentle hand,
+and the child taken out first. But if the afterbirth has come so far
+forward that it cannot be put back, and the child follows it closely,
+then the afterbirth must be removed very carefully, and as quickly as
+may be, and laid aside without cutting the entrail that is fastened to
+it; for you may be guided to the infant by it, which must be drawn out
+by the feet, whether it be alive or dead, as quickly as possible; though
+this is not to be done except in cases of great necessity, for in other
+cases the afterbirth ought to come last.
+
+In drawing out a dead child, these directions should be carefully
+followed by the surgeon, viz.--If the child be found to be dead, its
+head appearing first, the delivery will be more difficult; for it is an
+evident sign that the woman's strength is beginning to fail her, that,
+as the child is dead and has no natural power, it cannot be assisting in
+its own delivery in any way. Therefore the most certain and the safest
+way for the surgeon is, to put up his left hand, sliding it into the
+neck of the womb, and into the lower part of it towards the feet, as
+hollow in the palm as he can, and then between the head of the infant
+and the neck of the womb. Then, having a forceps in the right hand, slip
+it up above the left hand, between the head of the child and the flat of
+the hand, fixing it in the bars of the temple near the eye. As these
+cannot be got at easily in the occipital bone, be careful still to keep
+the hand in its place, and gently move the head with it, and so with the
+right hand and the forceps draw the child forward, and urge the woman to
+exert all her strength, and continue drawing whenever her pains come on.
+When the head is drawn out, he must immediately slip his hand under the
+child's armpits, and take it quite out, and give the woman a piece of
+toasted white bread, in a quarter of a pint of Hippocras wine.
+
+If the former application fails let the woman take the following potion
+hot when she is in bed, and remain quiet until she begins to feel it
+operating.
+
+Take seven blue figs, cut them into pieces and add five grains each of
+fenugreek, motherwort and rue seed, with six ounces each of water of
+pennyroyal and motherwort; reduce it to half the quantity by boiling and
+after straining add one drachm of troches of myrrh and three grains of
+saffron; sweeten the liquor with loaf sugar, and spice it with
+cinnamon.--After having rested on this, let her strain again as much as
+possible, and if she be not successful, make a fumigation of half a
+drachm each of castor, opopanax, sulphur and asafoetida, pounding them
+into a powder and wetting the juice of rue, so that the smoke or fumes
+may go only into the matrix and no further.
+
+If this have not the desired effect, then the following plaster should
+be applied:--Take an ounce and a half of balganum, two drachms of
+colocynth, half an ounce each of the juice of motherwort and of rue, and
+seven ounces of virgin bees' wax: pound and melt them together,
+spreading them on a cere-cloth so that they may spread from the navel to
+the os pubis and extending to the flanks, at the same time making a
+pessary of wood, enclosing it in a silk bag, and dipping it in a
+decoction of one drachm each of sound birthwort, savin colocinthis,
+stavescare and black hellebore, with a small sprig or two of rue.
+
+But if these things have not the desired effect, and the woman's danger
+increases, let the surgeon use his instruments to dilate and widen the
+womb, for which purpose the woman must be placed on a chair, so that she
+may turn her buttocks as far from its back as possible, at the same time
+drawing up her legs as close as she can and spreading her thighs open as
+wide as possible; or if she is very weak it may be better to lay her on
+the bed with her head downwards, her buttocks raised and both legs drawn
+up. Then the surgeon may dilate the womb with his speculum matrices and
+draw out the child and the afterbirth together, if it be possible, and
+when this is done, the womb must be well washed and anointed, and the
+woman put back to bed and comforted with spices and cordials. This
+course must be adopted in the case of dead children and moles,
+afterbirths and false births, which will not come out of themselves, at
+the proper time. If the aforementioned instrument will not widen the
+womb sufficiently, then other instruments, such as the drake's bill, or
+long pincers, ought to be used.
+
+If any inflammation, swelling or congealed blood happens to be
+contracted in the womb under the film of these tumours, either before or
+after the birth, let the midwife lance it with a penknife or any
+suitable instrument, and squeeze out the matter, healing it with a
+pessary dipped in oil of red roses.
+
+If the child happens at any time to be swollen through cold or violence,
+or has contracted a watery humour, if it is alive, such means must be
+used as are least injurious to the child or mother; but if it be dead,
+the humours must be let out by incisions, to facilitate the birth.
+
+If, as often happens, the child is presented feet foremost, with the
+hands spreading out from the hips, the midwife must in such a case be
+provided with the necessary ointments to rub and anoint the child with,
+to help it coming forth, lest it should turn into the womb again,
+holding both the infant's arms close to the hips at the same time, that
+it may come out in this manner; but if it proves too big, the womb must
+be well anointed. The woman should also take a sneezing powder, to make
+her strain; the attendant may also stroke her stomach gently to make the
+birth descend, and to keep it from returning.
+
+It happens occasionally, that the child presenting itself with the feet
+first, has its arms extended above its head; but the midwife must not
+receive it so, but put it back into the womb, unless the passage be
+extraordinarily wide, and then she must anoint both the child and the
+womb, and it is not safe to draw it out, which must, therefore, be done
+in this manner.--The woman must lie on her back with her head low and
+her buttocks raised; and then the midwife must compress the stomach and
+the womb with a gentle hand, and by that means put the child back,
+taking care to turn the child's face towards the mother's back, raising
+up its thighs and buttocks towards the navel, so that the birth may be
+more natural.
+
+If the child happens to come out with one foot, with the arm extended
+along the side and the other foot turned backwards; then the woman must
+be immediately put to bed and laid in the above-described position; when
+the midwife must immediately put back the foot which appears so, and the
+woman must rock herself from side to side, until she finds that the
+child has turned, but she must not alter her position nor turn upon her
+face. After this she may expect her pains and must have great assistance
+and cordials so as to revive and support her spirits.
+
+At other times it happens that the child lies across in the womb, and
+falls upon its side; in this case the woman must not be urged in her
+labour; therefore, the midwife when she finds it so, must use great
+diligence to reduce it to its right form, or at least to such a form in
+the womb as may make the delivery possible and most easy by moving the
+buttocks and guiding the head to the passage; and if she be successful
+in this, let the woman rock herself to and fro, and wait with patience
+till it alters its way of lying.
+
+Sometimes the child hastens simply by expanding its legs and arms; in
+which, as in the former case, the woman must rock herself, but not with
+violence, until she finds those parts fall to their proper station; or
+it may be done by a gentle compression of the womb; but if neither of
+them avail, the midwife must close the legs of the infant with her hand,
+and if she can get there, do the like by the arms, and so draw it forth;
+but if it can be reduced of itself to the posture of a proper birth it
+is better.
+
+If the infant comes forward, both knees forward, and the hands hanging
+down upon the thighs, then the midwife must put both knees upward, till
+the feet appear; taking hold of which with her left hand let her keep
+her right hand on the side of the child, and in that posture endeavour
+to bring it forth. But if she cannot do this, then also the woman must
+rock herself until the child is in a more convenient posture for
+delivery.
+
+Sometimes it happens that the child presses forward with one arm
+extended on its thighs, and the other raised over its head, and the feet
+stretched out at length in the womb. In such case, the midwife must not
+attempt to receive the child in that posture, but must lay the woman on
+the bed in the manner aforesaid, making a soft and gentle compression on
+her belly, oblige the child to retire; which if it does not, then must
+the midwife thrust it back by the shoulder, and bring the arm that was
+stretched above the head to its right station; for there is most danger
+in these extremities; and, therefore, the midwife must anoint her hands
+and the womb of the woman with sweet butter, or a proper pomatum, and
+thrust her hand as near as she can to the arm of the infant, and bring
+it to the side. But if this cannot be done, let the woman be laid on the
+bed to rest a while; in which time, perhaps, the child may be reduced to
+a better posture; which the midwife finding, she must draw tenderly the
+arms close to the hips and so receive it.
+
+If an infant come with its buttocks foremost, and almost double, then
+the midwife must anoint her hand and thrust it up, and gently heaving up
+the buttocks and back, strive to turn the head to the passage, but not
+too hastily, lest the infant's retiring should shape it worse: and
+therefore, if it cannot be turned with the hand, the woman must rock
+herself on the bed, taking such comfortable things as may support her
+spirits, till she perceives the child to turn.
+
+If the child's neck be bowed, and it comes forward with its shoulders,
+as it sometimes doth, with the hands and feet stretched upwards, the
+midwife must gently move the shoulders, that she may direct the head to
+the passage; and the better to effect it, the woman must rock herself as
+aforesaid.
+
+These and other like methods are to be observed in case a woman hath
+twins, or three children at a birth, which sometimes happens: for as
+the single birth hath but one natural and many unnatural forms, even so
+it may be in a double and treble birth.
+
+Wherefore, in all such cases the midwife must take care to receive the
+first which is nearest the passage; but not letting the other go, lest
+by retiring it should change the form; and when one is born, she must be
+speedy in bringing forth the other. And this birth, if it be in the
+natural way, is more easy, because the children are commonly less than
+those of single birth, and so require a less passage. But if this birth
+come unnaturally, it is far more dangerous than the other.
+
+In the birth of twins, let the midwife be very careful that the
+secundine be naturally brought forth, lest the womb, being delivered of
+its burden, fall, and so the secundine continue longer there than is
+consistent with the woman's safety.
+
+But if one of the twins happens to come with the head, and the other
+with the feet foremost, then let the midwife deliver the natural birth
+first; and if she cannot turn the other, draw it out in the posture in
+which it presses forward; but if that with its feet downward be
+foremost, she may deliver that first, turning the other aside. But in
+this case the midwife must carefully see that it be not a monstrous
+birth, instead of twins, a body with two heads, or two bodies joined
+together, which she may soon know if both the heads come foremost, by
+putting up her hand between them as high as she can; and then, if she
+finds they are twins she may gently put one of them aside to make way
+for the other, taking the first which is most advanced, leaving the
+other so that it do not change its position. And for the safety of the
+other child, as soon as it comes forth out of the womb, the midwife must
+tie the navel-string, as has before been directed, and also bind, with a
+large, long fillet, that part of the navel which is fastened to the
+secundine, the more readily to find it.
+
+The second infant being born, let the midwife carefully examine whether
+there be not two secundines, for sometimes it falls out, that by the
+shortness of the ligaments it retires back to the prejudice of the
+woman. Wherefore, lest the womb should close, it is most expedient to
+hasten them forth with all convenient speed.
+
+If two infants are joined together by the body, as sometimes it
+monstrously falls out, then, though the head should come foremost, yet
+it is proper, if possible, to turn them and draw them forth by the feet,
+observing, when they come to the hips, to draw them out as soon as may
+be. And here great care ought to be used in anointing and widening the
+passage. But these sort of births rarely happening, I need to say the
+less of them, and, therefore, shall show how women should be ordered
+after delivery.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+     _How child-bearing Women ought to be ordered after Delivery._
+
+
+If a woman has had very hard labour, it is necessary that she should be
+wrapped up in a sheep's skin, taken off before it is cold, applying the
+fleshy side to her veins and belly, or, for want of this, the skin of a
+hare or coney, flayed off as soon as killed, may be applied to the same
+parts, and in so doing, a dilation being made in the birth, and the
+melancholy blood being expelled in these parts, continue these for an
+hour or two.
+
+Let the woman afterwards be swathed with fine linen cloth, about a
+quarter of a yard in breadth, chafing the belly before it is swathed,
+with oil of St. John's wort; after that raise up the matrix with a linen
+cloth, many times folded: then with a linen pillar or quilt, cover the
+flanks, and place the swathe somewhat above the haunches, winding it
+pretty stiff, applying at the same time a linen cloth to her nipples; do
+not immediately use the remedies to keep back the milk, by reason the
+body, at such a time, is out of frame; for there is neither vein nor
+artery which does not strongly beat; and remedies to drive back the
+milk, being of a dissolving nature, it is improper to apply them to the
+breasts during such disorder, lest by doing so, evil humours be
+contracted in the breast. Wherefore, twelve hours at least ought to be
+allowed for the circulation and settlement of the blood, and what was
+cast on the lungs by the vehement agitation during labour, to retire to
+its proper receptacles.
+
+Some time after delivery, you may take a restrictive of the yolks of two
+eggs, and a quarter of a pint of white wine, oil of St. John's wort, oil
+of roses, plantain and roses water, of each an ounce, mix them together,
+fold a linen cloth and apply it to the breast, and the pains of those
+parts will be greatly eased.
+
+She must by no means sleep directly after delivery; but about four hours
+after, she may take broth, caudle or such liquid victuals as are
+nourishing; and if she be disposed to sleep it may be very safely
+permitted. And this is as much, in the case of a natural birth, as ought
+immediately to be done.
+
+But in case of an extremity or an unnatural birth, the following rules
+ought to be observed:--
+
+In the first place, let the-woman keep a temperate diet, by no means
+overcharging herself after such an extraordinary evacuation, not being
+ruled by giving credit to unskilful nurses, who admonish them to feed
+heartily, the better to repair the loss of blood. For that blood is not
+for the most part pure, but such as has been retained in the vessels or
+membrane better voided, for the health of the woman, than kept, unless
+there happen an extraordinary flux of the blood. For if her nourishment
+be too much, which curding, very often turns to imposthumes.
+
+Therefore, it is requisite, for the first five days especially, that she
+take moderately panado broth, poached eggs, jelly of chickens or calves'
+feet or fresh barley broth; every day increasing the quantity a little.
+
+And if she intend to be a nurse to the child, she may take something
+more than ordinary, to increase the milk by degrees, which must be of no
+continuance, but drawn off by the child or otherwise. In this case
+likewise, observe to let her have coriander or fennel seeds boiled in
+barley broth; but by all means, for the time specified, let her abstain
+from meat. If no fever trouble her, she may drink now and then a small
+quantity of pure white wine or of claret, as also syrup of maidenhead or
+any other syrup that is of an astringent quality, taken in a little
+water well boiled.
+
+After the fear of fever or contraction of humour in the breast is over,
+she may be nourished more plentifully with the broth of capons, pullets,
+pigeons, mutton, veal, etc., which must not be until after eight days
+from the time of delivery; at which time the womb, unless some accident
+binds, has purged itself. It will then likewise be expedient to give
+cold meats, but let it be sparingly, so that she may the better gather
+strength. And let her, during the time, rest quietly and free from
+disturbance, not sleeping in the day time, if she can avoid it.
+
+Take of both mallows and pellitory of the wall a handful; camomile and
+melilot flowers, of each a handful; aniseed and fennel of each two
+ounces; boil them in a decoction of sheep's head and take of this three
+quarts, dissolving in it common honey, coarse sugar and fresh butter and
+administer it clysterwise; but if it does not penetrate well take an
+ounce of catholicon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+     _Acute Pains after Delivery._
+
+
+These pains frequently afflict the woman no less than the pain of her
+labour, and are, by the more ignorant, many times taken the one for the
+other; and sometimes they happen both at the same instant; which is
+occasioned by a raw, crude and watery matter in the stomach, contracted
+through ill digestion; and while such pains continue, the woman's
+travail is retarded.
+
+Therefore, to expel fits of the cholic, take two ounces of oil of sweet
+almonds, and an ounce of cinnamon water, with three or four drops of
+syrup of ginger; then let the woman drink it off.
+
+If this does not abate the pain, make a clyster of camomile,
+balm-leaves, oil of olives and new milk, boiling the former in the
+latter. Administer it as is usual in such cases. And then, fomentation
+proper for dispelling the wind will not be amiss.
+
+If the pain produces a griping in the guts after delivery, then take of
+the root of great comfrey, one drachm, nutmeg and peach kernels, of each
+two scruples, yellow amber, eight drachms, ambergris, one scruple;
+bruise them together, and give them to the woman as she is laid down, in
+two or three spoonfuls of white wine; but if she be feverish, then let
+it be in as much warm broth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+FAMILY PHYSICIAN
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BEING
+
+CHOICE AND APPROVED
+
+REMEDIES
+
+FOR SEVERAL DISEASES
+
+INCIDENTAL TO HUMAN BODIES
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+_For the Apoplexy._
+
+Take man's skull prepared, and powder of male peony, of each an ounce
+and a half, contrayerva, bastard dittany, angelica, zedvary, of each two
+drachms, mix and make a powder, add thereto two ounces of candied
+orange and lemon peel, beat all together to a powder, whereof you may
+take half a drachm or a drachm.
+
+
+
+_A Powder for the Epilepsy or Falling Sickness._
+
+Take of opopanax, crude antimony, castor, dragon's blood, peony seeds,
+of each an equal quantity; make a subtle powder; the dose, half a drachm
+of black cherry water. Before you take it, the stomach must be prepared
+with some proper vomit, as that of Mynficht's emetic tartar, from four
+grains to six; if for children, salts of vitrol, from a scruple to half
+a drachm.
+
+
+
+_For a Headache of Long Standing._
+
+Take the juice or powder in distilled water of hog lice and continue it.
+
+
+
+_For Spitting of Blood._
+
+Take conserve of comfrey and of hips, of each an ounce and a half;
+conserve of red roses, three ounces; dragon's blood, a drachm; spices of
+hyacinths, two scruples; red coral, a drachm; mix and with syrup of
+poppies make a soft electuary. Take the quantity of a walnut, night and
+morning.
+
+
+
+_For a Looseness._
+
+Take Venice treacle and diascordium, of each half a drachm, in warm ale
+or water gruel, or what you like best, at night, going to bed.
+
+
+
+_For the Bloody Flux._
+
+First take a drachm of powder of rhubarb in a sufficient quantity of
+conserve of red roses, in the morning early; then at night, take of
+tornified or roasted rhubarb, half a drachm; diascordium, a drachm and a
+half; liquid laudanum cyclomated, a scruple: mix and make into a bolus.
+
+
+
+_For an Inflammation of the Lungs._
+
+Take of cherious water, ten ounces; water of red poppies, three ounces;
+syrup of poppies, an ounce; pearl prepared, a drachm; make julep, and
+take six spoonfuls every fourth hour.
+
+
+
+_An Ointment for the Pleurisy._
+
+Take oil of violets or sweet almonds, an ounce of each, with wax and a
+little saffron, make an ointment, warm it and bathe it upon the parts
+affected.
+
+
+
+_An Ointment for the Itch._
+
+Take sulphur vive in powder, half an ounce, oil of tartar per deliquim,
+a sufficient quantity, ointment of roses, four ounces; make a liniment,
+to which add a scruple of rhodium to aromatize, and rub the parts
+affected with it.
+
+
+
+_For Running Scab._
+
+Take two pounds of tar, incorporate it into a thick mass with
+well-sifted ashes; boil the mass in fountain-water, adding leaves of
+ground-ivy, white horehound, fumitory roots, sharp-pointed dock and of
+flocan pan, of each four handfuls; make a bath to be used with care of
+taking cold.
+
+
+
+_For Worms in Children._
+
+Take wormseed, half a drachm, flour of sulphur, a drachm; mix and make a
+powder. Give as much as will lie on a silver threepence, night and
+morning, in grocer's treacle or honey, or to grown up people, you may
+add a sufficient quantity of aloe rosatum and so make them up into
+pills; three or four may be taken every morning.
+
+
+
+_For Fevers in Children._
+
+Take crab-eyes, a drachm, cream of tartar, half a drachm; white
+sugar-candy finely powdered, weight of both; mix all well together and
+give as much as will lie on a silver threepence, in a spoonful of
+barley-water or sack whey.
+
+
+
+_A Quieting Night-Draught, when the Cough is Violent._
+
+Take water of green wheat, six ounces, syrup diascordium, three ounces,
+take two or three spoonfuls going to bed every night or every other
+night.
+
+
+
+_An Electuary for the Dropsy._
+
+Take best rhubarb, one drachm, gum lac, prepared, two drachms,
+zyloaloes, cinnamon, long birthwort, half an ounce each, best English
+saffron, half a scruple; with syrup of chicory and rhubarb make an
+electuary. Take the quantity of a nutmeg or small walnut every morning
+fasting.
+
+
+
+_For a Tympany Dropsy._
+
+Take roots of chervil and candied eringo roots, half an ounce of each,
+roots of butcher-broom, two ounces, grass-roots, three ounces, shavings
+of ivory and hartshorn, two drachms and a half each; boil them in two or
+three pounds of spring water. Whilst the strained liquor is hot, pour it
+upon the leaves of watercresses and goose-grass bruised, of each a
+handful, adding a pint of Rhenish wine. Make a close infusion for two
+hours, then strain out the liquor again, and add to it three ounces of
+magirtral water and earth worms and an ounce and a half of the syrup of
+the five opening roots. Make an apozen, whereof take four ounces twice a
+day.
+
+
+
+_For an Inward Bleeding._
+
+Take leaves of plantain and stinging nettles, of each three handfuls,
+bruise them well and pour on them six ounces of plantain water,
+afterwards make a strong expression and drink the whole off. _Probatum
+est._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
+
+     _Worthy of Notice._
+
+
+WHEN YOU FIND
+
+A red man to be faithful, a tall man to be wise, a fat man to be swift
+of foot, a lean man to be a fool, a handsome man not to be proud, a poor
+man not to be envious, a knave to be no liar, an upright man not too
+bold and hearty to his own loss, one that drawls when he speaks not to
+be crafty and circumventing, one that winks on another with his eyes not
+to be false and deceitful, a sailor and hangman to be pitiful, a poor
+man to build churches, a quack doctor to have a good conscience, a
+bailiff not to be a merciless villain, an hostess not to over-reckon
+you, and an usurer to be charitable----
+
+THEN SAY,
+
+     _Ye have found a prodigy._
+
+Men acting contrary to the common course of nature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE
+
+EXPERIENCED MIDWIFE
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+I have given this Part the title of The Experienced Midwife, because it
+is chiefly designed for those who profess Midwifery, and contains
+whatever is necessary for them to know in the practice thereof; and
+also, because it is the result of many years' experience, and that in
+the most difficult cases, and is, therefore, the more to be depended
+upon.
+
+A midwife is the most necessary and honourable office, being indeed a
+helper of nature; which therefore makes it necessary for her to be well
+acquainted with all the operations of nature in the work of generation,
+and instruments with which she works. For she that knows not the
+operations of nature, nor with what tool she works, must needs be at a
+loss how to assist therein. And seeing the instruments of operation,
+both in men and women, are those things by which mankind is produced, it
+is very necessary that all midwives should be well acquainted with them,
+that they may better understand their business, and assist nature, as
+there shall be occasion.
+
+The first thing then necessary as introductory to this treatise, is an
+anatomical description of the several parts of generation both in men
+and women; but as in the former part of this work I have treated at
+large upon these subjects, being desirous to avoid tautology, I shall
+not here repeat anything of what was then said, but refer the reader
+thereto, as a necessary introduction to what follows. And though I shall
+be necessitated to speak plainly so that I may be understood, yet I
+shall do it with that modesty that none shall have need to blush unless
+it be from something in themselves, rather than from what they shall
+find here; having the motto of the royal garter for my defence, which
+is:--"Honi soit qui mal y pense,"--"Evil be to him that evil thinks."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+A
+
+GUIDE TO CHILDBEARING
+
+WOMEN
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+SECTION I.--_Of the Womb._
+
+In this chapter I am to treat of the womb, which the Latins call
+_matrix_. Its parts are two; the mouth of the womb and the bottom of it.
+The mouth is an orifice at the entrance into it, which may be dilated
+and shut together like a purse; for though in the act of copulation it
+is big enough to receive the glans of the yard, yet after conception, it
+is so close and shut, that it will not admit the point of a bodkin to
+enter; and yet again, at the time of a woman's delivery, it is opened to
+such an extraordinary degree, that the child passeth through it into the
+world; at which time this orifice wholly disappears, and the womb seems
+to have but one great cavity from the bottom to the entrance of the
+neck. When a woman is not with child, it is a little oblong, and of
+substance very thick and close; but when she is with child it is
+shortened, and its thickness diminished proportionably to its
+distension; and therefore it is a mistake of anatomists who affirm, that
+its substance waxeth thicker a little before a woman's labour; for any
+one's reason will inform him, that the more distended it is, the thinner
+it must be; and the nearer a woman is to the time of her delivery the
+shorter her womb must be extended. As to the action by which this inward
+orifice of the womb is opened and shut, it is purely natural; for were
+it otherwise, there could not be so many bastards begotten as there are,
+nor would any married women have so many children. Were it in their own
+power they would hinder conception, though they would be willing enough
+to use copulation; for nature has attended that action with so pleasing
+and delightful sensations, that they are willing to indulge themselves
+in the use thereof notwithstanding the pains they afterwards endure, and
+the hazard of their lives that often follows it. And this comes to pass,
+not so much from an inordinate lust in woman, as that the great Director
+of Nature, for the increase and multiplication of mankind, and even all
+other species in the elementary world, hath placed such a magnetic
+virtue in the womb, that it draws the seed to it, as the loadstone draws
+iron.
+
+The Author of Nature has placed the womb in the belly, that the heat
+might always be maintained by the warmth of the parts surrounding it; it
+is, therefore, seated in the middle of the hypogastrium (or lower parts
+of the belly between the bladder and the belly, or right gut) by which
+also it is defended from any hurt through the hardness of the bones, and
+it is placed in the lower part of the belly for the convenience of
+copulation, and of a birth being thrust out at full time.
+
+It is of a figure almost round, inclining somewhat to an oblong, in part
+resembling a pear; for being broad at the bottom, it gradually
+terminates in the point of the orifice which is narrow.
+
+The length, breadth and thickness of the womb differ according to the
+age and disposition of the body. For in virgins not ripe it is very
+small in all its dimensions, but in women whose terms flow in great
+quantities, and such as frequently use copulation, it is much larger,
+and if they have had children, it is larger in them than in such as have
+had none; but in women of a good stature and well shaped, it is (as I
+have said before), from the entry of the privy parts to the bottom of
+the womb usually about eight inches; but the length of the body of the
+womb alone, does not exceed three; the breadth thereof is near about the
+same, and of the thickness of the little finger, when the womb is not
+pregnant, but when the woman is with child, it becomes of a prodigious
+greatness, and the nearer she is to delivery, the more the womb is
+extended.
+
+It is not without reason then, that nature (or the God of Nature) has
+made the womb of a membranous substance; for thereby it does the easier
+open to conceive, is gradually dilated by the growth of the foetus or
+young one, and is afterwards contracted or closed again, to thrust forth
+both it and the after-burden, and then to retire to its primitive seat.
+Hence also it is enabled to expel any noxious humours, which may
+sometimes happen to be contained within it.
+
+Before I have done with the womb, which is the field of generation, and
+ought, therefore, to be the more particularly taken care of (for as the
+seeds of plants can produce no plants, nor sprig unless grown in ground
+proper to excite and awaken their vegetative virtue so likewise the seed
+of man, though potentially containing all the parts of the child, would
+never produce so admissible an effect, if it were not cast into that
+fruitful field of nature, the womb) I shall proceed to a more particular
+description of its parts, and the uses for which nature has designed
+them.
+
+The womb, then, is composed of various similar parts, that is of
+membranes, veins, arteries and nerves. Its membranes are two and they
+compose the principal parts of the body, the outermost of which ariseth
+from the peritoneum or caul, and is very thin, without it is smooth, but
+within equal, that it may the better cleave to the womb, as it is
+fleshier and thicker than anything else we meet with within the body,
+when the woman is not pregnant, and is interwoven with all sorts of
+fibres or small strings that it may the better suffer the extension of
+the child, and the water caused during pregnancy, and also that it may
+the easier close again after delivery.
+
+The veins and arteries proceed both from the hypogastric and the
+spermatic vessels, of which I shall speak by and by; all these are
+inserted and terminated in the proper membranes of the womb. The
+arteries supply it with food and nourishment, which being brought
+together in too great a quantity, sweats through the substance of it,
+and distils as it were a dew at the bottom of the cavity; from thence
+proceed the terms in ripe virgins, and the blood which nourisheth the
+embryo in breeding women. The branches which issue from the spermatic
+vessels, are inserted on each side of the bottom of the womb, and are
+much less than those which proceed from the hypogastrics, those being
+greater and bedewing the whole substance of it. There are some other
+small vessels, which arising the one from the other are conducted to the
+internal orifice, and by these, those that are pregnant purge away the
+superfluity of the terms when they happen to have more than is used in
+the nourishment of the infant: by which means nature has taken so much
+care of the womb, that during pregnancy it shall not be obliged to open
+itself for passing away those excrementitious humours, which, should it
+be forced to do, might often endanger abortion.
+
+As touching the nerves, they proceed from the brain, which furnishes all
+the inner parts of the lower belly in them, which is the true reason it
+hath so great a sympathy with the stomach, which is likewise very
+considerably furnished from the same part; so that the womb cannot be
+afflicted with any pain, but that the stomach is immediately sensible
+thereof, which is the cause of those loathings or frequent vomitings
+which happen to it.
+
+But beside all these parts which compose the womb, it has yet four
+ligaments, whose office it is, to keep it firm in its place, and prevent
+its constant agitation, by the continual motion of the intestines which
+surround it, two of which are above and two below. Those above are
+called the broad ligaments, because of their broad and membranous
+figure, and are nothing else but the production of the peritoneum which
+growing out of the sides of the loins towards the veins come to be
+inserted in the sides of the bottom of the womb, to hinder the body from
+bearing too much on the neck, and so from suffering a precipitation as
+will sometimes happen when the ligaments are too much relaxed; and do
+also contain the testicles, and as well, safely conduct the different
+vessels, as the ejaculatories, to the womb. The lowermost are called
+round ligaments, taking their origin from the side of the womb near the
+horn, from whence they pass the groin, together with the production of
+the peritoneum, which accompanies them through the rings of the oblique
+and transverse muscles of the belly, by which they divide themselves
+into many little branches resembling the foot of a goose, of which some
+are inserted into the os pubis, the rest are lost and confounded with
+the membranes which women and children feel in their thighs. These two
+ligaments are long, round and nervous, and pretty big in their
+beginning near the matrix, hollow in their rise, and all along the os
+pubis, where they are a little smaller and become flat, the better to be
+inserted in the manner aforesaid. It is by their means the womb is
+hindered from rising too high. Now, although the womb is held in its
+natural situation by means of these four ligaments, it has liberty
+enough to extend itself when pregnant, because they are very loose, and
+so easily yield to its distension. But besides these ligaments, which
+keep the womb, as it were, in a poise, yet it is fastened for greater
+security by its neck, both to the bladder and rectum, between which it
+is situated. Whence it comes to pass, that if at any time the womb be
+inflamed, it communicates the inflammation to the neighbouring part.
+
+Its use or proper action in the work of generation, is to receive and
+retain the seed, and deduce from it power and action by its heat, for
+the generation of the infant; and it is, therefore, absolutely necessary
+for the conservation of the species. It also seems by accident to
+receive and expel the impurities of the whole body, as when women have
+abundance of whites, and to purge away, from time to time, the
+superfluity of the blood, as when a woman is not with child.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_Of the difference between the ancient and modern Physicians,
+    touching the woman's contributing seed for the Formation of the
+    Child._
+
+Our modern anatomists and physicians are of different sentiments from
+the ancients touching the woman's contributing seed for the formation of
+the child, as well as the man; the ancients strongly affirming it, but
+our modern authors being generally of another judgment. I will not make
+myself a party to this controversy, but set down impartially, yet
+briefly, the arguments on each side, and leave the judicious reader to
+judge for himself.
+
+Though it is apparent, say the ancients, that the seed of man is the
+principal efficient and beginning of action, motion and generation, yet
+the woman affords seed, and contributes to the procreation of the child,
+it is evident from hence, that the woman had seminal vessels, which had
+been given her in vain if she wanted seminal excretions; but since
+nature forms nothing in vain, it must be granted that they were formed
+for the use of the seed and procreation, and fixed in their proper
+places, to operate and contribute virtue and efficiency to the seed; and
+this, say they, is further proved from hence, that if women at years of
+maturity use not copulation to eject their seed, they often fall into
+strange diseases, as appears by young women and virgins, and also it
+appears that, women are never better pleased than when they are often
+satisfied this way, which argues, that the pleasure and delight, say
+they, is double in women to what it is in men, for as the delight of men
+in copulation consists chiefly in the emission of the seed, so women are
+delighted, both in the emission of their own and the reception of the
+man's.
+
+But against this, all our modern authors affirm that the ancients are
+very erroneous, inasmuch as the testicles in women do not afford seed,
+but are two eggs, like those of a fowl or other creatures; neither have
+they any such offices as in men, but are indeed an ovarium, or
+receptacle for eggs, wherein these eggs are nourished, by the sanguinary
+vessels dispersed through them; and from hence one or more, as they are
+fecundated by the man's seed, are conveyed into the womb by the
+oviducts. And the truth of this, say they, is so plain, that if you boil
+them, the liquor shall have the same taste, colour and consistency with
+the taste of bird's eggs. And if it be objected that they have no
+shells, the answer is easy; for the eggs of fowls while they are in the
+ovary, nay, after they have fallen into the uterus, have no shell: and
+though they have one when they are laid, yet it is no more than a fence
+which nature has provided for them against outward injuries, they being
+hatched without the body, but those of women being hatched within the
+body have no need of any other fence than the womb to secure them.
+
+They also further say, that there are in the generation of the foetus,
+or young ones, two principles, _active_ and _passive_; the _active_ is
+the man's seed elaborated in the testicles out of the arterial blood and
+animal spirits; the _passive_ principle is the ovum or egg, impregnated
+by the man's seed; for to say that women have true seed, say they, is
+erroneous. But the manner of conception is this; the most spirituous
+part of the man's seed, in the act of copulation, reaching up to the
+ovarium or testicles of the woman (which contains divers eggs, sometimes
+fewer) impregnates one of them; which, being conveyed by the oviducts to
+the bottom of the womb, presently begins to swell bigger and bigger, and
+drinks in the moisture that is so plentifully sent hither, after the
+same manner that the seed in the ground suck the fertile moisture
+thereof, to make them sprout.
+
+But, notwithstanding what is here urged by modern anatomists, there are
+some late writers of the opinion of the ancients, viz., that women both
+have, and emit seed in the act of copulation; and even women themselves
+take it ill to be thought merely passive in the act wherein they make
+such vigorous exertions; and positively affirm, that they are sensible
+of the emission of their seed in that action, and that in it a great
+part of the delight which they take in that act, consists. I shall not,
+therefore, go about to take away any of their happiness from them, but
+leave them in possession of their imaginary felicity.
+
+Having thus laid the foundation of this work, I will now proceed to
+speak of conception, and of those things which are necessary to be
+observed by women from the time of their conception, to the time of
+their delivery.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+     _Of Conception; what it is; how women are to order themselves after
+     Conception._
+
+
+SECTION I.--_What Conception is, and the qualifications requisite
+    thereto._
+
+Conception is nothing but an action of the womb, by which the prolific
+seed is received and retained, that an infant may be engendered and
+formed out of it. There are two sorts of conception: the one according
+to nature, which is followed by the generation of the infant in the
+womb; the other false and wholly against nature, in which the seed
+changes into water, and produces only false conceptions, moles, or other
+strange matter. Now, there are three things principally necessary in
+order to a true conception, so that generation may follow, viz., without
+diversity of sex there can be no conception; for, though some will have
+a woman to be an animal that can engender of herself, it is a great
+mistake; there can be no conception without a man discharge his seed
+into the womb. What they allege of pullets laying eggs without a cock's
+treading them is nothing to the purpose, for those eggs should they be
+set under a hen, will never become chickens because they never received
+any prolific virtue from the male, which is absolutely necessary to this
+purpose, and is sufficient to convince us, that diversity of the sex is
+necessary even to those animals, as well as to the generation of man.
+But diversity of sex, though it be necessary to conception, yet it will
+not do alone; there must also be a congression of the different sexes;
+for diversity of sex would profit little if copulation did not follow. I
+confess I have heard of subtle women, who, to cover their sin and
+shame, have endeavoured to persuade some peasants that they were never
+touched by man to get them with child; and that one in particular
+pretended to conceive by going into a bath where a man had washed
+himself a little before and spent his seed in it, which was drawn and
+sucked into her womb, as she pretended. But such stories as these are
+only for such who know no better. Now that these different sexes should
+be obliged to come to the touch, which we call copulation or coition,
+besides the natural desire of begetting their like, which stirs up men
+and women to it, the parts appointed for generation are endowed by
+nature with a delightful and mutual itch, which begets in them a desire
+to the action; without which, it would not be very easy for a man, born
+for the contemplation of divine mysteries, to join himself, by the way
+of coition, to a woman, in regard to the uncleanness of the part and the
+action. And, on the other side, if the woman did but think of those
+pains and inconveniences to which they are subject by their great
+bellies, and those hazards of life itself, besides the unavoidable pains
+that attend their delivery, it is reasonable to believe they would be
+affrighted from it. But neither sex makes these reflections till after
+the action is over, considering nothing beforehand but the pleasure of
+the enjoyment, so that it is from this voluptuous itch that nature
+obliges both sexes to this congression. Upon which the third thing
+followeth of course, viz., the emission of seed into the womb in the act
+of copulation. For the woman having received this prolific seed into her
+womb, and retained it there, the womb thereupon becomes depressed, and
+embraces the seed so closely, that being closed the point of a needle
+cannot enter into it without violence. And now the woman may be said to
+have conceived, having reduced by her heat from power into action, the
+several faculties which are contained in the seed, making use of the
+spirits with which the seed abounds, and which are the instruments which
+begin to trace out the first lineaments of the parts, and which
+afterwards, by making use of the menstruous blood flowing to it, give
+it, in time, growth and final perfection. And thus much shall suffice to
+explain what conception is. I shall next proceed to show
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_How a Woman ought to order herself after Conception._
+
+My design in this treatise being brevity, I shall bring forward a little
+of what the learned have said of the causes of twins, and whether there
+be any such things as superfoetations, or a second conception in a woman
+(which is yet common enough), and as to twins, I shall have occasion to
+speak of them when I come to show you how the midwife ought to proceed
+in the delivery of the women that are pregnant with them. But having
+already spoken of conception, I think it now necessary to show how such
+as have conceived ought to order themselves during their pregnancy, that
+they may avoid those inconveniences, which often endanger the life of
+the child and many times their own.
+
+A woman, after conception, during the time of her being with child,
+ought to be looked upon as indisposed or sick, though in good health;
+for child bearing is a kind of nine months' sickness, being all that
+time in expectation of many inconveniences which such a condition
+usually causes to those that are not well governed during that time; and
+therefore, ought to resemble a good pilot, who, when sailing on a rough
+sea and full of rocks, avoids and shuns the danger, if he steers with
+prudence, but if not, it is a thousand to one but he suffers shipwreck.
+In like manner, a woman with child is often in danger of miscarrying and
+losing her life, if she is not very careful to prevent those accidents
+to which she is subject all the time of her pregnancy. All which time
+her care must be double, first of herself, and secondly of the child
+she goes with for otherwise, a single error may produce a double
+mischief; for if she receives a prejudice, the child also suffers with
+her. Let a woman, therefore, after conception, observe a good diet,
+suitable to her temperament, custom, condition and quality; and if she
+can, let the air where she ordinarily dwells be clear and well tempered,
+and free from extremes, either of heat or cold; for being too hot, it
+dissipateth the spirits too much and causes many weaknesses; and by
+being too cold and foggy, it may bring down rheums and distillations on
+the lungs, and so cause her to cough, which, by its impetuous motion,
+forcing downwards, may make her miscarry. She ought alway to avoid all
+nauseous and ill smells; for sometimes the stench of a candle, not well
+put out, may cause her to come before time; and I have known the smell
+of charcoal to have the same effect. Let her also avoid smelling of rue,
+mint, pennyroyal, castor, brimstone, etc.
+
+But, with respect to their diet, women with child have generally so
+great loathings and so many different longings, that it is very
+difficult to prescribe an exact diet for them. Only this I think
+advisable, that they may use those meats and drinks which are to them
+most desirable, though, perhaps, not in themselves so wholesome as some
+others, and, it may be not so pleasant; but this liberty must be made
+use of with this caution, that what they desire be not in itself
+unwholesome; and also that in everything they take care of excess. But,
+if a child-bearing woman finds herself not troubled with such longings
+as we have spoken of, let her take simple food, and in such quantity as
+may be sufficient for herself and the child, which her appetite may in a
+great measure regulate; for it is alike hurtful to her to fast too long
+as to eat too much; and therefore, rather let her eat a little and
+often; especially let her avoid eating too much at night, because the
+stomach being too much filled, compresseth the diaphragm, and thereby
+causeth difficulty of breathing. Let her meat be easy of digestion, such
+as the tenderest parts of beef, mutton, veal, fowls, pullets, capons,
+pigeons and partridges, either boiled or roasted, as she likes best, new
+laid eggs are also very good for her; and let her put into her broth
+those herbs that purify it, as sorrel, lettuce, succory and borage; for
+they will purge and purify the blood. Let her avoid whatever is hot
+seasoned, especially pies and baked meats, which being of hot digestion,
+overcharge the stomach. If she desire fish let it be fresh, and such as
+is taken out of rivers and running streams. Let her eat quinces and
+marmalade, to strengthen her child: for which purpose sweet almonds,
+honey, sweet apples, and full ripe grapes, are also good. Let her
+abstain from all salt, sour, bitter and salt things, and all things that
+tend to provoke the terms--such as garlic, onions, mustard, fennel,
+pepper and all spices except cinnamon, which in the last three months is
+good for her. If at first her diet be sparing, as she increases in
+bigness, let her diet be increased, for she ought to consider that she
+has a child as well as herself to nourish. Let her be moderate in her
+drinking; and if she drinks wine, let it be rather claret than white
+(for it will breed good blood, help the digestion, and comfort the
+stomach, which is weakly during pregnancy); but white wine being
+diuretic, or that which provokes urine, ought to be avoided. Let her be
+careful not to take too much exercise, and let her avoid dancing, riding
+in a coach, or whatever else puts the body into violent motion,
+especially in the first month. But to be more particular, I shall here
+set down rules proper for every month for the child-bearing woman to
+order herself, from the time she first conceived, to the time of her
+delivery.
+
+
+
+_Rules for the First Two Months._
+
+As soon as a woman knows, or has reason to believe, that she has
+conceived, she ought to abstain from all violent motions and exercise;
+whether she walks afoot, or rides on horseback or in a coach, it ought
+to be very gently. Let her also abstain from Venery (for which, after
+conception, she has usually no great inclination), lest there be a mole
+or superfoetation, which is the adding of one embryo to another. Let her
+beware not to lift her arms too high, nor carry great burdens, nor
+repose herself on hard and uneasy seats. Let her use moderately good,
+juicy meat and easy of digestion, and let her wines be neither too
+strong nor too sharp, but a little mingled with water; or if she be very
+abstemious, she may use water wherein cinnamon has been boiled. Let her
+avoid fastings, thirst, watchings, mourning, sadness, anger, and all
+other perturbations of the mind. Let no one present any strange or
+unwholesome thing to her, nor so much as name it, lest she should desire
+it and not be able to get it, and so either cause her to miscarry, or
+the child to have some deformity on that account. Let her belly be kept
+loose with prunes, raisins or manna in her broth, and let her use the
+following electuary, to strengthen the womb and the child--
+
+"Take conserve of borage, buglos and roses, each two ounces; an ounce of
+balm; an ounce each of citron peel and shreds, candied mirobalans, an
+ounce each; extract of wood aloes a scruple; prepared pearl, half a
+drachm; red coral and ivory, of each a drachm; precious stones each a
+scruple; candied nutmegs, two drachms, and with syrup of apples and
+quinces make an electuary."
+
+
+
+_Let her observe the following rules._
+
+"Take pearls prepared, a drachm; red coral and ivory prepared, each half
+a drachm, precious stones, each a scruple; yellow citron peel, mace,
+cinnamon, cloves, each half a drachm; saffron, a scruple; wood aloes,
+half a scruple; ambergris, six drachms; and with six ounces of sugar
+dissolved in rosewater make rolls." Let her also apply strengtheners of
+nutmeg, mace and mastich made up in bags, to the navel, or a toast
+dipped in malmsey, or sprinkled with powdered mint. If she happens to
+desire clay, chalk, or coals (as many women with child do), give her
+beans boiled with sugar, and if she happens to long for anything that
+she cannot obtain, let her presently drink a large draught of pure cold
+water.
+
+
+
+_Rules for the Third Month._
+
+In this month and the next, be sure to keep from bleeding; for though it
+may be safe and proper at other times, yet it will not be so at the end
+of the fourth month; and yet if blood abound, or some incidental disease
+happens which requires evacuation, you may use a cupping glass, with
+scarification, and a little blood may be drawn from the shoulders and
+arms, especially if she has been accustomed to bleed. Let her also take
+care of lacing herself too straitly, but give herself more liberty than
+she used to do; for inclosing her belly in too strait a mould, she
+hinders the infant from taking its free growth, and often makes it come
+before its time.
+
+
+
+_Rules for the Fourth Month._
+
+In this month also you ought to keep the child-bearing woman from
+bleeding, unless in extraordinary cases, but when the month is passed,
+blood-letting and physic may be permitted, if it be gentle and mild, and
+perhaps it may be necessary to prevent abortion. In this month she may
+purge, in an acute disease, but purging may only be used from the
+beginning of this month to the end of the sixth; but let her take care
+that in purging she use no vehement medicine, nor any bitter, as aloes,
+which is disagreeable and hurtful to the child, and opens the mouth of
+the vessels; neither let her use coloquintida, scammony nor turbith; she
+may use cassia, manna, rhubarb, agaric and senna but dyacidodium
+purgans is best, with a little of the electuary of the juice of roses.
+
+
+
+_Rules for the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Months._
+
+In these months, child-bearing women are troubled with coughs, colds,
+heart-beating, fainting, watching, pains in the loins and hips, and
+bleeding. The cough is from a sharp vapour that comes to the jaws and
+rough artery from the terms, or the thin part of that blood got less
+into the reins of the breast; this endangers abortion, and strength
+fails from watching: therefore, purge the humours that come to the
+breast, with rhubarb and agaric, and strengthen the head as in a
+catarrh, and give sweet lenitives as in a cough. Palpitation and
+faintness arises from vapours that go to it by the arteries, or from
+blood that abounds and cannot get out of the womb, but ascends and
+oppresses the heart; and in this case cordials should be used both
+inwardly and outwardly. Watching, is from sharp dry vapours that trouble
+the animal spirits, and in this case use frictions, and let the woman
+wash her feet at bed-time, and let her take syrup of poppies, dried
+roses, emulsions of sweet almonds, and white poppy seed. If she be
+troubled with pains in her loins and hips, as in those months she is
+subject to be, from the weight of her child as it grows big and heavy,
+and so stretches the ligaments of the womb and part adjacent, let her
+hold it up with swathing bands about her neck. About this time also the
+woman often happens to have a flux of blood, either at the nose, womb or
+haemorrhoids, from plenty of blood, or from the weakness of the child
+that takes it not in, or else from evil humour in the blood, that stirs
+up nature and sends it forth. And sometimes it happens that the vessels
+of the womb may be broken, either by some violent motion, fall, cough or
+trouble of the mind (for any of these will work that effect), and this
+is so dangerous, that in such a case the child cannot be well, but if it
+be from blood only, the danger is less, provided it flows by the veins
+of the neck of the womb, for then it prevents plethora and takes not
+away the nourishment of the child; but if it proceeds from the weakness
+of the child, that draws it not in, abortion of the child often follows,
+or hard travail, or else she goes beyond her time. But if it flows from
+the inward veins of the womb, there is more danger by the openness of
+the womb, if it come from evil blood; the danger is alike from
+cacochymy, which is like to fall upon both. If it arises from plethora,
+open a vein, but with great caution, and use astringents, of which the
+following will do well:--Take prepared pearls, a scruple; red coral, two
+scruples; mace, nutmeg, each a drachm; cinnamon, half a drachm; make a
+powder, or with white sugar make rolls. Or give this powder in
+broth:--"Take red coral, a drachm; half a drachm precious stones; red
+sander, half a drachm; bole, a drachm; scaled earth and tormental roots,
+each two scruples, with sugar of roses and Manus Christi; with pearl,
+five drachms; make a powder." You may also strengthen the child at the
+navel, and if there be a cacochymy, alter the humours, and if you can do
+it safely, evacuate; you may likewise use amulets on her hands and about
+her neck. In a flux of haemorrhoids, wear off the pain, and let her
+drink hot wine with a toasted nutmeg. In these months the belly is also
+subject to be bound, but if it be without any apparent disease, the
+broth of a chicken or veal, sodden with oil, or with the decoction of
+mallows or marsh-mallows, mercury or linseed, put up in a clyster, will
+not be amiss, but in less quantity than is given in other cases:--viz.
+of the decoction, five ounces, of common oil, three ounces, of sugar,
+two ounces, and of cassia fistula, one ounce. But if she will not take a
+clyster, one or two yolks of new laid eggs, or a little peas-pottage
+warm, a little salt and sugar, and supped a little before meat, will be
+very convenient. But if her belly be distended and stretched with wind a
+little fennel seed and aniseed reduced to a powder and mixed with honey
+and sugar made after the manner of an electuary, will be very well Also,
+if thighs and feet swell let them be anointed with erphodrinum (which is
+a liquid medicine) made with vinegar and rose-water, mingled with salt.
+
+
+
+_Rules for the Eighth Month._
+
+The eighth month is commonly called the most dangerous; therefore the
+greatest care and caution ought to be used, the diet better in quality,
+but no more, nor indeed, so much in quantity as before, but as she must
+abate her diet, she must increase her exercise; and because then women
+with child, by reason that sharp humours alter the belly, are accustomed
+to weaken their spirits and strength, they may well take before meat, an
+electuary of diarrhoden, or aromaticum rosatum or diamagarton; and
+sometimes they may lick a little honey. As they will loathe, nauseate
+their meat, they may take green ginger, candied with sugar, and the
+rinds of citron and oranges candied; and let them often use honey for
+strengthening the infant. When she is not very far from her labour, let
+her eat every day seven roasted figs before her meat, and sometimes let
+her lick a little honey. But let her beware of salt and powdered meat,
+for it is neither good for her nor the child.
+
+
+
+_Rules for the Ninth Month._
+
+In the ninth month let her have a care of lifting any great weight, but
+let her move a little more, to dilate the parts, and stir up natural
+heat. Let her take heed of stooping, and neither sit too much nor lie on
+her sides, neither ought she to bend herself much enfolded in the
+umbilical ligaments, by which means it often perisheth. Let her walk and
+stir often, and let her exercise be, rather to go upwards than
+downwards. Let her diet, now especially, be light and easy of digestion
+and damask prunes with sugar, or figs with raisins, before meat, as also
+the yolks of eggs, flesh and broth of chickens, birds, partridges and
+pheasants; astringent and roasted meats, with rice, hard eggs, millet
+and such like other things are proper. Baths of sweet water, with
+emollient herbs, ought to be used by her this month with some
+intermission, and after the baths let her belly be anointed with oil of
+sweet roses and of violets; but for her privy parts, it is better to
+anoint them with the fat of hens, geese or ducks, or with oil of
+lilies, and the decoction of linseed and fenugreek, boiled with oil of
+linseed and marshmallows, or with the following liniment:--
+
+Take mallows and marshmallows, cut and shred, of each one ounce; of
+linseed, one ounce; let them be boiled from twenty ounces of water to
+ten; then let her take three ounces of the boiled broth, of oil of
+almonds and oil of flower-de-luce, of each one ounce; of deer's suet,
+three ounces. Let her bathe with this, and anoint herself with it, warm.
+
+If for fourteen days before the birth, she do every morning and evening
+bathe and moisten her belly with muscadine and lavender water, the child
+will be much strengthened thereby. And if every day she eat toasted
+bread, it will hinder anything from growing to the child. Her privy
+parts must be gently stroked down with this fomentation.
+
+"Take three ounces of linseed, and one handful each of mallows and
+marshmallows sliced, then let them be put into a bag and immediately
+boiled." Let the woman with child, every morning and evening, take the
+vapour of this decoction in a hollow stool, taking great heed that no
+wind or air come to her in-parts, and then let her wipe the part so
+anointed with a linen cloth, and she may anoint the belly and groins as
+at first.
+
+When she has come so near to her time, as to be ten or fourteen days
+thereof, if she begins to feel any more than ordinary pain let her use
+every day the following:--"Take mallows and marshmallows, of each a
+handful; camomiles, hard mercury, maidenhair, of each a handful; of
+linseed, four ounces; let them be boiled in a sufficient quantity of
+water as to make a bath therewith." But let her not sit too hot upon the
+seat, nor higher than a little above her navel; nor let her sit upon it
+longer than about half an hour, lest her strength languish and decay,
+for it is better to use it often than to stay too long in it.
+
+And thus have I shown how a child-bearing woman ought to govern herself
+each month during her pregnancy. How she must order herself at her
+delivery, shall be shown in another chapter, after I have first shown
+the intended midwife how the child is first formed in the womb, and the
+manner of its decumbiture there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+     _Of the Parts proper to a Child in the womb; How it is formed
+     there, and the manner of its Situation therein._
+
+
+In the last chapter I treated of conception, showed what it was, how
+accomplished and its signs, and how she who has conceived ought to order
+herself during the time of her pregnancy. Now, before I come to speak of
+her delivery, it is necessary that the midwife be first made acquainted
+with the parts proper to a child in the womb, and also that she be shown
+how it is formed, and the manner of its situation and decumbiture there;
+which are so necessary to her, that without the knowledge thereof, no
+one can tell how to deliver a woman as she ought. This, therefore, shall
+be the work of this chapter. I shall begin with the first of these.
+
+
+
+SECTION I.--_Of the Parts proper to a Child in the Womb._
+
+In this section, I must first tell you what I mean by the parts proper
+to a child in the womb; and they are only those that either help or
+nourish it; and whilst it is lodged in that dark repository of nature,
+and that help to clothe and defend it there and are cast away, as of no
+more use, after it is born, and these are two, viz., the umbilicars, or
+navel vessels, and the secundinum. By the first it is nourished, and by
+the second clothed and defended from wrong. Of each of these I shall
+speak distinctly; and first,
+
+
+
+_Of the Umbilicars, or Navel Vessels._
+
+These are four in number, viz.:--one vein, two arteries, and the vessel
+which is called the urachos.
+
+(1) The vein is that on which the infant is nourished, from the time of
+its conception till the time of its delivery; till being brought into
+the light of the world, it has the same way of concocting the food we
+have. This vein ariseth from the liver of the child, and is divided into
+two parts when it has passed the navel; and these two are divided and
+subdivided, the branches being upheld by the skin called _chorion_ (of
+which I speak by and by), and are joined to the veins of the mother's
+womb, from whence they have their blood for the nourishment of the
+child.
+
+(2) The arteries are two on each side which proceed from the back
+branches of the great artery of the mother, and the vital blood is
+carried by those to the child being ready concocted by the mother.
+
+(3) A nervous or sinewy production is led from the bottom of the
+bladder of the infant to the navel, and this is called _urachos_, and
+its use is, to convey the urine of the infant from the bladder to the
+alantois. Anatomists do very much vary in their opinion concerning this,
+some denying any such thing to be in the delivery of the woman, and
+others on the contrary affirming it; but experience has testified there
+is such a thing, for Bartholomew Carbrolius, the ordinary doctor of
+anatomy to the College of Physicians at Montpellier in France, records
+the history of a maid, whose water being a long time stopped, at last
+issued out through the navel. And Johannes Fernelius speaks of the same
+thing that happened to a man of thirty years of age, who having a
+stoppage at the neck of the bladder, his urine issued out of his navel
+for many months together, and that without any prejudice at all to his
+health, which he ascribes to the ill lying of his navel, whereby the
+urachos was not well dried. And Volchier Coitas quotes such another
+instance in a maid of thirty-four at Nuremburg in Germany. These
+instances, though they happen but seldom, are sufficient to prove that
+there is such a thing as anurachos in men.
+
+These four vessels before mentioned, viz., one vein, two arteries and
+the urachos, join near the navel, and are united by a skin which they
+have from the chorion and so become like a gut or rope, and are
+altogether void of sensibility, and this is that which women call the
+navel-string. The vessels are thus joined together, that so they may
+neither be broken, severed nor entangled; and when the infant is born
+are of no use save only to make up the ligament which stops the hole of
+the navel and for some other physical use, etc.
+
+
+
+_Of the Secundine or After-birth._
+
+Setting aside the name given to this by the Greeks and Latins, it is
+called in English by the name of secundine, after-birth or after-burden;
+which are held to be four in number.
+
+(1) The _first_ is called placenta, because it resembles the form of a
+cake, and is knit both to the navel and chorion, and makes up the
+greatest part of the secundine or after-birth. The flesh of it is like
+that of the melt or spleen, soft, red and tending something to
+blackness, and hath many small veins and arteries in it: and certainly
+the chief use of it is, for containing the child in the womb.
+
+(2) The _second_ is the chorion. This skin and that called the amnios,
+involve the child round, both above and underneath, and on both sides,
+which the alantois does not. This skin is that which is most commonly
+called the secundine, as it is thick and white garnished with many small
+veins and arteries, ending in the placenta before named, being very
+light and slippery. Its use is, not only to cover the child round about,
+but also to receive, and safely bind up the roots of the veins and
+arteries or navel vessels before described.
+
+(3) The _third_ thing which makes up the secundine in the alantois, of
+which there is a great dispute amongst anatomists. Some say there is
+such a thing, and others that there is not. Those who will have it to be
+a membrane, say it is white, soft and exceedingly thin, and just under
+the placenta, where it is knit to the urachos, from which it receives
+the urine; and its office is to keep it separate from the sweat, that
+the saltness of it may not offend the tender skin of the child.
+
+(4) The _fourth_, and last covering of the child is called amnios; and
+it is white, soft and transparent, being nourished by some very small
+veins and arteries. Its use is, not only to enwrap the child, but also
+to retain the sweat of the child.
+
+Having thus described the parts proper to a child in the womb, I will
+next proceed to speak of the formation of the child therein, as soon as
+I have explained the hard terms of the section, that those for whose
+help it is designed, may understand what they read. A _vein_ is that
+which receives blood from the liver, and distributes in several branches
+to all parts of the body. _Nerve_ is the same with _sinew_, and is that
+by which the brain adds sense and motion to the body. _Placenta_,
+properly signifies _sugar_ cake; but in this section it is used to
+signify a spongy piece of flesh resembling a cake, full of veins and
+arteries, and is made to receive a mother's blood appointed for the
+infant's nourishment in the womb. The _chorion_ is an outward skin which
+compasseth the child in the womb. The _amnios_ is the inner skin which
+compasseth the child in the womb. The _alantois_ is the skin that holds
+the urine of the child during the time that it abides in the womb. The
+_urachos_ is the vessel that conveys the urine from the child in the
+womb to the _alantois_. I now proceed to
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_Of the Formation of the Child in the Womb._
+
+To speak of the formation of the child in the womb, we must begin where
+nature begins, and, that is at the act of coition, in which the womb
+having received the generative seed (without which there can be no
+conception), the womb immediately shuts up itself so close that the
+point of a needle cannot enter the inward orifice; and this it does,
+partly to hinder the issuing out of the seed again, and partly to
+cherish it by an inward heat, the better to provoke it to action; which
+is one reason why women's bellies are so lank at their first conception.
+The woman having thus conceived, the first thing which is operative in
+conception is the spirit whereof the seed is full, which, nature
+quickening by the heat of the womb, stirs up the action. The internal
+spirits, therefore, separate the parts that are less pure, which are
+thick, cold and clammy, from those that are more pure and noble. The
+less pure are cast to the outside, and with these seed is circled round
+and the membrane made, in which that seed that is most pure is wrapped
+round and kept close together, that it may be defended from cold and
+other accidents, and operate the better.
+
+The first thing that is formed is the amnios; the next the chorion; and
+they enwrap the seed round like a curtain. Soon after this (for the seed
+thus shut up in the woman lies not idle), the navel vein is bred, which
+pierceth those skins, being yet very tender, and carries a drop of blood
+from the veins of the mother's womb to the seed; from which drop the
+vena cava, or chief vein, proceeds, from which all the rest of the veins
+which nourish the body spring; and now the seed hath something to
+nourish it, whilst it performs the rest of nature's work, and also blood
+administered to every part of it, to form flesh.
+
+This vein being formed, the navel arteries are soon after formed; then
+the great artery, of which all the others are but branches; and then the
+heart, for the liver furnisheth the arteries with blood to form the
+heart, the arteries being made of seed, but the heart and the flesh, of
+blood. After this the brain is formed, and then the nerves to give sense
+and motion to the infant. Afterwards the bones and flesh are formed; and
+of the bones, first of all, the vertebrae or chine bones, and then the
+skull, etc. As to the time in which this curious part of nature's
+workmanship is formed, having already in Chapter II of the former part
+of this work spoken at large upon this point, and also of the
+nourishment of the child in the womb, I shall here only refer the reader
+thereto, and proceed to show the manner in which the child lies in the
+womb.
+
+
+
+SECT. III.--_Of the manner of the Child's lying in the Womb._
+
+This is a thing so essential for a midwife to know, that she can be no
+midwife who is ignorant of it; and yet even about this authors
+extremely differ; for there are not two in ten that agree what is the
+form that the child lies in the womb, or in what fashion it lies there;
+and yet this may arise in a great measure from the different times of
+the women's pregnancy; for near the time of its deliverance out of those
+winding chambers of nature it oftentimes changes the form in which it
+lay before, for another.
+
+I will now show the several situations of the child in the mother's
+womb, according to the different times of pregnancy, by which those that
+are contrary to nature, and are the chief cause of ill labours, will be
+more easily conceived by the understanding midwife. It ought, therefore,
+in the first place to be observed, that the infant, as well male as
+female, is generally situated in the midst of the womb; for though
+sometimes, to appearance a woman's belly seems higher on one side than
+the other, yet it is so with respect to the belly only, and not to her
+womb, in the midst of which it is always placed.
+
+But, in the second place, a woman's great belly makes different figures,
+according to the different times of pregnancy; for when she is young
+with child, the embryo is always found of a round figure, a little long,
+a little oblong, having the spine moderately turned inwards, and the
+thighs folded, and a little raised, to which the legs are so raised,
+that the heels touch the buttocks; the arms are bending, and the hands
+placed upon the knees, towards which part of the body, the head is
+turned downwards towards the inward orifice of the womb, tumbling as it
+were over its head so that then the feet are uppermost, and the face
+towards the mother's great gut; and this turning of the infant in this
+manner, with its head downwards, towards the latter end of a woman's
+reckoning, is so ordered by nature, that it may be thereby the better
+disposed of its passage into the world at the time of its mother's
+labour, which is not then far off (and indeed some children turn not at
+all until the very time of birth); for in this posture all its joints
+are most easily extended in coming forth; for by this means its arms and
+legs cannot hinder its birth, because they cannot be bent against the
+inner orifice of the womb and the rest of the body, being very supple,
+passeth without any difficulty after the head, which is hard and big;
+being passed the head is inclined forward, so that the chin toucheth the
+breast, in which posture, it resembles one sitting to ease nature, and
+stooping down with the head to see what comes from him. The spine of the
+back is at that time placed towards the mother's, the head uppermost,
+the face downwards; and proportionately to its growth, it extends its
+members by little and little, which were exactly folded in the first
+month. In this posture it usually keeps until the seventh or eighth
+month, and then by a natural propensity and disposition of the upper
+first. It is true there are divers children, that lie in the womb in
+another posture, and come to birth with their feet downwards, especially
+if there be twins; for then, by their different motions they do so
+disturb one another, that they seldom come both in the same posture at
+the time of labour, but one will come with the head, and another with
+the feet, or perhaps lie across; but sometimes neither of them will come
+right. But, however the child may be situated in the womb, or in
+whatever posture it presents itself at the time of birth, if it be not
+with its head forwards, as I have before described, it is always against
+nature, and the delivery will occasion the more pain and danger, and
+require greater care and skill from the midwife, than when the labour is
+more natural.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+     _A Guide for Women in Travail, showing what is to be done when they
+     fall in Labour, in order to their Delivery._
+
+
+The end of all that we have been treating of is, the bringing forth of a
+child into the world with safety both to the mother and the infant, as
+the whole time of a woman's pregnancy may be termed a kind of labour;
+for, from the time of the conception to the time of her delivery, she
+labours under many difficulties, is subject to many distempers, and in
+continual danger, from one affection or other, till the time of birth
+comes; and when that comes, the greatest labour and travail come along
+with it, insomuch that then all the other labours are forgotten, and
+that only is called the time of her labours, and to deliver her safely
+is the principal business of the midwife; and to assist therein, shall
+be the chief design of this chapter. The time of the child's being ready
+for its birth, when nature endeavours to cast it forth, is that which is
+properly the time of a woman's labour; nature then labouring to be eased
+of its burden. And since many child-bearing women, (especially the first
+child) are often mistaken in their reckoning and so, when they draw near
+their time take every pain they meet with for their labour, which often
+proves prejudicial and troublesome to them, when it is not so, I will in
+the first section of this chapter, set down some signs, by which a woman
+may know when the true time of her labour is come.
+
+
+
+SECTION I.--_The Signs of the true Time of a Woman's Labour._
+
+When women with child, especially of their first, perceive any
+extraordinary pains in the belly, they immediately send for their
+midwife, as taking it for their labour; and then if the midwife be not a
+skilful and experienced woman, to know the time of labour, but takes it
+for granted without further inquiry (for some such there are), and so
+goes about to put her into labour before nature is prepared for it, she
+may endanger the life of both mother and child, by breaking the amnios
+and chorion. These pains, which are often mistaken for labour, are
+removed by warm clothes laid to the belly, and the application of a
+clyster or two, by which those pains which precede a true labour, are
+rather furthered than hindered. There are also other pains incident to a
+woman in that condition from the flux of the belly, which are easily
+known by the frequent stools that follow them.
+
+The signs, therefore, of labour, some few days before, are that the
+woman's belly, which before lay high, sinks down, and hinders her from
+walking so easily as she used to do; also there flow from the womb slimy
+humours, which nature has appointed to moisten and smooth the passage
+that its inward orifice may be the more easily dilated when there is
+occasion; which beginning to open at this time, suffers that slime to
+flow away, which proceeds from the Glandules called _prostata_. These
+are signs preceding the labour; but when she is presently falling into
+labour, the signs are, great pains about the region of the reins and
+loins, which coming and retreating by intervals, are answered in the
+bottom of the belly by congruous throes, and sometimes the face is red
+and inflamed, the blood being much heated by the endeavours a woman
+makes to bring forth her child; and likewise, because during these
+strong throes her respiration is intercepted, which causes the blood to
+have recourse to her face; also her privy parts are swelled by the
+infant's head lying in the birth, which, by often thrusting, causes
+those parts to descend outwards. She is much subject to vomiting, which
+is a good sign of good labour and speedy delivery, though by ignorant
+people thought otherwise; for good pains are thereby excited and
+redoubled; which vomiting is excited by the sympathy there is between
+the womb and the stomach. Also, when the birth is near, women are
+troubled with a trembling in the thighs and legs, not with cold, like
+the beginning of an ague fit, but with the heat of the whole body,
+though it must be granted, this does not happen always. Also, if the
+humours which then flow from the womb are discoloured with the blood,
+which the midwives call _shows_, it is an infallible mark of the birth
+being near. And if then the midwife puts up her fingers into the neck of
+the womb, she will find the inner orifice dilated; at the opening of
+which the membranes of the infant, containing the waters, present
+themselves and are strongly forced down with each pain she hath; at
+which time one may perceive them sometimes to resist, and then again
+press forward the finger, being more or less hard and extended,
+according as the pains are stronger or weaker. These membranes, with the
+waters in them, when they are before the head of the child, midwives
+call _the gathering of the waters_, resemble to the touch of the fingers
+those eggs which have no shell, but are covered only with a simple
+membrane. After this, the pains still redoubling the membranes are
+broken by a strong impulsation of these waters, which flow away, and
+then the head of the infant is presently felt naked, and presents
+itself at the inward orifice of the womb. When these waters come thus
+away, then the midwife may be assured the birth is very near, this being
+the most certain sign that can be; for the _amnios alantois_, which
+contained these waters, being broken by the pressing forward of the
+birth, the child is no better able to subsist long in the womb
+afterwards than a naked man in a heap of snow. Now, these waters, if the
+child comes presently after them, facilitate the labour by making the
+passage slippery; and therefore, let no midwife (as some have foolishly
+done) endeavour to force away the water, for nature knows best when the
+true time of birth is, and therefore retains the waters till that time.
+But if by accident the water breaks away too long before the birth, then
+such things as will hasten it, may be safely administered, and what
+these are, I will show in another section.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_How a Woman ought to be ordered when the time of her labour
+    is come._
+
+When it is known that the true time of her labour is come by the signs
+laid down in the foregoing, of which those most to be relied upon are
+pains and strong throes in the belly, forcing downwards towards the
+womb, and a dilation of the inward orifice, which may be perceived by
+touching it with the finger, and the gathering of the waters before the
+head of the child, and thrusting down the membranes which contain them;
+through which, between the pains, one may in some manner with the finger
+discover the part which presents itself (as we have said before),
+especially if it be the head of the child, by its roundness and
+hardness; I say, if these things concur and are evident, the midwife may
+be sure it is the time of the woman's labour, and care must be taken to
+get all those things that are necessary to comfort her at that time. And
+the better to help her, be sure to see that she is not tightly laced;
+you must also give her one strong clyster or more, if there be occasion,
+provided it be done at the beginning, and before the child be too
+forward, for it will be difficult for her to receive them afterwards.
+The benefit accruing therefrom will be, that they excite the gut to
+discharge itself of its excrements, so that the rectum being emptied
+there may be the more space for the dilation of the passage; likewise to
+cause the pains to bear the more downward, through the endeavours she
+makes when she is at stool, and in the meantime, all other necessary
+things for her labour should be put in order, both for the mother and
+the child. To this end, some get a midwife's; but a pallet bed, girded,
+is much the best way, placed near the fire, if the season so require,
+which pallet ought to be so placed, that there may be easy access to it
+on every side, that the woman may be the more easily assisted, as there
+is occasion.
+
+If the woman abounds with blood, to bleed her a little more may not be
+improper, for thereby she will both breathe the better, and have her
+breasts more at liberty, and likewise more strength to bear down her
+pains; and this may be done without danger because the child being about
+ready to be born, has no more need of the mother's blood for its
+nourishment; besides, this evacuation does many times prevent her having
+a fever after delivery. Also, before her delivery, if her strength will
+permit, let her walk up and down her chamber; and that she may have
+strength so to do, it will be necessary to give her good strengthening
+things, such as jelly, broth, new laid eggs, or some spoonfuls of burnt
+wine; and let her by all means hold out her pains, bearing them down as
+much as she can, at the time when they take her; and let the midwife
+from time to time touch the inward orifice with her finger, to know
+whether the waters are ready to break and whether the birth will follow
+soon after. Let her also anoint the woman's privities with emollient
+oil, hog's grease, and fresh butter, if she find they are hard to be
+dilated. Let the midwife, likewise, all the time be near the labouring
+woman, and diligently observe her gestures, complaints, and pains, for
+by this she may guess pretty well how far her labour advanceth, because
+when she changeth her ordinary groans into loud cries, it is a sign that
+the child is near the birth; for at the time her pains are greater and
+more frequent. Let the woman likewise, by intervals, rest herself upon
+the bed to regain her strength, but not too long, especially if she be
+little, short and thick, for such women have always worse labour if they
+lie long on their beds in their travail. It is better, therefore, that
+she walk about her chamber as long as she can, the woman supporting her
+under the arms, if it be necessary; for by this means, the weight of the
+child causes the inward orifices of the womb to dilate the sooner than
+in bed, and if her pains be stronger and more frequent, her labour will
+not be near so long. Let not the labouring woman be concerned at those
+qualms and vomitings which, perhaps, she may find come upon her, for
+they will be much for her advantage in the issue, however uneasy she may
+be for a time, as they further her pains and throes by provoking
+downward.
+
+When the waters of the child are ready and gathered (which may be
+perceived through the membranes presenting themselves to the orifice)
+to the bigness of the whole dilatation, the midwife ought to let them
+break of themselves, and not, like some hasty midwives, who being
+impatient of the woman's long labour, break them, intending thereby to
+hasten their business, when instead thereof, they retard it; for by the
+too hasty breaking of these waters (which nature designed to make the
+child slip more easy), the passage remains dry by which means the pains
+and throes of the labouring woman are less efficacious to bring forth
+the infant than they would otherwise have been. It is, therefore, much
+the better way to let the waters break of themselves; after which the
+midwife may with ease feel the child by that part which first presents,
+and thereby discern whether it comes right, that is, with the head
+foremost, for that is the proper and most natural way of the birth. If
+the head comes right, she will find it big, round, hard and equal; but
+if it be any other part, she will find it rugged, unequal, soft and
+hard, according to the nature of the part it is. And this being the true
+time when a woman ought to be delivered, if nature be not wanting to
+perform its office, therefore, when the midwife finds the birth thus
+coming forward let her hasten to assist and deliver it, for it
+ordinarily happens soon after, if it be natural.
+
+But if it happens, as it sometimes may, that the waters break away too
+long before the birth, in such a case, those things which hasten nature
+may safely be administered. For which purpose make use of pennyroyal,
+dittany, juniper berries, red coral, betony and feverfew, boiled in
+white wine, and give a drachm of it, or it would be much better to take
+the juice of it when it is in its prime, which is in May, and having
+clarified it, make it into a syrup with double its weight of sugar, and
+keep it all the year, to use when occasion calls for it; mugwort used in
+the same manner is also good in this case; also a drachm of cinnamon
+powder given inwardly profits much in this case; and so does tansey
+broiled and applied to the privities; or an oil of it, so, made and
+used, as you were taught before. The stone _aetites_ held to the
+privities, is of extraordinary virtue, and instantly draws away, both
+child and after-burden; but great care must be taken to remove it
+presently, or it will draw forth womb and all; for such is the magnetic
+virtue of this stone that both child and womb follow it as readily as
+iron doth the load-stone or the load-stone the north star.
+
+There are many things that physicians affirm are good in this case;
+among which are an ass's or horse's hoof, hung near the privities; a
+piece of red coral hung near the said place. A load-stone helps very
+much, held in the woman's left hand; or the skin cut off a snake, girt
+about the middle, next to the skin. These things are mentioned by
+Mizaldus, but setting those things aside, as not so certain,
+notwithstanding Mizaldus quotes them, the following prescriptions are
+very good to speedy deliverance to women in travail.
+
+(1) A decoction of white wine made in savory, and drank.
+
+(2) Take wild tansey, or silver weed, bruise it, and apply to the
+woman's nostrils.
+
+(3) Take date stones, and beat them to powder, and let her take half a
+drachm of them in white wine at a time.
+
+(4) Take parsley and bruise it and press out the juice, and dip a linen
+cloth in it, and put it so dipped into the mouth of the womb; it will
+presently cause the child to come away, though it be dead, and it will
+bring away the after-burden. Also the juice of the parsley is a thing of
+so great virtue (especially stone parsley) that being drank by a woman
+with child, it cleanseth not only the womb, but also the child in the
+womb, of all gross humours.
+
+(5) A scruple of castorum in powder, in any convenient liquor, is very
+good to be taken in such a case, and so also is two or three drops of
+castorum in any convenient liquor; or eight or nine drops of spirits of
+myrrh given in any convenient liquor, gives speedy deliverance.
+
+(6) Give a woman in such a case another woman's milk to drink; it will
+cause speedy delivery, and almost without pain.
+
+(7) The juice of leeks, being drunk with warm water, highly operates to
+cause speedy delivery.
+
+(8) Take peony seeds and beat them into a powder, and mix the powder
+with oil, with which oil anoint the privities of the woman and child; it
+will give her deliverance speedily, and with less pain than can be
+imagined.
+
+(9) Take a swallow's nest and dissolve it in water, strain it, and drink
+it warm, it gives delivery with great speed and much ease.
+
+Note this also in general, that all that move the terms are good for
+making the delivery easy, such as myrrh, white amber in white wine, or
+lily water, two scruples or a drachm; or cassia lignea, dittany, each a
+drachm; cinnamon, half a drachm, saffron, a scruple; give a drachm, or
+take borax mineral, a drachm, and give it in sack; or take cassia
+lignea, a drachm; dittany, amber, of each a drachm; cinnamon, borax, of
+each a drachm and a half; saffron, a scruple, and give her half a
+drachm; or give her some drops of oil of hazel in convenient liquor; or
+two or three drops of oil of cinnamon in vervain water. Some prepare
+the secundine thus:--Take the navel-string and dry it in an oven, take
+two drachms of the powder, cinnamon a drachm, saffron half a scruple,
+with the juice of savin make trochisks; give two drachms; or wash the
+secundine in wine and bake it in a pot; then wash it in endive water and
+wine, take half a drachm of it; long pepper, galangal, of each half a
+drachm; plantain and endive seed, of each half a drachm; lavender seed,
+four scruples; make a powder, or take laudanum, two drachms; storax,
+calamite, benzoin, of each half a drachm; musk, ambergris each six
+grains, make a powder or trochisks for a fume. Or use pessaries to
+provoke the birth; take galbanum dissolved in vinegar, an ounce; myrrh,
+two drachms, with oil of oat make a pessary.
+
+
+
+_An Ointment For the Navel._
+
+Take oil of keir, two ounces, juice of savine an ounce, of leeks and
+mercury, each half an ounce; boil them to the consumption of the juice;
+add galbanum dissolved in vinegar, half an ounce, myrrh, two drachms,
+storax liquid a drachm, round bitwort, sowbread, cinnamon, saffron, a
+drachm, with wax make an ointment and apply it.
+
+If the birth be retarded through the weakness of the mother, refresh
+her by applying wine and soap to the nose, confect. alkermas. diamarg.
+
+These things may be applied to help nature in her delivery when the
+child comes to the birth the right way, and yet the birth be retarded;
+but if she finds the child comes the wrong way, and that she is not able
+to deliver the woman as she ought to be, by helping nature, and saving
+both mother and child (for it is not enough to lay a woman if it might
+be done any other way with more safety and ease, and less hazard to
+woman and child), then let her send speedily for the better and more
+able to help; and not as I once knew a midwife do, who, when a woman she
+was to deliver had hard labour, rather than a man-midwife should be sent
+for, undertook to deliver the woman herself (though told it was a man's
+business), and in her attempting it, brought away the child, but left
+the head in the mother's womb; and had not a man midwife been presently
+sent for, the mother had lost her life as well as the child; such
+persons may rather be termed butchers than midwives. But supposing the
+woman's labour to be natural, I will next show what the midwife ought to
+do, in order of her delivery.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+     _Of Natural Labour; What it is and what the Midwife is to do in
+     such Labour._
+
+
+SECTION I.--_What Natural Labour is._
+
+There are four things which denominate a woman's natural labour; the
+first is, that it be at the full time, for if a woman comes before her
+time, it cannot be termed natural labour, neither will it be so easy as
+though she had completed her nine months. The second thing is, that it
+be speedy, and without any ill accident; for when the time of her birth
+come, nature is not dilatory in the bringing it forth, without some ill
+accident intervene, which renders it unnatural.
+
+The third is, that the child be alive; for all will grant, that the
+being delivered of a dead child is very unnatural. The fourth is, that
+the child come right, for if the position of the child in the womb be
+contrary to that which is natural, the event will prove it so, by making
+that which should be a time of life, the death both of the mother and
+the child.
+
+Having thus told you what I mean by natural labour, I shall next show
+how the midwife is to proceed therein, in order to the woman's
+delivery. When all the foregoing requisites concur, and after the
+waters be broken of themselves, let there rather a quilt be laid upon
+the pallet bedstead than a feather bed, having there-on linen and cloths
+in many folds, with such other things as are necessary, and that may be
+changed according to the exigency requiring it, so that the woman may
+not be incommoded with the blood, waters and other filth which are
+voided in labour. The bed ought to be ordered, that the woman being
+ready to be delivered, should lie on her back upon it, having her body
+in a convenient posture; this is, her head and breast a little raised,
+so that she may be between lying and sitting, for being so placed, she
+is best capable of breathing, and, likewise, will have more strength to
+bear her pains than if she lay otherwise, or sunk down in her bed. Being
+so placed, she must spread her thighs abroad, folding her legs a little
+towards her buttocks, somewhat raised by a little pillow underneath, to
+the end that her rumps should have more liberty to retire back; and let
+her feet be stayed against some firm thing; besides this, let her take
+firm hold of some of the good women attending her, with her hands, that
+she may the better stay herself during her pains. She being thus placed
+at her bed, having her midwife at hand, the better to assist as nature
+may require, let her take courage, and help her pains as best she can,
+bearing them down when they take her, which she must do by holding her
+breath, and forcing them as much as possible, in like manner as when she
+goes to stool, for by such straining, the diaphragm, or midriff, being
+strongly thrust downward, necessarily forces down the womb and the child
+in it. In the meantime, let the midwife endeavour to comfort her all she
+can, exhorting her to bear her labour courageously, telling her it will
+be quickly over, and that there is no fear but that she will have a
+speedy delivery. Let the midwife also, having no rings on her fingers,
+anoint them with oil of fresh butter, and therewith dilate gently the
+inward orifice of the womb putting her finger ends into the entry
+thereof, and then stretch them one from the other, when her pains take
+her; by this means endeavouring to help forward the child, and thrusting
+by little and little, the sides of the orifice towards the hinder part
+of the child's head, anointing it with fresh butter if it be necessary.
+
+When the head of the infant is a little advanced into the inward
+orifice, the midwife's phrase is:--"It is crowned"; because it girds and
+surrounds it just as a crown; but when it is so far that the extremities
+begin to appear without the privy parts, then they say, "The infant is
+in the passage"; and at this time the woman feels herself as if it were
+scratched, or pricked with pins, and is ready to imagine that the
+midwife hurts her, when it is occasioned by the violent distension of
+those parts and the laceration which sometimes the bigness of the
+child's head causeth there. When things are in this posture, let the
+midwife seat herself conveniently to receive the child, which will come
+quickly, and with her finger ends (which she must be sure to keep close
+pared) let her endeavour to thrust the crowning of the womb (of which I
+have spoken before), back over the head of the child, and as soon as it
+is advanced as far as the ears, or thereabouts, let her take hold of the
+two sides with her two hands, that when a good pain comes she may
+quickly draw forth the child, taking care that the navel-string be not
+entangled about the neck or any part, as sometimes it is, lest thereby
+the after-burden be pulled with violence, and perhaps the womb also, to
+which it is fastened, and so either cause her to flood or else break the
+strings, both which are of bad consequence to the woman, whose delivery
+may thereby be rendered the more difficult. It must also be carefully
+observed that the head be not drawn forth straight, but shaking it a
+little from one side to the other, that the shoulders may sooner and
+easier take their places immediately after it is past, without losing
+time, lest the head being past, the child be stopped there by the
+largeness of the shoulders, and so come in danger of being suffocated
+and strangled in the passage, as it sometimes happens, for the want of
+care therein. But as soon as the head is born, if there be need, she may
+slide her fingers under the armpits, and the rest of the body will
+follow without any difficulty.
+
+As soon as the midwife hath in this manner drawn forth the child, let
+her put it on one side, lest the blood and water which follows
+immediately, should do it any injury by running into its mouth and nose,
+as they would do, if it lay on its back; and so endanger the choking of
+it. The child being thus born, the next thing requisite is, to bring
+away the after-burden, but before that let the midwife be very careful
+to examine whether there be more children in the womb; for sometimes a
+woman may have twins that expected it not; which the midwife may easily
+know by the continuance of the pains after the child is born, and the
+bigness of the mother's belly. But the midwife may be sure of it, if she
+puts her hand up to the entry of the womb, and finds there another
+watery gathering, and the child in it presenting to the passage, and if
+she find it so, she must have a care of going to fetch the after-birth,
+till the woman be delivered of all the children she is pregnant with.
+Wherefore the first string must be cut, being first tied with a thread
+three or four times double, and fasten the other end with string to the
+woman's thighs, to prevent the inconvenience it may cause by hanging
+between the thighs; and then removing the child already born, she must
+take care to deliver her of the rest, observing all the circumstances as
+with the first; after which, it will be necessary to fetch away the
+after-birth, or births. But of that I shall treat in another section,
+and first show what is to be done to the new-born infant.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_Of the Cutting of the Child's Navel String._
+
+Though this is accounted by many but as a trifle, yet great care is to
+be taken about it, and it shows none of the least art and skill of a
+midwife to do it as it should be; and that it may be so done, the
+midwife should observe: (1) The time. (2) The place. (3) The manner. (4)
+The event.
+
+(1) The time is, as soon as ever the infant comes out of the womb,
+whether it brings part of the after-burden with it or not; for
+sometimes the child brings into the world a piece of the amnios upon its
+head, and is what mid wives call the _caul_, and ignorantly attribute
+some extraordinary virtue to the child so born; but this opinion is only
+the effect of their ignorance; for when a child is born with such a
+crown (as some call it) upon its brows, it generally betokens weakness
+and denotes a short life. But to proceed to the matter in hand. As soon
+as the child comes into the world, it should be considered whether it is
+weak or strong; and if it be weak, let the midwife gently put back part
+of the natural and vital blood into the body of the child by its navel;
+for that recruits a weak child (the vital and natural spirits being
+communicated by the mother to the child by its navel-string), but if the
+child be strong, the operation is needless. Only let me advise you, that
+many children that are born seemingly dead, may soon be brought to life
+again, if you squeeze six or seven drops of blood out of that part of
+the navel-string which is cut off, and give it to the child inwardly.
+
+(2) As to the place in which it should be cut, that is, whether it
+should be cut long or short, it is that which authors can scarcely agree
+in, and which many midwives quarrel about; some prescribing it to be cut
+at four fingers' breadth, which is, at best, but an uncertain rule,
+unless all fingers were of one size. It is a received opinion, that the
+parts adapted to the generation are contracted and dilated according to
+the cutting of the navel-string, and this is the reason why midwives are
+generally so kind to their own sex, that they leave a longer part of the
+navel-string of a male than female, because they would have the males
+well provided for the encounters of Venus; and the reason they give, why
+they cut that of the female shorter is, because they believe it makes
+them more acceptable to their husbands. Mizaldus was not altogether of
+the opinion of these midwives, and he, therefore, ordered the navel
+string to be cut long both in male and female children; for which he
+gives the following reason, that the instrument of generation follows
+the proportion of it; and therefore, if it be cut too short in a female,
+it will be a hindrance to her having children. I will not go about to
+contradict the opinions of Mizaldus; these, experience has made
+good:--That one is, that if the navel-string of a child, after it be
+cut, be suffered to touch the ground, the child will never hold its
+water, either sleeping or waking, but will be subjected to an
+involuntary making of water all its lifetime. The other is, that a piece
+of a child's navel-string carried about one, so that it touch his skin,
+defends him that wears it from the falling sickness and convulsions.
+
+(3) As to the manner it must be cut, let the midwife take a brown
+thread, four or five times double, of an ell long, or thereabouts, tied
+with a single knot at each of the ends, to prevent their entangling; and
+with this thread so accommodated (which the woman must have in readiness
+before the woman's labour, as also a good pair of scissors, that no time
+may be lost) let her tie the string within an inch of the belly with a
+double knot, and turning about the end of the thread, let her tie two
+more on the other side of the string, reiterating it again, if it be
+necessary; then let her cut off the navel-string another inch below the
+ligatures, towards the after-birth, so that there only remains but two
+inches of the string, in the midst of which will be the knot we speak
+of, which must be so close knit, as not to suffer a drop of blood to
+squeeze out of the vessels, but care must be taken, not to knit it so
+strait, as to out it in two, and therefore the thread must be pretty
+thick and pretty strait cut, it being better too strait than too loose;
+for some children have miserably lost their lives, with all their blood,
+before it was discovered, because the navel-string was not well tied,
+therefore great care must be taken that no blood squeeze through; for if
+there do, a new knot must be made with the rest of the string. You need
+not fear to bind the navel-string very hard because it is void of sense,
+and that part which you leave, falls off in a very few days, sometimes
+in six or seven, or sooner, but never tarries longer than eight or nine.
+When you have thus cut the navel-string, then take care the piece that
+falls off touch not the ground, for the reason I told you Mizaldus gave,
+which experience has justified.
+
+(4) The last thing I mentioned, was the event or consequence, or what
+follows cutting the navel-string. As soon as it is cut, apply a little
+cotton or lint to the place to keep it warm, lest the cold enter into
+the body of the child, which it most certainly will do, if you have not
+bound it hard enough. If the lint or cotton you apply to it, be dipped
+in oil of roses, it will be the better, and then put another small rag
+three or four times double upon the belly; upon the top of all, put
+another small bolster, and then swathe it with a linen swathe, four
+fingers broad, to keep it steady, lest by moving too much, or from being
+continually stirred from side to side, it comes to fall off before the
+navel-string, which you left remaining, is fallen off.
+
+It is the usual custom of midwives to put a piece of burnt rag to it,
+which we commonly call tinder; but I would rather advise them to put a
+little ammoniac to it, because of its drying qualities.
+
+
+
+SECT. III.--_How to bring away the After-burden._
+
+A woman cannot be said to be fairly delivered, though the child be born,
+till the after-burden be also taken from her; herein differing from most
+animals, who, when they have brought forth their young, cast forth
+nothing else but some water, and the membranes which contained them. But
+women have an after-labour, which sometimes proves more dangerous than
+the first; and how to bring it safely away without prejudice to her,
+shall be my business to show in this section.
+
+As soon as the child is born, before the midwife either ties or cuts the
+navel-string, lest the womb should close, let her take the string and
+wind it once or twice about one or two fingers on her left hand joined
+together, the better to hold it, with which she may draw it moderately,
+and with the right hand, she may only take a single hold of it, above
+the left, near the privities, drawing likewise with that very gently,
+resting the while the forefinger of the same hand, extended and
+stretched forth along the string towards the entrance of the vagina,
+always observing, for the greater facility, to draw it from the side
+where the burden cleaves least; for in so doing, the rest will separate
+the better; and special care must be taken that it be not drawn forth
+with too much violence, lest by breaking the string near the burden, the
+midwife be obliged to put the whole hand into the womb to deliver the
+woman; and she need to be a very skilful person that undertakes it, lest
+the womb, to which the burden is sometimes very strongly fastened, be
+drawn away with it, as has sometimes happened. It is, therefore, best to
+use such remedies as may assist nature. And here take notice, that what
+brings away the birth, will also bring away the after-birth. And
+therefore, for effecting this work, I will lay down the following rules.
+
+(1) Use the same means of bringing away the after-birth, that you made
+use of to bring away the birth; for the same care and circumspection are
+needful now that there were then.
+
+(2) Considering that the labouring woman cannot but be much spent by
+what she has already undergone in bringing forth the infant, be
+therefore sure to give her something to comfort her. And in this case
+good jelly broths, also a little wine and toast in it, and other
+comforting things, will be necessary.
+
+(3) A little hellebore in powder, to make her sneeze, is in this case
+very proper.
+
+(4) Tansey, and the stone aetites, applied as before directed, are also
+of good use in this case.
+
+(5) If you take the herb vervain, and either boil it in wine, or a syrup
+with the juice of it, which you may do by adding to it double its weight
+of sugar (having clarified the juice before you boil it), a spoonful of
+that given to the woman is very efficacious to bring away the secundine;
+and feverfew and mugwort have the same operation taken as the former.
+
+(6) Alexanders[10] boiled in wine, and the wine drank, also sweet
+servile, sweet cicily, angelica roots, and musterwort, are excellent
+remedies in this case.
+
+(7) Or, if this fail, the smoke of marigolds, received up a woman's
+privities by a funnel, have been known to bring away the after-birth,
+even when the midwife let go her hold.
+
+(8) Boil mugwort in water till it be very soft, then take it out, and
+apply it in the manner of a poultice to the navel of the labouring
+woman, and it instantly brings away the birth. But special care must be
+taken to remove it as soon as they come away, lest by its long tarrying
+it should draw away the womb also.
+
+
+
+SECT. IV.--_Of Laborious and Difficult Labours and how the Midwife is
+    to proceed therein._
+
+There are three sorts of bad labours, all painful and difficult, but not
+all properly unnatural. It will be necessary, therefore, to distinguish
+these.
+
+The _first_ of these labours is that when the mother and child suffer
+very much extreme pain and difficulty, even though the child come right;
+and this is distinguishably called the laborious labour.
+
+The _second_ is that which is difficult and differs not much from the
+former, except that, besides those extraordinary pains, it is generally
+attended with some unhappy accident, which, by retarding the birth,
+causes the difficulty; but these difficulties being removed, it
+accelerates the birth, and hastens the delivery.
+
+Some have asked, what is the reason that women bring forth their
+children with so much pain? I answer, the sense of feeling is
+distributed to the whole body by the nerves, and the mouth of the womb
+being so narrow, that it must of necessity be dilated at the time of the
+woman's delivery, the dilating thereof stretches the nerves, and from
+thence comes the pain. And therefore the reason why some women have more
+pain in their labour than others, proceeds from their having the mouth
+of the matrix more full of nerves than others. The best way to remove
+those difficulties that occasion hard pains and labour, is to show first
+from whence they proceed. Now the difficulty of labour proceeds either
+from the mother, or child, or both.
+
+From the mother, by reason of the indisposition of the body, or from
+some particular part only, and chiefly the womb, as when the woman is
+weak, and the mother is not active to expel the burden, or from
+weakness, or disease, or want of spirits; or it may be from strong
+passion of the mind with which she was once possessed; she may also be
+too young, and so may have the passage too narrow; or too old, and then,
+if it be her first child, because her pains are too dry and hard, and
+cannot be easily dilated, as happens also to them which are too lean;
+likewise those who are small, short or deformed, as crooked women who
+have not breath enough to help their pains, and to bear them down,
+persons that are crooked having sometimes the bones of the passage not
+well shaped. The colic also hinders labour, by preventing the true
+pains; and all great and active pains, as when the woman is taken with a
+great and violent fever, a great flooding, frequent convulsions, bloody
+flux, or any other great distemper. Also, excrements retained cause
+great difficulty, and so does a stone in the bladder: or when the
+bladder is full of urine, without being able to void it, or when the
+woman is troubled with great and painful piles. It may also be from the
+passages, when the membranes are thick, the orifice too narrow, and the
+neck of the womb not sufficiently open, the passages strained and
+pressed by tumours in the adjacent parts, or when the bones are too
+firm, and will not open, which very much endangers the mother and the
+child; or when the passages are not slippery, by reason of the waters
+having broken too soon, or membranes being too thin. The womb may also
+be out of order with regard to its bad situation or conformation, having
+its neck too narrow, hard and callous, which may easily be so naturally,
+or may come by accident, being many times caused by a tumour, an
+imposthume, ulcer or superfluous flesh.
+
+As to hard labour occasioned by the child, it is when the child happens
+to stick to a mole, or when it is so weak it cannot break the membranes;
+or if it be too big all over, or in the head only; or if the natural
+vessels are twisted about its neck; when the belly is hydropsical; or
+when it is monstrous, having two heads, or joined to another child,
+also, when the child is dead or so weak that it can contribute nothing
+to its birth; likewise when it comes wrong, or there are two or more.
+And to all these various difficulties there is oftentimes one more, and
+that is, the ignorance of the midwife, who for want of understanding in
+her business, hinders nature in her work instead of helping her.
+
+Having thus looked into the cause of hard labour, I will now show the
+industrious midwife how she may minister some relief to the labouring
+woman under these difficult circumstances. But it will require judgment
+and understanding in the midwife, when she finds a woman in difficult
+labour, to know the particular obstruction, or cause thereof, that so a
+suitable remedy may be applied; as for instance, when it happens by the
+mother's being too young and too narrow, she must be gently treated, and
+the passages anointed with oil, hog's lard, or fresh butter, to relax
+and dilate them the easier, lest there should happen a rupture of any
+part when the child is born; for sometimes the peritoneum breaks, with
+the skin from the privities to the fundament.
+
+But if the woman be in years with her first child, let her lower parts
+be anointed to mollify the inward orifice, which in such a case being
+more hard and callous, does not easily yield to the distention of
+labour, which is the true cause why such women are longer in labour, and
+also why their children, being forced against the inward orifice of the
+womb (which, as I have said, is a little callous) are born with great
+bumps and bruises on their heads.
+
+Those women who are very small and mis-shaped, should not be put to bed,
+at least until the waters are broken, but rather kept upright and
+assisted to walk about the chamber, by being supported under the arms;
+for by that means, they will breathe more freely, and mend their pains
+better than on the bed, because there they lie all of a heap. As for
+those that are very lean, and have hard labour from that cause, let them
+moisten the parts with oil and ointments, to make them more smooth and
+slippery, that the head of the infant, and the womb be not so compressed
+and bruised by the hardness of the mother's bones which form the
+passage. If the cause be weakness, she ought to be strengthened, the
+better to support her pains, to which end give her good jelly broths,
+and a little wine with a toast in it. If she fears her pains, let her be
+comforted, assuring her that she will not endure any more, but be
+delivered in a little time. But if her pains be slow and small, or none
+at all, they must be provoked by frequent and pretty strong clysters;
+let her walk about her chamber, so that the weight of the child may help
+them forward. If she flood or have strong convulsions she must then be
+helped by a speedy delivery; the operation I shall relate in this
+section of unnatural labours. If she be costive, let her use clysters,
+which may also help to dispel colic, at those times very injurious
+because attended with useless pains, and because such bear not downward,
+and so help not to forward the birth. If she find an obstruction or
+stoppage of the urine, by reason of the womb's bearing too much on the
+bladder, let her lift up her belly a little with her hands, and try if
+by that she receives any benefit; if she finds she does not, it will be
+necessary to introduce a catheter into her bladder, and thereby draw
+forth her urine. If the difficulty be from the ill posture of the woman,
+let her be placed otherwise, in a posture more suitable and convenient
+for her; also if it proceeds from indispositions of the womb, as from
+its oblique situation, etc., it must be remedied, as well as it can be,
+by the placing her body accordingly; or, if it be a vicious
+conformation, having the neck too hard, too callous, too straight, it
+must be anointed with oil and ointments, as before directed. If the
+membranes be so strong that the waters do not break in due time, they
+may be broken with the fingers, if the midwife be first well assured
+that the child is come forward into the passage, and ready to follow
+presently after; or else, by the breaking of the waters too soon, the
+child may be in danger of remaining dry a long time; to supply which
+defect, you may moisten the parts with fomentations, decoctions, and
+emollient oils; which yet is not half so well as when nature does her
+work in her own time, with the ordinary slime and waters. The membranes
+sometimes do press forth with the waters, three or four fingers' breadth
+out of the body before the child resembling a bladder full of water; but
+there is no great danger in breaking them, if they be not already
+broken; for when the case is so, the child is always in readiness to
+follow, being in the passage, but let the midwife be very careful not to
+pull it with her hand, lest the after-burden be thereby loosened before
+its time, for it adheres thereto very strongly. If the navel-string
+happen to come first, it must presently be put up again, and kept so, if
+possible, or otherwise, the woman must be immediately delivered. But if
+the after-burden should come first, it must not be put up again by any
+means; for the infant having no further occasion for it, it would be but
+an obstacle if it were put up; in this case, it must be cut off, having
+tied the navel-string, and afterwards draw forth the child with all
+speed that may be, lest it be suffocated.
+
+
+
+SECT. V.--_Of Women labouring of a dead Child._
+
+When the difficulty of labour arises from a dead child, it is a great
+danger to a mother and great care ought to be taken therein; but before
+anything be done, the midwife ought to be well assured that the child is
+dead indeed, which may be known by these signs.
+
+(1) The breast suddenly slacks, or falls flat, or bags down. (2) A great
+coldness possesses the belly of the mother, especially about the navel.
+(3) Her urine is thick, with a filthy stinking settling at the bottom.
+(4) No motion of the child can be perceived; for the trial whereof, let
+the midwife put her hand into warm water, and lay it upon the belly, for
+that, if it is alive, will make it stir. (5) She is very subject to
+dreams of dead men, and affrighted therewith. (6) She has extraordinary
+longings to eat such things as are contrary to nature. (7) Her breath
+stinks, though not used so to do. (8) When she turns herself in her bed,
+the child sways that way like a lump of lead.
+
+These things being carefully observed, the midwife may make a judgment
+whether the child be alive or dead, especially if the woman take the
+following prescription:--"Take half a pint of white wine and burn it,
+and add thereto half an ounce of cinnamon, but no other spices
+whatever, and when she has drunk it, if her travailing pains come upon
+her, the child is certainly dead; but if not, the child may possibly be
+either weak or sick, but not dead. This will bring her pains upon her if
+it be dead, and will refresh the child and give her ease if it be
+living; for cinnamon refresheth and strengtheneth the child.
+
+Now, if upon trial it be found the child is dead, let the mother do all
+she can to forward the delivery, because a dead child can in no wise be
+helpful therein. It will be necessary, therefore, that she take some
+comfortable things to prevent her fainting, by reason of the putrid
+vapours arising from the dead child. And in order to her delivery let
+her take the following herbs boiled in white wine (or at least as many
+of them as you can get), viz., dittany, betony, pennyroyal, sage,
+feverfew, centaury, ivy leaves and berries. Let her also take sweet
+basil in powder, and half a drachm at a time in white wine; let her
+privities also be anointed with the juice of the garden tansey. Or take
+the tansey in the summer when it can most plentifully be had, and before
+it runs up to flower, and having bruised it well, boil it in oil until
+the juice of it be consumed. If you set it in the sun, after you have
+mixed it with oil, it will be more effectual. This, an industrious
+midwife, who would be prepared against all events, ought to have always
+by her. As to the manner of her delivery, the same methods must be used
+as are mentioned in the section of natural labour. And here again, I
+cannot but commend the stone aetites, held near the privities, whose
+magnetic virtue renders it exceedingly necessary on this occasion, for
+it draws the child any way with the same facility that the load-stone
+draws iron.
+
+Let the midwife also make a strong decoction of hyssop with water, and
+let the woman drink it very hot, and it will in a little time bring away
+the dead child.
+
+If, as soon as she is delivered of the dead child, you are in doubt that
+part of the afterbirth is left behind in the body (for in such cases as
+these many times it rots, and comes away piece-meal), let her continue
+drinking the same decoction until her body be cleansed.
+
+A decoction made of herbs, muster-wort, used as you did the decoction of
+hyssop, works the effect. Let the midwife also take the roots of
+pollodum and stamp them well; warm them a little and bind them on the
+sides of her feet, and it will soon bring away the child either dead or
+alive.
+
+The following medicines also are such as stir up the expulsive faculty,
+but in this case they must be stronger, because the motion of the child
+ceases.
+
+Take savine, round birthwort, trochisks of myrrh, castor, cinnamon and
+saffron, each half a drachm; make a powder, give a drachm.
+
+Or she may purge first, and then apply an emollient, anointing her about
+the womb with oil of lilies, sweet almonds, camomiles, hen and
+goose-grease. Also foment to get out the child, with a decoction of
+mercury, orris, wild cucumbers, saecus, broom flowers. Then anoint the
+privities and loins with ointment of sow-bread. Or, take coloquintida,
+agaric, birthwort, of each a drachm; make a powder, add ammoniacum
+dissolved in wine, ox-gall, each two drachms. Or make a fume with an
+ass's hoof burnt, or gallianum, or castor, and let it be taken in with a
+funnel.
+
+To take away pains and strengthen the parts, foment with the decoction
+of mugwort, mallows, rosemary, with wood myrtle, St. John's wort, each
+half an ounce, spermaceti two drachms, deer's suet, an ounce; with wax
+make an ointment. Or take wax six ounces, spermaceti an ounce; melt
+them, dip flux therein, and lay it all over her belly.
+
+If none of these things will do, the last remedy is to try surgery, and
+then the midwife ought without delay to send for an expert and able
+man-midwife, to deliver her by manual operation, of which I shall treat
+more at large in the next chapter.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[10] Horse-parsley.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+     _Of Unnatural Labour._
+
+
+In showing the duty of a midwife, when the child-bearing woman's labour
+is unnatural, it will be requisite to show, in the first place, what I
+mean by unnatural labour, for that women do bring forth in pain and
+sorrow is natural and common to all. Therefore, that which I call
+unnatural is, when the child comes to the birth in a contrary posture to
+that which nature ordained, and in which the generality of the children
+come into the world.
+
+The right and natural birth is when the child comes with its head first;
+and yet this is too short a definition of a natural birth; for if any
+part of the head but the crown comes first, so that the body follows not
+in a straight line, it is a wrong and difficult birth, even though the
+head comes first. Therefore, if the child comes with its feet first, or
+with the side across, it is quite contrary to nature, or to speak more
+plainly, that which I call unnatural.
+
+Now, there are four general ways a child may come wrong. (1) When any of
+the foreparts of the body first present themselves. (2) When by an
+unhappy transposition, any of the hinder parts of the body first present
+themselves. (3) When either of the sides, or, (4) the feet present
+themselves first. To these, the different wrong postures that a child
+can present itself in, may be reduced.
+
+
+
+SECTION I.--_How to deliver a Woman of a Dead Child by Manual
+   Operation._
+
+When manual operation is necessary, let the operator acquaint the woman
+of the absolute necessity there is for such an operation; and that, as
+the child has already lost its life, there is no other way left for the
+saving hers. Let him also inform her, for her encouragement, that he
+doubts not, with the divine blessing, to deliver her safely, and that
+the pains arising therefrom will not be so great as she fears. Then let
+him stir up the woman's pains by giving her some sharp clyster, to
+excite her throes to bear down, and bring forth the child. And if this
+prevails not, let him proceed with the manual operation.
+
+First, therefore, let her be placed across the bed that he may operate
+the easier; and let her lie on her back, with her hips a little higher
+than her head, or at least the body equally placed, when it is necessary
+to put back or turn the infant to give it a better posture. Being thus
+situated, she must fold her legs so as her heels be towards her
+buttocks, and her thighs spread, and so held by a couple of strong
+persons, there must be others also to support her under her arms, that
+the body may not slide down when the child is drawn forth; for which
+sometimes great strength is required. Let the sheets and blankets cover
+her thighs for decency's sake, and with respect to the assistants, and
+also to prevent her catching cold; the operator herein governing himself
+as well with respect to his convenience, and the facility and surety of
+the operation, as to other things. Then let him anoint the entrance to
+the womb with oil or fresh butter, if necessary, that with so more ease
+he may introduce his hand, which must also be anointed, and having by
+the signs above mentioned, received satisfaction that the child is dead,
+he must do his endeavours to fetch it away as soon as he possibly can.
+If the child offer the head first, he must gently put it back until he
+hath liberty to introduce his hand quite into the womb; then sliding it
+along, under the belly, to find the feet, let him draw it forth by
+them, being very careful to keep the head from being locked into the
+passage; and that it be not separated from the body; which may be
+effected the more easily, because the child being very rotten and
+putrefied, the operator need not be so mindful to keep the breast and
+face downwards as he is in living births. But if notwithstanding all
+these precautions, by reason of the child's putrefaction, the head
+should be separated and left behind in the womb, it must be drawn forth
+according to the directions which have been given in the third section
+of this chapter. But when the head, coming first, is so far advanced
+that it cannot well be put back, it is better to draw it forth so, than
+to torment the woman too much by putting it back to turn it, and bring
+it by the feet; but the head being a part round and slippery, it may
+also happen that the operator cannot take hold of it with his fingers by
+reason of its moisture, nor put them up to the side of it, because the
+passage is filled with its bigness; he must, therefore, take a proper
+instrument, and put it up as far as he can without violence, between the
+womb and the child's head (for the child being dead before, there can be
+no danger in the operation), and let him fasten it there, giving it hold
+upon one of the bones of the skull, that it may not slide, and after it
+is well fixed in the head, he may therewith draw it forth, keeping the
+ends of the fingers of his left hand flat upon the opposite side, the
+better to help to disengage it, and by wagging it a little, to conduct
+it directly out of the passage, until the head be quite born; and then,
+taking hold of it with his hands only, the shoulders being drawn into
+the passage, and so sliding the fingers of both hands under the armpits,
+the child may be quite delivered, and then the after-burden fetched, to
+finish the operation, being careful not to pluck the navel-string too
+hard lest it break, as often happens when it is corrupt.
+
+If the dead child comes with the arm up to the shoulders so extremely
+swelled that the woman must suffer too great violence to have it put
+back, it is then (being first well assured the child is dead) best to
+take it off by the shoulder joints, by twisting three or four times
+about, which is very easily done by reason of the softness and
+tenderness of the body. After the arm is so separated, and no longer
+possesses the passage, the operator will have more room to put up his
+hand into the womb, to fetch the child by the feet and bring it away.
+
+But although the operator is sure the child is dead in the womb, yet he
+must not therefore presently use instruments because they are never to
+be used but when hands are not sufficient, and there is no other remedy
+to prevent the woman's danger, or to bring forth the child any other
+way; and the judicious operator will choose that way which is the least
+hazardous, and most safe.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_How a Woman must be Delivered when the Child's Feet come
+   first._
+
+There is nothing more obvious to those whose business it is to assist
+labouring women, than that the several unnatural postures in which
+children present themselves at the birth are the occasions of most of
+the bad labours and ill accidents that happen to them in that condition.
+
+And since midwives are often obliged, because of their unnatural
+situations, to draw the children forth by the feet, I conceive it to be
+most proper first to show how a child must be brought forth that
+presents itself in that posture, because it will be a guide to several
+of the rest.
+
+I know indeed in this case it is the advice of several authors to change
+the figure, and place the head so that it may present to the birth, and
+this counsel I should be very much inclined to follow, could they but
+also show how it may be done. But it will appear very difficult, if not
+impossible to be performed, if we would avoid the danger that by such
+violent agitations both the mother and the child must be put into, and
+therefore my opinion is, that it is better to draw forth by the feet,
+when it presents itself in that posture, than to venture a worse
+accident by turning it.
+
+As soon, therefore, as the waters are broken, and it is known that the
+child come thus and that the womb is open enough to admit the midwife's
+or operator's hand into it, or else by anointing the passage with oil or
+hog's grease, to endeavour to dilate it by degrees, using her fingers to
+this purpose, spreading them one from the other, after they are together
+entered, and continue to do so until they be sufficiently dilated, then
+taking care that her nails be well pared, no rings on her fingers and
+her hands well anointed with oil or fresh butter, and the woman placed
+in the manner directed in the former section, let her gently introduce
+her hand into the entrance of the womb, where finding the child's feet,
+let her draw it forth in the manner I shall presently direct; only let
+her first see whether it presents one foot or both, and if but one foot,
+she ought to consider whether it be the right foot or the left, and also
+in what fashion it comes; for by that means she will soon come to know
+where to find the other, which as soon as she knows and finds, let her
+draw it forth with the other; but of this she must be specially careful,
+viz., that the second be not the foot of another child; for if so, it
+may be of the utmost consequence, for she may sooner split both mother
+and child, than draw them forth. But this may be easily prevented if she
+but slide the hand up by the first leg and thigh to the waist, and there
+finding both thighs joined together, and descending from one and the
+same body. And this is also the best means to find the other foot, when
+it comes but with one.
+
+As soon as the midwife has found both the child's feet, she may draw
+them forth, and holding them together, may bring them little by little
+in this manner, taking afterwards hold of the arms and thighs, as soon
+as she can come at them, drawing them so till the hips come forth. While
+this is doing, let her observe to wrap the parts in a single cloth, so
+that her hands being always greasy slide not in the infant's body, which
+is very slippery, because of the vicious humours which are all over it;
+which being done, she may take hold under the hips, so as to draw it
+forth to the beginning of the breast; and let her on both sides with her
+hand bring down the child's hand along its body, which she may easily
+find; and then let her take care that the belly and face of the child be
+downwards; for if they should be upwards, there would be the same danger
+of its being stopped by the chin, over the share-bone, and therefore, if
+it be not so she must turn it to that posture; which may easily be done
+if she takes a proper hold of the body when the breasts and arms are
+forth, in the manner we have said, and draw it, turning it in proportion
+on that side it most inclines to, till it be turned with the face
+downwards, and so, having brought it to the shoulders, let her lose no
+time, desiring the woman at the same time to bear down, that so drawing
+the head at that instant may take its place, and not be stopped in the
+passage, though the midwife takes all possible care to prevent it. And
+when this happens, she must endeavour to draw forth the child by the
+shoulders (taking care that she separate not the body from the head, as
+I have known it done by the midwife), discharging it by little and
+little from the bones in the passage with the fingers of each hand,
+sliding them on each side opposite the other, sometimes above and
+sometimes under, till the work be ended; endeavouring to dispatch it as
+soon as possible, lest the child be suffocated, as it will unavoidably
+be, if it remain long in that posture; and this being well and
+carefully effected, she may soon after fetch away the after-birth, as I
+have before directed.
+
+
+
+SECT. III.--_How to bring away the Head of the Child, when separated
+    from the Body, and left behind in the Womb._
+
+Though the utmost care be taken in bringing away the child by the feet,
+yet if it happen to be dead, it is sometimes so putrid and corrupt, that
+with the least pull the head separates from the body and remains alone
+in the womb, and cannot be brought away but with a manual operation and
+great difficulty, it being extremely slippery, by reason of the place
+where it is, and from the roundness of its figure, on which no hold can
+well be taken; and so very great is the difficulty in this case that
+sometimes two or three very able practitioners in midwifery have, one
+after the other, left the operation unfinished, as not able to effect
+it, after the utmost industry, skill and strength; so that the woman,
+not being able to be delivered, perished. To prevent which fatal
+accident, let the following operation be observed.
+
+When the infant's head separates from the body, and is left alone
+behind, whether owing to putrefaction or otherwise, let the operator
+immediately, without any delay, while the womb is yet open, direct up
+his right hand to the mouth of the head (for no other hole can there be
+had), and having found it let him put one or two of his fingers into it,
+and the thumb under its chin; then let him draw it little by little,
+holding it by the jaws; but if that fails, as sometimes it will when
+putrefied, then let him pull off the right hand and slide up his left,
+with which he must support the head, and with the right hand let him
+take a narrow instrument called a _crochet_, but let it be strong and
+with a single branch, which he must guide along the inside of his hand,
+with the point of it towards it, for fear of hurting the womb; and
+having thus introduced it, let him turn it towards the head to strike
+either in an eyehole, or the hole of the ear, or behind the head, or
+else between the sutures, as he finds it most convenient and easy; and
+then draw forth the head so fastened with the said instrument, still
+helping to conduct it with his left hand; but when he hath brought it
+near the passage, being strongly fastened to the instrument, let him
+remember to draw forth his hand, that the passage not being filled with
+it, may be larger and easier, keeping still a finger or two on the side
+of the head, the better to disengage it.
+
+There is also another method, with more ease and less hardship than the
+former; let the operator take a soft fillet or linen slip, of about four
+fingers' breadth, and the length of three quarters of an ell or
+thereabouts, taking the two ends with the left hand, and the middle with
+the right, and let him so put it up with his right, as that it may be
+beyond the head, to embrace it as a sling does a stone, and afterwards
+draw forth the fillet by the two ends together; it will thus be easily
+drawn forth, the fillet not hindering the least passage, because it
+takes up little or no space.
+
+When the head is fetched out of the womb care must be taken that not the
+least part of it be left behind, and likewise to cleanse the womb of the
+after-burden, if yet remaining. If the burden be wholly separated from
+the side of the womb, that ought to be first brought away, because it
+may also hinder the taking hold of the head. But if it still adheres to
+the womb, it must not be meddled with till the head be brought away; for
+if one should endeavour to separate it from the womb, it might then
+cause a flooding, which would be augmented by the violence of the
+operation, the vessels to which it is joined remaining for the most part
+open as long as the womb is distended, which the head causeth while it
+is retained in it, and cannot be closed until this strange body be
+voided, and this it doth by contracting and compressing itself
+together, as has been more fully before explained. Besides, the
+after-birth remaining thus cleaving to the womb during the operation,
+prevents it from receiving easily either bruise or hurt.
+
+
+
+SECT. IV.--_How to deliver a Woman when the child's head is presented to
+    the birth._
+
+Though some may think it a natural labour when the child's head come
+first, yet, if the child's head present not the right way, even that is
+an unnatural labour; and therefore, though the head comes first, yet if
+it be the side of the head instead of the crown, it is very dangerous
+both to the mother and the child, for the child's neck would be broken,
+if born in that manner, and by how much the mother's pains continue to
+bear the child, which is impossible unless the head be rightly placed,
+the more the passages are stopped. Therefore, as soon as the position of
+the child is known, the woman must be laid with all speed, lest the
+child should advance further than this vicious posture, and thereby
+render it more difficult to thrust it back, which must be done, in order
+to place the head right in the passage, as it ought to be.
+
+To this purpose, therefore, place the woman so that her buttocks may be
+a little higher than her head and shoulders, causing her to lean a
+little to the opposite side to the child's ill posture; then let the
+operator slide up his hand, well anointed with oil, by the side of the
+child's head; to bring it right gently, with his fingers between the
+head and the womb; but if the head be so engaged that it cannot be done
+that way, he must then put up his hand to the shoulders, that by so
+thrusting them back a little into the womb, sometimes on the one side,
+and sometimes on the other, he may, little by little, give a natural
+position. I confess it would be better if the operator could put back
+the child by its shoulders with both hands, but the head takes up so
+much room, that he will find much ado to put up one, with which he must
+perform this operation, and, with the help of the finger-ends of the
+other hand put forward the child's birth as in natural labour.
+
+Some children present their face first, having their hands turned back,
+in which posture it is extremely difficult for a child to be born; and
+if it continues so long, the face will be swelled and become black and
+blue, so that it will at first appear monstrous, which is occasioned as
+well by the compression of it in that place, as by the midwife's fingers
+in handling it, in order to place it in a better posture. But this
+blackness will wear away in three or four days' time, by anointing it
+often with oil of sweet almonds. To deliver the birth, the same
+operation must be used as in the former, when the child comes first with
+the side of the head; only let the midwife or operator work very gently
+to avoid as much as possible the bruising the face.
+
+
+
+SECT. V.--_How to Deliver a Woman when the Child presents one or both
+    Hands together with the Head._
+
+Sometimes the infant will present some other part together with its
+head; which if it does, it is usually with one or both of its hands; and
+this hinders the birth, because the hands take up part of that passage
+which is little enough for the head alone; besides that, when this
+happens, they generally cause the head to lean on one side; and
+therefore this position may be well styled unnatural. When the child
+presents thus, the first thing to be done after it is perceived, must
+be, to prevent it from coming down more, or engaging further in the
+passage; and therefore, the operator having placed the woman on the bed,
+with her head lower than her buttocks, must guide and put back the
+infant's hand with his own as much as may be, or both of them, if they
+both come down, to give way to the child's head; and this being done,
+if the head be on one side, it must be brought into its natural posture
+in the middle of the passage, that it may come in a straight line, and
+then proceed as directed in the foregoing section.
+
+
+
+SECT. VI.--_How a Woman ought to be delivered, when the Hands and Feet
+    of the Infant come together._
+
+There are none but will readily grant, that when the hands and feet of
+an infant present together, the labour must be unnatural, because it is
+impossible a child should be born in that manner. In this case,
+therefore, when the midwife guides her hand towards the orifice of the
+womb she will perceive only many fingers close together, and if it be
+not sufficiently dilated, it will be a good while before the hands and
+feet will be exactly distinguished; for they are sometimes so shut and
+pressed together, that they seem to be all of one and the same shape,
+but where the womb is open enough to introduce the hand into it, she
+will easily know which are the hands and which are the feet; and having
+taken particular notice thereof, let her slide up her hand and presently
+direct it towards the infant's breast, which she will find very near,
+and then let her gently thrust back the body towards the bottom of the
+womb, leaving the feet in the same place where she found them. And then,
+having placed the woman in a convenient posture, that is to say, her
+buttocks a little raised above her breast (and which situation ought
+also to be observed when the child is to be put back into the womb), let
+the midwife afterwards take hold of the child by the feet, and draw it
+forth, as is directed in the second section.
+
+This labour, though somewhat troublesome, yet is much better than when
+the child presents only its hands; for then the child must be quite
+turned about before it can be drawn forth; but in this they are ready,
+presenting themselves, and there is little to do, but to lift and thrust
+back the upper part of the body, which is almost done of itself, by
+drawing it by the feet alone.
+
+I confess there are many authors that have written of labours, who would
+have all wrong births reduced to a natural figure, which is, to turn it
+that it may come with the head first. But those that have written thus,
+are such as never understood the practical part, for if they had the
+least experience therein, they would know that it is impossible; at
+least, if it were to be done, that violence must necessarily be used in
+doing it, that would probably be the death both of mother and child in
+the operation. I would, therefore, lay down as a general rule, that
+whenever a child presents itself wrong to the birth, in what posture so
+ever, from the shoulders to the feet, it is the way, and soonest done,
+to draw it out by the feet; and that it is better to search for them, if
+they do not present themselves, than to try and put them in their
+natural posture, and place the head foremost; for the great endeavours
+necessary to be used in turning the child in the womb, do so much weaken
+both the mother and the child, that there remains not afterwards
+strength enough to commit the operation to the work of nature; for,
+usually, the woman has no more throes or pains fit for labour after she
+has been so wrought upon; for which reason it would be difficult and
+tedious at best; and the child, by such an operation made very weak,
+would be in extreme danger of perishing before it could be born. It is,
+therefore, much better in these cases to bring it away immediately by
+the feet, searching for them as I have already directed, when they do
+not present themselves; by which the mother will be prevented a tedious
+labour, and the child be often brought alive into the world, who
+otherwise could hardly escape death.
+
+
+
+SECT. VII.--_How a Woman should be delivered that has twins, which
+    present themselves in different postures._
+
+We have already spoken something of the birth of twins in the chapter of
+natural labour, for it is not an unnatural labour barely to have twins,
+provided they come in the right position to the birth. But when they
+present themselves in different postures, they come properly under the
+denomination of unnatural labours; and if when one child presents itself
+in a wrong figure, it makes the labour dangerous and unnatural, it must
+needs make it much more so when there are several, and render it not
+only more painful to the mother and children, but to the operator also;
+for they often trouble each other and hinder both their births. Besides
+which the womb is so filled with them, that the operator can hardly
+introduce his hand without much violence, which he must do, if they are
+to be turned or thrust back, to give them a better position.
+
+When a woman is pregnant with two children, they rarely present to the
+birth together, the one being generally more forward than the other; and
+that is the reason that but one is felt, and that many times the midwife
+knows not that there are twins until the first is born, and that she is
+going to fetch away the afterbirth. In the first chapter, wherein I
+treated of natural labour, I have showed how a woman should be delivered
+of twins, presenting themselves both right; and before I close the
+chapter of unnatural labour, it only remains that I show what ought to
+be done when they either both come wrong or one of them only, as for the
+most part it happens; the first generally coming right, and the second
+with the feet forward, or in some worse posture. In such a case, the
+birth of the first must be hastened as much as possible and to make way
+for the second, which is best brought away by the feet, without
+endeavouring to place it right, because it has been, as well as the
+mother, already tired and weakened by the birth of the first, and there
+would be greater danger to its death, than likelihood of its coming out
+of the womb that way.
+
+But if, when the first is born naturally, the second should likewise
+offer its head to the birth, it would then be best to leave nature to
+finish what she has so well begun, and if nature should be too slow in
+her work, some of those things mentioned in the fourth chapter to
+accelerate the birth, may be properly enough applied, and if, after
+that, the second birth should be delayed, let a manual operation be
+delayed no longer, but the woman being properly placed, as has been
+before directed, let the operator direct his hand gently into the womb
+to find the feet, and so draw forth the second child, which will be the
+more easily effected, because there is a way made sufficiently by the
+birth of the first; and if the waters of the second child be not broke,
+as it often happens, yet, intending to bring it by its feet, he need not
+scruple to break the membranes with his fingers; for though, when the
+birth of a child is left to the operation of nature, it is necessary
+that the waters should break of themselves, yet when the child is
+brought out of the womb by art, there is no danger in breaking them,
+nay, on the contrary it becomes necessary; for without the waters are
+broken, it will be almost impossible to turn the child.
+
+But herein principally lies the care of the operator, that he be not
+deceived, when either the hands or feet of both children offer
+themselves together to the birth; in this case he ought well to consider
+the operation, of whether they be not joined together, or any way
+monstrous, and which part belongs to one child and which to the other;
+so that they may be fetched one after the other, and not both together,
+as may be, if it were not duly considered, taking the right foot of one
+and the left of the other, and so drawing them together, as if they
+both belonged to one body, because there is a left and a right, by which
+means it would be impossible to deliver them. But a skilful operator
+will easily prevent this, if, after having found two or three of several
+children presenting together in the passage, and taking aside two of the
+forwardest, a right and a left, and sliding his arm along the legs and
+thighs up to the wrist, if forward, or to the buttocks, if backwards, he
+finds they both belong to one body; of which being thus assured, he may
+begin to draw forth the nearest, without regarding which is the
+strongest or weakest, bigger or less, living or dead, having first put
+aside that part of the other child which offers to have the more way,
+and so dispatch the first as soon as may be, observing the same rules as
+if there were but one, that is keeping the breast and face downwards,
+with every circumstance directed in that section where the child comes
+with its feet first, and not fetch the burden till the second child is
+born. And therefore, when the operator hath drawn forth one child, he
+must separate it from the burden, having tied and cut the navel-string,
+and then fetch the other by the feet in the same manner, and afterwards
+bring away the after-burden with the two strings as hath been before
+showed. If the children present any other part but the feet, the
+operator may follow the same method as directed in the foregoing
+section, where the several unnatural positions are fully treated of.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+     _Directions for Child-bearing Women in their Lying-in._
+
+
+SECTION I.--_How a Woman newly Delivered ought to be ordered._
+
+As soon as she is laid in her bed, let her be placed in it conveniently
+for ease and rest, which she stands in great need of to recover herself
+of the great fatigue she underwent during her travail, and that she may
+lie the more easily let her hands and body be a little raised, that she
+may breathe more freely, and cleanse the better, especially of that
+blood which then comes away, that so it may not clot, which being
+retained causeth great pain.
+
+Having thus placed her in bed, let her take a draught of burnt white
+wine, having a drachm of spermaceti melted therein. The best vervain is
+also singularly good for a woman in this condition, boiling it in what
+she either eats or drinks, fortifying the womb so exceedingly that it
+will do it more good in two days, than any other thing does in double
+that time, having no offensive taste. And this is no more than what she
+stands in need of; for her lower parts being greatly distended until the
+birth of the infant, it is good to endeavour the prevention of an
+inflammation there. Let there also be outwardly applied, all over the
+bottom of her belly and privities, the following anodyne and
+cataplasm:--Take two ounces of oil of sweet almonds, and two or three
+new laid eggs, yolks and whites, stirring them together in an earthen
+pipkin over hot embers till they come to the consistence of a poultice;
+which being spread upon a cloth, must be applied to those parts
+indifferently warm, having first taken away the closures (which were put
+to her presently after her delivery), and likewise such clots of blood
+as were then left. Let this lie on for five or six hours, and then renew
+it again when you see cause.
+
+Great care ought to be taken at first, that if her body be very weak,
+she be not kept too hot, for extremity of heat weakens nature and
+dissolves the strength; and whether she be weak or strong, be sure that
+no cold air comes near her at first; for cold is an enemy to the
+spermatic parts; if it get into the womb it increases the after pains,
+causes swelling in the womb and hurts the nerves. As to her diet, let it
+be hot, and let her eat but little at a time. Let her avoid the light
+for the first three days, and longer if she be weak, for her labour
+weakens her eyes exceedingly, by a harmony between the womb and them.
+Let her also avoid great noise, sadness and trouble of mind.
+
+If the womb be foul, which may easily be perceived by the impurity of
+the blood (which will then easily come away in clots or stinking, or if
+you suspect any of the after-burden to be left behind, which may
+sometimes happen), make her drink a feverfew, mugwort, pennyroyal and
+mother of thyme, boiled in white wine and sweetened with sugar.
+
+Panado and new laid eggs are the best meat for her at first, of which
+she may eat often, but not too much at a time. And let her nurse use
+cinnamon in all her meats and drinks, for it generally strengthens the
+womb.
+
+Let her stir as little as may be until after the fifth, sixth, or
+seventh day after her delivery, if she be weak; and let her talk as
+little as possible, for that weakens her very much.
+
+If she goes not well to stool, give a clyster made only of the
+decoction of mallows and a little brown sugar.
+
+When she hath lain in a week or more, let her use such things as close
+the womb, of which knot-grass and comfrey are very good, and to them you
+may add a little polypodium, for it will do her good, both leaves and
+root being bruised.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_How to remedy those Accidents which a Lying-in Woman is
+    subject to._
+
+I. The first common and usual accident that troubles women in their
+lying-in is after-pains. They proceed from cold and wind contained in
+the bowels, with which they are easily filled after labour, because then
+they have more room to dilate than when the child was in the womb, by
+which they were compressed; and also, because nourishment and matter,
+contained as well in them as in the stomach, have been so confusedly
+agitated from side to side during the pains of labour, by the throes
+which always must compress the belly, that they could not be well
+digested, whence the wind is afterwards generated and, by consequence,
+the gripes which the woman feels running into her belly from side to
+side, according as the wind moves more or less, and sometimes likewise
+from the womb, because of the compression and commotion which the
+bowels make. This being generally the case, let us now apply a suitable
+remedy.
+
+1. Boil an egg soft, and pour out the yolk of it, with which mix a
+spoonful of cinnamon water, and let her drink it; and if you mix in it
+two grains of ambergris, it will be better; and yet vervain taken in
+anything she drinks, will be as effectual as the other.
+
+2. Give a lying-in woman, immediately after delivery, oil of sweet
+almonds and syrup of maiden-hair mixed together. Some prefer oil of
+walnuts, provided it be made of nuts that are very good; but it tastes
+worse than the other at best. This will lenify the inside of the
+intestines by its unctuousness, and by that means bring away that which
+is contained in them more easily.
+
+3. Take and boil onions well in water, then stamp them with oil of
+cinnamon, spread them on a cloth, and apply them to the region of the
+womb.
+
+4. Let her be careful to keep her belly warm, and not to drink what is
+too cold; and if the pain prove violent, hot cloths from time to time
+must be laid on her belly, or a pancake fried in walnut oil may be
+applied to it, without swathing her belly too strait. And for the better
+evacuating the wind out of the intestines, give her a clyster, which
+may be repeated as often as necessity requires.
+
+5. Take bay-berries, beat them to a powder, put the powder upon a
+chafing-dish of coals, and let her receive the smoke of them up her
+privities.
+
+6. Take tar and bear's grease, of each an equal quantity, boil them
+together, and whilst it is boiling, add a little pigeon's dung to it.
+Spread some of this upon a linen cloth, and apply it to the veins of the
+back of her that is troubled with afterpains, and it will give her
+speedy ease.
+
+Lastly, let her take half a drachm of bay-berries beaten into a powder,
+in a drachm of muscadel or teat.
+
+II. Another accident to which women in child-bed are subject is
+haemorrhoids or piles, occasioned through the great straining in
+bringing the child into the world. To cure this,
+
+1. Let her be let blood in the saphoena vein.
+
+2. Let her use polypodium in her meat, and drink, bruised and boiled.
+
+3. Take an onion, and having made a hole in the middle, of it, fill it
+full of oil, roast it and having bruised it all together, apply it to
+the fundament.
+
+4. Take a dozen of snails without shells, if you can get them, or else
+so many shell snails, and pull them out, and having bruised them with a
+little oil, apply them warm as before.
+
+5. If she go not well to stool, let her take an ounce of cassia fistula
+drawn at night, going to bed; she needs no change of diet after.
+
+III. Retention of the menses is another accident happening to women in
+child-bed, and which is of so dangerous a consequence, that, if not
+timely remedied, it proves mortal. When this happens,
+
+1. Let the woman take such medicines as strongly provoke the terms, such
+as dittany, betony, pennyroyal, feverfew, centaury, juniper-berries,
+peony roots.
+
+2. Let her take two or three spoonfuls of briony water each morning.
+
+3. Gentian roots beaten into a powder, and a drachm of it taken every
+morning in wine, are an extraordinary remedy.
+
+4. The roots of birthwort, either long or round, so used and taken as
+the former, are very good.
+
+5. Take twelve peony seeds, and beat them into a very fine powder, and
+let her drink them in a draught of hot cardus posset, and let her sweat
+after. And if the last medicine do not bring them down the first time
+she takes it, let her take as much more three hours after, and it seldom
+fails.
+
+IV. Overflowing of the menses is another accident incidental to
+child-bed women. For which,
+
+1. Take shepherd's purse, either boiled in any convenient liquor, or
+dried and beaten into a powder, and it will be an admirable remedy to
+stop them, this being especially appropriated to the privities.
+
+2. The flower and leaves of brambles or either of them, being dried and
+beaten into a powder, and a drachm of them taken every morning in a
+spoonful of red wine, or in a decoction of leaves of the same (which,
+perhaps, is much better), is an admirable remedy for the immoderate
+flowing of the term in women.
+
+V. Excoriations, bruises, and rents in the lower part of the womb are
+often occasioned by the violent distention and separation of the
+caruncles in a woman's labour. For the healing whereof,
+
+As soon as the woman is laid, if there be only simple contusions and
+excoriations, then let the anodyne cataplasm, formerly directed, be
+applied to the lower parts to ease the pain, made of the yolks and
+whites of new laid eggs, and oil of roses, boiled a little over warm
+embers, continually stirring it until it be mixed, and then spread on a
+fine cloth; it must be applied very warm to the bearing place for five
+or six hours, and when it is taken away, lay some fine rags, dipped in
+oil of St. John's wort twice or thrice a day; also foment the parts with
+barley water and honey of roses, to cleanse them from the excrements
+which pass. When the woman makes water, let them be defended with fine
+rags, and thereby hinder the urine from causing smart or pain.
+
+VI. The curding and clotting of the milk is another accident that
+happens to women in child-bed, for in the beginning of child-bed, the
+woman's milk is not purified because of the great commotions her body
+suffered during her labour, which affected all the parts, and it is then
+affected with many humours. Now this clotting of the milk does, for the
+most part, proceed from the breasts not being fully drawn, and that,
+either because she has too much milk, and that the infant is too small
+and weak to suck it all, or because she doth not desire to be a nurse,
+for the milk in those cases remaining in the breasts after concoction,
+without being drawn, loses its sweetness and the balsamic qualities it
+had, and by reason of the heat it requires, and the too long stay it
+makes there, is sours, curds and clots, in like manner as we see rennet
+put into ordinary milk to turn it into curds. The curding of the milk
+may also be caused by having taken a great cold, and not keeping the
+breasts well covered.
+
+But from what cause so ever this curding of the milk proceeds, the most
+certain remedy is, to draw the breasts until it is emitted and dried.
+But in regard that the infant by reason of weakness, cannot draw
+strength enough, the woman being hard marked when her milk is curded, it
+will be most proper to get another woman to draw her breasts until the
+milk comes freely, and then she may give her child suck. And that she
+may not afterwards be troubled with a surplus of milk, she must eat such
+diet as give but little nourishment, and keep her body open.
+
+But if the case be such that the woman neither can nor will be a nurse,
+it is necessary to apply other remedies for the curing of this
+distemper; for then it will be best not to draw the breasts, for that
+will be the way to bring more milk into them. For which purpose it will
+be necessary to empty the body by bleeding the arms, besides which, let
+the humours be drawn down by strong clysters and bleeding at the foot;
+nor will it be amiss to purge gently, and to digest, dissolve and
+dissipate the curded milk, four brans dissolved in a decoction of sage,
+milk, smallage and fennel, mixing with it oil of camomile, with which
+oil let the breasts be well anointed. The following liniment is also
+good to scatter and dissipate the milk.
+
+
+
+_A Liniment to Scatter and Dissipate the Milk._
+
+That the milk flowing back to the breast may without offence be
+dissipated, you must use this ointment:--"Take pure wax, two ounces,
+linseed, half a pound; when the wax is melted, let the liniment be made,
+wherein linen cloths must be clipped, and, according to their largeness,
+be laid upon the breasts; and when it shall be dispersed, and pains no
+more, let other linen cloths be laid in the distilled water of acorns,
+and put upon them.
+
+_Note._--That the cloths dipped into distilled water of acorns must be
+used only by those who cannot nurse their own children; but if a
+swelling in the breast of her who gives such do arise, from abundance of
+milk, threatens an inflammation, let her use the former ointment, but
+abstain from using the distilled water of acorns.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+     _Directions for the Nurses, in ordering Newly-born Children._
+
+
+When the child's navel-string hath been cut according to the rules
+prescribed, let the midwife presently cleanse it from the excrements and
+filth it brings into the world with it; of which some are within the
+body, as the urine in the bladder, and the excrements found in the guts;
+and the others without, which are thick, whitish and clammy, proceeding
+from the sliminess of the waters. There are sometimes children covered
+all over with this, that one would think they were rubbed over with soft
+cheese, and some women are of so easy a belief, that they really think
+it so, because they have eaten some while they were with child. From
+these excrements let the child be cleansed with wine and water a little
+warmed, washing every part therewith, but chiefly the head because of
+the hair, also the folds of the groin, and the cods or privities; which
+parts must be gently cleansed with a linen rag, or a soft sponge dipped
+in lukewarm wine. If this clammy or viscous excrement stick so close
+that it will not easily be washed off from those places, it may be
+fetched off with oil of sweet almond, or a little fresh butter melted
+with wine, and afterwards well dried off; also make tents of fine rags,
+and wetting them in this liquor, clear the ears and nostrils; but for
+the eyes, wipe them only with a dry, soft rag, not dipping it in the
+wine, lest it should make them smart.
+
+The child being washed, and cleansed from the native blood and
+impurities which attend it into the world, it must in the next place be
+searched to see whether all things be right about it, and that there is
+no fault nor dislocation; whether its nose be straight, or its tongue
+tied, or whether there be any bruise or tumour of the head; or whether
+the mold be not over shot; also whether the scrotum (if it be a male) be
+not blown up and swelled, and, in short, whether it has suffered any
+violence by its birth, in any part of its body, and whether all the
+parts be well and duly shaped; that suitable remedies may be applied if
+anything be found not right. Nor is it enough to see that all be right
+without, and that the outside of the body be cleansed, but she must also
+observe whether it dischargeth the excrements contained within, and
+whether the passage be open; for some have been born without having been
+perforated. Therefore, let her examine whether the conduits of the urine
+and stool be clear, for want of which some have died, not being able to
+void their excrements, because timely care was not taken at first. As to
+the urine all children, as well males as females, do make water as soon
+as they are born, if they can, especially if they feel the heat of the
+fire, and also sometimes void the excrements, but not so soon as the
+urine. If the infant does not ordure the first day, then put into its
+fundament a small suppository, to stir it up to be discharged, that it
+may not cause painful gripes, by remaining so long in the belly. A sugar
+almond may be proper for this purpose, anointed all over with a little
+boiled honey; or else a small piece of castile-soap rubbed over with
+fresh butter; also give the child for this purpose a little syrup of
+roses or violets at the mouth, mixed with some oil of sweet almonds,
+drawn without a fire, anointing the belly also, with the same oil or
+fresh butter.
+
+The midwife having thus washed and cleansed the child, according to the
+before mentioned directions, let her begin to swaddle it in swathing
+clothes, and when she dresses the head, let her put small rags behind
+the ears, to dry up the filth which usually engenders there, and so let
+her do also in the folds of the armpits and groins, and so swathe it;
+then wrap it up warm in a bed with blankets, which there is scarcely any
+woman so ignorant but knows well enough how to do; only let me give
+them this caution, that they swathe not the child too tightly in its
+blankets, especially about the breast and stomach, that it may breathe
+the more freely, and not be forced to vomit up the milk it sucks,
+because the stomach cannot be sufficiently distended to contain it;
+therefore let its arms and legs be wrapped in its bed, stretched and
+straight and swathed to keep them so, viz., the arms along its sides,
+and its legs equally both together with a little of the bed between
+them, that they may not be galled by rubbing each other; then let the
+head be kept steady and straight, with a stay fastened each side of the
+blanket, and then wrap the child up in a mantle and blankets to keep it
+warm. Let none think this swathing of the infant is needless to set
+down, for it is necessary it should be thus swaddled, to give its little
+body a straight figure, which is most proper and decent for a man, and
+to accustom him to keep upon his feet, who otherwise would go upon all
+fours, as most animals do.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+SECTION I.--_Of Gripes and Pains in the, Bellies of Young Children._
+
+This I mention first, as it is often the first and most common distemper
+which happens to little infants, after their birth; many children being
+so troubled therewith, that it causes them to cry day and night and at
+last die of it. The cause of it for the most part comes from the sudden
+change of nourishment, for having always received it from the umbilical
+vessel whilst in the mother's womb, they come on a sudden not only to
+change the manner of receiving it, but the nature and quality of what
+they received, as soon as they are born; for instead of purified blood
+only, which was conveyed to them by means of the umbilical vein, they
+are now obliged to be nourished by their mother's milk, which they suck
+with their mouths, and from which are engendered many excrements,
+causing gripes and pains; and not only because it is not so pure as the
+blood with which it was nourished in the womb, but because the stomach
+and the intestines cannot make a good digestion, being unaccustomed to
+it. It is sometimes caused also by a rough phlegm, and sometimes by
+worms; for physicians affirm that worms have been bred in children even
+in their mother's belly.
+
+_Cure_. The remedy must be suited to the cause. If it proceed from the
+too sudden change of nourishment, the remedy must be to forbear giving
+the child suck for some days, lest the milk be mixed with phlegm, which
+is then in the stomach corrupt; and at first it must suck but little,
+until it is accustomed to digest it. If it be the excrements in the
+intestines, which by their long stay increase their pains, give them at
+the month a little oil of sweet almonds and syrup of roses; if it be
+worms, lay a cloth dipped in oil of wormwood mixed with ox-gall, upon
+the belly, or a small cataplasm, mixed with the powder of rue, wormwood,
+coloquintida, aloes, and the seeds of citron incorporated with ox-gall
+and the powder of lupines. Or give it oil of sweet almonds and syrup of
+roses; if it be worms, lay a cloth, dipped in oil of wormwood mixed with
+ox-gall, upon the belly, or a small cataplasm mixed with the powder of
+rue, wormwood, coloquintida, aloes, and the seeds of citron incorporated
+with ox-gall and the powder of lupines. Or give it oil of sweet almonds
+with sugar-candy, and a scruple of aniseed; it purgeth new-born babes
+from green cholera and stinking phlegm, and, if it be given with
+sugar-pap, it allays the griping pains of the belly. Also anoint the
+belly with oil of dill, or lay pelitory stamped with oil of camomile to
+the belly.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_Of Weakness In Newly-born Infants._
+
+Weakness is an accident that many children bring into the world along
+with them, and is often occasioned by the labour of the mother; by the
+violence and length whereof they suffer so much, that they are born with
+great weakness, and many times it is difficult to know whether they are
+alive or dead, their body appearing so senseless, and their face so blue
+and livid, that they seem to be quite choked; and even after some hours,
+then-showing any signs of life is attended with weakness, that it looks
+like a return from death, and that they are still in a dying condition.
+
+_Cure_. Lay the infant speedily in a warm blanket, and carry it to the
+fire, and then let the midwife take a little wine in her mouth and spout
+it into its mouth, repeating it often, if there be occasion. Let her
+apply linen dipped in urine to the breast and belly, and let the face be
+uncovered, that it may breathe the more freely; also, let the midwife
+keep its mouth a little open, cleanse the nostrils with small linen
+tents[11] dipt in white wine, that so it may receive the smell of it;
+and let her chafe every part of its body well with warm cloths, to bring
+back its blood and spirits, which being retired inwards through
+weakness, often puts him in danger of being choked. By the application
+of these means, the infant will gradually recover strength, and begin to
+stir its limbs by degrees, and at length to cry; and though it be but
+weakly at first, yet afterwards, as it breathes more freely, its cry
+will become more strong.
+
+
+
+SECT. III.--_Of the Fundament being closed up in a newly-born Infant._
+
+Another defect that new-born infants are liable to is, to have their
+fundaments closed up, by which they can neither evacuate the new
+excrements engendered by the milk they suck, nor that which was amassed
+in their intestines before birth, which is certainly mortal without a
+speedy remedy. There have been some female children who have their
+fundaments quite closed, and yet have voided the excrements of the guts
+by an orifice which nature, to supply the defect, had made within the
+neck of the womb.
+
+_Cure_. Here we must take notice, that the fundament is closed two ways;
+either by a single skin, through which one may discover some black and
+blue marks, proceeding from the excrements retained, which, if one touch
+with the finger, there is a softness felt within, and thereabout it
+ought to be pierced; or else it is quite stopped by a thick, fleshy
+substance, in such sort that there appears nothing without, by which its
+true situation may be known. When there is nothing but the single skin
+which makes the closure, the operation is very easy, and the children
+may do very well; for then an aperture or opening may be made with a
+small incision-knife, cross-ways, that it may the better receive a round
+form, and that the place may not afterwards grow together, taking care
+not to prejudice the sphincter or muscle of the rectum. The incision
+being thus made, the excrements will certainly have issue. But if, by
+reason of their long stay in the belly, they become so dry that the
+infant cannot void them, then let a clyster be given to moisten and
+bring them away; afterwards put a linen tent into the new-made
+fundament, which at first had best be anointed with honey of roses, and
+towards the end, with a drying, cicatrizing ointment, such as unguentum
+album or ponphilex, observing to cleanse the infant of its excrement,
+and dry it again as soon and as often as it evacuates them, that so the
+aperture may be prevented from turning into a malignant ulcer.
+
+But if the fundament be stopped up in such a manner, that neither mark
+nor appearance of it can be seen or felt, then the operation is much
+more difficult, and, even when it is done, the danger is much greater
+that the infant will not survive it. Then, if it be a female, and it
+sends forth its excrements by the way I mentioned before, it is better
+not to meddle than, by endeavouring to remedy an inconvenience, run an
+extreme hazard of the infant's death. But when there is no vent for the
+excrements, without which death is unavoidable, then the operation is
+justifiable.
+
+_Operation_. Let the operator, with a small incision-knife that hath but
+one edge, enter into the void place, and turning the back of it upwards,
+within half a finger's breadth of the child's rump, which is the place
+where he will certainly find the intestines, let him thrust it forward,
+that it may be open enough to give free vent to matter there contained,
+being especially careful of the sphincter; after which, let the wound
+be dressed according to the method directed.
+
+
+
+SECT. IV.--_Of the Thrush, or Ulcers In the Mouth of the Infant._
+
+The thrush is a distemper that children are very subject to, and it
+arises from bad milk, or from foul humour in the stomach; for sometimes,
+though there be no ill humour in the milk itself, yet it may corrupt the
+child's stomach because of its weakness or some other indisposition; in
+which, acquiring an acrimony, instead of being well digested, there
+arise from it thrice biting vapours, which forming a thick viscosity, do
+thereby produce this distemper.
+
+_Cure_. It is often difficult, as physicians tell us, because it is
+seated in hot and moist places, where the putrefaction is easily
+augmented; and because the remedies applied cannot lodge there, being
+soon washed with spittle. But if it arises from too hot quality in the
+nurse's milk, care must be taken to temper and cool, prescribing her
+cool diet, bleeding and purging her also, if there be occasion.
+
+Take lentils, husked, powder them, and lay a little of them upon the
+child's gums. Or take bdellium flowers, half an ounce, and with oil of
+roses make a liniment. Also wash the child's mouth with barley and
+plantain-water, and honey of roses, mixing with them a little verjuice
+of lemons, as well to loosen and cleanse the vicious humours which
+cleave to the inside of the infant's mouth, as to cool those parts which
+are already over-heated. It may be done by means of a small fine rag,
+fastened to the end of a little stick, and dipped therein, wherewith the
+ulcers may be gently rubbed, being careful not to put the child in too
+much pain, lest an inflammation make the distemper worse. The child's
+body must also be kept open, that the humours being carried to the lower
+parts, the vapours may not ascend, as is usual for them to do when the
+body is costive, and the excrements too long retained.
+
+If the ulcers appear malignant, let such remedies be used as do their
+work speedily, that the evil qualities that cause them, being thereby
+instantly corrected, their malignity may be prevented; and in this case,
+touch the ulcers with plantain water, sharpened with spirits of vitriol;
+for the remedy must be made sharp, according to the malignity of the
+distemper. It will be necessary to purge these ill humours out of the
+whole habit of the child, by giving half an ounce of succory and
+rhubarb.
+
+
+
+SECT. V.--_Of Pains in the Ears, Inflammation, Moisture, etc._
+
+The brain in infants is very moist, and hath many excrements which
+nature cannot send out at the proper passages; they get often to the
+ears, and there cause pains, flux of blood, with inflammation and matter
+with pain; this in children is hard to be known as they have no other
+way to make it known but by constant crying; you will perceive them
+ready to feel their ears themselves, but will not let others touch them,
+if they can prevent; and sometimes you may discern the parts about the
+ears to be very red.
+
+These pains, if let alone, are of dangerous consequences, because they
+may bring forth watchings and epilepsy; for the moisture breeds worms
+there, and fouls the spongy bones, and by degrees causes incurable
+deafness.
+
+_Cure_. Allay the pain with all convenient speed, but have a care of
+using strong remedies. Therefore, only use warm milk about the ears,
+with the decoction of poppy tops, or oil of violets; to take away the
+moisture, use honey of roses, and let aqua mollis be dropped into the
+ears; or take virgin honey, half an ounce; red wines two ounces; alum,
+saffron, saltpetre, each a drachm, mix them at the fire; or drop in
+hemp seed oil with a little wine.
+
+
+
+SECT. VI.--_Of Redness and Inflammation of the Buttocks, Groin and the
+    Thighs of a Young Child._
+
+If there be no great care taken to change and wash the child's bed as
+soon as it is fouled with the excrements, and to keep the child very
+clean, the acrimony will be sure to cause redness, and beget a smarting
+in the buttocks, groin and thighs of the child, which, by reason of the
+pain, will afterwards be subject to inflammations, which follow the
+sooner, through the delicacy and tenderness of their skin, from which
+the outward skin of the body is in a short time separated and worn away.
+
+_Cure_. First, keep the child cleanly, and secondly, take off the
+sharpness of its urine. As to keeping it cleanly, she must be a sorry
+nurse who needs to be taught how to do it; for if she lets it but have
+dry, warm and clean beds and cloths, as often and as soon as it has
+fouled and wet them, either by its urine or its excrements, it will be
+sufficient. And as to taking off the sharpness of the child's urine,
+that must be done by the nurse's taking a cool diet, that her milk may
+have the same quality; and, therefore, she ought to abstain from all
+things that may tend to heat it.
+
+But besides these, cooling and drying remedies are requisite to be
+applied to the inflamed parts; therefore let the parts be bathed in
+plantain-water, with a fourth of lime water added to it, each time the
+child's excrements are wiped off; and if the pain be very great, let it
+only be fomented with lukewarm milk. The powder of a post to dry it, or
+a little mill-dust strewed upon the parts affected, may be proper
+enough, and is used by many women. Also, unguentum album, or
+diapompholigos, spread upon a small piece of leather in form of a
+plaster, will not be amiss.
+
+But the chief thing must be, the nurse's taking great care to wrap the
+inflamed parts with fine rags when she opens the child, that these parts
+may not gather and be pained by rubbing together.
+
+
+
+SECT. VII.--_Of Vomiting in Young Children._
+
+Vomiting in young children proceeds sometimes from too much milk, and
+sometimes from bad milk, and as often from a moist, loose stomach; for
+as dryness retains so looseness lets go. This is, for the most part,
+without danger in children; for they that vomit from their birth are
+the lustiest; for the stomach not being used to meat, and milk being
+taken too much, crudities are easily bred, or the milk is corrupted; and
+it is better to vomit these up than to keep them in; but if vomiting
+last long, it will cause an atrophy or consumption, for want of
+nourishment.
+
+_Cure_. If this be from too much milk, that which is emitted is yellow
+and green, or otherwise ill-coloured and stinking; in this case, mend
+the milk, as has been shown before; cleanse the child with honey of
+roses, and strengthen its stomach with syrup of milk and quinces, made
+into an electuary. If the humours be hot and sharp, give the syrup of
+pomegranates, currants and coral, and apply to the belly the plaster of
+bread, the stomach cerate, or bread dipped in hot wine; or take oil of
+mastich, quinces, mint, wormwood, each half an ounce; of nutmegs by
+expression, half a drachm; chemical oil of mint, three drops. Coral hath
+an occult property to prevent vomiting, and is therefore hung about the
+neck.
+
+
+
+SECT. VIII--_Of Breeding Teeth in Young Children._
+
+This is a very great and yet necessary evil in all children, having
+variety of symptoms joined with it. They begin to come forth, not all
+at once, but one after the other, about the sixth or seventh month; the
+fore-teeth coming first, then the eye-teeth, and last of all the
+grinders. The eye-teeth cause more pain to the child than any of the
+rest, because they have a deep root, and a small nerve which has
+communication with that which makes the eye move.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In the breeding of the teeth, first they feel an itching in their gums,
+then they are pierced as with a needle, and pricked by the sharp bones,
+whence proceed great pains, watching, inflammation of the gums, fever,
+looseness and convulsions, especially when they breed their eye-teeth.
+
+The signs when children breed their eye-teeth are these:
+
+1. It is known by the time, which is usually about the seventh month.
+
+2. Their gums are swelled, and they feel a great heat there with an
+itching, which makes them put their fingers into their mouths to rub
+them; a moisture also distils from the gums into the mouth, because of
+the pain they feel there.
+
+3. They hold the nipple faster than before.
+
+4. The gums are white when the teeth begin to come, and the nurse, in
+giving them suck, finds the mouth hotter, and that they are much
+changed, crying every moment, and cannot sleep, or but very little at a
+time.
+
+The fever that follows breeding of teeth comes from choleric humours,
+inflamed by watching, pain and heat. And the longer teeth are breeding,
+the more dangerous it is; so that many in the breeding of them, die of
+fevers and convulsions.
+
+_Cure_. Two things are to be regarded:--one is, to preserve the child
+from the evil accidents that may happen to it by reason of the great
+pain; the other, to assist as much as may be, the cutting of the teeth,
+when they can hardly cut the gums themselves.
+
+For the first of these, viz., the preventing of those accidents to the
+child, the nurse ought to take great care to keep a good diet, and to
+use all things that may cool and temper her milk, that so a fever may
+not follow the pain of the teeth. And to prevent the humour falling too
+much upon the inflamed gums, let the child's belly be always kept loose
+by gentle clysters, if he be bound; though oftentimes there is no need
+of them, because they are at those times usually troubled with a
+looseness; and yet, for all that, clysters may not be improper.
+
+As to the other, which is to assist it cutting the teeth, that the nurse
+must do from time to time by mollifying and loosening them, and by
+rubbing them with her finger dipped in butter or honey; or let the child
+have a virgin-wax candle to chew upon; or anoint the gums with the
+mucilage of quince made with mallow-water, or with the brains of a hare;
+also foment the cheeks with the decoction of althoea, and camomile
+flowers and dill, or with the juice of mallows and fresh butter. If the
+gums are inflamed, add juice of nightshade and lettuce. I have already
+said, the nurse ought to take a temperate diet; I shall now only add,
+that barley-broth, water-gruel, raw eggs, prunes, lettuce and endive,
+are good for her; but let her avoid salt, sharp, biting and peppered
+meats, and wine.
+
+
+
+SECT. IX.--_Of the Flux of the Belly, or Looseness in Infants._
+
+It is very common for infants to have the flux of the belly, or
+looseness, especially upon the least indisposition; nor is it to be
+wondered at, seeing their natural moistness contributes so much thereto;
+and even if it be extraordinarily violent, such are in a better state of
+health than those that are bound. The flux, if violent, proceeds from
+divers causes, as 1. From breeding of the teeth, and is then commonly
+attended with a fever in which the concoction is hindered, and the
+nourishment corrupted. 2. From watching. 3. From pain. 4. From stirring
+up of the humours by a fever. 5. When they suck or drink too much in a
+fever. Sometimes they have a flux without breeding of teeth, from inward
+cold in the guts or stomach that obstructs concoction. If it be from the
+teeth, it is easily known; for the signs of breeding in teeth will
+discover it. If it be from external cold, there are signs of other
+causes. If from a humour flowing from the head there are signs of a
+catarrh, and the excrements are frothy. If crude and raw humours are
+voided, and there be wind, belching, and phlegmatic excrements, or if
+they be yellow, green and stink, the flux is from a hot and sharp
+humour. It is best in breeding of teeth when the belly is loose, as I
+have said before; but if it be too violent, and you are afraid it may
+end in a consumption, it must be stopped; and if the excrements that are
+voided be black, and attended with a fever, it is very bad.
+
+_Cure_. The remedy in this case, is principally in respect to the nurse,
+and the condition of the milk must be chiefly observed; the nurse must
+be cautioned that she eat no green fruit, nor things of hard concoction.
+If the child suck not, remove the flux with such purges as leave a
+cooling quality behind them, as syrup of honey or roses, or a clyster.
+Take the decoction of millium, myrobolans, of each two or three ounces,
+with an ounce or two of syrup of roses, and make a clyster. After
+cleansing, if it proceed from a hot cause, give syrup of dried roses,
+quinces, myrtles and a little sanguis draconis. Also anoint with oil of
+roses, myrtles, mastich, each two drachms; with oil of myrtles and wax
+make an ointment. Or take red roses and moulin, of each a handful;
+cypress roots two drachms; make a bag, boil it in red wine and apply it
+to the belly. Or use the plaster bread or stomach ointment. If the cause
+be cold, and the excrements white give syrup of mastich and quinces,
+with mint-water. Use outwardly, mint, mastich, cummin; or take rose
+seeds, an ounce, cummin, aniseed, each two drachms; with oil of mastich,
+wormwood and wax, make an ointment.
+
+
+
+SECT. X.--_Of the Epilepsy and Convulsions in Children._
+
+This is a distemper that is often fatal to young children, and
+frequently proceeds from the brain, originating either from the parents,
+or from vapours, or bad humours that twitch the membranes of the brain;
+it is also sometimes caused by other distempers and by bad diet;
+likewise, the toothache, when the brain consents, causes it, and so does
+a sudden fright. As to the distemper itself, it is manifest and well
+enough known where it is; and as to the cause whence it comes, you may
+know by the signs of the disease, whether it comes from bad milk, or
+worms, or teeth; if these are all absent, it is certain that the brain
+is first affected; if it come with the small-pox or measles, it ceaseth
+when they come forth, if nature be strong enough.
+
+_Cure_. For the remedy of this grievous, and often mortal distemper,
+give the following powder to prevent it, to a child as soon as it is
+born:--Take male peony roots, gathered in the decrease of the moon, a
+scruple; with leaf gold make a powder; or take peony roots, a drachm;
+peony seeds, mistletoe of the oak, elk's hoof, man's skull, amber, each
+a scruple; musk, two grains; make a powder. The best part of the cure is
+taking care of the nurse's diet, which must be regular, by all means. If
+it be from corrupt milk, provoke a vomit; to do which, hold down the
+tongue, and put a quill dipped in sweet almonds, down the throat. If it
+come from the worms, give such things as will kill the worms. If there
+be a fever, with respect to that also, give coral smaragad and elk's
+hoof. In the fit, give epileptic water, as lavender water, and rub with
+oil of amber, or hang a peony root, and elk's hoof smaragad, about the
+child's neck.
+
+As to a convulsion, it is when the brain labours to cast out that which
+troubles it; the mariner is in the marrow of the back, and fountain of
+the nerves; it is a stubborn disease, and often kills.
+
+Wash the body, when in the fit, with decoction of althoea, lily roots,
+peony and camomile flowerets, and anoint it with man's and goose's
+grease, oils of worms, orris, lilies, foxes, turpentine, mastich, storax
+and calamint. The sun flower is also very good, boiled in water, to wash
+the child.
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[11] Tent (_surgical_). A bunch of some fibre such as sponge or
+horsehair introduced into an opening, natural or artificial, to keep it
+open, or increase its calibre.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PROPER AND SAFE REMEDIES
+
+FOR
+
+CURING ALL THOSE DISTEMPERS
+
+THAT ARE PECULIAR
+
+TO THE FEMALE SEX
+
+AND ESPECIALLY THOSE OBSERVATIONS
+
+TO BEARING OF CHILDREN
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BOOK II
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Having finished the first part of this book, and wherein, I hope, amply
+made good my promise to the reader, I am now come to treat only of those
+distempers to which they are more subject when in a breeding condition,
+and those that keep them from being so; together with such proper and
+safe remedies as may be sufficient to repel them. And since amongst all
+the diseases to which human nature is subject, there is none that more
+diametrically opposes the very end of our creation, and the design of
+nature in the formation of different sexes, and the power thereby given
+us for the work of generation, than that of sterility or barrenness
+which, where it prevails, renders the most accomplished midwife but a
+useless person, and destroys the design of our book; I think, therefore,
+that barrenness is an effect that deserves our first and principal
+consideration.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+     _Of Barrenness; its several Kinds; with the proper Remedies for it;
+     and the Signs of Insufficiency both in Men and Women._
+
+
+SECTION I.--_Of Barrenness in General._
+
+Barrenness is either natural or artificial.
+
+Natural barrenness is when a woman is barren, though the instruments of
+generation are perfect both in herself and in her husband, and no
+preposterous or diabolical course used to it, and neither age, nor
+disease, nor any defect hindering, and yet the woman remains naturally
+barren.
+
+Now this may proceed from a natural cause, for if the man and woman be
+of one complexion, they seldom have children, and the reason is clear,
+for the universal course of nature being formed of a composition of
+contraries, cannot be increased by a composition of likes; and,
+therefore, if the constitution of the woman be hot and dry, as well as
+the man's there can be no conception; and if, on the contrary, the man
+should be of a cold and moist constitution, as well as the woman, the
+effect would be the same; and this barrenness is purely natural. The
+only way to help this is, for people, before they marry, to observe each
+others constitution and complexion, if they design to have children. If
+their complexions and constitutions be alike, they are not fit to come
+together, for discordant natures only, make harmony in the work of
+generation.
+
+Another natural cause of barrenness, is want of love between man and
+wife. Love is that vivid principle that ought to inspire each organ in
+the act of generation, or else it will be spiritless and dull; for if
+their hearts be not united in love, how should their seed unite to cause
+Conception? And this is sufficiently evinced, in that there never
+follows conception on a rape. Therefore, if men and women design to have
+children, let them live so, that their hearts as well as their bodies
+may be united, or else they may miss their expectations.
+
+A third cause of natural barrenness, is the letting virgins blood in the
+arm before their natural courses are come down, which is usually in the
+fourteenth and fifteenth year of their age; sometimes, perhaps before
+the thirteenth, but never before the twelfth. And because usually, they
+are out of order, and indisposed before their purgations come down,
+their parents run to the doctor to know what is the matter; and he, if
+not skilled, will naturally prescribe opening a vein in the arm,
+thinking fullness of blood the cause; and thus she seems recovered for
+the present: and when the young virgin happens to be in the same
+disorder, the mother applies again to the surgeon, who uses the same
+remedy; and by these means the blood is so diverted from its proper
+channel, that it comes not down the womb as usual, and so the womb dries
+up, and she is for ever barren. To prevent this, let no virgin blood in
+the arm before her courses come down well; for that will bring the blood
+downwards, and by that means provoke the _menstrua_ to come down.
+
+Another cause of natural barrenness, is debility in copulation. If
+persons perform not that act with all the bent and ardour that nature
+requires, they may as well let it alone; for frigidity and coldness
+never produces conception. Of the cure of this we will speak by and by,
+after I have spoken of accidental barrenness, which is occasioned by
+some morbific matter or infirmity in the body, either of the man or of
+the woman, which being removed they become fruitful. And since, as I
+have before noted, the first and great law of creation, was to increase
+and multiply, and barrenness is in direct opposition to that law, and
+frustrates the end of our creation, and often causes man and wife to
+have hard thoughts one of another, I shall here, for the satisfaction of
+well meaning people, set down the signs and causes of insufficiency both
+in men and women; premising first that when people have no children,
+they must not presently blame either party, for neither may be in fault.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_Signs and Causes of Insufficiency in Men._
+
+One cause may be in some viciousness of the yard, as if the same be
+crooked, or any ligaments thereof distorted and broken, whereby the ways
+and passages, through which the seed should flow, come to be stopped or
+vitiated.
+
+Another cause may be, too much weakness of the yard, and tenderness
+thereof, so that it is not strong enough erected to inject seed into the
+womb; for the strength and stiffness of the yard very much conduces to
+conception, by reason of the forcible injection of the seed.
+
+Also, if the stones have received any hurt, so that they cannot exercise
+the proper gift in producing seed, or if they be oppressed with an
+inflammation, tumour, wound or ulcer, or drawn up within the belly, and
+not appearing outwardly.
+
+Also, a man may be barren by reason of the defect of seed, as first, if
+he cast forth no seed at all, or less in substance than is needful. Or,
+secondly, if the seed be vicious, or unfit for generation; as on the one
+side, it happens in bodies that are gross and fat, the matter of it
+being defective; and on the other side, too much leanness, or continual
+wasting or consumption of the body, destroys seed; nature turning all
+the matter and substance thereof into the nutriment of the body.
+
+Too frequent copulation is also one great cause of barrenness in men;
+for it attracteth the seminal moisture from the stones, before it is
+sufficiently prepared and concocted. So if any one, by daily
+copulation, do exhaust and draw out all their moisture of the seed, then
+do the stones draw the moist humours from the superior veins unto
+themselves; and so, having but a little blood in them, they are forced
+of necessity to cast it out raw and unconcocted, and thus the stones are
+violently deprived of the moisture of their veins, and the superior
+veins, and all the other parts of the body, of their vital spirits;
+therefore it is no wonder that those who use immoderate copulation are
+very weak in their bodies, seeing their whole body is deprived of the
+best and purest blood, and of the spirit, insomuch that many who have
+been too much addicted to that pleasure, have killed themselves in the
+very act.
+
+Gluttony, drunkenness, and other excesses, do so much hinder men from
+fruitfulness, that it makes them unfit for generation.
+
+But among other causes of barrenness of men, this also is one, and makes
+them almost of the nature of eunuchs, and that is the incision or the
+cutting of the veins behind their ears, which in case of distempers is
+oftentimes done; for, according to the opinions of most physicians and
+anatomists, the seed flows from the brain by those veins behind the
+ears, more than any part of the body. From whence it is very probable,
+that the transmission of the seed is hindered by the cutting of the
+veins behind the ears, so that it cannot descend to the testicles, or
+may come thither very crude and raw.
+
+
+
+SECT. III.--_Signs and Causes of Insufficiency or Barrenness in Women._
+
+Although there are many causes of the barrenness of women, yet the chief
+and principal are internal, respecting either the privy parts, the womb
+or menstruous blood.
+
+Therefore, Hippocrates saith (speaking as well of easy as difficult
+conception in women) the first consideration is to be had of their
+species; for little women are more apt to conceive than great, slender
+than gross, white and fair than ruddy and high coloured, black than wan,
+those that have their veins conspicuous, than others; but to be very
+fleshy is evil, and to have great swelled breasts is good.
+
+The next thing to be considered is, the monthly purgations, whether they
+have been duly every month, whether they flow plentifully, are of a good
+colour, and whether they have been equal every month.
+
+Then the womb, or place of conception, is to be considered. It ought to
+be clean and sound, dry and soft, not retracted or drawn up; not prone
+or descending downward; nor the mouth thereof turned away, nor too
+close shut up. But to speak more particularly:--
+
+The first parts to be spoken of are the _pudenda_, or privities, and the
+womb; which parts are shut and enclosed either by nature or against
+nature; and from hence, such women are called _imperforate_; as in some
+women the mouth of their womb continues compressed, or closed up, from
+the time of their birth until the coming down of their courses, and
+then, on a sudden, when their terms press forward to purgation, they are
+molested with great and unusual pains. Sometimes these break of their
+own accord, others are dissected and opened by physicians; others never
+break at all, which bring on disorders that end in death.
+
+All these _Aetius_ particularly handles, showing that the womb is shut
+three manner of ways, which hinders conception. And the first is when
+the _pudenda_ grow and cleave together. The second is, when these
+certain membranes grow in the middle part of the matrix within. The
+third is, when (though the lips and bosom of the _pudenda_ may appear
+fair and open), the mouth of the womb may be quite shut up. All which
+are occasions of barrenness, as they hinder the intercourse with man,
+the monthly courses, and conception.
+
+But amongst all causes of barrenness in women, the greatest is in the
+womb, which is the field of generation; and if this field is corrupt, it
+is in vain to expect any fruit, be it ever so well sown. It may be unfit
+for generation by reason of many distempers to which it is subject; as
+for instance, overmuch heat and overmuch cold; for women whose wombs are
+too thick and cold, cannot conceive, because coldness extinguishes the
+heat of the human seed. Immoderate moisture of the womb also destroys
+the seed of man, and makes it ineffectual, as corn sown in ponds and
+marshes; and so does overmuch dryness of the womb, so that the seed
+perisheth for want of nutriment. Immoderate heat of the womb is also a
+cause of barrenness for it scorcheth up the seed as corn sown in the
+drought of summer; for immoderate heat burns all parts of the body, so
+that no conception can live in the womb.
+
+When unnatural humours are engendered, as too much phlegm, tympanies,
+wind, water, worms, or any other evil humour abounding contrary to
+nature, it causes barrenness as do all terms not coming down in due
+order.
+
+A woman may also have accidental causes of barrenness (at least such as
+may hinder her conception), as sudden frights, anger, grief and
+perturbation of mind; too violent exercises, as leaping, dancing,
+running, after copulation, and the like. But I will now add some signs,
+by which these things may be known.
+
+If the cause of barrenness be in the man, through overmuch heat in the
+seed, the woman may easily feel that in receiving it.
+
+If the nature of the woman be too hot, and so unfit for conception, it
+will appear by her having her terms very little, and the colour
+inclining to yellowness; she is also very hasty, choleric and crafty;
+her pulse beats very swift, and she is very desirous of copulation.
+
+To know whether the fault is in the man or in the woman, sprinkle the
+man's urine upon a lettuce leaf, and the woman's urine upon another, and
+that which dries away first is unfruitful. Also take five wheaten corns
+and seven beans, put them into an earthen pot, and let the party make
+water therein; let this stand seven days, and if in that time they begin
+to sprout, then the party is fruitful; but if they sprout not, then the
+party is barren, whether it be the man or the woman; this is a certain
+sign.
+
+There are some that make this experiment of a woman's fruitfulness; take
+myrrh, red storax and some odoriferous things, and make a perfume of
+which let the woman receive into the neck of the womb through a funnel;
+if the woman feels the smoke ascend through her body to the nose, then
+she is fruitful; otherwise she is barren. Some also take garlic and
+beer, and cause the woman to lie upon her back upon it, and if she feel
+the scent thereof in her nose, it is a sign of her being fruitful.
+
+Culpepper and others also give a great deal of credit to the following
+experiment. Take a handful of barley, and steep half of it in the urine
+of a man, and the other half in the urine of the woman, for the space of
+twenty-four hours; then take it out, and put the man's by itself, and
+the woman's by itself; set it in a flower-pot, or some other thing,
+where let it dry; water the man's every morning with his own urine, and
+the woman's with hers, and that which grows first is the most fruitful;
+but if they grow not at all, they are both naturally barren.
+
+_Cure_. If the barrenness proceeds from stoppage of the menstrua, let
+the woman sweat, for that opens the parts; and the best way to sweat is
+in a hot-house. Then let the womb be strengthened by drinking a draught
+of white wine, wherein a handful of stinking arrach, first bruised, has
+been boiled, for by a secret magnetic virtue, it strengthens the womb,
+and by a sympathetic quality, removes any disease thereof. To which add
+also a handful of vervain, which is very good to strengthen both the
+womb and the head, which are commonly afflicted together by sympathy.
+Having used these two or three days, if they come not down, take of
+calamint, pennyroyal, thyme, betony, dittany, burnet, feverfew, mugwort,
+sage, peony roots, juniper berries, half a handful of each, or as many
+as can be got; let these be boiled in beer, and taken for her drink.
+
+Take one part of gentian-root, two parts of centaury, distil them with
+ale in an alembic after you have bruised the gentian-roots and infused
+them well. This water is an admirable remedy to provoke the terms. But
+if you have not this water in readiness, take a drachm of centaury, and
+half a drachm of gentian-roots bruised, boiled in posset drink, and
+drink half a drachm of it at night going to bed. Seed of wild navew
+beaten to powder, and a drachm of it taken in the morning in white wine,
+also is very good; but if it answers not, she must be let blood in the
+legs. And be sure you administer your medicines a little before the full
+of the moon, by no means in the wane of the moon; if you do, you will
+find them ineffectual.
+
+If barrenness proceed from the overflowing of the menstrua, then
+strengthen the womb as you were taught before; afterwards anoint the
+veins of the back with oil of roses, oil of myrtle and oil of quinces
+every night, and then wrap a piece of white baise about your veins, the
+cotton side next to the skin and keep the same always to it. But above
+all, I recommend this medicine to you. Take comfrey-leaves or roots, and
+clown woundwort, of each a handful; bruise them well, and boil them in
+ale, and drink a good draught of it now and then. Or take cinnamon,
+cassia lignea, opium, of each two drachms; myrrh, white pepper,
+galbanum, of each one drachm; dissolve the gum and opium in white wine;
+beat the rest into powder and make pills, mixing them together exactly,
+and let the patient take two each night going to bed; but let the pills
+not exceed fifteen grains.
+
+If barrenness proceed from a flux in the womb, the cure must be
+according to the cause producing it, or which the flux proceeds from,
+which may be known by signs; for a flux of the womb, being a continual
+distillation from it for a long time together, the colour of what is
+voided shows what humour it is that offends; in some it is red, and that
+proceeds from blood putrified, in some it is yellow, and that denotes
+choler; in others white and pale, and denotes phlegm. If pure blood
+comes out, as if a vein were opened, some corrosion or gnawing of the
+womb is to be feared. All these are known by the following signs:
+
+The place of conception is continually moist with the humours, the face
+ill-coloured, the party loathes meat and breathes with difficulty, the
+eyes are much swollen, which is sometimes without pain. If the offending
+humour be pure blood, then you must let blood in the arm, and the
+cephalic vein is fittest to draw back the blood; then let the juice of
+plantain and comfrey be injected into the womb. If phlegm be a cause,
+let cinnamon be a spice used in all her meats and drinks, and let her
+take a little Venice treacle or mithridate every morning. Let her boil
+burnet, mugwort, feverfew and vervain in all her broths. Also, half a
+drachm of myrrh, taken every morning, is an excellent remedy against
+this malady. If choler be the cause, let her take burrage, buglos, red
+roses, endive and succory roots, lettuce and white poppy-seed, of each a
+handful; boil these in white wine until one half be wasted; let her
+drink half a pint every morning to which half pint add syrup of chicory
+and syrup of peach-flowers, of each an ounce, with a little rhubarb, and
+this will gently purge her. If it proceed from putrified blood, let her
+be bled in the foot, and then strengthen the womb, as I have directed in
+stopping the menstrua.
+
+If barrenness be occasioned by the falling out of the womb, as sometimes
+it happens, let her apply sweet scents to the nose, such as civet,
+galbanum, storax, calamitis, wood of aloes; and such other things as
+are of that nature; and let her lay stinking things to the womb, such as
+asafoetida, oil of amber, or the smoke of her own hair, being burnt; for
+this is a certain truth, that the womb flies from all stinking, and to
+all sweet things. But the most infallible cure in this case is; take a
+common burdock leaf (which you may keep dry, if you please, all the
+year), apply this to her head and it will draw the womb upwards. In fits
+of the mother, apply it to the soles of the feet, and it will draw the
+womb downwards. But seed beaten into a powder, draws the womb which way
+you please, accordingly as it is applied.
+
+If barrenness in the woman proceed from a hot cause, let her take whey
+and clarify it; then boil plantain leaves and roots in it, and drink it
+for her ordinary drink. Let her inject plantain juice into her womb with
+a syringe. If it be in the winter, when you cannot get the juice, make a
+strong decoction of the leaves and roots in water, and inject that up
+with a syringe, but let it be blood warm, and you will find this
+medicine of great efficacy. And further, to take away barrenness
+proceeding from hot causes, take of conserve of roses, cold lozenges,
+make a tragacanth, the confections of trincatelia; and use, to smell to,
+camphor, rosewater and saunders. It is also good to bleed the basilica
+or liver vein, and take four or five ounces of blood, and then take this
+purge; take electuarium de epithymo de succo rosarum, of each two
+drachms and a half; clarified whey, four ounces; mix them well together,
+and take it in the morning fasting; sleep after it about an hour and a
+half, and fast for four hours after; and about an hour before you eat
+anything, drink a good draught of whey. Also take lilywater, four
+ounces; mandragore water, one ounce; saffron, half a scruple; beat the
+saffron to a powder, and mix it with waters, drink them warm in the
+morning; use these eight days together.
+
+
+
+_Some apparent Remedy against Barrenness and to cause Fruitfulness._
+
+Take broom flowers, smallage, parsley seed, cummin, mugwort, feverfew,
+of each half a scruple; aloes, half an ounce; Indian salt, saffron, of
+each half a drachm; beat and mix them together, and put it to five
+ounces of feverfew water warm; stop it up, and let it stand and dry in a
+warm place, and this do, two or three times, one after the other; then
+make each drachm into six pills, and take one of them every night before
+supper.
+
+For a purging medicine against barrenness, take conserve of benedicta
+lax, a quarter of an ounce; depsillo three drachms, electuary de
+rosarum, one drachm; mix them together with feverfew water, and drink it
+in the morning betimes. About three days after the patient hath taken
+this purge, let her be bled, taking four or five ounces from the median,
+or common black vein in the foot; and then give for five successive
+days, filed ivory, a drachm and a half, in feverfew water; and during
+the time let her sit in the following bath an hour together, morning and
+night. Take mild yellow sapes, daucas, balsam wood and fruit, ash-keys,
+of each two handfuls, red and white behen, broom flowers, of each a
+handful; musk, three grains; amber, saffron, of each a scruple; boiled
+in water sufficiently; but the musk, saffron, amber and broom flowers
+must be put into the decoction, after it is boiled and strained.
+
+
+
+_A Confection very good against Barrenness._
+
+Take pistachia, eringoes, of each half an ounce; saffron, one drachm;
+lignum aloes, galengal, mace, coriophilla, balm flowers, red and white
+behen, of each four scruples; syrup of confected ginger, twelve ounces;
+white sugar, six ounces, decoct all these in twelve ounces of balm
+water, and stir them well together; then put in it musk and amber, of
+each a scruple; take thereof the quantity of a nutmeg three times a day;
+in the morning, an hour before noon and an hour after supper.
+
+But if the cause of barrenness, either in man or woman, be through
+scarcity or diminution of the natural seed, then such things are to be
+taken as do increase the seed, and incite to stir up to venery, and
+further conception; which I shall here set down, and then conclude the
+chapter concerning barrenness.
+
+For this, yellow rape seed baked in bread is very good; also young, fat
+flesh, not too much salted; also saffron, the tails of stincus, and long
+pepper prepared in wine. But let such persons eschew all sour, sharp,
+doughy and slimy meats, long sleep after meat, surfeiting and
+drunkenness, and so much as they can, keep themselves from sorrow,
+grief, vexation and anxious care.
+
+These things following increase the natural seed, stir up the venery and
+recover the seed again when it is lost, viz., eggs, milk, rice, boiled
+in milk, sparrows' brains, flesh, bones and all; the stones and pizzles
+of bulls, bucks, rams and bears, also cocks' stones, lambs' stones,
+partridges', quails' and pheasants' eggs. And this is an undeniable
+aphorism, that whatever any creature is addicted unto, they move or
+incite the man or the woman that eats them, to the like, and therefore
+partridges, quails, sparrows, etc., being extremely addicted to venery,
+they work the same effect on those men and women that eat them. Also,
+take notice, that in what part of the body the faculty that you would
+strengthen, lies, take that same part of the body of another creature,
+in whom the faculty is strong, as a medicine. As for instance, the
+procreative faculty lies in the testicles; therefore, cocks' stones,
+lambs' stones, etc., are proper to stir up venery. I will also give you
+another general rule; all creatures that are fruitful being eaten, make
+them fruitful that eat them, as crabs, lobsters, prawns, pigeons, etc.
+The stones of a fox, dried and beaten to a powder, and a drachm taken in
+the morning in sheep's milk, and the stones of a boar taken in like
+manner, are very good. The heart of a male quail carried about a man,
+and the heart of a female quail carried about a woman, causes natural
+love and fruitfulness. Let them, also, that would increase their seed,
+eat and drink of the best, as much as they can; for _sine Cerere el
+Libero, friget Venus_, is an old proverb, which is, "without good meat
+and drink, Venus will be frozen to death."
+
+Pottages are good to increase the seed; such as are made of beans, peas,
+and lupins, mixed with sugar. French beans, wheat sodden in broth,
+aniseed, also onions, stewed garlic, leeks, yellow rapes, fresh mugwort
+roots, eringo roots confected, ginger connected, etc. Of fruits, hazel
+nuts, cyprus nuts, pistachio, almonds and marchpanes thereof. Spices
+good to increase seed are cinnamon, galengal, long pepper, cloves,
+ginger, saffron and asafoetida, a drachm and a half taken in good wine,
+is very good for this purpose.
+
+The weakness and debility of a man's yard, being a great hindrance to
+procreation let him use the following ointment to strengthen it: Take
+wax, oil of beaver-cod, marjoram, gentle and oil of costus, of each a
+like quantity, mix them into an ointment, and put it to a little musk,
+and with it anoint the yard, cods, etc. Take of house emmets, three
+drachms, oil of white safannum, oil of lilies, of each an ounce; pound
+and bruise the ants, and put them to the oil and let them stand in the
+sun six days; then strain out the oil and add to it euphorbium one
+scruple, pepper and rue, of each one drachm, mustard seed half a drachm,
+set this altogether in the sun two or three days, then anoint the
+instrument of generation therewith.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+     _The Diseases of the Womb._
+
+
+I have already said, that the womb is the field of generation; and if
+this field be corrupted, it is vain to expect any fruit, although it be
+ever so well sown. It is, therefore, not without reason that I intend in
+this chapter to set down the several distempers to which the womb is
+obnoxious, with proper and safe remedies against them.
+
+
+
+SECTION I.--_Of the Hot Distemper of the Womb._
+
+The distemper consists in excess of heat; for as heat of the womb is
+necessary for conception, so if it be too much, it nourisheth not the
+seed, but it disperseth its heat, and hinders the conception. This
+preternatural heat is sometimes from the birth, and causeth barrenness,
+but if it be accidental, it is from hot causes, that bring the heat and
+the blood to the womb; it arises also from internal and external
+medicines, and from too much hot meat, drink and exercise. Those that
+are troubled with this distemper have but few courses, and those are
+yellow, black, burnt or sharp, have hair betimes on their privities, are
+very prone to lust, subject to headache, and abound with choler, and
+when the distemper is strong upon them, they have but few terms, which
+are out of order, being bad and hard to flow, and in time they become
+hypochondriacal, and for the most part barren, having sometimes a
+phrenzy of the womb.
+
+_Cure_. The remedy is to use coolers, so that they offend not the
+vessels that most open for the flux of the terms. Therefore, take the
+following inwardly; succory, endive, violets, water lilies, sorrel,
+lettuce, saunders and syrups and conserve made thereof. Also take a
+conserve of succory, violets, water-lilies, burrage, each an ounce;
+conserve of roses, half an ounce, diamargation frigid, diatriascantal,
+each half a drachm; and with syrup of violets, or juice of citrons, make
+an electuary. For outward applications, make use of ointment of roses,
+violets, water-lilies, gourd, Venus navel, applied to the back and
+loins.
+
+Let the air be cool, her garments thin, and her food endive, lettuce,
+succory and barley. Give her no hot meats, nor strong wine, unless mixed
+with water. Rest is good for her, but she must abstain from copulation,
+though she may sleep as long as she pleases.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_Of the Cold Distempers of the Womb._
+
+This distemper is the reverse of the foregoing, and equally an enemy to
+generation, being caused by a cold quality abounding to excess, and
+proceeds from a too cold air, rest, idleness and cooling medicines. It
+may be known by an aversion to venery, and taking no pleasure in the act
+of copulation when the seed is spent; the terms are phlegmatic, thick
+and slimy, and do not flow as they should; the womb is windy and the
+seed crude and waterish. It is the cause of obstructions and barrenness,
+and is hard to be cured.
+
+_Cure_. Take galengal, cinnamon, nutmeg mace, cloves, ginger, cububs,
+cardamom, grains of paradise, each an ounce and a half, galengal, six
+drachms, long pepper, half an ounce, Zedoary five drachms; bruise them
+and add six quarts of wine, put them into a cellar nine days, daily
+stirring them; then add of mint two handfuls, and let them stand
+fourteen days, pour off the wine and bruise them, and then pour on the
+wine again, and distil them. Also anoint with oil of lilies, rue,
+angelica, cinnamon, cloves, mace and nutmeg. Let her diet and air be
+warm, her meat of easy concoction, seasoned with ant-seed, fennel and
+thyme; and let her avoid raw fruits and milk diets.
+
+
+
+SECT. III.--_Of the Inflation of the Womb._
+
+The inflation of the womb is a stretching of it by wind, called by some
+a windy mole; the wind proceeds from a cold matter, whether thick or
+thin, contained in the veins of the womb, by which the heat thereof is
+overcome, and which either flows thither from other parts, or is
+gathered there by cold meats and drinks. Cold air may be a producing
+cause of it also, as women that lie in are exposed to it. The wind is
+contained either in the cavity of the vessels of the womb, or between
+the tumicle, and may be known by a swelling in the region of the womb,
+which sometimes reaches to the navel, loins and diaphragm, and rises and
+abates as the wind increaseth or decreaseth. It differs from the dropsy,
+in that it never swells so high. That neither physician nor midwife may
+take it for dropsy, let them observe the signs of the woman with the
+child laid down in a former part of this work; and if any sign be
+wanting, they may suspect it to be an inflation; of which it is a
+further sign, that in conception the swelling is invariable; also if you
+strike upon the belly, in an inflation, there will be noise, but not so
+in case there be a conception. It also differs from a mole, because in
+that there is a weight and hardness of the belly, and when the patient
+moves from one side to the other she feels a great weight which moveth,
+but not so in this. If the inflation continue without the cavity of the
+womb, the pain is greater and more extensive, nor is there any noise,
+because the wind is more pent up.
+
+_Cure_. This distemper is neither of a long continuance nor dangerous,
+if looked after in time; and if it be in the cavity of the womb it is
+more easily expelled. To which purpose give her diaphnicon, with a
+little castor and sharp clysters that expel the wind. If this distemper
+happen to a woman in travail let her not purge after delivery, nor
+bleed, because it is from a cold matter; but if it come after
+child-bearing, and her terms come down sufficiently, and she has
+fullness of blood, let the saphoena vein be opened, after which, let her
+take the following electuary: take conserve of betony and rosemary, of
+each an ounce and a half; candied eringoes, citron peel candied, each
+half an ounce; diacimium, diagenel, each a drachm; oil of aniseed, six
+drops, and with syrup of citrons make an electuary. For outward
+application make a cataplasm of rue, mugwort, camomile, dill, calamint,
+new pennyroyal, thyme, with oil of rue, keir and camomile. And let the
+following clyster to expel the wind be put into the womb: Take agnus
+castus, cinnamon, each two drachms, boil them in wine to half a pint.
+She may likewise use sulphur, Bath and Spa waters, both inward and
+outward, because they expel the wind.
+
+
+
+SECT. IV.--_Of the Straitness of the Womb and its Vessels._
+
+This is another effect of the womb, which is a very great obstruction to
+the bearing of children, hindering both the flow of the menses and
+conception, and is seated in the vessel of the womb, and the neck
+thereof. The causes of this straitness are thick and rough humours, that
+stop the mouths of the veins and arteries. These humours are bred either
+by gross or too much nourishment, when the heat of the womb is so weak
+that it cannot attenuate the humours, which by reason thereof, either
+flow from the whole body, or are gathered into the womb. Now the vessels
+are made straiter or closer several ways; sometimes by inflammation,
+scirrhous or other tumours; sometimes by compressions, scars, or by
+flesh or membranes that grow after a wound. The signs by which this is
+known are, the stoppage of the terms, not conceiving, and condities
+abounding in the body which are all shown by particular signs, for if
+there is a wound, or the secundine be pulled out by force phlegm comes
+from the wound; if stoppage of the terms be from an old obstruction of
+humours, it is hard to be cured; if it be only from the disorderly use
+of astringents, it is more curable; if it be from a scirrhous, or other
+tumours that compress or close the vessel, the disease is incurable.
+
+_Cure_. For the cure of that which is curable, obstructions must be
+taken away, phlegm must be purged, and she must be let blood, as will be
+hereafter directed in the stoppage of the terms. Then use the following
+medicines: Take of aniseed and fennel seed, each a drachm; rosemary,
+pennyroyal, calamint, betony flowers, each an ounce; castus, cinnamon,
+galengal, each half an ounce; saffron half a drachm, with wine. Or take
+asparagus roots, parsley roots, each an ounce; pennyroyal, calamint,
+each a handful; wallflowers, gilly-flowers, each two handfuls; boil,
+strain and add syrup of mugwort, an ounce and a half. For a fomentation,
+take pennyroyal, mercury, calamint, marjoram, mugwort, each two
+handfuls, sage, rosemary bays, camomile-flowers, each a handful, boil
+them in water and foment the groin and the bottom of the belly; or let
+her sit up to the navel in a bath, and then anoint about the groin with
+oil of rue, lilies, dill, etc.
+
+
+
+SECT. V.--_Of the falling of the Womb._
+
+This is another evil effect of the womb which is both very troublesome,
+and also a hindrance to conception. Sometimes the womb falleth to the
+middle of the thighs, nay, almost to the knees, and may be known then by
+its hanging out. Now, that which causeth the womb to change its place
+is, that the ligaments by which it is bound to the other parts, are not
+in order; for there are four ligaments, two above, broad and membranous,
+round and hollow; it is also bound to the great vessels by veins and
+arteries, and to the back by nerves; but the place is changed when it is
+drawn another way, or when the ligaments are loose, and it falls down by
+its own weight. It is drawn on one side when the menses are hindered
+from flowing, and the veins and arteries are full, namely, those that go
+to the womb. If it be a mole on one side, the liver and spleen cause it;
+by the liver vein on the right side, and the spleen on the left, as they
+are more or less filled. Others are of opinion, it comes from the
+solution of the connexion of the fibrous neck and the parts adjacent;
+and that it is from the weight of the womb descending; this we deny not,
+but the ligaments must be loose or broken. But women with a dropsy could
+not be said to have the womb fallen down, if it came only from
+looseness; but in them it is caused by the saltness of the water, which
+dries more than it moistens. Now, if there be a little tumour, within or
+without the privities, it is nothing else but a descent of the womb, but
+if there be a tumour like a goose's egg and a hole at the bottom and
+there is at first a great pain in the parts to which the womb is
+fastened, as the loins, the bottom of the belly, and the os sacrum, it
+proceeds from the breaking or stretching of the ligaments; and a little
+after the pain is abated, and there is an impediment in walking, and
+sometimes blood comes from the breach of the vessels, and the excrements
+and urine are stopped, and then a fever and convulsion ensueth,
+oftentimes proving mortal, especially if it happen to women with child.
+
+_Cure_. For the cure of this distemper, first put up the womb before the
+air alter it, or it be swollen or inflamed; and for this purpose give a
+clyster to remove the excrements, and lay her upon her back, with her
+legs abroad, and her thighs lifted up and her head down; then take the
+tumour in your hand and thrust it in without violence; if it be swelled
+by alteration and cold, foment it with the decoction of mallows,
+althoea, lime, fenugreek, camomile flowers, bay-berries, and anoint it
+with oil of lilies, and hen's grease. If there be an inflammation, do
+not put it up, but fright it in, by putting a red-hot iron before it
+and making a show as if you intended to burn it; but first sprinkle upon
+it the powder of mastich, frankincense and the like; thus, take
+frankincense, mastich, each two drachms; sarcocol steeped in milk,
+drachm; mummy, pomegranate flowers, sanguisdraconis, each half a drachm.
+When it is put up, let her lie with her legs stretched, and one upon the
+other, for eight or ten days, and make a pessary in the form of a pear,
+with cork or sponge, and put it into the womb, dipped in sharp wine, or
+juice of acacia, with powder of sanguis, with galbanum and bdellium.
+Apply also a cupping-glass, with a great flame, under the navel or paps,
+or both kidneys, and lay this plaster to the back; take opopanax, two
+ounces, storax liquid, half an ounce; mastich, frankincense, pitch,
+bole, each two drachms; then with wax make a plaster; or take laudanum,
+a drachm and a half; mastich, and frankincense, each half a drachm, wood
+aloes, cloves, spike, each a drachm; ash-coloured ambergris, four
+grains: musk, half a scruple; make two round plasters to be laid on each
+side of the navel; make a fume of snails' skins salted, or of garlic,
+and let it be taken in by the funnel. Use also astringent fomentations
+of bramble leaves, plantain, horse-tails, myrtles, each two handfuls;
+wormseed, two handfuls; pomegranate flowers, half an ounce; boil them in
+wine and water. For an injection take comfrey root, an ounce;
+rupturewort, two drachms; yarrow, mugwort, each half an ounce; boil them
+in red wine, and inject with a syringe. To strengthen the womb, take
+hartshorn, bays, of each half a drachm; myrrh half a drachm; make a
+powder of two doses, and give it with sharp wine. Or you may take
+Zedoary, parsnip seed, crabs' eyes prepared, each a drachm, nutmeg, half
+a drachm; and give a drachm, in powder; but astringents must be used
+with great caution, lest by stopping the courses a worse mischief
+follow. To keep in its place, make rollers and ligatures as for a
+rupture; and put pessaries into the bottom of the womb, that may force
+it to remain. Let the diet be such as has drying, astringent and glueing
+qualities, as rice, starch, quinces, pears and green cheese; but let the
+summer fruits be avoided; and let her wine be astringent and red.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+     _Of Diseases Relating to Women's Monthly Courses._
+
+
+SECTION I.--_Of Women's Monthly Courses in General._
+
+That divine Providence, which, with a wisdom peculiar to itself, has
+appointed woman to conceive by coition with man, and to bear and bring
+forth children, has provided for nourishment of children during their
+recess in the womb of their mother, by that redundancy of the blood
+which is natural to all women; and which, flowing out at certain periods
+of time (when they are not pregnant) are from thence called _terms_ and
+_menses_, from their monthly flux of excrementitious and unprofitable
+blood. Now, that the matter flowing forth is excrementitious, is to be
+understood only with respect to the redundancy and overplus thereof,
+being an excrement only with respect to its quantity; for as to its
+quality, it is as pure and incorrupt as any blood in the veins; and this
+appears from the final cause of it, which is the propagation and
+conservation of mankind, and also from the generation of it, being
+superfluity of the last aliment of the fleshy parts. If any ask, if the
+menses be not of hurtful quality, how can they cause such venomous
+effects; if they fall upon trees and herbs, they make the one barren
+and mortify the other: I answer, this malignity is contracted in the
+womb, for the woman, wanting native heat to digest the superfluity,
+sends it to the matrix, where seating itself till the mouth of the womb
+be dilated, it becomes corrupt and mortified; which may easily be,
+considering the heat and moistness of the place; and so this blood being
+out of its proper vessels, offends in quality.
+
+
+
+SECT. II.--_Of the Terms coming out of order, either before or after the
+usual Time._
+
+Having, in the former part of this work, treated, of the suppression and
+overflowing of the monthly terms, I shall content myself with referring
+the reader thereto, and proceed to speak of their coming out of order,
+either before or after the usual time.
+
+Both these proceed from an ill constitution of body. Everything is
+beautiful in its order, in nature as well as in morality; and if the
+order of nature be broken, it shows the body to be out of order. Of each
+of these effects briefly.
+
+When the monthly courses come before their time, showing a depraved
+excretion, and flowing sometimes twice a month, the cause is in the
+blood, which stirs up the expulsive faculty of the womb, or else in the
+whole body, and is frequently occasioned by the person's diet, which
+increases the blood too much, making it too sharp or too hot. If the
+retentive faculty of the womb be weak, and the expulsive faculty strong,
+and of a quick sense, it brings them forth the sooner. Sometimes they
+flow sooner by reason of a fall, stroke or some violent passion, which
+the parties themselves can best relate. If it be from heat, thin and
+sharp humours, it is known by the distemper of the whole body. The
+looseness of the vessels and the weakness of the retentive faculty, is
+known from a moist and loose habit of the body. It is more troublesome
+than dangerous, but hinders conception, and therefore the cure is
+necessary for all, but especially such as desire children. If it
+proceeds from a sharp blood, let her temper it by a good diet and
+medicines. To which purpose, let her use baths of iron water, that
+correct the distemper of the bowels, and then evacuate. If it proceeds
+from the retentive faculty, and looseness of the vessels, it is to be
+corrected with gentle astringents.
+
+As to the courses flowing after the usual time, the causes are,
+thickness of the blood, and the smallness of its quantity, with the
+stoutness of the passage, and weakness of the expulsive faculties.
+Either of these singly may stop the courses, but if they all concur,
+they render the distemper worse. If the blood abounds not in such a
+quantity as may stir up nature to expel it, its purging must necessarily
+be deferred, till there be enough. And if the blood be thick, the
+passage stopped, and the expulsive faculty weak, the menses must needs
+be out of order and the purging of them retarded.
+
+For the cure of this, if the quantity of blood be small, let her use a
+larger diet, and a very little exercise. If the blood be thick and foul,
+let it be made thin, and the humours mixed therewith, evacuated. It is
+good to purge, after the courses have done flowing, and to use calamint,
+and, indeed, the oftener she purges, the better. She may also use fumes
+and pessaries, apply cupping glasses without scarification to the inside
+of the thighs, and rub the legs and scarify the ankles, and hold the
+feet in warm water four or five days before the courses come down. Let
+her also anoint the bottom of her belly with things proper to provoke
+the terms.
+
+
+
+_Remedies for Diseases in Women's Paps._
+
+Make a cataplasm of bean meal and salad oil, and lay it to the place
+afflicted. Or anoint with the juice of papilaris. This must be done when
+the papa are very sore.
+
+If the paps be hard and swollen, take a handful of rue, colewort roots,
+horehound and mint; if you cannot get all these conveniently, any two
+will do; pound the handful in honey, and apply it once every day till
+healed.
+
+If the nipples be stiff and sore, anoint twice a day with Florence oil,
+till healed. If the paps be flabby and hanging, bruise a little hemlock,
+and apply it to the breast for three days; but let it not stand above
+seven hours. Or, which is safer, rusae juice, well boiled, with a little
+sinapios added thereto, and anoint.
+
+If the paps be hard and dead, make a plate of lead pretty thin, to
+answer the breasts; let this stand nine hours each day, for three days.
+Or sassafras bruised, and used in like manner.
+
+
+
+_Receipt for Procuring Milk._
+
+Drink arpleui, drawn as tea, for twenty-one days. Or eat of aniseeds.
+Also the juice of arbor vitae, a glassful once a day for eleven days, is
+very good, for it quickens the memory, strengthens the body, and causeth
+milk to flow in abundance.
+
+
+
+_Directions for Drawing of Blood._
+
+Drawing of blood was first invented for good and salutary purposes,
+although often abused and misapplied. To bleed in the left arm removes
+long continued pains and headaches. It is also good for those who have
+got falls and bruises.
+
+Bleeding is good for many disorders, and generally proves a cure, except
+in some extraordinary cases, and in those cases bleeding is hurtful. If
+a woman be pregnant, to draw a little blood will give her ease, good
+health, and a lusty child.
+
+Bleeding is a most certain cure for no less than twenty-one disorders,
+without any outward or inward applications; and for many more with
+application of drugs, herbs and flowers.
+
+When the moon is on the increase, you may let blood at any time day or
+night; but when she is on the decline, you must bleed only in the
+morning.
+
+Bleeding may be performed from the month of March to November. No
+bleeding in December, January or February, unless an occasion require
+it. The months of March, April and November, are the three chief months
+of the year for bleeding in; but it may be performed with safety from
+the ninth of March to the nineteenth of November.
+
+To prevent the dangers that may arise from she unskilful drawing of
+blood, let none open a but a person of experience and practice.
+
+There are three sorts of people you must not let draw blood; first
+ignorant and inexperienced persons. Secondly, those who have bad sight
+and trembling hands, whether skilful or unskilled. For when the hand
+trembles, the lance is apt to start from the vein, and the flesh be
+thereby damaged, which may hurt, canker, and very much torment the
+patient. Thirdly, let no woman bleed, but such as have gone through a
+course of midwifery at college, for those who are unskilful may cut an
+artery, to the great damage of the patient. Besides, what is still
+worse, those pretended bleeders, who take it up at their own hand,
+generally keep unedged and rusty lancets, which prove hurtful, even in a
+skilful hand. Accordingly you ought to be cautious in choosing your
+physician; a man of learning knows what vein to open for each disorder;
+he knows how much blood to take as soon as he sees the patient, and he
+can give you suitable advice concerning your disorder.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+ARISTOTLE'S BOOK OF PROBLEMS
+
+WITH OTHER
+
+ASTROMER, ASTROLOGERS AND
+
+PHYSICIANS,
+
+CONCERNING
+
+THE STATE OF MAN'S BODY.
+
+
+Q. Among all living creatures, why hath man only his countenance lifted
+up towards Heaven. A. 1. From the will of the Creator. But although this
+answer be true, yet it seemeth not to be of force, because that so all
+questions might be easily resolved. Therefore, 2. I answer that, for the
+most part, every workman doth make his first work worse, and then his
+second better! so God creating all other animals before man gave them
+their face looking down to the earth; and then secondly he created man,
+unto whom he gave an upright shape, lifted unto heaven, because it is
+drawn from divinity, and it is derived from the goodness of God, who
+maketh all his works both perfect and good. 3. Man only, among all
+living creatures, is ordained to the kingdom of heaven, and therefore
+hath his face elevated and lifted up to heaven, because that despising
+earthly and worldly things, he ought often to contemplate on heavenly
+things. 4. That the reasonable man is like unto angels, and finally
+ordained towards God; and therefore he hath a figure looking upward. 5.
+Man is a microcosm, that is, a little world, and therefore he doth
+command all other living creatures and they obey him. 6. Naturally there
+is unto everything and every work, that form and figure given which is
+fit and proper for its motion; as unto the heavens, roundness, to the
+fire a pyramidical form, that is, broad beneath and sharp towards the
+top, which form is most apt to ascend; and so man has his face towards
+heaven to behold the wonders of God's works.
+
+Q. Why are the heads of men hairy? A. The hair is the ornament of the
+head, and the brain is purged of gross humours by the growing of the
+hair, from the highest to the lowest, which pass through the pores of
+the exterior flesh, become dry, and are converted into hair. This
+appears to be the case, from the circumstance that in all man's body
+there is nothing drier than the hair, for it is drier than the bones;
+and it is well known that some beasts are nourished with bones, as dogs,
+but they cannot digest feathers or hair, but void them undigested, being
+too hot for nourishment. 2. It is answered, that the brain is purged in
+three different ways; of superfluous watery humours by the eyes, of
+choler by the nose, and of phlegm by the hair, which is the opinion of
+the best physicians.
+
+Q. Why have men longer hair on their heads than any other living
+creature? A. Arist. de Generat. Anim. says, that men have the moistest
+brain of all living creatures from which the seed proceedeth which is
+converted into the long hair of the head. 2. The humours of men are fat,
+and do not become dry easily; and therefore the hair groweth long on
+them. In beasts, the humours easily dry, and therefore the hair groweth
+not so long.
+
+Q. Why doth the hair take deeper root in man's skin than in that of any
+other living creatures? A. Because it has greater store of nourishment
+in man, and therefore grows more in the inward parts of man. And this is
+the reason why in other creatures the hair doth alter and change with
+the skin, and not in man, unless by a scar or wound.
+
+Q. Why have women longer hair than men? A. Because women are moister and
+more phlegmatic than men, and therefore there is more matter for hair to
+them, and, by consequence, the length also of their hair. And,
+furthermore, this matter is more increased in women than men from their
+interior parts, and especially in the time of their monthly terms,
+because the matter doth then ascend, whereby the humour that breedeth
+the hair, doth increase. 2. Because women want beards; so the matter of
+the beard doth go into that of the hair.
+
+Q. Why have some women soft hair and some hard? A. 1. The hair hath
+proportion with the skin; of which some is hard, some thick, some subtle
+and soft, some gross; therefore, the hair which grows out of thick,
+gross skin, is thick and gross; that which groweth out of a subtle and
+fine skin, is fine and soft; when the pores are open, then cometh forth
+much humour, and therefore hard hair is engendered; and when the pores
+are strait, then there doth grow soft and fine hair. This doth evidently
+appear in men, because women have softer hair than they; for in women
+the pores are shut and strait, by reason of their coldness. 2. Because
+for the most part, choleric men have harder and thicker hair than
+others, by reason of their heat, and because their pores are always
+open, and therefore they have beards sooner than others. For this reason
+also, beasts that have hard hair are boldest, because such have
+proceeded from heat and choler, examples of which we have in the bear
+and the boar; and contrariwise, those beasts that have soft hair are
+fearful, because they are cold, as the hare and the hart. 3. From the
+climate where a man is born; because in hot regions hard and gross hair
+is engendered, as appears in the Ethiopians, and the contrary is the
+case is cold countries toward the north.
+
+Q. Why have some men curled hair, and some smooth? A. From the superior
+degree of heat in some men, which makes the hair curl and grow upward;
+this is proved by a man's having smooth hair when he goes into a hot
+bath, and it afterwards becomes curled. Therefore keepers of baths have
+often curled hair, as also Ethiopians and choleric men. But the cause of
+this smoothness, is the abundance of moist humours.
+
+Q. Why do women show ripeness by hair in their privy parts, and not
+elsewhere, but men in their breasts? A. Because in men and women there
+is abundance of humidity in that place, but most in women, as men have
+the mouth of the bladder in that place, where the urine is contained, of
+which the hair in the breast is engendered, and especially that about
+the navel. But of women in general, it is said, that the humidity of the
+bladder of the matrix, or womb, is joined and meeteth in that lower
+secret place, and therefore is dissolved and separated in that place
+into vapours and fumes, which are the cause of hair. And the like doth
+happen in other places, as in the hair under the arms.
+
+Q. Why have not women beards? A. Because they want heat; which is the
+case with some effeminate men, who are beardless from the same cause, to
+have complexions like women.
+
+Q. Why doth the hair grow on those that are hanged? A. Because their
+bodies are exposed to the sun, which, by its heat doth dissolve all
+moisture into the fume or vapour of which the hair doth grow.
+
+Q. Why is the hair of the beard thicker and grosser than elsewhere; and
+the more men are shaven, the harder and thicker it groweth? A. Because
+by so much as the humours or vapours of a liquid are dissolved and taken
+away, so much the more doth the humour remaining draw to the same; and
+therefore the more the hair is shaven, the thicker the humours gather
+which engender the hair, and cause it to wax hard.
+
+Q. Why are women smooth and fairer than men? A. Because in women much of
+the humidity and superfluity, which are the matter and cause of the hair
+of the body, is expelled with their monthly terms; which superfluity,
+remaining in men, through vapours passes into hair.
+
+Q. Why doth man, above all other creatures, wax hoary and gray? A.
+Because man hath the hottest heart of all living creatures; and
+therefore, nature being most wise, lest a man should be suffocated
+through the heat of his heart, hath placed the heart, which is most hot,
+under the brain, which is most cold; to the end that the heat of the
+heart may be tempered by the coldness of the brain; and contrariwise,
+that the coldness of the brain may be qualified by the heat of the
+heart; and thereby there might be a temperature in both. A proof of this
+is, that of all living creatures man hath the worst breath when he comes
+to full age. Furthermore, man doth consume nearly half his time in
+sleep, which doth proceed from the great excess of coldness and moisture
+in the brain, and from his wanting natural heat to digest and consume
+that moisture, which heat he hath in his youth, and therefore, in that
+age is not gray, but in old age, when heat faileth; because then the
+vapours ascending from the stomach remain undigested and unconsumed for
+want of natural heat, and thus putrefy, on which putrefaction of humours
+that the whiteness doth follow, which is called grayness or hoariness.
+Whereby it doth appear, that hoariness is nothing but a whiteness of
+hair, caused by a putrefaction of the humours about the roots of the
+hair, through the want of natural heat in old age. Sometimes all
+grayness is caused by the naughtiness of the complexion, which may
+happen in youth: sometimes through over great fear and care as appeareth
+in merchants, sailors and thieves.
+
+Q. Why doth red hair grow white sooner than hair of any other colour? A.
+Because redness is an infirmity of the hair; for it is engendered of a
+weak and infirm matter, that is, of matter corrupted with the flowers of
+the woman; and therefore it waxes white sooner than any other colour.
+
+Q. Why do wolves grow grisly? A. To understand this question, note the
+difference between grayness and grisliness; grayness is caused through
+defect of natural heat, but grisliness through devouring and heat. The
+wolf being a devouring beast, he eateth gluttonously without chewing,
+and enough at once for three days; in consequence of which, gross
+vapours engendered in the wolf's body, which cause grisliness. Grayness
+and grisliness have this difference; grayness is only in the head, but
+grisliness all over the body.
+
+Q. Why do horses grow grisly and gray? A. Because they are for the most
+part in the sun, and heat naturally causes putrefaction; therefore the
+matter of hair doth putrefy, and in consequence they are quickly peeled.
+
+Q. Why do men get bald, and trees let fall their leaves in winter? A.
+The want of moisture is the cause in both, which is proved by a man's
+becoming bald through venery, because by that he lets forth his natural
+humidity and heat; and by that excess in carnal pleasure the moisture is
+consumed which is the nutriment of the hair. Thus, eunuchs and women do
+not grow bald, because they do not part from this moisture; and
+therefore eunuchs are of the complexion of women.
+
+Q. Why are not women bald? A. Because they are cold and moist, which are
+the causes that the hair remaineth; for moistness doth give nutriment to
+the hair, and coldness doth bind the pores.
+
+Q. Why are not blind men naturally bald? A. Because the eye hath
+moisture in it, and that moisture which should pass through by the
+substance of the eyes, doth become a sufficient nutriment for the hair
+and therefore they are seldom bald.
+
+Q. Why doth the hair stand on end when men are afraid? A. Because in
+time of fear the heat doth go from the outward parts of the body into
+the inward to help the heart, and so the pores in which the hair is
+fastened are shut up, after which stopping and shutting up of the pores,
+the standing up of the hair doth follow.
+
+
+
+_Of the Head._
+
+Q. Why is a man's head round? A. Because it contains in it the moistest
+parts of the living creature: and also that the brain may be defended
+thereby, as with a shield.
+
+Q. Why is the head not absolutely long but somewhat round? A. To the end
+that the three creeks and cells of the brain might the better be
+distinguished; that is, the fancy in the forehead, the discoursing or
+reasonable part in the middle, and memory in the hinder-most part.
+
+Q. Why doth a man lift up his head towards the heavens when he doth
+imagine? A. Because the imagination is in the fore part of the head or
+brain, and therefore it lifteth up itself, that the creeks or cells of
+the imagination may be opened, and that the spirits which help the
+imagination, and are fit for that purpose, having their concourse
+thither, may help the imagination.
+
+Q. Why doth a man, when he museth or thinketh of things past, look
+towards the earth? A. Because the cell or creek which is behind, is the
+creek or chamber of the memory; and therefore, that looketh towards
+heaven when the head is bowed down, and so the cell is open, to the end
+that the spirits which perfect the memory should enter it.
+
+Q. Why is not the head fleshy, like other parts of the body? A. Because
+the head would be too heavy, and would not stand steadily. Also, a head
+loaded with flesh, betokens an evil complexion.
+
+Q. Why is the head subject to aches and griefs? A. By reason that evil
+humours, which proceed from the stomach, ascend up to the head and
+disturb the brain, and so cause pain in the head; sometimes it proceeds
+from overmuch filling the stomach, because two great sinews pass from
+the brain to the mouth of the stomach, and therefore these two parts do
+always suffer grief together.
+
+Q. Why have women the headache oftener than men? A. By reason of their
+monthly terms, which men are not troubled with, and by which a moist,
+unclean and venomous fume is produced, that seeks passage upwards, and
+so causes the headache.
+
+Q. Why is the brain white? A. 1. Because it is cold, and coldness is the
+mother of white. 2. Because it may receive the similitude and likeness
+of all colours, which the white colour can best do, because it is most
+simple.
+
+Q. Why are all the senses in the head? A. Because the brain is there, on
+which all the senses depend, and are directed by it; and, consequently,
+it maketh all the spirits to feel, and governeth all the membranes.
+
+Q. Why cannot a person escape death if the brain or heart be hurt? A.
+Because the brain and heart are the two principal parts which concern
+life; and, therefore, if they be hurt, there is no remedy left for cure.
+
+Q. Why is the brain moist? A. Because it may easily receive an
+impression, which moisture can best do, as it appeareth in wax, which
+doth easily receive the print of the seal when soft.
+
+Q. Why is the brain cold? A. 1. Because that by this coldness it may
+clear the understanding of man and make it subtle. 2. That by the
+coldness of the brain, the heat of the heart may be tempered.
+
+
+
+_Of the Eyes._
+
+Q. Why have you one nose and two eyes? A. Because light is more
+necessary to us than smelling; and therefore it doth proceed from the
+goodness of Nature, that if we receive any hurt or loss of one eye, the
+other should remain.
+
+Q. Why have children great eyes in their youth, which become small as
+they grow up? A. It proceeds from the want of fire, and from the
+assemblage and meeting together of the light and humour; the eyes, being
+lightened by the sun, which doth lighten the easy humour thereof and
+purge them: and, in the absence of the sun, those humours become dark
+and black, and the sight not so good.
+
+Q. Why does the blueish grey eye see badly in the day-time and well in
+the night? A. Because greyness is light and shining in itself, and the
+spirits with which we see are weakened in the day-time and strengthened
+in the night.
+
+Q. Why are men's eyes of diverse colours? A. By reason of diversity of
+humours. The eye hath four coverings and three humours. The first
+covering is called consolidative, which is the outermost, strong and
+fat. The second is called a horny skin or covering, of the likeness of
+a horn; which is a clear covering. The third, uvea, of the likeness of a
+black grape. The fourth is called a cobweb. The first humour is called
+_albuginous_, from its likeness unto the white of an egg. The second
+glarial; that is, clear, like unto crystalline. The third vitreous, that
+is, clear as glass. And the diversity of humours causeth the diversity
+of the eyes.
+
+Q. Why are men that have but one eye, good archers? and why do good
+archers commonly shut one? And why do such as behold the stars look
+through a trunk with one eye? A. This matter is handled in the
+perspective arts; and the reason is, as it doth appear in _The Book of
+Causes_, because that every virtue and strength united and knit
+together, is stronger than when dispersed and scattered. Therefore, all
+the force of seeing dispersed in two eyes, the one being shut, is
+gathered into the other, and so the light is fortified in him; and by
+consequence he doth see better and more certainly with one eye being
+shut, than when both are open.
+
+Q. Why do those that drink and laugh much, shed most tears? A. Because
+that while they drink and laugh without measure the air which is drawn
+in doth not pass out through the windpipe, and so with force is
+directed and sent to the eyes, and by their pores passing out, doth
+expel the humours of the eyes; which humour being expelled, brings
+tears.
+
+Q. Why do such as weep much, urine but little? A. Because the radical
+humidity of a tear and of urine are of one and the same nature, and,
+therefore, where weeping doth increase, urine diminishes. And that they
+are of one nature is plain to the taste, because they are both salt.
+
+Q. Why do some that have clear eyes see nothing? A. By reason of the
+oppilation and naughtiness of the sinews with which we see; for the
+temples being destroyed, the strength of the light cannot be carried
+from the brain to the eye.
+
+Q. Why is the eye clear and smooth like glass? A. 1. Because the things
+which may be seen are better beaten back from a smooth thing than
+otherwise, that thereby the sight should strengthen. 2. Because the eye
+is moist above all parts of the body, and of a waterish nature; and as
+the water is clear and smooth, so likewise is the eye.
+
+Q. Why do men and beasts who have their eyes deep in their head best see
+far off? A. Because the force and power by which we see is dispersed in
+them, and both go directly to the thing which is seen. Thus, when a man
+doth stand in a deep ditch or well, he doth see in the daytime the stars
+of the firmament; because then the power of the night and of the beams
+are not scattered.
+
+Q. Wherefore do those men who have eyes far out in their head not see
+far distant? A. Because the beams of the sight which pass from the eye,
+are scattered on every side, and go not directly unto the thing that is
+seen, and therefore the sight is weakened.
+
+Q. Why are so many beasts born blind, as lions' whelps and dogs' whelps.
+A. Because such beasts are not yet of perfect ripeness and maturity, and
+the course of nutriment doth not work in them. Thus the swallow, whose
+eyes, if they were taken out when they are young in their nest, would
+grow in again. And this is the case in many beasts who are brought forth
+before their time as it were dead, as bear's whelps.
+
+Q. Why do the eyes of a woman that hath her flowers, stain new glass?
+And why doth a basilisk kill a man with his sight? A. When the flowers
+do run from a woman, then a most venomous air is distilled from them,
+which doth ascend into a woman's head; and she, having pain in her head,
+doth wrap it up with a cloth or handkerchief; and because the eyes are
+full of insensible holes, which are called pores, there the air seeketh
+a passage, and infects the eyes, which are full of blood. The eyes also
+appear dropping and full of tears, by reason of the evil vapour that is
+in them; and these vapours are incorporated and multiplied till they
+come to the glass before them; and by reason that such a glass is round,
+clear and smooth, it doth easily receive that which is unclean. 2. The
+basilisk is a very venomous and infectious animal, and there pass from
+his eyes vapours which are multiplied upon the thing which is seen by
+him, and even unto the eye of man; the which venomous vapours or humours
+entering into the body, do infect him, and so in the end the man dieth.
+And this is also the reason why the basilisk, looking upon a shield
+perfectly well made with fast clammy pitch, or any hard smooth thing,
+doth kill itself, because the humours are beaten back from the hard
+smooth thing unto the basilisk, by which beating back he is killed.
+
+Q. Why is the sparkling in cats' eyes and wolves' eyes seen in the dark
+and not in the light? A. Because that the greater light doth darken the
+lesser; and therefore, in a greater light the sparkling cannot be seen;
+but the greater the darkness, the easier it is seen, and is more strong
+and shining.
+
+Q. Why is the sight recreated and refreshed by a green colour? A.
+Because green doth merely move the sight, and therefore doth comfort it;
+but this doth not, in black or white colours, because these colours do
+vehemently stir and alter the organ and instrument of the sight, and
+therefore make the greater violence; and by how much the more violent
+the thing is which is felt or seen the more it doth destroy and weaken
+the sense.
+
+
+
+_Of the Nose._
+
+Q. Why doth the nose stand out further than any other part of the body.
+A. 1. Because the nose is, as it were, the sink of the brain, by which
+the phlegm of the brain is purged; and therefore it doth stand forth,
+lest the other parts should be defiled. 2. Because the nose is the
+beauty of the face, and doth smell.
+
+Q. Why hath a man the worst smell of all creatures? A. Because man hath
+most brains of all creatures; and, therefore, by exceeding coldness and
+moisture, the brain wanteth a good disposition, and by consequence, the
+smelling instrument is not good, yea, some men have no smell.
+
+Q. Why have vultures and cormorants a keen smell? A. Because they have a
+very dry brain; and, therefore, the air carrying the smell, is not
+hindered by the humidity of the brain, but doth presently touch its
+instrument; and, therefore, vultures, tigers and other ravenous beasts,
+have been known to come five hundred miles after dead bodies.
+
+Q. Why did nature make the nostrils? A. 1. Because the mouth being shut
+we draw breath in by the nostrils, to refresh the heart. 2. Because the
+air which proceedeth from the mouth doth savour badly, because of the
+vapours which rise from the stomach, but that which we breathe from the
+nose is not noisome. 3. Because the phlegm which doth proceed from the
+brain is purged by them.
+
+Q. Why do men sneeze? A. That the expulsive virtue and power of the
+sight should thereby be purged, and the brain also from superfluities;
+because, as the lungs are purged by coughing, so is the sight and brain
+by sneezing; and therefore physicians give sneezing medicaments to purge
+the brain; and thus it is, such sick persons as cannot sneeze, die
+quickly, because it is a sign their brain is wholly stuffed with evil
+humours, which cannot be purged.
+
+Q. Why do such as are apoplectic sneeze, that is, such as are subject
+easily to bleed? A. Because the passages, or ventricles of the brain are
+stopped, and if they could sneeze, their apoplexy would be loosed.
+
+Q. Why does the heat of the sun provoke sneezing, and not the heat of
+the fire? A. Because the heat of the sun doth dissolve, but not consume,
+and therefore the vapour dissolved is expelled by sneezing; but the heat
+of the fire doth dissolve and consume, and therefore doth rather hinder
+sneezing than provoke it.
+
+
+
+_Of the Ears._
+
+Q. Why do beasts move their ears, and not men? A. Because there is a
+certain muscle near the under jaw which doth cause motion in the ear;
+and therefore, that muscle being extended and stretched, men do not move
+their ears, as it hath been seen in divers men; but all beasts do use
+that muscle or fleshy sinew, and therefore do move their ears.
+
+Q. Why is rain prognosticated by the pricking up of asses' ears? A.
+Because the ass is of a melancholic constitution, and the approach of
+rain produceth that effect on such a constitution. In the time of rain
+all beasts prick up their ears, but the ass before it comes.
+
+Q. Why have some animals no ears? A. Nature giveth unto everything that
+which is fit for it, but if she had given birds ears, their flying would
+have been hindered by them. Likewise fish want ears, because they would
+hinder their swimming, and have only certain little holes through which
+they hear.
+
+Q. Why have bats ears, although of the bird kind? A. Because they are
+partly birds in nature, in that they fly, by reason whereof they have
+wings; and partly they are hairy and seem to be of the nature of mice,
+therefore nature hath given them ears.
+
+Q. Why have men only round ears? A. Because the shape of the whole and
+of the parts should be proportionable, and especially in all things of
+one nature; for as a drop of water is round, so the whole water: and so,
+because a man's head is round, the ears incline towards the same figure;
+but the heads of beasts are somewhat long, and so the ears are drawn
+into length likewise.
+
+Q. Why hath nature given all living creatures ears? A. 1. Because with
+them they should hear. 2. Because by the ear choleric superfluity is
+purged; for as the head is purged of phlegmatic superfluity by the nose,
+so from choleric, by the ears.
+
+
+
+_Of the Mouth._
+
+Q. Why hath the mouth lips to compass it? A. Because the lips cover and
+defend the teeth; for it would be unseemly if the teeth were always
+seen. Also, the teeth being of a cold nature, would be soon hurt if they
+were not covered with lips.
+
+Q. Why has a man two eyes and but one mouth? A. Because a man should
+speak but little, and hear and see much. And by hearing and the light we
+see difference of things.
+
+Q. Why hath a man a mouth? A. 1. Because the mouth is the gate and door
+of the stomach. 2. Because the meat is chewed in the mouth, and prepared
+and made ready for the first digestion. 3. Because the air drawn into
+the hollow of the mouth for the refreshing of the heart, is made pure
+and subtle.
+
+Q. Why are the lips moveable? A. For the purpose of forming the voice
+and words which cannot be perfectly done without them. For as without
+_a, b, c_, there is no writing, so without the lips no voice can well be
+formed.
+
+Q. What causes men to yawn or gape? A. It proceeds from the thick fume
+and vapours that fill the jaws; by the expulsion of which is caused the
+stretching out and expansion of the jaws, and opening of the mouth.
+
+Q. Why doth a man gape when he seeth another do the same? A. It proceeds
+from the imagination. And this is proved by the similitude of the ass,
+who by reason of his melancholy, doth retain his superfluity for a long
+time, and would neither eat nor piss unless he should hear another
+doing the like.
+
+
+
+_Of the Teeth._
+
+Q. Why do the teeth only, amongst all ether bones, experience the sense
+of feeling? A. That they may discern heat and cold, that hurt them,
+which other bones need not.
+
+Q. Why have men more teeth than women? A. By reason of the abundance of
+heat and cold which is more in men than in women.
+
+Q. Why do the teeth grow to the end of our life, and not the other
+bones? A. Because otherwise they would be consumed with chewing and
+grinding.
+
+Q. Why do the teeth only come again when they fall, or be taken out, and
+other bones being taken away, grow no more? A. Because other bones are
+engendered of the humidity which is called radical, and so they breed in
+the womb of the mother, but the teeth are engendered of nutritive
+humidity, which is renewed and increased from day to day.
+
+Q. Why do the fore-teeth fall in youth, and grow again, and not the
+cheek teeth? A. From the defect of matter, and from the figure; because
+the fore-teeth are sharp, and the others broad. Also, it is the office
+of the fore-teeth to cut the meat, and therefore they are sharp; and
+the office of the others to chew the meat, and therefore they are broad
+in fashion, which is fittest for that purpose.
+
+Q. Why do the fore-teeth grow soonest? A. Because we want them sooner in
+cutting than the others in chewing.
+
+Q. Why do the teeth grow black in human creatures in their old age? A.
+It is occasioned by the corruption of the meat, and the corruption of
+phlegm with a choleric humour.
+
+Q. Why are colts' teeth yellow, and of the colour of saffron, when they
+are young, and become white when they grow up? A. Because horses have
+abundance of watery humours in them, which in their youth are digested
+and converted into grossness; but in old age heat diminishes, and the
+watery humours remain, whose proper colour is white.
+
+Q. Why did nature give living creatures teeth? A. To some to fight with,
+and for defence of their lives, as unto wolves and bears, unto some to
+eat with, as unto horses, unto some for the forming of the voices, as
+unto men.
+
+Q. Why do horned beasts want their upper teeth? A. Horns and teeth are
+caused by the same matter, that is, nutrimental humidity, and therefore
+the matter which passeth into the horns turneth not into teeth,
+consequently they want the upper teeth. And such beasts cannot chew
+well; therefore, to supply the want of teeth, they have two stomachs,
+from whence it returns and they chew it again, then it goes into the
+other to be digested.
+
+Q. Why are some creatures brought forth with teeth, as kids and lambs;
+and some without, as men? A. Nature doth not want in necessary things,
+nor abound in things superfluous; and therefore, because these beasts,
+not long after they are fallen, do need teeth, they are fallen with
+teeth; but men, being nourished by their mother, for a long time do not
+stand in need of teeth.
+
+
+
+_Of the Tongue._
+
+Q. Why is the tongue full of pores? A. Because the tongue is the means
+whereby which we taste; and through the mouth, in the pores of the
+tongue, doth proceed the sense of tasting. Again, it is observed, that
+frothy spittle is sent into the mouth by the tongue from the lungs,
+moistening the meat and making it ready for digestion.
+
+Q. Why do the tongues of such as are sick of agues judge all things
+bitter? A. Because the stomachs of such persons are filled with
+choleric humours; and choler is very bitter, as appeareth by the gall;
+therefore this bitter fume doth infect their tongues; and so the tongue,
+being full of these tastes, doth judge everything bitter.
+
+Q. Why doth the tongue water when we hear sour and sharp things spoken
+of? A. Because the imaginative virtue or power is of greater force than
+the power or faculty of tasting; and when we imagine a taste, we
+conceive the power of tasting as a swan; there is nothing felt by the
+taste, but by means of the spittle the tongue doth water.
+
+Q. Why do some persons stammer and lisp? A. Sometimes through the
+moistness of the tongue and brain, as in children, who cannot speak
+plainly nor pronounce many letters. Sometimes it happeneth by reason of
+the shrinking of certain sinews which go to the tongue, which are
+corrupted with phlegm.
+
+Q. Why are the tongues of serpents and mad dogs venomous? A. Because of
+the malignity and tumosity of the venomous humour which predominates in
+them.
+
+Q. Why is a dog's tongue good for medicine, and a horse's tongue
+pestiferous? A. By reason of some secret property, or that the tongue of
+a dog is full of pores, and so doth draw and take away the viscosity of
+the wound. It is observed that a dog hath some humour in his tongue,
+with which, by licking he doth heal; but the contrary effect is the lick
+of a horse's tongue.
+
+Q. Why is spittle white? A. By reason of the continual moving of the
+tongue, whereof heat is engendered, which doth make this superfluity
+white; as seen in the froth of water.
+
+Q. Why is spittle unsavoury and without taste? A. If it had a certain
+determinate taste, then the tongue would not taste at all, but only have
+the taste of spittle, and could not distinguish others.
+
+Q. Why doth the spittle of one that is fasting heal an imposthume? A.
+Because it is well digested and made subtle.
+
+Q. Why do some abound in spittle more than others? A. This doth proceed
+of a phlegmatic complexion, which doth predominate in them; and such are
+liable to a quotidian ague, which ariseth from the predominance of
+phlegm; the contrary in those that spit little, because heat abounds in
+them, which consumes the humidity of the spittle; and so the defect of
+spittle is a sign of fever.
+
+Q. Why is the spittle of a man that is fasting more subtle than of one
+that is full? A. Because the spittle is without the viscosity of meat,
+which is wont to make the spittle of one who is full, gross and thick.
+
+Q. From whence proceeds the spittle of a man? A. From the froth of the
+lungs, which according to the physicians, is the seat of the phlegm.
+
+Q. Why are beasts when going together for generation very full of froth
+and foam? A. Because then the lights and heart are in greater motion of
+lust; therefore there is engendered in them much frothy matter.
+
+Q. Why have not birds spittle? A. Because they have very dry lungs.
+
+Q. Why doth the tongue sometimes lose the use of speaking? A. It is
+occasioned by a palsy or apoplexy, which is a sudden effusion of blood,
+and by gross humours; and sometimes also by infection of _spiritus
+animates_ in the middle cell of the brain which hinders the spirits from
+being carried to the tongue.
+
+
+
+_Of the Roof of the Mouth._
+
+Q. Why are fruits, before they are ripe, of a bitter and sour relish,
+and afterward sweet? A. A sour relish or taste proceeds from coldness
+and want of heat in gross and thick humidity; but a sweet taste is
+produced by sufficient heat; therefore in the ripe fruit humidity is
+subtle through the heat of the sun, and such fruit is commonly sweet;
+but before it is ripe, as humidity is gross or subtle for want of heat,
+the fruit is bitter or sour.
+
+Q. Why are we better delighted with sweet tastes than with bitter or any
+other? A. Because a sweet thing is hot and moist, and through its heat
+dissolves and consumes superfluous humidities, and by this humidity
+immundicity is washed away; but a sharp, eager taste, by reason of the
+cold which predominates in it, doth bind overmuch, and prick and offend
+the parts of the body in purging, and therefore we do not delight in
+that taste.
+
+Q. Why doth a sharp taste, as that of vinegar, provoke appetite rather
+than any other? A. Because it is cold, and doth cool. For it is the
+nature of cold to desire to draw, and therefore it is the cause of
+appetite.
+
+Q. Why do we draw in more air than we breathe out? A. Because much air
+is drawn in that is converted into nutriment, and with the vital spirits
+is contained in the lungs. Therefore a beast is not suffocated as long
+as it receives air with its lungs, in which some part of the air
+remaineth also.
+
+Q. Why doth the air seem to be expelled and put forth, seeing the air is
+invisible, by reason of its variety and thinness? A. Because the air
+which is received in us, is mingled with vapours and fumes from the
+heart, by reason whereof it is made thick, and so is seen. And this is
+proved by experience, because that in winter, we see our breath, for the
+coldness of the air doth bind the air mixed with fume, and so it is
+thickened and made gross, and by consequence is seen.
+
+Q. Why have some persons stinking breath? A. Because of the evil fumes
+that arise from the stomach. And sometimes it doth proceed from the
+corruption of the airy parts of the body, as the lungs. The breath of
+lepers is so infected that it would poison birds if near them, because
+the inward parts are very corrupt.
+
+Q. Why are lepers hoarse? A. Because the vocal instruments are
+corrupted, that is, the lights.
+
+Q. Why do persons become hoarse? A. Because of the rheum descending from
+the brain, filling the conduit of the lights; and sometimes through
+imposthumes of the throat, or rheum gathering in the neck.
+
+Q. Why have the females of all living creatures the shrillest voices,
+the crow only excepted, and a woman a shriller and smaller voice than a
+man? A. By reason of the composition of the veins and vocal arteries the
+voice is formed, as appears by this similitude, that a small pipe
+sounds shriller than a great. Also in women, because the passage where
+the voice is formed is made narrow and strait, by reason of cold, it
+being the nature of cold to bind; but in men, the passage is open and
+wider through heat, because it is the property of heat to open and
+dissolve. It proceedeth in women through the moistness of the lungs, and
+weakness of the heat. Young and diseased men have sharp and shrill
+voices from the same cause.
+
+Q. Why doth the voice change in men at fourteen, and in women at twelve;
+in men they begin to yield seed, in women when their breasts begin to
+grow? A. Because then the beginning of the voice is slackened and
+loosened; and this is proved by the similitude of the string of an
+instrument let down or loosened, which gives a great sound, and also
+because creatures that are gelded, as eunuchs, capons., etc., have
+softer and slenderer voices than others, by the want of their stones.
+
+Q. Why do small birds sing more and louder than great ones, as appears
+in the lark and nightingale? A. Because the spirits of small birds are
+subtle and soft, and the organ conduit strait, as appeareth in a pipe;
+therefore their notes following easily at desire, they sing very soft.
+
+Q. Why do bees, wasps, locusts and many other such like insects, make a
+noise, seeing they have no lungs, nor instruments of music? A. Because
+in them there is a certain small skin, which, when struck by the air,
+causeth a sound.
+
+Q. Why do not fish make a sound? A. Because they have no lungs, but only
+gills, nor yet a heart, and therefore they need not the drawing in of
+the air, and by consequence they make no noise, because a voice is a
+percussion of the air which is drawing.
+
+
+
+_Of the Neck._
+
+Q. Why hath a living creature a neck? A. Because the neck is the
+supporter of the head, and therefore the neck is in the middle between
+the head and the body, to the intent that by it, and by its sinews,
+motion and sense of the body might be conveyed through all the body; and
+that by means of the neck, the heart, which is very hot, might be
+separated from the brain.
+
+Q. Why do some creatures want necks, as serpents and fishes? A. Because
+they want hearts, and therefore want that assistance which we have
+spoken of; or else they have a neck in some inward part of them, which
+is not distinguished outwardly.
+
+Q. Why is the neck full of bones and joints? A. That it may bear and
+sustain the head the better. Also, because the back bone is joined to
+the brain in the neck, and from thence it receives marrow, which is of
+the substance of the brain.
+
+Q. Why have some creatures long necks, as cranes, storks and such like?
+A. Because such birds seek their food at the bottom of waters. And some
+creatures have short necks, as sparrows, hawks, etc., because such are
+ravenous, and therefore for strength have short necks, as appeareth in
+the ox, who has a short neck and strong.
+
+Q. Why is the neck hollow, and especially before, about the tongue? A.
+Because there are two passages, whereof the one doth carry the meat to
+the nutritive instrument, or stomach and liver, which is called by the
+Greeks _Aesophagus_; and the other is the windpipe.
+
+Q. Why is the artery made with rings and circle? A. The better to bow
+and give a good sounding.
+
+
+
+_Of the Shoulders and Arms._
+
+Q. Why hath a man shoulders and arms? A. To lift and carry burdens.
+
+Q. Why are the arms round? A. For the swifter and speedier work.
+
+Q. Why are the arms thick? A. That they may be strong to lift and bear
+burdens, and thrust and give a strong blow; so their bones are thick,
+because they contain much marrow, or they would be easily corrupted and
+injured.
+
+Q. Why do the arms become small and slender in some diseases, as in mad
+men, and such as are sick of the dropsy? A. Because all the parts of the
+body do suffer the one with the other; and therefore one member being in
+grief, all the humours do concur and run thicker to give succour and
+help to the aforesaid grief.
+
+Q. Why have brute beasts no arms? A. Their fore feet are instead of
+arms, and in their place.
+
+
+
+_Of the Hands._
+
+Q. For what use hath a man hands, and an ape also, like unto a man? A.
+The hand is an instrument a man doth especially make use of, because
+many things are done by the hands, and not by any other part.
+
+Q. Why are some men ambo-dexter, that is, they use the left hand as the
+right? A. By reason of the great heat of the heart, and for the hot
+bowing of the same, for it is that which makes a man as nimble of the
+left hand as of the right.
+
+Q. Why are the fingers full of joints? A. To be more fit and apt to
+receive and keep what is put in them.
+
+Q. Why hath every finger three joints, and the thumb but two? A. The
+thumb hath three, but the third is joined to the arm, therefore is
+stronger than the other fingers; and is called pollex or polico, that
+is, to excel in strength.
+
+Q. Why are the fingers of the right hand nimbler than the fingers of the
+left? A. It proceedeth from the heat that predominates in those parts,
+and causeth great agility.
+
+
+
+_Of the Nails._
+
+Q. From whence do nails proceed? A. Of the tumosity and humours, which
+are resolved and go into the extremities of the fingers; and they are
+dried through the power of the external air, and brought to the hardness
+of horn.
+
+Q. Why do the nails of old men grow black and pale? A. Because the heat
+of the heart decaying causeth their beauty to decay also.
+
+Q. Why are men judged to be good or evil complexioned by the colour of
+the nails? A. Because they give witness of the goodness or badness of
+their heart, and therefore of the complexion, for if they be somewhat
+red, they betoken choler well tempered; but if they be yellowish or
+black, they signify melancholy.
+
+Q. Why do white spots appear in the nails? A. Through mixture of phlegm
+with nutriment.
+
+
+
+_Of the Paps and Dugs._
+
+Q. Why are the paps placed upon the breasts? A. Because the breast is
+the seat of the heart, which is most hot; and therefore the paps grow
+there, to the end that the menses being conveyed thither as being near
+the heat of the heart, should the sooner be digested, perfected and
+converted with the matter and substance of the milk.
+
+Q. Why are the paps below the breasts in beasts, and above the breast in
+women? A. Because woman goes upright, and has two legs only; and
+therefore if her paps were below her breasts, they would hinder her
+going; but beasts having four feet prevents that inconveniency.
+
+Q. Whether are great, small or middle-sized paps best for children to
+suck? A. In great ones the heat is dispersed, there is no good
+digestion of the milk; but in small ones the power and force is strong,
+because a virtue united is strongest; and by consequence there is a good
+digestion for the milk.
+
+Q. Why have not men as great paps and breasts as women? A. Because men
+have not monthly terms, and therefore have no vessel deputed for them.
+
+Q. Why do the paps of young women begin to grow about thirteen or
+fifteen years of age? A. Because then the flowers have no course to the
+teats, by which the young one is nourished, but follow their ordinary
+course and therefore wax soft.
+
+Q. Why hath a woman who is with child of a boy, the right pap harder
+than the left? A. Because the male child is conceived in the right side
+of the mother; and therefore the flowers do run to the right pap, and
+make it hard.
+
+Q. Why doth it show weakness of the child, when the milk doth drop out
+of the paps before the woman is delivered? A. Because the milk is the
+proper nutriment of the child in the womb of its mother, therefore if
+the milk run out, it is a token that the child is not nourished, and
+consequently is weak.
+
+Q. Why do the hardness of the paps betoken the health of the child in
+the womb? A. Because the flowers are converted into milk, and thereby
+strength is signified.
+
+Q. Why are women's paps hard when they be with child, and soft at other
+times? A. Because they swell then, and are puffed, and the great
+moisture which proceeds from the flowers doth run into the paps, which
+at other seasons remaineth in the matrix and womb, and is expelled by
+the place deputed for that end.
+
+Q. By what means doth the milk of the paps come to the matrix or womb?
+A. There is a certain knitting and coupling of the paps with the womb,
+and there are certain veins which the midwives do cut in the time of the
+birth of the child, and by those veins the milk flows in at the navel of
+the child, and so it receives nourishment by the navel.
+
+Q. Why is it a sign of a male child in the womb when the milk that
+runneth out of a woman's breast is thick, and not much, and of a female
+when it is thin? A. Because a woman that goeth with a boy hath a great
+heat in her, which doth perfect the milk and make it thick; but she who
+goes with a girl hath not so much heat, and therefore the milk is
+undigested, imperfect, watery and thin, and will swim above the water if
+it be put into it.
+
+Q. Why is the milk white, seeing the flowers are red, of which it is
+engendered? A. Because blood which is well purged and concocted becomes
+white, as appeareth in flesh whose proper colour is white, and being
+boiled, is white. Also, because every humour which is engendered of the
+body, is made like unto that part in colour where it is engendered as
+near as it can be; but because the flesh of the paps is white, therefore
+the colour of the milk is white.
+
+Q. Why doth a cow give milk more abundantly than other beasts? A.
+Because she is a great eating beast, where there is much monthly
+superfluity engendered, there is much milk; because it is nothing else
+but the blood purged and tried.
+
+Q. Why is not milk wholesome? A. 1. Because it curdeth in the stomach,
+whereof an evil breath is bred. 2. Because the milk doth grow sour in
+the stomach, where evil humours are bred, and infect the breath.
+
+Q. Why is milk bad for such as have the headache? A. Because it is
+easily turned into great fumosities, and hath much terrestrial substance
+in it, the which ascending, doth cause the headache.
+
+Q. Why is milk fit nutriment for infants? A. Because it is a natural and
+usual food, and they were nourished by the same in the womb.
+
+Q. Why are the white-meats made of a newly milked cow good? A. Because
+milk at that time is very springy, expels fumosities, and, as it were,
+purges at that time.
+
+Q. Why is the milk naught for the child, if the woman giving suck uses
+carnal copulation? A. Because in time of carnal copulation, the best
+part of the milk goes to the seed vessels, and to the womb, and the
+worst remain in the paps, which hurts the child.
+
+Q. Why do physicians forbid the eating of fish and milk at the same
+time? A. Because they produce a leprosy, and because they are
+phlegmatic.
+
+Q. Why have not birds and fish milk and paps? A. Because paps would
+hinder the flight of birds. And although fish have neither paps nor
+milk, the females cast much spawn, which the male touches with a small
+gut, and causes their kind to continue in succession.
+
+
+
+_Of the Back._
+
+Q. Why have beasts a back? A. 1. Because the back is the way and mien of
+the body from which are extended and spread throughout, all the sinews
+of the backbone. 2. Because it should be a guard and defence for the
+soft parts of the body, as for the stomach, liver, lights and such like.
+3. Because it is the foundation of all the bones, as the ribs, fastened
+to the back bone.
+
+Q. Why hath the back bone so many joints or knots, called _spondyli_? A.
+Because the moving and bending it, without such joints, could not be
+done; and therefore they are wrong who say that elephants have no such
+joints, for without them they could not move.
+
+Q. Why do fish die after their back bones are broken? A. Because in fish
+the back bone is instead of the heart; now the heart is the first thing
+that lives and the last that dies; and when that bone is broken, fish
+can live no longer.
+
+Q. Why doth a man die soon after the marrow is hurt or perished? A.
+Because the marrow proceeds from the brain, which is the principal part
+of a man.
+
+Q. Why have some men the piles? A. Those men are cold and melancholy,
+which melancholy first passes to the spleen, its proper seat, but there
+cannot be retained, for the abundancy of blood; for which reason it is
+conveyed to the back bone, where there are certain veins which terminate
+in the back, and receive the blood. When those veins are full of the
+melancholy blood, then the conduits of nature are opened, and the blood
+issues out once a month, like women's terms. Those men who have this
+course of blood, are kept from many infirmities, such as dropsy, plague,
+etc.
+
+Q. Why are the Jews much subject to this disease? A. Because they eat
+much phlegmatic and cold meats, which breed melancholy blood, which is
+purged with the flux. Another reason is, motion causes heat and heat
+digestion; but strict Jews neither move, labour nor converse much, which
+breeds a coldness in them, and hinders digestion, causing melancholic
+blood, which is by this means purged out.
+
+
+
+_Of the Heart._
+
+Q. Why are the lungs light, spongy and full of holes? A. That the air
+may be received into them for cooling the heart, and expelling humours,
+because the lungs are the fan of the heart; and as a pair of bellows is
+raised up by taking in the air, and shrunk by blowing it out, so
+likewise the lungs draw the air to cool the heart, and cast it out, lest
+through too much air drawn in, the heart should be suffocated.
+
+Q. Why is the flesh of the lungs white? A. Because they are in continual
+motion.
+
+Q. Why have those beasts only lungs that have hearts? A. Because the
+lungs be no part for themselves, but for the heart, and therefore, it
+were superfluous for those creatures to have lungs that have no hearts.
+
+Q. Why do such creatures as have no lungs want a bladder? A. Because
+such drink no water to make their meat digest and need no bladder for
+urine; as appears in such birds as do not drink at all, viz., the falcon
+and sparrow hawk.
+
+Q. Why is the heart in the midst of the body? A. That it may import life
+to all, parts of the body, and therefore it is compared to the sun,
+which is placed in the midst of the planets, to give light to them all.
+
+Q. Why only in men is the heart on the left side? A. To the end that the
+heat of the heart may mitigate the coldness of the spleen; for the
+spleen is the seat of melancholy, which is on the left side also.
+
+Q. Why is the heart first engendered; for the heart doth live first and
+die last? A. Because the heart is the beginning and original of life,
+and without it no part can live. For of the seed retained in the matrix,
+there is first engendered a little small skin, which compasses the seed;
+whereof first the heart is made of the purest blood; then of blood not
+so pure, the liver; and of thick and cold blood the marrow and brain.
+
+Q. Why are beasts bold that have little hearts? A. Because in a little
+heart the heat is well united and vehement, and the blood touching it,
+doth quickly heat it and is speedily carried to the other parts of the
+body, which give courage and boldness.
+
+Q. Why are creatures with a large heart timorous, as the hare? A. The
+heart is dispersed in such a one, and not able to heat the blood which
+cometh to it; by which means fear is bred.
+
+Q. How is it that the heart is continually moving? A. Because in it
+there is a certain spirit which is more subtle than air, and by reason
+of its thickness and rarefaction, seeks a larger space, filling the
+hollow room of the heart; hence the dilating and opening of the heart,
+and because the heart is earthly the thrusting and moving ceasing, its
+parts are at rest, tending downwards. As a proof of this, take an acorn,
+which, if put into the fire, the heat doth dissolve its humidity,
+therefore occupies a greater space, so that the rind cannot contain it,
+but puffs up, and throws it into the fire. The like of the heart.
+Therefore the heart of a living creature is triangular, having its least
+part towards its left side, and the greater towards the right; and doth
+also open and shut in the least part, by which means it is in continual
+motion; the first motion is called _diastole_, that is extending the
+heart or breast; the other _systole_, that is, shutting of the heart;
+and from these all the motions of the body proceed, and that of the
+pulse which the physicians feel.
+
+Q. How comes it that the flesh of the heart is so compact and knit
+together? A. Because in thick compacted substances heat is commonly
+received and united. And because the heart with its heat should moderate
+the coldness of the brain, it is made of that fat flesh apt to keep a
+strong heat.
+
+Q. How comes the heart to be the hottest part of all living creatures?
+A. It is so compacted as to receive the heat best, and because it should
+mitigate the coldness of the brain.
+
+Q. Why is the heart the beginning of life? A. It is plain that in it the
+vital spirit is bred, which is the heat of life; and therefore the heart
+having two receptacles, viz., the right and the left the right hath more
+blood than spirits; which spirit is engendered to give life and vivify
+the body.
+
+Q. Why is the heart long and sharp like a pyramid? A. The round figure
+hath an angle, therefore the heart is round, for fear any poison or
+hurtful matter should be retained in it; and because that figure is
+fittest for motion.
+
+Q. How comes the blood chiefly to be in the heart? A. The blood in the
+heart has its proper or efficient place, which some attribute to the
+liver; and therefore the heart doth not receive blood from any other
+parts but all other parts of it.
+
+Q. How happens it that some creatures want a heart? A. Although they
+have no heart, yet they have somewhat that answers for it, as appears in
+eels and fish that have the back bone instead of the heart.
+
+Q. Why does the heart beat in some creatures after the head is cut off,
+as in birds and hens? A. Because the heart lives first and dies last,
+and therefore beats longer than other parts.
+
+Q. Why doth the heat of the heart sometimes fail of a sudden, and in
+those who have the falling sickness? A. This proceeds from the defect of
+the heart itself, and of certain small skins with which it is covered,
+which, being infected and corrupted, the heart faileth on a sudden;
+sometimes only by reason of the parts adjoining; and therefore, when any
+venomous humour goes out of the stomach that turns the heart and parts
+adjoining, that causeth this fainting.
+
+
+
+_Of the Stomach._
+
+Q. For what reason is the stomach large and wide? A. Because in it the
+food is first concocted or digested as it were in a pot, to the end that
+which is pure should be separated from that which is not; and therefore,
+according to the quantity of food, the stomach is enlarged.
+
+Q. How comes it that the stomach is round? A. Because if it had angles
+and corners, food would remain in them and breed ill-humours, so that a
+man would never want agues, which humours are evacuated and consumed,
+and not hid in any such corners, by the roundness of the stomach.
+
+Q. How comes the stomach to be full of sinews? A. Because the sinews can
+be extended and enlarged, and so is the stomach when it is full; but
+when empty it is drawn together, and therefore nature provides the
+sinews.
+
+Q. How comes the stomach to digest? A. Because of the heat which is in
+it, and comes from the parts adjoining, that is, the liver and the
+heart. For as we see in metals the heat of the fire takes away the rust
+and dross from iron, the silver from tin, and gold from copper; so also
+by digestion the pure is separated from the impure.
+
+Q. For what reason doth the stomach join the liver? A. Because the liver
+is very hot, and with its heat helps digestion, and provokes appetite.
+
+Q. Why are we commonly cold after dinner? A. Because then the heat goes
+to the stomach to further digestion, and so the other parts grow cold.
+
+Q. Why is it hurtful to study soon after dinner? A. Because when the
+heat labours to help the imagination in study, it ceases from digesting
+the food, which remains undigested; therefore people should walk
+sometimes after meals.
+
+Q. How cometh the stomach slowly to digest meat? A. Because it swims in
+the stomach. Now, the best digestion is in the bottom of the stomach,
+because the fat descends not there; such as eat fat meat are very sleepy
+by reason that digestion is hindered.
+
+Q. Why is all the body wrong when the stomach is uneasy? A. Because the
+stomach is knit with the brain, heart and liver, which are the principal
+parts in man; and when it is not well, the others are indisposed.
+Again, if the first digestion be hindered, the others are also
+hindered; for in the first digestion is the beginning of the infirmity
+in the stomach.
+
+Q. Why are young men sooner hungry than old men? A. Young men do digest
+for three causes; 1. For growing; 2. For restoring life; and 3. For
+conservation of life. Also, young men are hot and dry, and therefore the
+heat doth digest more, and by consequence they desire more.
+
+Q. Why do physicians prescribe that men should eat when they have an
+appetite? A. Because much hunger and emptiness will fill the stomach
+with naughty rotten humours, which are drawn in instead of meat; for, if
+we fast over night we have an appetite to meat, but none in the morning;
+as then the stomach is filled with naughty humours, and especially its
+mouth, which is no true filling, but a deceitful one. And, therefore,
+after we have eaten a little, our stomach comes to us again; for the
+first morsel, having made clean the mouth of the stomach, doth provoke
+the appetite.
+
+Q. Why do physicians prescribe that we should not eat too much at a
+time, but little by little? A. Because when the stomach is full, the
+meat doth swim in it, which is a dangerous thing. Another reason is,
+that as very green wood doth put out the fire, so much meat chokes the
+natural heat and puts it out; and therefore the best physic is to use
+temperance in eating and drinking.
+
+Q. Why do we desire change of meals according to the change of times; as
+in winter, beef, mutton; in summer light meats, as veal, lamb, etc.? A.
+Because the complexion of the body is altered and changed according to
+the time of year. Another reason is, that this proceeds from the quality
+of the season: because the cold in winter doth cause a better digestion.
+
+Q. Why should not the meat we eat be as hot as pepper and ginger? A.
+Because as hot meat doth inflame the blood, and dispose it to a leprosy,
+so, on the contrary, meat too cold doth mortify and chill the blood. Our
+meat should not be over sharp, because it wastes the constitution; too
+much sauce doth burn the entrails, and inclineth to too often drinking;
+raw meat doth the same; and over sweet meats to constipate and cling the
+veins together.
+
+Q. Why is it a good custom to eat cheese after dinner, and pears after
+all meat? A. Because, by reason of its earthliness and thickness it
+tendeth down towards the bottom of the stomach, and so put down the
+meat; and the like of pears. Note, that new cheese is better than old,
+and that old soft cheese is very bad, and causeth the headache and
+stopping of the liver; and the older the worse. Whereof it is said that
+cheese digesteth all things but itself.
+
+Q. Why are nuts good after cheese, as the proverb is, "After fish nuts,
+and after flesh cheese?" A. Because fish is of hard digestion, and doth
+easily putrefy and corrupt; and nuts are a remedy against poison.
+
+Q. Why is it unwholesome to wait long for one dish after another, and to
+eat of divers kinds of meat? A. Because the first begins to digest when
+the last is eaten, and so digestion is not equally made. But yet this
+rule is to be noted; dishes light of digestion, as chickens, kids, veal,
+soft eggs and such like, should be first eaten; because, if they should
+be first served and eaten and were digested, they would hinder the
+digestion of the others; and the light meats not digested would be
+corrupted in the stomach and kept in the stomach violently, whereof
+would follow belching, loathing, headache, bellyache and great thirst.
+It is very hurtful too, at the same meal to drink wine and milk, because
+they are productive of leprosy.
+
+Q. Whether is meat or drink best for the stomach? A. Drink is sooner
+digested than meat, because meat is of greater substance, and more
+material than drink, and therefore meat is harder to digest.
+
+Q. Why is it good to drink after dinner? A. Because the drink will make
+the meat readier to digest. The stomach is like unto a pot which doth
+boil meat, and therefore physicians do counsel to drink at meals.
+
+Q. Why is it good to forbear a late supper? A. Because there is little
+moving or stirring after supper, and so the meat is not sent down to the
+bottom of the stomach, but remaineth undigested, and so breeds hurts;
+therefore a light supper is best.
+
+
+
+_Of the Blood._
+
+Q. Why is it necessary that every living creature that hath blood have
+also a liver? A. Because the blood is first made in the liver, its seat,
+being drawn from the stomach by certain principal veins, and so
+engendered.
+
+Q. Why is the blood red? A. 1. It is like the part in which it is made,
+viz., the liver, which is red. 2. It is likewise sweet, because it is
+well digested and concocted; but if it hath a little earthly matter
+mixed with it, that makes it somewhat salt.
+
+Q. How is women's blood thicker than men's? Their coldness thickens,
+binds, congeals, and joins together.
+
+Q. How comes the blood to all parts of the body through the liver, and
+by what means? A. Through the principal veins, as the veins of the head,
+liver, etc., to nourish the body.
+
+
+
+_Of the Urine._
+
+Q. How doth the urine come into the bladder, seeing the bladder is shut?
+A. Some say sweatings; others, by a small skin in the bladder, which
+opens and lets in the urine. Urine is a certain and not deceitful
+messenger of the health or infirmity of man. Men make white urine in the
+morning, and before dinner red, but after dinner pale, and also after
+supper.
+
+Q. Why is it hurtful to drink much cold water? A. Because one contrary
+doth hinder and expel another; water is very cold, and lying so in the
+stomach, doth hinder digestion.
+
+Q. Why is it unwholesome to drink new wine? A. 1. It cannot be digested;
+therefore it causeth the belly to swell, and a kind of bloody flux. 2.
+It hinders making water.
+
+Q. Why do physicians forbid us to labour presently after dinner? A. 1.
+Because the motion hinders the virtue and power of digestion. 2.
+Because stirring immediately after dinner causes the different parts of
+the body to draw the meat to them, which often breeds sickness. 3.
+Because motion makes the food descend before it is digested. And after
+supper it is good to walk a little, that the food may go to the bottom
+of the stomach.
+
+Q. Why is it good to walk after dinner? A. Because it makes a man well
+disposed, and fortifies and strengthens the natural heat, causing the
+superfluity of the stomach to descend.
+
+Q. Why is it wholesome to vomit? A. It purges the stomach of all naughty
+humours, expelling them, which would breed again if they should remain
+in it; and purges the eyes and head, clearing the brain.
+
+Q. How comes sleep to strengthen the stomach and the digestive faculty?
+A. Because in sleep the heat draws inwards, and helps digestion; but
+when we awake, the heat returns, and is dispersed through the body.
+
+
+
+_Of the Gall and Spleen._
+
+Q. How come living creatures to have a gall? A. Because choleric humours
+are received into it, which through their acidity helps the guts to
+expel superfluities; also it helps digestion.
+
+Q. How comes the jaundice to proceed from the gall? A. The humour of the
+gall is bluish and yellow; therefore when its pores are stopped the
+humour cannot go into the sack thereof, but are mingled with the blood,
+wandering throughout all the body and infecting the skin.
+
+Q. Why hath a horse, mule, ass or cow a gall? A. Though these creatures
+have no gall in one place, as in a purse or vessel, yet they have one
+dispersed in small veins.
+
+Q. How comes the spleen to be black? A. It is occasioned by terrestrial
+and earthy matter of a black colour. According to physicians, the spleen
+is the receptacle of melancholy, and that is black.
+
+Q. Why is he lean who hath a large spleen? A. Because the spleen draws
+much water to itself, which would turn to fat; therefore, men that have
+a small spleen are fat.
+
+Q. Why does the spleen cause men to laugh, as says Isidorus; "We laugh
+with the spleen, we are angry with the gall, we are wise with the heart,
+we love with the liver, we feel with the brain, and speak with the
+lungs"? A. The reason is, the spleen draws much melancholy to it, being
+its proper seat, the which melancholy proceeds from sadness, and is
+there consumed; and the cause failing, the effect doth so likewise. And
+by the same reason the gall causes anger, for choleric men are often
+angry, because they have much gall.
+
+
+
+_Of Carnal Copulation._
+
+Q. Why do living creatures use carnal copulation? A. Because it is most
+natural in them to get their like.
+
+Q. What is carnal copulation? A. It is a mutual action of male and
+female, with instruments ordained for that purpose to propagate their
+kind.
+
+Q. Why is this action good in those that use it lawfully and moderately?
+A. Because it eases and lightens the body, clears the mind, comforts the
+head and senses, and expels melancholy.
+
+Q. Why is immoderate carnal copulation hurtful? A. Because it destroys
+the sight, dries the body, and impairs the brain, often causes fevers
+and shortens life also.
+
+Q. Why doth carnal copulation injure melancholic or choleric men,
+especially thin men? A. Because it dries the bones much which are
+naturally so. On the contrary, it is good for the phlegmatic and
+sanguine, because they abound with that substance which by nature, is
+necessarily expelled.
+
+Q. Why should not the act be used when the body is full? A. Because it
+hinders digestion; and it is not good for a hungry belly, because it
+weakens.
+
+Q. Why is it not good soon after a bath? A. Because then the pores are
+open, and the heat dispersed through the body: for after bathing, it
+cools the body too much.
+
+Q. Why is it not proper after vomiting or looseness? A. Because it is
+dangerous to purge twice a day; for in this act the veins are purged,
+and the guts by the vomit.
+
+Q. Why is there such delight in the act of venery? A. Because this act
+is such a contemptible thing in itself, that all creatures would
+naturally abhor it were there no pleasure in it; and therefore nature
+readily uses it, that all kinds of living things should be maintained
+and kept up.
+
+Q. Why do such as use it often take less delight in it than those who
+come to it seldom? A. 1. The passages of the seed are over large and
+wide; and therefore it makes no stay there, which would cause the
+delight. 2. Through often evacuation there is little seed left, and
+therefore no delight. 3. Because such, instead of seed there is cast out
+blood, undigested and raw, or some other watery substance, which is not
+hot, and therefore affords no delight.
+
+
+
+_Of the Seed of Man and Beasts._
+
+Q. How, and of what cometh the seed of man? A. Some philosophers and
+physicians say, it is superfluous humours; others say, that the seed is
+pure blood, flowing from the brain, concocted and whitened in the
+testicles; but sweat, urine, spittle, phlegm, choler, and the like, and
+blood dispersed throughout the whole body, come chiefly from the heart,
+liver and brain, because those parts are greatly weakened by casting
+seed; and therefore it appears that frequent carnal copulation is not
+good.
+
+Q. Why is a man's seed white, and a woman's red? A. It is white in men
+by reason of great heat and quick digestion, because it is rarefied in
+the testicles; but a woman's is red, because her terms corrupt the
+undigested blood, and it hath its colour.
+
+Q. How come females to have monthly courses? A. Because they are cold in
+respect of men, and because all their nourishment cannot be converted
+into blood, a great part of which turns to menses, which are monthly
+expelled.
+
+Q. For what reason do the menses not come down in females before the age
+of thirteen? A. Because young women are hot, and digest all their
+nourishment.
+
+Q. For what reason do they leave off at about fifty? A. Because nature
+is then so exhausted, they cannot expel them by reason of weakness.
+
+Q. Why have not breeding women the menses? A. Because that then they
+turn into milk, and into the nourishment of the child: for if a woman
+with child have them, it is a sign that she will miscarry.
+
+Q. Why are they termed _menstrua_, from the word _mensis_, a month? A.
+Because it is a space of time that measures the moon, as she ends her
+course in twenty-nine days, and fourteen hours.
+
+Q. Why do they continue longer with some than others, as with some six
+or seven, but commonly with all three days? A. The first are cold,
+therefore they increase most in them, and consequently are longer
+expelling; other women are hot, and therefore have fewer and are sooner
+expelled.
+
+Q. Are the menses which are expelled, and those by which the child is
+engendered, all one? A. No, because the one are unclean, and unfit for
+that purpose; but the other very pure and clear, therefore the fittest
+for generation.
+
+Q. Why have not women their menses all one and the same time, but some
+in the new moon, some in the full, and others at the wane? A. From their
+several complexions, and though all women (in respect of men) are
+phlegmatic, yet some are more sanguine than others, some more choleric;
+and as the moon hath her quarters, so have women their complexions; the
+first sanguine, the second choleric.
+
+Q. Why do women easily conceive after their menses? A. Because the womb
+being cleansed, they are better prepared for conception.
+
+Q. Why do women look pale when they first have their menses upon them?
+A. Because the heat goes from the outward parts of the body to the
+inward, to help nature to expel their terms, which deprivation of heat
+doth cause a paleness in the face. Or, because that flux is caused of
+raw humours, which, when they run, make the face colourless.
+
+Q. Why do they at that time abhor their meat? A. Because nature labours
+more to expel their terms than digest; and, therefore, if they should
+eat, their food would remain raw in the stomach.
+
+Q. Why are some women barren and do not conceive? A. 1. It proceeds
+sometimes from the man who may be of a cold nature, so that his seed is
+unfit for generation. 2. Because it is waterish, and so doth not stay in
+the womb. 3. By reason that the seed of them both hath not a like
+proportion, as if the man be melancholy and the woman sanguine, or the
+man choleric and the woman phlegmatic.
+
+Q. Why do fat women seldom conceive? A. Because they have a slippery
+womb, and the seed will not stay in it. Or, because the mouth of the
+matrix is very strait, and the seed cannot enter it, or, if it does, it
+is so very slowly that it grows cold and unfit for generation.
+
+Q. Why do those of a hot constitution seldom conceive? A. Because the
+seed in them is extinguished or put out, as water cast into fire;
+whereof we find that women who vehemently desire the flesh seldom
+conceive.
+
+Q. Why are whores never with child? A. By reason of divers seeds, which
+corrupt and spoil the instruments of conception, for it makes them so
+slippery, that they cannot retain seed. Or, else, it is because one
+man's seed destroys another's, so neither is good for generation.
+
+Q. Why do women conceive twins? A. Because there are seven cells or
+receptacles in the womb; wherefore they may naturally have so many
+children at once as there falls seed into these cells.
+
+Q. Why are twins but half men, and not so strong as others? A. The seed
+that should have been for one, is divided into two and therefore they
+are weakly and seldom live long.
+
+
+
+_Of Hermaphrodites._
+
+Q. How are hermaphrodites begotten? A. Nature doth always tend to that
+which is best, and always intendeth to beget the male and not the
+female, because the female is only for the male's mate. Therefore the
+male is sometimes begotten in all its principal parts; and, yet, through
+the indisposition of the womb and object, and inequality of the seeds,
+when nature cannot perfect the male, she brings forth the female too.
+And therefore natural philosophers say, that an hermaphrodite is
+impotent in the privy parts of a man, as appears by experience.
+
+Q. Is an hermaphrodite accounted a man or a woman? A. It is to be
+considered in which member he is fittest for copulation; if he be
+fittest in the woman's, then he is a woman; if in a man's, then he is a
+man.
+
+Q. Should he be baptized in the name of a man or a woman? A. In the
+name of a man, because names are given _ad placitum_, and therefore he
+should be baptized, according to the worthiest name, because every agent
+is worthier than its patient.
+
+
+
+_Of Monsters._
+
+Q. Doth nature make any monsters? A. She doth; if she did not, then
+would she be deprived of her end. For of things possible, she doth
+always propose to bring forth that which is most perfect and best; but
+in the end, through the evil disposition of the matter, not being able
+to bring forth that which she intended, she brings forth that which she
+can. As it happened in Albertus's time, when in a certain village, a cow
+brought forth a calf, half a man; then the countrymen suspecting a
+shepherd, would have burnt him with the cow; but Albertus, being skilled
+in astronomy, said that this did proceed from a certain constellation,
+and so delivered the shepherd from their hands.
+
+Q. Are they one or two? A. To find out, you must look into the heart, if
+there be two hearts, there be two men.
+
+Q. Why are some children like their father, some like their mother, some
+to both and some to neither? A. If the seed of the father wholly
+overcome that of the mother the child doth resemble the father; but if
+the mother's predominate, then it is like the mother; but if he be like
+neither, that doth sometimes happen through the four qualities,
+sometimes through the influence of some heavenly constellation.
+
+Q. Why are children oftener like the father than the mother? A. It
+proceeds from the imagination of the mother in the act of copulation, as
+appeared in a queen who had her imagination on a blackamoor; and in the
+Ethiopian queen who brought forth a white child, because her imagination
+was upon a white colour; as is seen in Jacob's skill in casting rods of
+divers colours into the water, when his sheep went to ram.
+
+Q. Why do children born in the eighth month for the most part die
+quickly, and why are they called the children of the moon? A. Because
+the moon is a cold planet, which has dominion over the child, and
+therefore doth bind it with coldness, which is the cause of its death.
+
+Q. Why doth a child cry as soon as it is born? A. Because of the sudden
+change from heat to cold: which cold doth affect its tenderness. Another
+reason is, because the child's soft and tender body is wringed and put
+together coming out of the narrow and strait passage of the matrix, and
+especially, the brain being moist, and the head being pressed and
+wrinkled together, is the cause that some humours distil by the eyes,
+which are the cause of tears and weeping.
+
+Q. Why doth the child put its fingers into its mouth as soon as it
+cometh into the world? A. Because that coming out of the womb it cometh
+out of a hot bath, and entering into the cold, puts them into its mouth
+for want of heat.
+
+
+
+_Of the Child in the Womb._
+
+Q. How is the child engendered in the womb? A. The first six days the
+seed hath this colour of milk, but in the six following a red colour,
+which is near unto the disposition of the flesh; and then it is changed
+into a thick substance of blood. But in the twelve days following, this
+substance becomes so thick and round that it is capable of receiving
+shape and form.
+
+Q. Doth the child in the womb void excrements or make water? No. Because
+it hath not the first digestion which is in the stomach. It receives no
+food by the mouth, but by the navel; therefore, makes no urine but
+sweats, which is but little, and is received in a skin in the matrix,
+which at the birth is cast out.
+
+
+
+_Of Abortion and Untimely Birth._
+
+Q. Why do women that eat unwholesome meats, easily miscarry? A. Because
+they breed putrefied seed, which the mind abhorring doth cast it out of
+the womb as unfit for the shape which is adapted to receive the soul.
+
+Q. Why doth wrestling and leaping cause the casting of the child, as
+some subtle women do on purpose? A. The vapour is burning, and doth
+easily hurt the tender substance of the child, entering in at the pores
+of the matrix.
+
+Q. Why doth much joy cause a woman to miscarry? A. Because in the time
+of joy, a woman is destitute of heat, and so a miscarriage doth follow.
+
+Q. Why do women easily miscarry when they are first with child, viz.,
+the first, second or third month? A. As apples and pears easily fall at
+first, because the knots and ligaments are weak, so it is with a child
+in the womb.
+
+Q. Why is it hard to miscarry in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth
+month? A. Because the ligaments are stronger and well fortified.
+
+
+
+_Of Divers Matters._
+
+Q. Why has not a man a tail like a beast? A. Because man is a noble
+creature, whose property is to sit; which a beast, having a tail,
+cannot.
+
+Q. Why does hot water freeze sooner than cold? A. Hot water is thinner,
+and gives better entrance to the frost.
+
+Q. Why is every living creature dull after copulation? A. By reason that
+the act is filthy and unclean; and so every living creature abhors it.
+When men do think upon it, they are ashamed and sad.
+
+Q. Why cannot drunken men judge of taste as well as sober men? A.
+Because the tongue, being full of pores and spongy, receives more
+moisture into it, and more in drunken men than in sober; therefore, the
+tongue, through often drinking, is full of bad humours, and so the
+faculty of tasting is rendered out of order; also, through the
+thickening of the taste itself, drink taken by drunkards is not
+presently felt. And by this may also be understood why drunkards have
+not a perfect speech.
+
+Q. Why have melancholy beasts long ears? A. The ears proceed from a dry
+and cold substance, called gristle, which is apt to become bone; and
+because melancholy beasts do abound with this kind of substance, they
+have long ears.
+
+Q. Why do hares sleep with their eyes open? A. 1. They have their eyes
+standing out, and their eyelids short, therefore, never quite shut. 2.
+They are timorous, and as a safe-guard to themselves, sleep with their
+eyes open.
+
+Q. Why do not crows feed their young till they be nine days old? A.
+Because seeing them of another colour, they think they are of another
+kind.
+
+Q. Why are sheep and pigeons mild? A. They want galls, the cause of
+anger.
+
+Q. Why have birds their stones inward? A. Because if outward, they would
+hinder their flying and lightness.
+
+Q. How comes it that birds do not piss? A. Because that superfluity
+which would be converted into urine, is turned into feathers.
+
+Q. Why do we hear better in the night than by day? A. Because there is a
+greater quietness in the night than in the day, for the sun doth not
+exhale the vapours by night, but it doth in the day, therefore the moon
+is more fit than in the day; and the moon being fit, the motion is
+better received, which is said to be caused by a sound.
+
+Q. For what reason doth a man laugh sooner when touched in the armpits
+than in any other part of the body? A. Because there is in that place a
+meeting of many sinews, and the mean we touch, which is the flesh, is
+more subtle than in other parts, and therefore of finer feeling. When a
+man is moderately and gently touched there the spirits that are
+dispersed run into the face and causes laughter.
+
+Q. Why do some women love white men and some black men? A. 1. Some have
+weak sight, and such delight in black, because white doth hurt the sight
+more than black. 2. Because like delight in like; but some women are of
+a hot nature, and such are delighted with black, because blackness
+followeth heat; and others are of a cold nature, and those are delighted
+with white, because cold produces white.
+
+Q. Why do men incline to sleep after labour? A. Because, through
+continual moving, the heat is dispersed to the external parts of the
+body, which, after labour, is gathered together in the internal parts,
+there to digest; and from digestion, vapours arise from the heart to the
+brain, which stop the passage by which the natural heat should be
+dispersed to the external part; and then, the external parts being cold
+and thick, by reason of the coldness of the brain sleep is easily
+procured. By this it appeareth that such as eat and drink too much, do
+sleep much and long, because there are great store of humours and
+vapours bred in such persons which cannot be consumed and digested by
+the natural heat.
+
+Q. Why are such as sleep much, evil disposed and ill-coloured? A.
+Because in too much sleep moisture is gathered together, which cannot be
+consumed, and so it doth covet to go out through the superficial parts
+of the body, and especially it resorts to the face, and therefore is the
+cause of bad colours, as appeareth in such as are phlegmatic and who
+desire more sleep than others.
+
+Q. Why do some imagine in their sleep that they eat and drink sweet
+things? A. Because the phlegm drawn up by the jaws doth distil and drop
+to the throat; and this phlegm is sweet after a sore sweat, and that
+seemeth so to them.
+
+Q. Why do some dream in their sleep that they are in the water and
+drowned, and some that they were in the water and not drowned;
+especially such as are phlegmatic? A. Because when the phlegmatic
+substance doth turn to the high parts of the body, then many think they
+are in the water and drowned; but when that substance draweth into the
+internal parts, then they think they escape. Another reason may be,
+overmuch repletion and drunkenness: and therefore, when men are overmuch
+filled with meat, the fumes and vapours ascend and gather together, and
+they think they are drowned and strangled; but if they cannot ascend so
+high then they seem to escape.
+
+Q. May a man procure a dream by an external cause? A. It may be done. If
+a man speak softly in another man's ear and awake him not, then of his
+stirring of the spirits there are thunderings and buzzings in the head,
+which cause dreamings.
+
+Q. How many humours are there in a man's body? A. Four, whereof every
+one hath its proper place. The first is choler, called by physicians
+_flava bilis_, which is placed in the liver. The second is melancholy,
+called _atra bilis_, whose seat is in the spleen. The third is phlegm,
+whose place is in the head. The fourth is blood, whose place is in the
+heart.
+
+Q. What condition and quality hath a man of a sanguine complexion? A. It
+is fair and beautiful; hath his hair for the most part smooth; is bold;
+retaineth that which he hath conceived; is shame-faced, given to music,
+a lover of sciences, liberal, courteous, and not desirous of revenge.
+
+Q. What properties do follow those of a phlegmatic complexion? A. They
+are dull of wit, their hair never curls, they are seldom very thirsty,
+much given to sleep, dream of things belonging to water, are fearful,
+covetous, given to heap up riches, and are weak in the act of venery.
+
+Q. What are the properties of a choleric man? A. He is brown in
+complexion, unquiet, his veins hidden, eateth little and digesteth less,
+dreameth of dark and confused things, is sad, fearful, exceedingly
+covetous, and incontinent.
+
+Q. What dreams do follow these complexions? A. Pleasant, merry dreams do
+follow the sanguine; fearful dreams, the melancholic; the choleric dream
+of children fighting and fire; the phlegmatic dream of water. This is
+the reason why a man's complexion is said to be known by his dreams.
+
+Q. What is the reason that if you cover an egg over with salt, and let
+it lie in it a few days, all the meat within is consumed? A. A great
+dryness of the salt consumes the substance of the egg.
+
+Q. Why is the melancholic complexion the worst? A. Because it proceeds
+from the dregs of the blood, is an enemy to mirth and bringeth on aged
+appearance and death, being cold and dry.
+
+Q. What is the cause that some men die joyful, and some in extreme
+grief? A. Over-great joy doth overmuch heat the internal parts of the
+body; and overmuch grief doth drown and suffocate the heart, which
+failing, a man dieth.
+
+Q. Why hath a man so much hair on his head? A. The hair on his head
+proceeds from the vapours which arise from the stomach, and ascend to
+the head, and also of the superfluities which are in the brain; and
+those two passing through the pores of the head are converted into hair,
+by reason of the heat and dryness of the head. And because man's body is
+full of humours, and he hath more brains than any other living
+creatures.
+
+Q. How many ways is the brain purged and other hidden places of the
+body? A. Four; the watery and gross humours are purged by the eyes,
+melancholy by the ears, choler by the nose, and phlegm by the hair.
+
+Q. What is the reason that such as are very fat in their youth, are in
+danger of dying on a sudden? A. Such have very small and close veins, by
+reason of their fatness, so that the air and the breath can hardly have
+free course in them; and thereupon the natural heat wanting the
+refreshment of air, is put out, and as it were, quenched.
+
+Q. Why do garlic and onions grow after they are gathered? A. It
+proceedeth from the humidity that is in them.
+
+Q. Why do men feel cold sooner than women? A. Because men, being more
+hot than women, have their pores more open, and therefore it doth sooner
+enter into them than women.
+
+Q. Why are not old men so subject to the plague as young men and
+children? A. They are cold, and their pores are not so open as in youth;
+and therefore the infecting air doth not penetrate so soon by reason of
+their coldness.
+
+Q. Why do we cast water in a man's face when he swooneth? A. Because
+through the coldness of water the heat may run to the heart, and so give
+strength.
+
+Q. Why are those waters best and most delicate which run towards the
+rising sun? A. Because they are soonest stricken with the sunbeams, and
+made pure and subtle, the sun having them under it, and by that means
+taking off the coldness and gross vapours which they gather from the
+ground they run through.
+
+Q. Why have women such weak and small voices? A. Because their
+instruments and organs of speaking, by reason of their coldness, are
+small and narrow; and therefore, receiving but little air, cause the
+voice to be effeminate.
+
+Q. Whereof doth it proceed that want of sleep doth weaken the brain and
+body? A. Much watching doth engender choler, the which being hot both
+dry up and lessen the humours which serve the brain, the head, and other
+parts of the body.
+
+Q. Wherefore doth vinegar so readily staunch blood? A. From its cold
+virtue, for all cold is naturally binding, and vinegar being cold, hath
+the like property.
+
+Q. Why is sea-water salter in summer than in winter? A. From the heat of
+the sun, seeing by experiment that a salt thing being heated becometh
+more salt.
+
+Q. Why do men live longer in hot regions than in cold? A. Because they
+may be more dry, and by that means the natural heat is better preserved
+in them than in cold countries.
+
+Q. Why is well-water seldom or ever good? A. All water which standeth
+still in the spring and is never heated by the sunbeams, is very heavy,
+and hath much matter in it, and therefore wanting the heat of the sun,
+is naught.
+
+Q. Why do men sleep better and more at ease on the right side than on
+the left? A. Because when they be on the left side, the lungs do lie
+upon and cover the heart, which is on that side under the pap; now the
+heart, the fountain of life, being thus occupied and hindered with the
+lungs, cannot exercise its own proper operation, as being overmuch
+heated with the lungs lying upon it, and therefore wanting the
+refreshment of the air which the lungs do give it, like the blowing of a
+pair of bellows, is choked and suffocated, but by lying on the right
+side, those inconveniences are avoided.
+
+Q. What is the reason that old men sneeze with great difficulty? A.
+Because that through their coldness their arteries are very narrow and
+close, and therefore the heat is not of force to expel the cold.
+
+Q. Why doth a drunken man think that all things about him do turn round?
+A. Because the spirits which serve the sight are mingled with vapours
+and fumes, arising from the liquors he has drunk; the overmuch heat
+causeth the eye to be in continual motion, and the eye being round,
+causeth all things about it to seem to go round.
+
+Q. Wherefore doth it proceed, that bread which is made with salt is
+lighter than that which is made without it, considering that salt is
+very heavy of itself? A. Although bread is very heavy of itself, yet the
+salt dries it and makes it light, by reason of the heat which it hath;
+and the more heat there is in it, the better the bread is, and the
+lighter and more wholesome for the body.
+
+Q. Why is not new bread good for the stomach? A. Because it is full of
+moistness, and thick, hot vapours, which do corrupt the blood, and hot
+bread is blacker than cold, because heat is the mother of blackness, and
+because the vapours are not gone out of it.
+
+Q. Why do lettuces make a man sleep? A. Because they engender gross
+vapours.
+
+Q. Why do the dregs of wine and oil go to the bottom, and those of honey
+swim uppermost? A. Because the dregs of wine and oil are earthly, and
+therefore go to the bottom; but honey is a liquid that cometh from the
+stomach and belly of the bee; and is there in some sort putrefied and
+made subtle; on which account the dregs are most light and hot, and
+therefore go uppermost.
+
+Q. Why do cats' and wolves' eyes shine in the night, and not in the day?
+A. The eyes of these beasts are by nature more crystalline than the eyes
+of other beasts, and therefore do so shine in darkness; but the
+brightness of the sun doth hinder them from being seen in the day-time.
+
+Q. What is the reason that some men, if they see others dance, do the
+like with their hands and feet, or by other gestures of the body? A.
+Because the sight having carried and represented unto the mind that
+action, and judging the same to be pleasant and delightful, and
+therefore the imagination draweth the like of it in conceit and stirs up
+the body by the gestures.
+
+Q. Why does much sleep cause some to grow fat and some lean? A. Those
+who are of ill complexion, when they sleep, do consume and digest the
+superfluities of what they have eaten, and therefore become fat. But
+such as are of good complexion, when they sleep are more cold, and
+digest less.
+
+Q. How much, and from what cause do we suffer hunger better than thirst?
+A. When the stomach hath nothing else to consume, it consumeth the
+phlegm and humours which it findeth most ready and most at hand; and
+therefore we suffer hunger better than thirst, because the heat hath
+nothing to refresh itself with.
+
+Q. Why doth the hair fall after a great sickness? A. Where the sickness
+is long, as in the ague, the humours of the head are dried up through
+overmuch heat, and, therefore, wanting nourishment, the hair falls.
+
+Q. Why doth the hair of the eyebrows grow long in old men? A. Because
+through their age the bones are thin through want of heat, and therefore
+the hair doth grow there, by reason of the rheum of the eye.
+
+Q. Whereof proceedeth gaping? A. Of gross vapours, which occupy the
+vital spirits of the head, and of the coldness of the senses causing
+sleepiness.
+
+Q. What is the reason that some flowers do open with the sun rising, and
+shut with the sun setting? A. Cold doth close and shut, as hath been
+said, but the heat of the sun doth open and enlarge. Some compare the
+sun to the soul of the body; for as the soul giveth life, so the sun
+doth give life, and vivificate all things; but cold bringeth death,
+withering and decaying all things.
+
+Q. Why doth grief cause men to grow old and grey? A. Age is nothing else
+but dryness and want of humours in the body; grief then causeth
+alteration, and heat dryness; age and greyness follow immediately.
+
+Q. Why are gelded beasts weaker than such as are not gelded? A. Because
+they have less heat, and by that means less force and strength.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE PROBLEMS OF
+
+MARCUS ANTONINUS SANCTIPERTIAS
+
+
+Q. Why is it esteemed, in the judgment of the most wise, the hardest
+thing to know a man's self? A. Because nothing can be known that is of
+so great importance to man for the regulation of his conduct in life.
+Without this knowledge, man is like the ship without either compass or
+rudder to conduct her to port, and is tossed by every passion and
+prejudice to which his natural constitution is subjected. To know the
+form and perfection of man's self, according to the philosophers, is a
+task too hard; and a man, says Plato, is nothing, or if he be anything,
+he is nothing, but his soul.
+
+Q. Why is a man, though endowed with reason, the most unjust of all
+living creatures? A. Because only man is desirous of honour; and so it
+happens that every one covets to seem good, and yet naturally shuns
+labour, though he attain no virtue by it.
+
+Q. Why doth immoderate copulation do more hurt than immoderate letting
+of blood? A. The seed is full of nutriment, and better prepared for the
+nurture of the body, than the blood; for the blood is nourished by the
+seed.
+
+Q. What is the reason that those that have long yards cannot beget
+children? A. The seed, in going a long distance, doth lose the spirit,
+and therefore becomes cold and unfit.
+
+Q. Why do such as are corpulent cast forth but little seed in the act of
+copulation, and are often barren? A. Because the seed of such goeth to
+nourish the body. For the same reason corpulent women have but few
+menses.
+
+Q. How come women to be prone to venery in the summer time and men in
+the winter? A. In summer the man's testicles hang down and are feebler
+than in winter, or because hot natures become more lively in the cold
+season; for a man is hot and dry, and a woman cold and moist; and
+therefore in summer the strength of men decays, and that of women
+increases, and they grow livelier by the benefit of the contrary
+quality.
+
+Q. Why is man the proudest of all living creatures? A. By reason of his
+great knowledge; or, as philosophers say, all intelligent beings having
+understanding, nothing remains that escapes man's knowledge in
+particular; or it is because he hath rule over all earthly creatures,
+and all things seem to be brought under his dominion.
+
+Q. Why have beasts their hearts in the middle of their breasts, and man
+his inclining to the left? A. To moderate the cold on that side.
+
+Q. Why doth the woman love the man best who has got her maidenhead? A.
+By reason of shame-facedness; Plato saith, shame-facedness doth follow
+love, or, because it is the beginning of great pleasure, which doth
+bring a great alteration in the whole body, whereby the powers of the
+mind are much delighted, and stick and rest immoveable in the same.
+
+Q. How come hairy people to be more lustful than any other? A. Because
+they are said to have greater store of excrements and seed as
+philosophers assert.
+
+Q. What is the cause that the suffocation of the matrix, which happens
+to women through strife and contention, is more dangerous than the
+detaining of the flowers? A. Because the more perfect an excrement is in
+its natural disposition, the worse it is when it is altered from that
+disposition, and drawn to the contrary quality; as is seen in vinegar,
+which is sharpest when it is made of the best wine. And so it happens
+that the more men love one another the more they fall into variance and
+discord.
+
+Q. How come women's bodies to be looser, softer and less than man's; and
+why do they want hair? A. By reason of their menses; for with them their
+superfluities go away, which would produce hair; and thereby the flesh
+is filled, consequently the veins are more hid in women than in men.
+
+Q. What is the reason that when we think upon a horrible thing, we are
+stricken with fear? A. Because the conceit or imagination of things has
+force and virtue. For Plato saith, the fancy of things has some affinity
+with things themselves; for the image and representation of cold and
+heat is such as the nature of things are. Or it is this, because when we
+comprehend any dreadful matter, the blood runneth to the internal parts;
+and therefore the external parts are cold and shake with fear.
+
+Q. Why doth a radish root help digestion and yet itself remaineth
+undigested? A. Because the substance consisteth of divers parts; for
+there are some thin parts in it, which are fit to digest meat, the which
+being dissolved, there doth remain some thick and close substance in it,
+which the heat cannot digest.
+
+Q. Why do such as cleave wood, cleave it easier in the length than
+athwart? A. Because in the wood there is a grain, whereby, if it be cut
+in length, in the very cutting, one part naturally separateth from
+another.
+
+Q. What is the reason, that if a spear be stricken on the end, the sound
+cometh sooner to one who standeth near, than to him who striketh? A.
+Because, as hath been said, there is a certain long grain in wood,
+directly forward, filled with air, but on the other side there is none,
+and therefore a beam or spear being stricken on the end, the air which
+is hidden receiveth a sound in the aforesaid grain which serveth for its
+passage; and, seeing the sound cannot go easily out of it is carried
+into the ear of him who is opposite; as those passages do not go from
+side to side, a sound cannot be distinctly heard there.
+
+Q. Why are the thighs and calves of the legs of men flesh, seeing the
+legs of beasts are not so? A. Because men only go upright; and therefore
+nature hath given the lower parts corpulency, and taken it away from the
+upper; and thus she hath made the buttocks, the thighs, and calves of
+the legs fleshy.
+
+Q. Why are the sensible powers in the heart; yet if the hinder part of
+the brain be hurt, the memory suffereth by it; if the forepart, the
+imagination; if the middle, the cogitative part? A. It is because the
+brain is appointed by nature to cool the blood of the heart; whereof it
+is, that in divers of its parts it serveth the powers and instruments
+with their heart, for every action of the soul doth not proceed from one
+measure of heat.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE PROBLEMS OF
+
+ALEXANDER APHRODISEUS
+
+
+Q. Why doth the sun make a man black and dirt white, wax soft and dirt
+hard? A. By reason of the disposition of the substance that doth suffer.
+All humours, phlegm excepted, when heated above measure, do seem black
+about the skin; and dirt, being full either of saltpetre, or salt
+liquor, when the sun hath consumed its dregs and filth, doth become
+white again. When the sun hath stirred up and drawn the humidity of the
+wax, it is softened; but in the dirt, the sun doth consume the humidity,
+which is very much and makes it hard.
+
+Q. Why are round ulcers hard to be cured? A. Because they are bred of a
+sharp choler, which eats and gnaws; and because it doth run, dropping
+and gnawing, it makes a round ulcer; for which reason it requires dry
+medicines, as physicians assert.
+
+Q. Why is honey sweet to all men, but to such as have jaundice? A.
+Because they have much bitter choler all over their bodies, which
+abounds in the tongue; whence it happens when they eat honey the humours
+are stirred, and the taste itself, by the bitterness of choler, causes
+an imagination that the honey is bitter.
+
+Q. Why doth water cast on serpents, cause them to fly? A. Because they
+are dry and cold by nature, having but little blood, and therefore fly
+from excessive coldness.
+
+Q. Why doth an egg break if roasted, and not if boiled? A. When moisture
+comes near the fire, it is heated very much, and so breeds wind, which
+being put up in little room, forces its way out, and breaks the shell:
+the like happens in tubs or earthen vessels when new wine is put into
+them; too much phlegm breaks the shell of an egg in roasting; it is the
+same with earthen pots too much heated; wherefore some people wet an egg
+when they intend to roast it. Hot water, by its softness, doth dissipate
+its humidity by little and little, and dissolves it through the thinness
+and passages of the shell.
+
+Q. Why do men wink in the act of copulation, and find a little
+alteration in all other senses? A. Because, being overcome by the effect
+of that pleasure, they do comprehend it the better.
+
+Q. Why have children gravel breeding in their bladders, and old men in
+their kidneys and veins? A. Because children have straight passages in
+their kidneys, and an earthly thick humour is thrust with violence by
+the urine to the bladder, which hath wide conduits or passages, that
+give room for the urine and humour whereof gravel is engendered, which
+waxes thick, and seats itself, as the manner of it is. In old men it is
+the reverse, for they have wide passages of the veins, back and kidneys,
+that the urine may pass away, and the earthly humour congeal and sink
+down; the colour of the gravel shows the humour whereof the stone comes.
+
+Q. Why is it, if the stone do congeal and wax hard through heat, we use
+not contrary things to dissolve it by coldness, but light things, as
+parsley, fennel and the like? A. It is thought, to fall out by an
+excessive scorching heat, by which the stones do crumble into sand, as
+in the manner of earthen vessels, which, when they are overheated or
+roasted, turn to sand. And by this means it happens that small stones
+are avoided, together with sand, in making water. Sometimes cold drink
+thrusts out the stone, the kidneys being stretched and casting it out by
+a great effort; thus easing the belly of its burden. Besides, it often
+happens that immoderate heat of the kidneys, or of the veins of the back
+(through which the stone doth grow) is quenched with coldness.
+
+Q. Why is the curing of an ulcer or bile in the kidneys or bladder very
+hard? A. Because the urine being sharp, doth ulcerate the sore. Ulcers
+are worse to cure in the bladder than in the kidneys, because urine
+stays in the former, but runs away from the latter.
+
+Q. Why do chaff and straw keep water hot, but make snow cold? A. Because
+the nature of chaff wants a manifest quantity; seeing, therefore that of
+its own nature, it can easily be mingled, and consumed by that which it
+is annexed onto, it easily assumes the same nature, and being put into
+hot things, it is easily hot, heats again, and keeps hot; and on the
+contrary, being made cold by the snow, and making the snow cold it keeps
+in its coldness.
+
+Q. Why have we oftentimes a pain in making water? A. Because sharp
+choler issuing out, and pricking the bladder of the urine, doth provoke
+and stir up the whole body to ease the part offended, and to expel the
+humour moderately. This doth happen most of all unto children, because
+they have moist excrements by reason of their often drinking.
+
+Q. Why have some medicines of one kind contrary effects, as experience
+proves; for mastich doth expel, dissolve and also knit; and vinegar
+cools and heats? A. Because there are some small invisible bodies in
+them, not in confusion, but by interposition; as sand moistened doth
+clog together and seem to be but one body, though indeed there are many
+small bodies in sand. And since this is so, it is not absurd that the
+contrary qualities and virtues should be hidden in mastich, and that
+nature hath given that virtue to these bodies.
+
+Q. Why do nurses rock and move their children when they would rock them
+to sleep? A. To the end that the humours being scattered by moving, may
+move the brains; but those of more years cannot endure this.
+
+Q. Why doth oil, being drunk, cause one to vomit, and especially yellow
+choler? A. Because being light, and ascending upwards it provoketh the
+nutriment in the stomach, and lifteth it up; and so, the stomach being
+grieved, summoneth the ejective virtue to vomit, and especially choler,
+because that is light and consisteth of subtle parts, and therefore the
+sooner carried upward; for when it is mingled with any moist thing, it
+runneth into the highest room.
+
+Q. Why doth not oil mingle with moist things? A. Because, being pliant,
+soft and thick in itself, it cannot be divided into parts, and so cannot
+be mingled; neither if it be put on the earth can it enter into it.
+
+Q. Why are water and oil frozen in cold weather, and wine and vinegar
+not? A. Because that oil being without quality, and fit to be compounded
+with anything, is cold quickly and so extremely that it is most cold.
+Water being cold of nature, doth easily freeze when it is made colder
+than its own nature. Wine being hot, and of subtle parts, suffereth no
+freezing.
+
+Q. Why do contrary things in quality bring forth the same effect? A.
+That which is moist is hardened and bound alike by heat and cold. Snow
+and liquid do freeze with cold; a plaster and gravel in the bladder are
+made dry with heat. The effect indeed is the same, but by two divers
+actions; the heat doth consume and eat the abundance of moisture; but
+the cold stopping and shutting with its over much thickness, doth wring
+out the filthy humidity, like as a sponge wrung with the hand doth cast
+out the water which it hath in the pores and small passages.
+
+Q. Why doth a shaking or quivering seize us oftentimes when any fearful
+matter doth happen, as a great noise or a crack made, the sudden
+downfall of water, or the fall of a large tree? A. Because that
+oftentimes the humours being digested and consumed by time and made thin
+and weak, all the heat vehemently, suddenly and sharply flying into the
+inward part of the body, consumeth the humours which cause the disease.
+So treacle hath this effect, and many such like, which are hot and dry
+when taken after connexion.
+
+Q. Why do steel glasses shine so clearly? A. Because they are lined in
+the inside with white lead, whose nature is shining, and being put to
+glass, which is lucid and transparent, doth shine much more; and casts
+its beams through its passages, and without the body of the glass; and
+by that means the glass is very shining and clear.
+
+Q. Why do we see ourselves in glasses and clear water? A. Because the
+quality of the sight, passing into the bright bodies by reflection, doth
+return again on the beam of the eyes, as the image of him who looketh on
+it.
+
+Q. What is the reason that if you cast a stone in standing water which
+is near the surface of the earth, it causes many circles, and not if the
+water be deep in the earth? A. Because the stone, with the vehemence of
+the cast, doth agitate the water in every part of it, until it come to
+the bottom; and if there be a very great vehemence in the throw, the
+circle is still greater, the stone going down to the bottom causing many
+circles. For, first of all, it doth divide the outermost and superficial
+parts of the water in many parts, and so, always going down to the
+bottom, again dividing the water, it maketh another circle, and this is
+done successively until the stone resteth; and because the vehemence of
+the stone is slackened, still as it goes down, of necessity the last
+circle is less than the first, because by that and also by its force the
+water is divided.
+
+Q. Why are such as are deaf by nature, dumb? A. Because they cannot
+speak and express that which they never hear. Some physicians do say,
+that there is one knitting and uniting of sinews belonging to the like
+disposition. But such as are dumb by accident are not deaf at all, for
+then there ariseth a local passion.
+
+Q. Why doth itching arise when an ulcer doth wax whole and phlegm
+ceases? A. Because the part which is healed and made sound doth pursue
+the relic of the humours which remained there against nature, and which
+was the cause of the bile, and so going out through the skin, and
+dissolving itself, doth originally cause the itch.
+
+Q. How comes a man to sneeze oftener and more vehemently than a beast?
+A. Because he uses more meats and drinks, and of more different sorts,
+and that more than is requisite; the which, when he cannot digest as he
+would, he doth gather together much air and spirit, by reason of much
+humidity; the spirits then very subtle, ascending into the head, often
+force a man to void them, and so provoke sneezing. The noise caused
+thereby proceeds from a vehement spirit or breath passing through the
+conduit of the nostrils, as belching doth from the stomach or farting by
+the fundament, the voice by the throat, and a sound by the ear.
+
+Q. How come the hair and nails of dead people to grow? A. Because the
+flesh rotting, withering and falling away, that which was hidden about
+the root of the hair doth now appear as growing. Some say that it grows
+indeed, because carcasses are dissolved in the beginning to many
+excrements and superfluities by putrefaction. These going out at the
+uppermost parts of the body by some passages, do increase the growth of
+the hair.
+
+Q. Why does not the hair of the feet soon grow grey? A. For this reason,
+because that through great motion they disperse and dissolve the
+superfluous phlegm that breeds greyness. The hair of the secrets grows
+very late, because of the place, and because that in carnal copulation
+it dissolves the phlegm also.
+
+Q. Why, if you put hot burnt barley upon a horse's sore, is the hair
+which grows upon the sore not white, but like the other hair? A. Because
+it hath the force of expelling; and doth drive away and dissolve the
+phlegm, as well as all other unprofitable matter that is gathered
+together through the weakness of the parts, or condity of the sore.
+
+Q. Why doth the hair never grow on an ulcer or bile? A. Because man hath
+a thick skin, as is seen by the thickness of his hair; and if the scar
+be thicker than the skin itself, it stops the passages from whence the
+hair should grow. Horses have thinner skins, as is plain by their hair;
+therefore all passages are not stopped in their wounds and sores; and
+after the excrements which were gathered together have broken a passage
+through those small pores the hair doth grow.
+
+Q. Why is Fortune painted with a double forehead, the one side bald and
+the other hairy? A. The baldness signifies adversity, and hairiness
+prosperity, which we enjoy when it pleaseth her.
+
+Q. Why have some commended flattery? A. Because flattery setteth forth
+before our eyes what we ought to be, though not what we are.
+
+Q. Wherefore should virtue be painted girded? A. To show that virtuous
+men should not be slothful, but diligent and always in action.
+
+Q. Why did the ancients say it was better to fall into the hands of a
+raven than a flatterer? A. Because ravens do not eat us till we be dead,
+but flatterers devour us alive.
+
+Q. Why have choleric men beards before others? A. Because they are hot,
+and their pores large.
+
+Q. How comes it that such as have the hiccups do ease themselves by
+holding their breath? A. The breath retained doth heat the interior
+parts of the body, and the hiccups proceeds from cold.
+
+Q. How comes it that old men remember well what they have seen and done
+in their youth, and forget such things as they see and do in their old
+age? A. Things learned in youth take deep root and habitude in a person,
+but those learned in age are forgotten because the senses are then
+weakened.
+
+Q. What kind of covetousness is best? A. That of time when employed as
+it ought to be.
+
+Q. Why is our life compared to a play? A. Because the dishonest do
+occupy the place of the honest, and the worst sort the room of the good.
+
+Q. Why do dolphins, when they appear above the water, denote a storm or
+tempest approaching? A. Because at the beginning of a tempest there do
+arise from the bottom of the sea, certain hot exhalations and vapours
+which heat the dolphins, causing them to rise up for cold air.
+
+Q. Why did the Romans call Fabius Maximus the target of the people, and
+Marcellus the sword? A. Because the one adapted himself to the service
+of the commonwealth, and the other was very eager to revenge the
+injuries of his country; and yet they were in the senate joined
+together, because the gravity of the one would moderate the courage and
+boldness of the other.
+
+Q. Why doth the shining of the moon hurt the head? A. Because it moves
+the humours of the brain, and cannot afterwards dissolve them.
+
+Q. If water do not nourish, why do men drink it? A. Because water
+causeth the nutriment to spread through the body.
+
+Q. Why is sneezing good? A. Because it purgeth the brain as milk is
+purged by the cough.
+
+Q. Why is hot water lighter than cold? A. Because boiling water has less
+ventosity and is more light and subtle, the earthly and heavy substance
+being separated from it.
+
+Q. How comes marsh and pond water to be bad? A. By reason they are
+phlegmatic, and do corrupt in summer; the fineness of water is turned
+into vapours, and the earthiness doth remain.
+
+Q. Why are studious and learned men soonest bald? A. It proceeds from a
+weakness of the spirits, or because warmth of digestion cause phlegm to
+abound in them.
+
+Q. Why doth much watching make the brain feeble? A. Because it increases
+choler, which dries and extenuates the body.
+
+Q. Why are boys apt to change their voices about fourteen years of age?
+A. Because that then nature doth cause a great and sudden change of
+voice; experience proves this to be true; for at that time we may see
+that women's paps do grow great, do hold and gather milk, and also those
+places that are above their hips, in which the young fruit would remain.
+Likewise men's breasts and shoulders, which then can bear great and
+heavy burdens; also their stones in which their seed may increase and
+abide, and in their privy members, to let out the seed with ease.
+Further all the body is made bigger and dilated, as the alteration and
+change of every part doth testify, and the harshness of the voice and
+hoarseness; for the rough artery, the wind pipe, being made wide in the
+beginning, and the exterior and outward part being unequal to the
+throat, the air going out the rough, unequal and uneven pipe doth then
+become unequal and sharp, and after, hoarse, something like unto the
+voice of a goat, wherefore it has its name called Bronchus. The same
+doth also happen to them unto whose rough artery distillation doth
+follow; it happens by reason of the drooping humidity that a slight
+small skin filled unequally causes the uneven going forth of the spirit
+and air. Understand, that the windpipe of goats is such by reason of the
+abundance of humidity. The like doth happen unto all such as nature hath
+given a rough artery, as unto cranes. After the age of fourteen they
+leave off that voice, because the artery is made wider and reacheth its
+natural evenness and quality.
+
+Q. Why do hard dens, hollow and high places, send back the likeness and
+sound of the voice? A. Because that in such places also by reflection do
+return back the image of a sound, for the voice doth beat the air, and
+the air the place, which the more it is beaten the more it doth bear,
+and therefore doth cause the more vehement sound of the voice; moist
+places, and as it were, soft, yielding to the stroke, and dissolving it,
+give no sound again; for according to the quantity of the stroke, the
+quality and quantity of the voice is given, which is called an echo.
+Some do idly fable that she is a goddess; some say that Pan was in love
+with her, which without doubt is false. He was some wise man, who did
+first desire to search out the cause of the voice, and as they who love,
+and cannot enjoy that love, are grieved, so in like manner was he very
+sorry until he found out the solution of that cause; as Endymion also,
+who first found out the course of the moon, watching all night, and
+observing her course, and searching her motion, did sleep in the
+daytime, and that she came to him when he was asleep, because she did
+give the philosopher the solution of the course herself. They say also
+that he was a shepherd, because that in the desert and high places, he
+did mark the course of the moon. And they gave him also the pipe because
+that the high places are blown with wind, or else because he sought out
+the consonancy of figures. Prometheus also, being a wise man, sought the
+course of the star, which is called the eagle in the firmament, his
+nature and place; and when he was, as it were, wasted with the desire of
+learning, then at last he rested, when Hercules did resolve unto him all
+doubts with his wisdom.
+
+Q. Why do not swine cry when they are carried with their snouts upwards?
+A. Because that of all other beasts they bend more to the earth. They
+delight in filth, and that they seek, and therefore in the sudden change
+of their face, they be as it were strangers, and being amazed with so
+much light do keep that silence; some say the windpipe doth close
+together by reason of the straitness of it.
+
+Q. Why do swine delight in dirt? A. As physicians do say, they are
+naturally delighted with it, because they have a great liver, in which
+desire it, as Aristotle saith, the wideness of their snout is the case,
+for he that hath smelling which doth dissolve itself, and as it were
+strive with stench.
+
+Q. Why do many beasts when they see their friends, and a lion and a
+bull beat their sides when they are angry? A. Because they have the
+marrow of their backs reaching to the tail, which hath the force of
+motion in it, the imagination acknowledging that which is known to them,
+as it were with the hand, as happens to men, doth force them to move
+their tails. This doth manifestly show some secret force to be within
+them, which doth acknowledge what they ought. In the anger of lions and
+bulls, nature doth consent to the mind, and causeth it to be greatly
+moved, as men do sometimes when they are angry, beating their hands on
+other parts; when the mind cannot be revenged on that which doth hurt,
+it presently seeks out some other source, and cures the malady with a
+stroke or blow.
+
+Q. How come steel glasses to be better for the sight than any other
+kind? A. Because steel is hard, and doth present unto us more
+substantially the air that receiveth the light.
+
+Q. How doth love show its greater force by making the fool to become
+wise, or the wise to become a fool? A. In attributing wisdom to him that
+has it not; for it is harder to build than to pull down; and ordinarily
+love and folly are but an alteration of the mind.
+
+Q. How comes much labour and fatigue to be bad for the sight? A.
+Because it dries the blood too much.
+
+Q. Why is goat's milk reckoned best for the stomach? A. Because it is
+thick, not slimy, and they feed on wood and boughs rather than on grass.
+
+Q. Why do grief and vexation bring grey hairs? A. Because they dry,
+which bringeth on greyness.
+
+Q. How come those to have most mercy who have the thickest blood? A.
+Because the blood which is fat and thick makes the spirits firm and
+constant, wherein consists the force of all creatures.
+
+Q. Whether it is hardest, to obtain a person's love, or to keep it when
+obtained? A. It is hardest to keep it, by reason of the inconstancy of
+man, who is quickly angry, and soon weary of a thing; hard to be gained
+and slippery to keep.
+
+Q. Why do serpents shun the herb rue? A. Because they are cold, dry and
+full of sinews, and that herb is of a contrary nature.
+
+Q. Why is a capon better to eat than a cock? A. Because a capon loses
+not his moisture by treading of the hens.
+
+Q. Why is our smell less in winter than in summer? A. Because the air is
+thick, and less moveable.
+
+Q. Why does hair burn so quickly? A. Because it is dry and cold.
+
+Q. Why is love compared to a labyrinth? A. Because the entry and coming
+in is easy, and the going out almost impossible or hard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PART IV
+
+DISPLAYING THE SECRETS OF
+
+NATURE
+
+RELATING TO
+
+PHYSIOGNOMY
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+SECTION 1.--_Of Physiognomy, showing what it is, and whence it is
+derived._
+
+Physiognomy is an ingenious science, or knowledge of nature, by which
+the inclinations and dispositions of every creature are understood, and
+because some of the members are uncompounded, and entire of themselves,
+as the tongue, the heart, etc., and some are of a mixed nature, as the
+eyes, the nose and others, we therefore say that there are signs which
+agree and live together, which inform a wise man how to make his
+judgment before he be too rash to deliver it to the world.
+
+Nor is it to be esteemed a foolish or idle art, seeing it is derived
+from the superior bodies; for there is no part of the face of man but
+what is under the peculiar influence or government, not only of the
+seven planets but also of the twelve signs of Zodiac; and the
+dispositions, vices, virtues and fatality, either of a man or woman are
+plainly foretold, if the person pretending to the knowledge thereof be
+an artist, which, that my readers may hereby attain it I shall set these
+things in a clearer light.
+
+The reader should remember that the forehead is governed by Mars; the
+right eye is under the domination of Sol; the left is ruled by the Moon;
+the right ear is under Jupiter; the left, Saturn, the rule of the nose
+is claimed by Venus, which, by the way, is one reason that in all
+unlawful venereal encounters, the nose is too subject to bear the scars
+that are gotten in those wars; and nimble Mercury, the significator of
+eloquence claims the dominion of the mouth, and that very justly.
+
+Thus have the seven planets divided the face among them, but not with so
+absolute a way but that the twelve signs of the Zodiac do also come in
+with a part (see the engraving) and therefore the sign Cancer presides
+in the upper part of the forehead, and Leo attends upon the right
+eyebrow, as Saggittarius does upon the right eye, and Libra upon the
+right ear, upon the left eyebrow you will find Aquarius; and Gemini and
+Aries taking care of the left ear; Taurus rules in the middle of the
+forehead, and Capricorn the chin; Scorpio takes upon him the protection
+of the nose; Virgo claims the precedence of the right cheek, Pisces the
+left. And thus the face of man is cantoned out amongst the signs and
+planets; which being carefully attended to, will sufficiently inform
+the artist how to pass a judgment. For according to the sign or planet
+ruling so also is the judgment to be of the part ruled, which all those
+that have understanding know easily how to apply.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In the judgment that is to be made from physiognomy, there is a great
+difference betwixt a man and a woman; the reason is, because in respect
+of the whole composition men more fully comprehend it than women do, as
+may evidently appear by the manner and method we shall give. Wherefore
+the judgments which we shall pass in every chapter do properly concern a
+man, as comprehending the whole species, and but improperly the woman,
+as being but a part thereof, and derived from the man, and therefore,
+whoever is called to give judgment on such a face, ought to be wary
+about all the lines and marks that belong to it, respect being also had
+to the sex, for when we behold a man whose face is like unto a woman's
+and we pass a judgment upon it, having diligently observed it, and not
+on the face only, but on other parts of the body, as hands, etc., in
+like manner we also behold the face of a woman, who in respect to her
+flesh and blood is like unto a man, and in the disposure also of the
+greatest part of the body. But does physiognomy give the same judgment
+on her, as it does of a man that is like unto her? By no means, but far
+otherwise, in regard that the conception of the woman is much different
+from that of a man, even in those respects which are said to be common.
+Now in those common respects two parts are attributed to a man, and a
+third part to a woman.
+
+Wherefore it being our intention to give you an exact account, according
+to the rule of physiognomy of all and every part of the members of the
+body, we will begin with the head, as it hath relation only to man and
+woman, and not to any other creature, that the work may be more obvious
+to every reader.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+     _Of the Judgment of Physiognomy._
+
+
+Hair that hangs down without curling, if it be of a fair complexion,
+thin and soft withal, signifies a man to be naturally faint-hearted, and
+of a weak body, but of a quiet and harmless disposition. Hair that is
+big, and thick and short withal, denotes a man to be of a strong
+constitution, secure, bold, deceitful and for the most part, unquiet and
+vain, lusting after beauty, and more foolish than wise, though fortune
+may favour him. He whose hair is partly curled and partly hanging down,
+is commonly wise or a very great fool, or else as very a knave as he is
+a fool. He whose hair grows thick on his temples and his brow, one may
+certainly at first sight conclude that such a man is by nature simple,
+vain, luxurious, lustful, credulous, clownish in his speech and
+conversation and dull in his apprehension. He whose hair not only curls
+very much, but bushes out, and stands on end, if the hair be white or of
+a yellowish colour, he is by nature proud and bold, dull of
+apprehension, soon angry, and a lover of venery, and given to lying,
+malicious and ready to do any mischief. He whose hair arises in the
+corners of the temples, and is gross and rough withal, is a man highly
+conceited of himself, inclined to malice, but cunningly conceals it, is
+very courtly and a lover of new fashions. He who hath much hair, that is
+to say, whose hair is thick all over his head, is naturally vain and
+very luxurious, of a good digestion, easy of belief, and slow of
+performance, of a weak memory and for the most part unfortunate. He
+whose hair is of a reddish complexion, is for the most part, if not
+always, proud, deceitful, detracting and full of envy. He whose hair is
+extraordinarily fair, is for the most part a man fit for the most
+praiseworthy enterprises, a lover of honour, and much more inclined to
+do good than evil; laborious and careful to perform whatsoever is
+committed to his care, secret in carrying on any business, and
+fortunate. Hair of a yellowish colour shows a man to be good
+conditioned, and willing to do anything, fearful, shamefaced and weak of
+body, but strong in the abilities of the mind, and more apt to remember,
+than to avenge an injury. He whose hair is of a brownish colour, and
+curled not too much nor too little, is a well-disposed man, inclined to
+that which is good, a lover of peace, cleanliness and good manners. He
+whose hair turns grey or hoary in the time of his youth, is generally
+given to women, vain, false, unstable, and talkative. [Note. That
+whatever signification the hair has in men, it has the same in women
+also.]
+
+The forehead that riseth in a round, signifies a man liberally merry, of
+a good understanding, and generally inclined to virtue. He whose
+forehead is fleshy, and the bone of the brow jutting out, and without
+wrinkles, is a man much inclined to suits of law, contentious, vain,
+deceitful, and addicted to follow ill courses. He whose forehead is
+very low and little, is of a good understanding, magnanimous, but
+extremely bold and confident, and a great pretender to love and honour.
+He whose forehead seems sharp, and pointed up in the corners of his
+temples, so that the bone seems to jut forth a little, is a man
+naturally weak and fickle, and weak in the intellectuals. He whose brow
+upon the temples is full of flesh, is a man of a great spirit, proud,
+watchful and of a gross understanding. He whose brow is full of
+wrinkles, and has as it were a seam coming down the middle of the
+forehead, so that a man may think he has two foreheads, is one that is
+of a great spirit, a great wit, void of deceit, and yet of a hard
+fortune. He who has a full, large forehead, and a little round withal,
+destitute of hair, or at least that has little on it is bold, malicious,
+full of choler and apt to transgress beyond all bounds, and yet of a
+good wit and very apprehensive. He whose forehead is long and high and
+jutting forth, and whose face is figured, almost sharp and peaked
+towards the chin, is one reasonably honest, but weak and simple, and of
+a hard fortune.
+
+Those eyebrows that are much arched, whether in man or woman, and which
+by frequent motion elevate themselves, show the person to be proud,
+high-spirited, vain-glorious, bold and threatening, a lover of beauty,
+and indifferently inclined to either good or evil. He whose eyelids bend
+down when he speaks to another or when he looks upon him, and who has a
+kind of skulking look, is by nature a penurious wretch, close in all his
+actions, of a very few words, but full of malice in his heart. He whose
+eyebrows are thick, and have but little hair upon them, is but weak in
+his intellectuals, and too credulous, very sincere, sociable, and
+desirous of good company. He whose eyebrows are folded, and the hair
+thick and bending downwards, is one that is clownish and unlearned,
+heavy, suspicious, miserable, envious, and one that will cheat and cozen
+you if he can. He whose eyebrows have but short hair and of a whitish
+colour is fearful and very easy of belief, and apt to undertake
+anything. Those, on the other side, whose eyebrows are black, and the
+hair of them thin, will do nothing without great consideration, and are
+bold and confident of the performance of what they undertake; neither
+are they apt to believe anything without reason for so doing.
+
+If the space between the eyebrows be of more than the ordinary distance,
+it shows the person to be hard-hearted, envious, close, cunning,
+apprehensive, greedy of novelties, of a vain fortune, addicted to
+cruelty more than love. But those men whose eyebrows are at a lesser
+distance from each other, are for the most part of a dull understanding;
+yet subtle enough in their dealings, and of an uncommon boldness, which
+is often attended with great felicity; but that which is most
+commendable in them is, that they are most sure and constant in their
+friendship.
+
+Great and full eyes in either man or woman, show the person to be for
+the most part slothful, bold, envious, a bad concealer of secrets,
+miserable, vain, given to lying, and yet a bad memory, slow in
+invention, weak in his intellectuals, and yet very much conceited of
+that little knack of wisdom he thinks himself master of. He whose eyes
+are hollow in his head, and therefore discerns well at a great distance,
+is one that is suspicious, malicious, furious, perverse in his
+conversation, of an extraordinary memory, bold, cruel, and false, both
+in words and deeds, threatening, vicious, luxurious, proud, envious and
+treacherous; but he whose eyes are, as it were, starting out of his
+head, is a simple, foolish person, shameless, very fertile and easy to
+be persuaded either to vice or virtue. He who looks studiously and
+acutely, with his eyes and eyelids downwards, denotes thereby to be of a
+malicious nature, very treacherous, false, unfaithful, envious,
+miserable, impious towards God, and dishonest towards men. He whose
+eyes are small and conveniently round, is bashful and weak, very
+credulous, liberal to others, and even in his conversation. He whose
+eyes look asquint, is thereby denoted to be a deceitful person, unjust,
+envious, furious, a great liar, and as the effect of all that is
+miserable. He who hath a wandering eye and which is rolling up and down,
+is for the most part a vain, simple, deceitful, lustful, treacherous, or
+high-minded man, an admirer of the fair sex, and one easy to be
+persuaded to virtue or vice. He or she whose eyes are twinkling, and
+which move forward or backward, show the person to be luxurious,
+unfaithful and treacherous, presumptuous, and hard to believe anything
+that is spoken. If a person has any greenness mingled with the white of
+his eye, such is commonly silly, and often very false, vain and
+deceitful, unkind to his friends, a great concealer of his own secrets,
+and very choleric. Those whose eyes are every way rolling up and down,
+or they who seldom move their eyes, and when they do, as it were, draw
+their eyes inwardly and accurately fasten them upon some object, such
+are by their inclinations very malicious, vain-glorious, slothful,
+unfaithful, envious, false and contentious. They whose eyes are addicted
+to blood-shot, are naturally proud, disdainful, cruel, without shame,
+perfidious and much inclined to superstition. But he whose eyes are
+neither too little nor too big, and inclined to black, do signify a man
+mild, peaceable, honest, witty, and of a good understanding; and one
+that, when need requires, will be serviceable to his friends.
+
+A long and thin nose, denotes a man bold, furious, angry, vain, easy to
+be persuaded either to good or evil, weak and credulous. A long nose
+extended, the tip of it bending downwards, shows the person to be wise,
+discreet, secret and officious, honest, faithful and one that will not
+be over-reached in bargaining.
+
+A bottle-nose is what denotes a man to be impetuous in the obtaining of
+his desires, also a vain, false, luxurious, weak and uncertain man; apt
+to believe and easy to be persuaded. A broad nose in the middle, and
+less towards the end, denotes a vain, talkative person, a liar, and one
+of hard fortune. He who hath a long and great nose is an admirer of the
+fair sex, and well accomplished for the wars of Venus, but ignorant of
+the knowledge of anything that is good, extremely addicted to vice;
+assiduous in the obtaining what he desires, and very secret in the
+prosecution of it; and though very ignorant, would fain be thought very
+knowing.
+
+A nose very sharp on the tip of it, and neither too long nor too short,
+too thick nor too thin, denotes the person, if a man, to be of a fretful
+disposition, always pining and peevish; and if a woman, a scold, or
+contentious, wedded to her own humours, of a morose and dogged carriage,
+and if married, a plague to her husband. A nose very round at the end of
+it, and having but little nostrils, shows the person to be munificent
+and liberal, true to his trust, but withal, very proud, credulous and
+vain. A nose very long and thin at the end of it, and something round,
+withal, signifies one bold in his discourse, honest in his dealings,
+patient in receiving, and slow in offering injuries, but yet privately
+malicious. He whose nose is naturally more red than any other part of
+his face, is thereby denoted to be covetous, impious, luxurious, and an
+enemy to goodness. A nose that turns up again, and is long and full at
+the tip of it, shows the person that has it to be bold, proud, covetous,
+envious, luxurious, a liar and deceiver, vain, glorious, unfortunate and
+contentious. He whose nose riseth high in the middle, is prudent and
+polite, and of great courage, honourable in his actions, and true to his
+word. A nose big at the end shows a person to be of a peaceable
+disposition, industrious and faithful, and of a good understanding. A
+very wide nose, with wide nostrils, denotes a man dull of apprehension,
+and inclined more to simplicity than wisdom, and withal vain,
+contentious and a liar.
+
+When the nostrils are close and thin, they denote a man to have but
+little testicles, and to be very desirous of the enjoyment of women, but
+modest in his conversation. But he whose nostrils are great and wide, is
+usually well hung and lustful; but withal of an envious, bold and
+treacherous disposition and though dull of understanding, yet confident
+enough.
+
+A great and wide mouth shows a man to be bold, warlike, shameless and
+stout, a great liar and as great a talker, also a great eater, but as to
+his intellectuals, he is very dull, being for the most part very simple.
+
+A little mouth shows the person to be of a quiet and pacific temper,
+somewhat reticent, but faithful, secret, modest, bountiful, and but a
+little eater.
+
+He whose mouth smells of a bad breath, is one of a corrupted liver and
+lungs, is oftentimes vain, wanton, deceitful, of indifferent intellect,
+envious, covetous, and a promise-breaker. He that has a sweet breath, is
+the contrary.
+
+The lips, when they are very big and blubbering, show a person to be
+credulous, foolish, dull and stupid, and apt to be enticed to anything.
+Lips of a different size denote a person to be discreet, secret in all
+things, judicious and of a good wit, but somewhat hasty. To have lips,
+well coloured and more thin than thick, shows a person to be
+good-humoured in all things and more easily persuaded to good than evil.
+To have one lip bigger than the other, shows a variety of fortunes, and
+denotes the party to be of a dull, sluggish temper, but of a very
+indifferent understanding, as being much addicted to folly.
+
+When the teeth are small, and but weak in performing their office, and
+especially if they are short and few, though they show the person to be
+of a weak constitution, yet they denote him to be of a meek disposition,
+honest, faithful and secret in whatsoever he is intrusted with. To have
+some teeth longer and shorter than others, denotes a person to be of a
+good apprehension, but bold, disdainful, envious and proud. To have the
+teeth very long, and growing sharp towards the end, if they are long in
+chewing, and thin, denotes the person to be envious, gluttonous, bold,
+shameless, unfaithful and suspicious. When the teeth look very brown or
+yellowish, whether they be long or short, it shows the person to be of a
+suspicious temper, envious, deceitful and turbulent. To have teeth
+strong and close together, shows the person to be of a long life, a
+desirer of novelties, and things that are fair and beautiful, but of a
+high spirit, and one that will have his humour in all things; he loves
+to hear news, and to repeat it afterwards, and is apt to entertain
+anything on his behalf. To have teeth thin and weak, shows a weak,
+feeble man, and one of a short life, and of a weak apprehension; but
+chaste, shame-faced, tractable and honest.
+
+A tongue to be too swift of speech shows a man to be downright foolish,
+or at best but a very vain wit. A stammering tongue, or one that
+stumbles in the mouth, signifies a man of a weak understanding, and of a
+wavering mind, quickly in a rage, and soon pacified. A very thick and
+rough tongue denotes a man to be apprehensive, subtle and full of
+compliments, yet vain and deceitful, treacherous, and prone to impiety.
+A thin tongue shows a man of wisdom and sound judgment, very ingenious
+and of an affable disposition, yet somewhat timorous and too credulous.
+
+A great and full voice in either sex shows them to be of a great spirit,
+confident, proud and wilful. A faint and weak voice, attended with but
+little breath, shows a person to be of good understanding, a nimble
+fancy, a little eater, but weak of body, and of a timorous disposition.
+A loud and shrill voice, which sounds clearly denotes a person
+provident, sagacious, true and ingenious, but withal capricious, vain,
+glorious and too credulous. A strong voice when a man sings denotes him
+to be of a strong constitution, and of a good understanding, a nimble
+fancy, a little eater, but weak of body, and of a timorous disposition.
+
+A strong voice when a man sings, denotes him to be of a strong
+constitution, and of a good understanding, neither too penurious nor too
+prodigal, also ingenious and an admirer of the fair sex. A weak and
+trembling voice shows the owner of it to be envious, suspicious, slow in
+business, feeble and fearful. A loud, shrill and unpleasant voice,
+signifies one bold and valiant, but quarrelsome and injurious and
+altogether wedded to his own humours, and governed by his own counsels.
+A rough and hoarse voice, whether in speaking or singing, declares one
+to be a dull and heavy person, of much guts and little brains. A full
+and yet mild voice, and pleasing to the hearer, shows the person to be
+of a quiet and peaceable disposition (which is a great virtue and rare
+to be found in a woman), and also very thrifty and secret, not prone to
+anger, but of a yielding temper. A voice beginning low or in the bass,
+and ending high in the treble, denotes a person to be violent, angry,
+bold and secure.
+
+A thick and full chin abounding with too much flesh, shows a man
+inclined to peace, honest and true to his trust, but slow in invention,
+and easy to be drawn either to good or evil. A peaked chin and
+reasonably full of flesh, shows a person to be of a good understanding,
+a high spirit and laudable conversation. A double chin shows a peaceable
+disposition, but dull of apprehension, vain, credulous, a great
+supplanter, and secret in all his actions. A crooked chin, bending
+upwards, and peaked for want of flesh, is by the rules of physiognomy,
+according to nature, a very bad man, being proud, imprudent, envious,
+threatening, deceitful, prone to anger and treachery, and a great thief.
+
+The hair of young men usually begins to grow down upon their chins at
+fifteen years of age, and sometimes sooner. These hairs proceed from the
+superfluity of heat, the fumes whereof ascend to their chin, like smoke
+to the funnel of a chimney; and because it cannot find an open passage
+by which it may ascend higher, it vents itself forth in the hairs which
+are called the beard. There are very few, or almost no women at all,
+that have hairs on their cheeks; and the reason is, that those humours
+which cause hair to grow on the cheeks of a man are by a woman
+evacuated in the monthly courses, which they have more or less,
+according to the heat or coldness of their constitution, and the age and
+motion of the moon, of which we have spoken at large in the first part
+of this book. Yet sometimes women of a hot constitution have hair to be
+seen on their cheeks, but more commonly on their lips, or near their
+mouths, where the heat most aboundeth. And where this happens, such
+women are much addicted to the company of men, and of a strong and manly
+constitution. A woman who hath little hair on her cheeks, or about her
+mouth and lips, is of a good complexion, weak constitution, shamefaced,
+mild and obedient, whereas a woman of a more hot constitution is quite
+otherwise. But in a man, a beard well composed and thick of hair,
+signifies a man of good nature, honest, loving, sociable and full of
+humanity; on the contrary, he that hath but a little beard, is for the
+most part proud, pining, peevish and unsociable. They who have no
+beards, have always shrill and a strange kind of squeaking voices, and
+are of a weak constitution, which is apparent in the case of eunuchs,
+who, after they are deprived of their virility are transformed from the
+nature of men into the condition of women.
+
+Great and thick ears are a certain sign of a foolish person, or a bad
+memory and worse understanding. But small and thin ears show a person to
+be of a good wit, grave, sweet, thrifty, modest, resolute, of a good
+memory, and one willing to serve his friend. He whose ears are longer
+than ordinary, is thereby signified to be a bold man, uncivil, vain,
+foolish, serviceable to another more than to himself, and a man of small
+industry, but of a great stomach.
+
+A face apt to sweat on every motion, shows a person to be of a very hot
+constitution, vain and luxurious, of a good stomach, but of a bad
+understanding, and a worse conversation. A very fleshy face shows the
+person to be of a fearful disposition, but a merry heart, and withal
+bountiful and discreet, easy to be entreated, and apt to believe
+everything. A lean face, by the rules of physiognomy, denotes the person
+to be of a good understanding, but somewhat capricious and disdainful in
+his conversation. A little and round face, shows a person to be simple,
+very fearful, of a bad memory, and a clownish disposition. A plump face,
+full of carbuncles, shows a man to be a great drinker of wine, vain,
+daring, and soon intoxicated. A face red or high coloured, shows a man
+much inclined to choler, and one that will be soon angry and not easily
+pacified. A long and lean face, shows a man to be both bold, injurious
+and deceitful. A face every way of a due proportion, denotes an
+ingenious person, one fit for anything and very much inclined to what is
+good. One of a broad, full, fat face is, by the rules of physiognomy, of
+a dull, lumpish, heavy constitution, and that for one virtue has three
+vices. A plain, flat face, without any rising shows a person to be very
+wise, loving and courtly in his carriage, faithful to his friend and
+patient in adversity. A face sinking down a little, with crosses in it,
+inclining to leanness, denotes a person to be very laborious, but
+envious, deceitful, false, quarrelsome, vain and silly, and of a dull
+and clownish behaviour. A face of a handsome proportion, and more
+inclining to fat than lean, shows a person just in his actions, true to
+his word, civil, and respectful in his behaviour, of an indifferent
+understanding, and of an extraordinary memory. A crooked face, long and
+lean, denotes a man endued with as bad qualities as the face is with ill
+features. A face broad about the brows, and sharper and less as it grows
+towards the chin, shows a man simple and foolish in managing his
+affairs, vain in his discourse, envious in his nature, deceitful,
+quarrelsome and rude in his conversation. A face well-coloured, full of
+good features, and of an exact symmetry, and a just proportion in all
+its parts, and which is delightful to look upon, is commonly the index
+of a fairer mind and shows a person to be well disposed; but withal
+declares that virtue is not so impregnably seated there, but that by
+strong temptations (especially by the fair sex) it may be supplanted and
+overcome by vice. A pale complexion, shows the person not only to be
+fickle, but very malicious, treacherous, false, proud, presumptuous, and
+extremely unfaithful. A face well-coloured, shows the person to be of a
+praiseworthy disposition and a sound complexion, easy of belief, and
+respectful to his friend, ready to do a courtesy, and very easy to be
+drawn to anything.
+
+A great head, and round, withal, denotes the person to be secret, and of
+great application in carrying on business, and also ingenious and of a
+large imaginative faculty and invention; and likewise laborious,
+constant and honest. The head whose gullet stands forth and inclines
+towards the earth, signifies a person thrifty, wise, peaceable, secret,
+of a retired temper, and constant in the management of his affairs. A
+long head and face, and great, withal, denotes a vain, foolish, idle and
+weak person, credulous and very envious. To have one's head always
+shaking and moving from side to side, denotes a shallow, weak person,
+unstable in all his actions, given to lying, a great deceiver, a great
+talker, and prodigal in all his fortunes. A big head and broad face,
+shows a man to be very courageous, a great hunter after women, very
+suspicious, bold and shameless. He who hath a very big head, but not so
+proportionate as it ought to be to the body, if he hath a short neck and
+crooked gullet is generally a man of apprehension, wise, secret,
+ingenious, of sound judgment, faithful, true and courteous to all. He
+who hath a little head, and long, slender throat, is for the most part a
+man very weak, yet apt to learn, but unfortunate in his actions. And so
+much shall suffice with respect to judgment from the head and face.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+     _Of Judgments drawn from several other parts of Man's Body._
+
+
+In the body of man the head and feet are the principal parts, being the
+index which heaven has laid open to every one's view to make a judgment
+therefrom, therefore I have been the larger in my judgment from the
+several parts thereof. But as to the other parts, I shall be much more
+brief as not being so obvious to the eyes of men; yet I would proceed in
+order.
+
+The throat, if it be white, whether it be fat or lean, shows a man to be
+vain-glorious, timorous, wanton, and very much subject to choler. If the
+throat be so thin and lean that the veins appear, it shows a man to be
+weak, slow, and a dull and heavy constitution.
+
+A long neck shows one to have a long and slender foot, and that the
+person is stiff and inflexible either to good or evil. A short neck
+shows one to be witty and ingenious, but deceitful and inconstant, well
+skilled in the use of arms, and yet cares not to use them, but is a
+great lover of peace and quietness.
+
+A lean shoulder bone, signifies a man to be weak, timorous, peaceful,
+not laborious, and yet fit for any employment. He whose shoulder bones
+are of a great bigness is commonly, by the rule of physiognomy, a strong
+man, faithful but unfortunate; somewhat dull of understanding, very
+laborious, a great eater and drinker, and one equally contented in all
+conditions. He whose shoulder bone seems to be smooth, is by the rule of
+nature, modest in his look, and temperate in all his actions, both at
+bed and board. He whose shoulder bone bends, and is crooked inwardly, is
+commonly a dull person and deceitful.
+
+Long arms, hanging down and touching the knees, though such arms are
+rarely seen, denotes a man liberal, but withal vain-glorious, proud and
+inconstant. He whose arms are very short in respect to the stature of
+his body, is thereby signified to be a man of high and gallant spirit,
+of a graceful temper, bold and warlike. He whose arms are full of bones,
+sinews and flesh, is a great desirer of novelties and beauties, and one
+that is very credulous and apt to believe anything. He whose arms are
+very hairy, whether they be lean or fat, is for the most part a
+luxurious person, weak in body and mind, very suspicious and malicious
+withal. He whose arms have no hair on them at all, is of a weak
+judgment, very angry, vain, wanton, credulous, easily deceived himself,
+yet a great deceiver of others, no fighter, and very apt to betray his
+dearest friends.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+     _Of Palmistry, showing the various Judgments drawn from the Hand._
+
+
+Being engaged in this fourth part to show what judgment may be drawn,
+according to physiognomy, from the several parts of the body, and coming
+in order to speak of the hands, it has put me under the necessity of
+saying something about palmistry, which is a judgment made of the
+conditions, inclinations, and fortunes of men and women, from the
+various lines and characters nature has imprinted in their hands, which
+are almost as serious as the hands that have them.
+
+The reader should remember that one of the lines of the hand, and which
+indeed is reckoned the principal, is called the line of life; this line
+encloses the thumb, separating it from the hollow of the hand. The next
+to it, which is called the natural line, takes its beginning from the
+rising of the forefinger, near the line of life, and reaches to the
+table line, and generally makes a triangle. The table line, commonly
+called the line of fortune, begins under the little finger, and ends
+near the middle finger. The girdle of Venus, which is another line so
+called begins near the first joint of the little finger, and ends
+between the fore-finger and the middle finger. The line of death is that
+which plainly appears in a counter line to that of life, and is called
+the sister line, ending usually as the other ends; for when the line of
+life is ended, death comes, and it can go no farther. There are lines in
+the fleshy parts, as in the ball of the thumb, which is called the mount
+of Venus; under each of the fingers are also mounts, which are governed
+by several planets; and the hollow of the hand is called the plain of
+Mars.
+
+I proceed to give judgment from these several lines:--In palmistry, the
+left hand is chiefly to be regarded, because therein the lines are most
+visible, and have the strictest communication with the heart and brain.
+In the next place, observe the line of life, and if it be fair, extended
+to its full length, and not broken with an intermixture of cross lines,
+it shows long life and health, and it is the same if a double line
+appears, as there sometimes does. When the stars appear in this line, it
+is a signification of great losses and calamities; if on it there be the
+figures of two O's or a Q, it threatens the person with blindness; if it
+wraps itself about the table line, then does it promise wealth and
+honour to be attended by prudence and industry. If the line be cut and
+jagged at the upper end, it denotes much sickness; if this line be cut
+by any lines coming from the mount of Venus, it declares the person to
+be unfortunate in love and business also, and threatens him with sudden
+death. A cross below the line of life and the table line, shows the
+person to be very liberal and charitable, one of a noble spirit. Let us
+now see the signification of the table line.
+
+The table line, when broad and of a lively colour, shows a healthful
+constitution, and a quiet contented mind, and a courageous spirit, but
+if it has crosses towards the little finger, it threatens the party with
+much affliction by sickness. If the line be double, or divided into
+three parts at any of the extremities, it shows the person to be of a
+generous temper, and of a good fortune to support it; but if this line
+be forked at the end, it threatens the person shall suffer by jealousies
+and doubts, and loss of riches gotten by deceit. If three points such as
+these
+
+    * *
+     *
+
+are found in it, they denote the person prudent and liberal, a lover of
+learning, and of a good temper, if it spreads towards the fore and
+middle finger and ends blunt, it denotes preferment. Let us now see what
+is signified by the middle line. This line has in it oftentimes (for
+there is scarce a hand in which it varies not) divers very significant
+characters. Many small lines between this and the table line threaten
+the party with sickness, and also gives him hopes of recovery. A half
+cross branching into this line, declares the person shall have honour,
+riches, and good success in all his undertakings. A half moon denotes
+cold and watery distempers; but a sun or star upon this line, denotes
+prosperity and riches; this line, double in a woman, shows she will have
+several husbands, but no children.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The line of Venus, if it happens to be cut or divided near the
+forefinger, threatens ruin to the party, and that it shall befall him by
+means of lascivious women and bad company. Two crosses upon the line,
+one being on the forefinger and the other bending towards the little
+finger, show the party to be weak, and inclined to modesty and virtue,
+indeed it generally denotes modesty in women; and therefore those who
+desire such, usually choose them by this standard.
+
+The liver line, if it be straight and crossed by other lines, shows the
+person to be of a sound judgment, and a piercing understanding, but if
+it be winding, crooked and bending outward, it draws deceit and
+flattery, and the party is not to be trusted. If it makes a triangle or
+quadrangle, it shows the person to be of a noble descent, and ambitious
+of honour and promotion. If it happens that this line and the middle
+line begin near each other, it denotes a person to be weak in his
+judgment, if a man; but if a woman, in danger by hard labour.
+
+The plain of Mars being in the hollow of the hand, most of the lines
+pass through it, which renders it very significant. This plain being
+crooked and distorted, threatens the party to fall by his enemies. When
+the lines beginning at the wrist are long within the plain, reaching to
+the brawn of the hand, that shows the person to be much given to
+quarrelling, often in broils and of a hot and fiery spirit, by which he
+suffers much damage. If deep and long crosses be in the middle of the
+plain, it shows the party shall obtain honour by martial exploits; but
+if it be a woman, she shall have several husbands and easy labour with
+her children.
+
+The line of Death is fatal, when crosses or broken lines appear in it;
+for they threaten the person with sickness and a short life. A clouded
+moon appearing therein, threatens a child-bed woman with death. A bloody
+spot in the line, denotes a violent death. A star like a comet,
+threatens ruin by war, and death by pestilence. But if a bright sun
+appears therein, it promises long life and prosperity.
+
+As for the lines of the wrist being fair, they denote good fortune; but
+if crossed and broken, the contrary.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+     _Judgments according to Physiognomy, drawn from the several parts
+     of the Body, from the Hands to the Feet._
+
+
+A large and full breast, shows a man valiant and courageous, but withal
+proud and hard to deal with, quickly angry, and very apprehensive of an
+injury; he whose breast is narrow, and which riseth a little in the
+middle of it, is, by the best rule of physiognomy, of a clear spirit, of
+a great understanding, good in counsel, very faithful, clean both in
+mind and body, yet as an enemy to this, he is soon angry, and inclined
+long to keep it. He whose breast is somewhat hairy, is very luxurious,
+and serviceable to another. He who hath no hair upon his breast, is a
+man weak by nature, of a slender capacity and very timorous, but of a
+laudable life and conversation, inclined to peace, and much retired to
+himself.
+
+The back of the chin bone, if the flesh be anything hairy and lean, and
+higher than any other part that is behind, signifies a man shameless,
+beastly and withal malicious. He whose back is large, big and fat, is
+thereby denoted to be a strong and stout man, but of a heavy
+disposition, vain, slow and full of deceit.
+
+He or she whose belly is soft over all the body, is weak, lustful, and
+fearful upon little or no occasion, of a good understanding, and an
+excellent invention, but little eaters, faithful, but of various
+fortune, and meet with more adversity than prosperity. He whose flesh is
+rough and hard, is a man of strong constitution and very bold, but vain,
+proud and of a cruel temper. A person whose skin is smooth, fat and
+white, is a person, curious, vain-glorious, timorous, shame-faced,
+malicious, false, and too wise to believe all he hears.
+
+A thigh, full of strong, bristly hair, and the hair inclined to curl,
+signifies one lustful, licentious, and fit for copulation. Thighs with
+but little hair, and those soft and slender, show the person to be
+reasonably chaste, and one that has no great desire to coition, and who
+will have but few children.
+
+The legs of both men and women have a fleshy substance behind, which are
+called calves, which nature hath given them (as in our book of living
+creatures we have observed), in lieu of those long tails which other
+creatures have pendant behind. Now a great calf, and he whose legs are
+of great bone, and hair withal, denotes the person to be strong, bold,
+secure, dull in understanding and slow in business, inclined to
+procreation, and for the most part fortunate in his undertakings.
+Little legs, and but little hair on them, show the person to be weak,
+fearful, of a quick understanding, and neither luxurious at bed nor
+board. He whose legs do much abound with hair, shows he has great store
+in another place, and that he is lustful and luxurious, strong, but
+unstable in his resolution, and abounding with ill humours.
+
+The feet of either men or women, if broad and thick with flesh, and long
+in figure, especially if the skin feels hard, they are by nature of a
+strong constitution, and gross nutriment, but of weak intellect, which
+renders the understanding vain. But feet that are thin and lean, and of
+a soft skin, show the person to be but weak of body, but of a strong
+understanding and an excellent wit.
+
+The soles of the feet do administer plain and evident signs, whereby the
+disposition and constitution of men and women may be known, as do the
+palms of their hands, as being full of lines, by which lines all the
+fortunes and misfortunes of men and women may be known, and their
+manners and inclinations made plainly to appear. But this in general we
+may take notice, as that many long lines and strokes do presage great
+affliction, and a very troublesome life, attended with much grief and
+toil, care, poverty, and misery; but short lines, if they are thick and
+full of cross lines, are yet worse in every degree. Those, the skin of
+whose soles is very thick and gross, are, for the most part, able,
+strong and venturous. Whereas, on the contrary, those the skin of whose
+soles of their feet is thin, are generally weak and timorous.
+
+I shall now, before I conclude (having given an account of what
+judgments may be made by observing the several parts of the body, from
+the crown of the head to the soles of the feet), give an account of what
+judgments may be drawn by the rule of physiognomy from things extraneous
+which are found upon many, and which indeed to them are parts of the
+body, but are so far from being necessary parts that they are the
+deformity and burden of it, and speak of the habits of the body, as they
+distinguish persons.
+
+
+
+_Of Crooked and Deformed Persons._
+
+A crooked breast and shoulder, or the exuberance of flesh in the body
+either of man or woman, signifies the person to be extremely
+parsimonious and ingenious, and of a great understanding, but very
+covetous and scraping after the things of the world, attended also with
+a very bad memory, being also very deceitful and malicious; they are
+seldom in a medium, but either virtuous or extremely vicious. But if
+the person deformed hath an excrescence on his breast instead of on the
+back, he is for the most part of a double heart, and very mischievous.
+
+
+
+_Of the divers Manners of going, and particular Posture both of Men and
+Women._
+
+He or she that goes slowly, making great steps as they go, are generally
+persons of bad memory, and dull of apprehension, given to loitering, and
+not apt to believe what is told them. He who goes apace, and makes short
+steps, is most successful in all his undertakings, swift in his
+imagination, and humble in the disposition of his affairs. He who makes
+wide and uneven steps, and sidelong withal, is one of a greedy, sordid
+nature, subtle, malicious, and willing to do evil.
+
+
+
+_Of the Gait or Motion in Men and Women._
+
+Every man hath a certain gait or motion, and so in like manner hath
+every woman; for a man to be shaking his head, or using any light motion
+with his hands or feet, whether he stands or sits, or speaks, is always
+accompanied with an extravagant motion, unnecessary, superfluous and
+unhandsome. Such a man, by the rule of physiognomy is vain, unwise,
+unchaste, a detractor, unstable and unfaithful. He or she whose motion
+is not much when discoursing with any one, is for the most part wise and
+well bred, and fit for any employment, ingenious and apprehensive,
+frugal, faithful and industrious in business. He whose posture is
+forwards and backwards, or, as it were, whisking up and down, mimical,
+is thereby denoted to be a vain, silly person, of a heavy and dull wit,
+and very malicious. He whose motion is lame and limping, or otherwise
+imperfect, or that counterfeits an imperfection is denoted to be
+envious, malicious, false and detracting.
+
+
+
+_Judgment drawn from the Stature of Man._
+
+Physiognomy draws several judgments also from the stature of man, which
+take as followeth; if a man be upright and straight, inclined rather to
+leanness than fat, it shows him to be bold, cruel, proud, clamorous,
+hard to please, and harder to be reconciled when displeased, very
+frugal, deceitful, and in many things malicious. To be of tall stature
+and corpulent with it, denotes him to be not only handsome but valiant
+also, but of no extraordinary understanding, and which is worst of all,
+ungrateful and trepanning. He who is extremely tall and very lean and
+thin is a projecting man, that designs no good to himself, and suspects
+every one to be as bad as himself, importunate to obtain what he
+desires, and extremely wedded to his own humour. He who is thick and
+short, is vain, envious, suspicious, and very shallow of apprehension,
+easy of belief, but very long before he will forget an injury. He who is
+lean and short but upright withal, is, by the rules of physiognomy, wise
+and ingenious, bold and confident, and of a good understanding, but of a
+deceitful heart. He who stoops as he goes, not so much by age as custom,
+is very laborious, a retainer of secrets, but very incredulous and not
+easy to believe every vain report he hears. He that goes with his belly
+stretching forth, is sociable, merry, and easy to be persuaded.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+     _Of the Power of the Celestial Bodies over Men and Women._
+
+
+Having spoken thus largely of Physiognomy, and the judgment given
+thereby concerning the dispositions and inclinations of men and women,
+it will be convenient here to show how all these things come to pass;
+and how it is that the secret inclinations and future fate of men and
+women may be known from the consideration of the several parts of the
+bodies. They arise from the power and dominion of superior powers to
+understand the twelve signs of the Zodiac, whose signs, characters and
+significations are as follows:--
+
+[Illustration]
+
+_Aries_, the Ram, which governs the head and face.
+
+_Taurus_, the Bull, which governs the neck.
+
+_Gemini_, the Twins, which governs the hands and arms.
+
+_Cancer_, the Crab, governs the breast and stomach.
+
+_Leo_, the Lion, governs the back and heart
+
+_Virgo_, the Virgin, governs the belly and bowels.
+
+_Libra_, the Balance, governs the veins and loins.
+
+_Scorpio_, the Scorpion, governs the secret parts.
+
+_Sagittary_, the Centaur, governs the thighs.
+
+_Capricorn_, the Goat, governs the knees.
+
+_Aquarius_, the Water-Bearer, governs the legs and ankles.
+
+_Pisces_, the Fish, governs the feet.
+
+It is here furthermore necessary to let the reader know, that the
+ancients have divided the celestial sphere into twelve parts, according
+to the number of these signs, which are termed houses; as in the first
+house, Aries, in the second Taurus, in the third Gemini, etc. And
+besides their assigning the twelve signs of the twelve houses, they
+allot to each house its proper business.
+
+To the first house they give the signification of life.
+
+The second house has the signification of wealth, substances, or riches.
+
+The third is the mansion of brethren.
+
+The fourth, the house of parentage.
+
+The fifth is the house of children.
+
+The sixth is the house of sickness or disease.
+
+The seventh is the house of wedlock, and also of enemies, because
+oftentimes a wife or husband proves the worst enemy.
+
+The eighth is the house of death.
+
+The ninth is the house of religion.
+
+The tenth is the signification of honours.
+
+The eleventh of friendship.
+
+The twelfth is the house of affliction and woe.
+
+Now, astrologically speaking, a house is a certain place in the heaven
+or firmament, divided by certain degrees, through which the planets have
+their motion, and in which they have their residence and are situated.
+And these houses are divided by thirty degrees, for every sign has so
+many degrees. And these signs or houses are called the houses of such
+and such planets as make their residence therein, and are such as
+delight in them, and as they are deposited in such and such houses are
+said to be either dignified or debilitated. For though the planets in
+their several revolutions go through all the houses, yet there are some
+houses which they are more properly said to delight in. As for instance,
+Aries and Scorpio are the houses of Mars; Taurus and Libra of Venus;
+Gemini and Virgo of Mercury; Sagittarius and Pisces are the houses of
+Jupiter; Capricorn and Aquarius are the houses of Saturn; Leo is the
+house of the Sun; and Cancer is the house of the Moon.
+
+Now to sum up the whole, and show how this concerns Physiognomy, is
+this:--as the body of man, as we have shown, is not only governed by the
+signs and planets, but every part is appropriated to one or another of
+them, so according to the particular influence of each sign and planet,
+so governing is the disposition, inclination, and nature of the person
+governed. For such and such tokens and marks do show a person to be born
+under such and such a planet; so according to the nature, power and
+influences of the planets, is the judgment to be made of that person. By
+which the reader may see that the judgments drawn from physiognomy are
+grounded upon a certain verity.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Aristotle the Famous
+Philosopher, by Anonymous
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