Speculation is like to one that is blind or wants her sight she that wants the Practice is like one that is lame and wants her legs the lame may see but they cannot walk the blind may walk but they cannot see Such is the condition of those Midwives that are not well versed in both these Some perhaps may think that then it is not proper for women to be of this profession because they cannot attain so rarely to the knowledge of things as men may who are bred up in Universities Schools of learning or serve their Apprentiships for that end and purpose where Anatomy Lectures being frequently read the sitution of the parts both of men and women and other things of great consequence are often made plain to them But that Objection is easily answered by the former example of the Midwives amongst the Israelites for though we women cannot deny that men in some things may come to a greater perfection of knowledge than women ordinarily can by reason of the former helps that women want yet the holy Scriptures hath recorded Midwives to the perpetual honour of the female Sex There being not so much as one word concerning Men-mid-wives mentioned there that we can find it being the natural propriety of women to be much seeing into that Art and though nature be not alone sufficient to the perfection of it yet farther knowledge may be gain'd by a long and diligent practice and be communicated to others of our own sex I cannot deny the honour due to able Physicians and Chyrurgions when occasion is Yet we find even that amongst the Indians and all barbarous people where there is no Men of Learning the women are sufficient to perform this duty and even in our own Nation that we need go no farther the poor Country people where there are none but women to assist unless it be those that are exceeding poor and in a starving condition and then they have more need of meat than Midwives the women are as fruitful and as safe and well delivered if not much more fruitful and better commonly in Childbed than the greatest Ladies of the Land It is not hard words that perform the work as if none understood the Art that cannot understand Greek Words are but the shell that we ofttimes break our Teeth with them to come at the kernel I mean our brains to know what is the meaning of them but to have the same in our mother tongue would save us a great deal of needless labour It is commendable for men to imploy their spare time in some things of deeper Speculation than is required of the female sex but the Art of Midwifry chiefly concern us which even the best Learned men will grant yielding something of their own to us when they are forced to borrow from us the very name they practise by and to call themselves Men-midwives But to avoid long preambles in a matter so clear and evident I shall proceed to set down such rules and method concerning this Art as I think needful and that as plainly and briefly as possibly I can and with as much modesty in words as the matter will bear and because it is commonly maintain'd that the Masculine gender is more worthy than the Feminine though perhaps when men have need of us they will yield the priority to us that I may not forsake the ordinary method I shall begin with men and treat last of my own sex so as to be understood by the meanest capacity desiring the Courteous Reader to use as much modesty in the perusal of it as I have endeavoured to do in the writing of it considering that such an Art as this cannot be set forth but that young men and maids will have much just cause to blush sometimes and be ashamed of their own follies as I wish they may if they shall chance to read it that they may not convert that into evil that is really intended for a general good CHAP. I. A brief description of the Generative parts in both sexes and first of the Vessels in Men appropriated to procreation THere are six parts in Men that are fitted for generation 1. The Vessels that prepare the matter to make the seed called the preparing Vessels 2. There is that part or Vessel which works this matter or transmutes the blood into the real desire for seed 3. The Stones that make the Seed fructifie 4. There are Vessels that conveigh the Seed back again from the Stones when they have concocted it 5. There are the seminal or Seed-Vessels that keep or retain the Seed concocted 6. The Yard that from these containing Vessels casts the seed prepared into the Matrix CHAP. II. Of the Seed-preparing Vessels 1. THe Vessels that prepare the matter to make the Seed are four two Veins and two Arteries which go down from the small guts to the Stones they have their names from their office which is to fit that matter for the work which the Stones turn into Seed that is made fruitful by them though it be a kind of Seed or blood changed into a white substance before it comes to the Stones It will be needful that you should know that the fountain of blood is the Liver and not the Heart as was anciently supposed and the Liver by the Veins disperse the blood through the Body The two Arteries that prepare the matter arise both from the great Artery or Trunk that is in the Hearts and is the beginning of all the Arteries for the Arteries rise from the Heart as the Vein do from the Liver but the two Veins for preparation of Seed are one on the right the other on the left side the right Vein proceeds from the great hollow Vein of the Liver a little below the beginning of the Emulgent Vein but the left Vein springs commonly from the root of the Emulgent Vein yet it hath been seen to have a branch that comes to it from the Trunk of the hollow Vein Of these two Veins and Arteries there is one Vein and one Arterie of each side these two Veins in the middle part pass streight through the Loins and they repose upon the Lumbal Muscle having only a thin skin that comes betwixt them and there they divide and scatter themselves into the skinny parts that are near adjoining All these Veins and Arteries so descending are called Seed-preparing Vessels and they are covered with a skin that comes from the Peritonaeum the Vein lies uppermost and the Artery under it The lower part of these two Veins goes beyond the Midriff to the Stones and descends with a little Nerve and that Muscle which holds up the Stones through the doubling of the Midriff but they pass not through the Peritonaeum and when it comes near the Stones an Artery joins with it and then are these Vessels with that skin that comes from the Peritonoeum twisted together as the young twigs of Vines are and so pass they to the end of
the Stones These two Arteries have their beginning from the great Artery a little below the Emulgent and so they go downwards till they join with the two Veins formerly mentioned the two Veins they prepare and carry the natural Blood to make Seed of the two Arteries they carry the vital Spirits or vital blood CHAP. III. Of the Vessels that make the change of red Blood into a white substance like Seed THese Vessels as you heard before are also four two Veins and two Arteries that at their first descending keep near one to the other carrying their different blood one from the Liver the other from the Heart as fit matter for the Stones to make Seed of but before they come at the Stones they twist one with the other sometimes the Veins going into the Arteries and sometimes again the Arteries going into the Veins thus they joyn their forces the better to prepare the matter for the use of the Stones and after that they part again which things are full of delight for a Man to behold that he may the more admire the excellency of the works of the great God that hath so wonderfully made Man The two Veins and two Arteries after they have joyned with many ingraftings and twistings together appear but two Bodies crumpled like the tendrels of a Vine white and pyramidal and rest one upon the right the other on the left Stone piercing the very tunicles of the Stones with very small veins and so disperse themselves all through the bodies of the Stones The substance of these vessels is betwixt that of the stones and that of the Veins and Arteries being neither wholly kernels nor wholly skinny their office is by their several twistings to mingle the vital and natural blood together which they contain and by vertue they borrow from the Stones to change the colour of red blood into a matter that is white prepared immediately for the Stones to make Seed of CHAP. IV. Of the Cods or rather the Stones contained therein THe Cods is as it were a purse for the Stones to be kept in with the seminary Vessels and this purse is divided in the middle with a thin membrane which some call the seam and may be seen on the outside of the Cods making a kind of wrinkle that runs all along the length of it and just in the middle This member suffers many kinds of diseases and distempers the property of it is to be dilated and extended by which means there arise sundry Ruptures the Watry Uly the windy the Humoral the Fleshy and the watry ruptures and all this happens by reason of too much repletion of the vessels of seed caused by much grosse or watry bloud Within this pursy and sobbing and chaking of the stones which are two whole kernels like to the kernels of womens paps their figure is Oval and therefore some call them Eggs. The substance of the Stones hath neither blood in it nor feeling yet they feel exqusitely by reason of the pannicles and each stone hath two Muscles sticking to their pannicles to lift them up that they hang not too loose They are temperately hot and moist but the bloud that flowes to them is very hot by which means they draw as a Limbeck the matter of seed from the whole Body Physicians place them amongst the Principal parts for the Generation and the preservation of mankind They are fastned to all the Principal parts by Veins Arteries and Pannicles they are subject to mulplicity of diseases and distempers They are wrapt up in three several Coats the outermost is the purse or Cod common to them both it differs from other skin that covers the Body because other skin is smooth this is wrinkled that it may observe the motions of the stones to extend or shrink with them when they ascend or descend they ascend in time of copulation but in all violent heats or Feavers or weakness or in old age the stones hang down which is alwayes a very strong sign of much damage in sickness The second Coat wraps up the stones as the first purse doth but the second wraps them nearer and is not so wide as the first and though the fleshy pannicle from which it springs be thinner here than any where else yet it is full of small arteries and veins that carry in vital natural bloud to keep the stones warm which are of themselves a very cold part The third Coat immediately wraps in the Stones and is white thick and strong to preserve the soft and loose substance of the Stones Some persons there are yet not many and those Monsters in nature that have but one stone and some three stones but one stone is oftener than three and unlesse it be some great failing in Nature I rather think that the other stone lyeth up close within the Body as sometimes both stones do and do not come down into the Cod till such an age or at certain times as is proved by experience where the stones lie within and come not down such persons are more prone to venery because the stones are kept warmer than when they appear yet the stones are tyed with strings that are long and slender which are Muscles that hang by on both sides to keep the stones from being overstretched or oppressing the passage of the the seminal Vessels if any ill chance befall the stones then these Muscles are exceeding sensible of pain and subject to swell by reason of it The left stone is the biggest and therefore some think more femals are begotten than males and the right is the hotter and breeds the stronger Seed and therefore it is generally maintained that Boyes are begotten from the right stone but Girles with the left Those that have hottest stones are most prone to Venery and their stones are longer and harder and they are more hairy about those parts especially The right stone is the hottest in all because it receives more pure and Vital blood from the hollow Vein and the great Artery than the left doth which receives onely a watry bloud from the Emulgent Vein But both of them have an innate quality to make Seed and without the Stones no procreation can be as we see that such as are gelded lose the faculty of Generation though they want nothing else but their stones The substance of the stones is very like to the Seed it self moist white and clammy There is yet another Vessel or conduit belonging to the stones which is called the Vessel of ejecting or casting forth of the Seed it comes from the head of the stones to the root of the yard overthwart the stones in a small body like a Silkworm by one end the carrying vessel elutes the stones and carries forth the seed from the other end the casters forth of the Seed passeth and descends to the bottom of the stones and bends back again and is knit to the preparing Vessels and returns to the head of the stones
stopt Hippocrates confirms this affirming that women are in danger to run mad when blood comes forth at their Nipples Brassavolus tells us of womens milk that came like blood but it was raw unconcocted blood and that might be for Nurses Courses are alwayes stopt because the blood runs to their breasts to make Milk By the colour of the nipples the state of the womb is perceived if the Paps look pale or yellow that should look red the womb is not well Also if you will stop the Terms that run too much set a great cupping glass under the Breasts for that will turn the course of the blood backward Farther you may know the Child if it be a Boy to be three moneths old and if a Girle to be about four moneths old if you find Milk in the Mothers breasts for at those times the Child first moves and then is there Milk found in the breasts of the Mother If the right breast swell and strut out the Boy is well if it flag it is a sign of miscarriage judge the same of the Girle by the left breast when it is sunk or round and hard the first signifies abortion to be near the other health and safety both of the Mother and the Child CHAP. VIII How the Child grows in the Womb and one part after the other successively made MEn are of several minds concerning the time when each part is made I think they are in the right who maintain that the membranes are first made which wrap the Child with the Navel-vessels by which the Child is fastned to the Mothers womb and draws nutriment from her and all parts are made sooner or later as dignity and necessity of the parts require but this is thought to be the hardest piece of Anatomy because it is seldome to be observed because if women dye in child-bed they first miscarry and dye afterward Some follow Galen herein who never saw a woman Anatomized others Columbus some Vesalius but few or none know the truth The stones of a woman for generation of seed are white thick and well concocted for I have seen one and but one and that is more by one than many Men have seen In the act of Copulation both eject their seed which is united in the womb and Boys or Girls are begotten as the seed is that prevails stronger or weaker so the greater light puts out the lesser the Sun the light of a Candle Nature desires to beget its like in all things a Man a Man-child a woman one of her own sex but we follow desire not nature when we with the contrary If the Horse or Mare trot it were strange that the Filly should amble The seed of both persons being joyn'd the Matrix presently shuts as close as may be to keep in and to fasten the seed by its native heat and so womens bellies seem lank at their first conception The first thing that works is the spirit of which the seed is full this is stir'd up to action by heat of the womb and though the seed seems to be homogeneous and all one substance yet it consists of very different parts some pure and some impure the spirit then in the seed divides between these parts and makes a separation of the earthy cold clammy grosser parts from the more aerial pure and noble parts The impure are cast to the outside to circle in and keep close the seed which is pure and of the outside are the Membranes made by which the seed inclosed is kept from danger of cold and other ill accidents just as it is in Trees so it is here the cold winter congeals the vital spirits of the Tree but the Suns heat revives it in the Spring and opens the pores of the Tree and separates the clean from the which is unclean making of the pure juyce flowers of the impure and gross juyce leaves and bark The first thing Nature makes for the child is the Amnios or inward skin that surrounds the Child in the womb as the Pia mater doth the brain next is the Chorion or outward skin made which compasseth the Child as the dura mater the brain this is soon done by nature for God and nature hate idleness and no sooner are these two coats made but presently the Navel-Vein is bred piercing both these skins whilest they are exceeding tender and conveighs a drop of blood from the mothers womb-womb-veins to the seed of this one drop is formed the Childs Liver from the Liver is bred the hollow Vein and this Vein is the fountain of all other Veins of the body so this being done the seed hath blood sufficient to feed it and to form the rest of the parts by It is a vain fancy that some hold how that all the parts are formed together others that the heart is first framed it must receive a right construction what Aristotle saith that the Heart lives first and dyeth last for the Liver is made much before the Heart Nor is that if it be well understood to be found fault with that a Man lives successively first the life of a Plant then of a Beast and lastly of a Man For first the Child grows then it begins to move last of all it becomes a reasonable Soul Next to the hollow Vein of the Liver being made are the arteries of the navel made then the great Artery which is the Tree and all the small Arteries are but branches coming from it last of all the Heart is framed as Columbus proves upō very sufficient reason for all the arteries are made before it for the Body receives its life by Arteries and the Navel arteries are bred from the Mothers arteries and therefore are made next to the Veins to give vital blood to the Seed as the Liver feeds it with natural blood to build a frail house for poor mortals Next in order so far as reason and Anatomy can guide us the Liver sends blood to the Arteries to make the Heart for the arteries are made of seed but the heart and all fleshy parts are made of blood last of all the brain and then the Nerves to give feeling and motion are produced If the most noble parts were first framed as the Peripateticks suppose then the brain and heart should be first made which is not agreeing to reason and observation As for the forming of the bones in order I think Aristotle said true that the whirl bones and the skull are first made I confess all these things have been questioned by some but I love not impertinent disputes as it was the quality of the Grecians who have made a large dispute whether the Elephants Tusks be Horns or Teeth Hippocrates divides the forming of the infant into four divisions First the seed of both sexes mixed have not lost their own form but resemble curdled milk covered with a film or cream the next form is a rude draught of the parts or a chaos like a lump of
flesh And next in order there is a more curious draught wherein the three chief parts the Brain the Heart and the Liver may be seen together with the first three and as it were the warp of all the seed parts and this is called Embrion But fourthly To perfect the whole work all the parts are set in order and perfected so that Nature hath nothing to do but to hasten to delivery that this work of hers may be brought forth into the world When the spirit in the seed begins to work it parts the more noble from the base and the pure from the impure so that the thick cold clammy parts are kept out to cover the more thin and pure parts and to defend and preserve them Nature begins her conformation with the cold clammy parts of the seed and makes skins and membranes of them to cover the rest and stretcheth them out as need requires Men have only two membranes the outward or Chorion which is strong and nervous and wraps the infant round and this membrane is like a soft pillow for the Veins and Navel-arteries of the Child to lean upon for it had been dangerous for the Childs Vessels coming from its Navel to pass far unguarded but the inward Coat which is wonderful soft and thin called the Amnios or Lamb-skin is loose on each side except it be at the cake where it growes so fast to the skin that it cannot easily be parted this skin receives the sweat and Urine and from thence the Child is much helped for it swims in these waters like as in a bath and time is for delivery it moistneth the orifice of the Matrix makes it glib and slippery whereby the woman is more easily and more speedily delivered These two Coats grow so close together that they seem to be but one garment and it is called the Secundine or after-burthen because it comes forth after the Child is born for the Child first breaks through it sometimes brings along with it a piece of the said Lamb-skin upon the face and head which is called by Midwives the Caule and strange reports they give of it Some think it ridiculous and fabulous but as all extraordinary things signifie something more than is usual so I am subject to believe that this Caule doth foreshew something notable which is like to befall them in the course of their lives But notwithstanding all that hath been said some Anatomists do a little vary from it for they maintain that within the first seven days wherein the generative seed is mingled and curdled in the Mothers womb by the heats motion many small fibres are bred in which shortly the Liver and his principal Organs are formed first and through these Organs the vital spirits coming to the seed in ten days makes all the distinction of parts and through some small Veins in the Secundine the blood runs and of that is the Navel made and there appears at the same time three clods of seed or white lumps like curdled Milk these are the foundation of three principal parts viz. the Brain the Liver and the Heart But the Liver is confest to be first made of a blood gathered by one branch of this Vein for the Liver it self is nothing else but a lump of clotted blood full of Veins which serve to attract and to expell but immediately before the Liver is made there is a two-forked Vein formed through the navel to suck away the grosser part of the blood that rests in the seed In the other branch of this vein more veins are made for the spleen and lower belly and all of them coming to one root meet in the upper part of the Liver in the hollow Vein from hence other Veins are sent out of the Midriff to the thighs below to the upper part of the back-bone next this the heart is made with its veins for these veins draw the hottest part of the blood that which is most subtil so make the heart within the membrane called the Pericardium or skin that covers the heart the hollow Vein runs through the inward part of the right side of the heart carrying blood to it to feed it from the same branch of this vein and the same part of the heart is there another vein that beats but faintly therefore called the still Vein amongst the pulsative Veins and this is provided to send the more pure blood by from the heart to the Lungs they are covered with a double Coat as the Arteries are The Artery called Aorta that conveighs the vital spirits through the whole body from the heart by the beating Veins or arteries is bred in the hollow of the left Vein of the heart and under this artery in the same hollow place of the heart is another Vein bred which is called the vein-vein-artery that brings the cold air from the Lungs to cool the heart for the Lungs are made by many Veins that run from the hollow of the heart and come thither to frame the Lungs and they have their substance from a very thin subtil blood that is brought thither from the right hollow of the heart The breast is first framed by the great Veins of the Liver and after that the outmost parts the legs and arms But last of all the Brain is made in the third little skin I speak of for the seed being full of vital spirits the vital spirits draw much of the natural moisture into one hollow place where the brain is made and covered with a Coat which heat drieth and bakes into a skull The Veins come all from the Liver Arteries from the Heart Nerves from the brain of a soft gentle nature yet not hollow as Veins are but solid the Brain retains and changes the vital spirits from hence are the beginnings of sense and reason After the Nerves the pith of the back-bone is bred which cannot be called Marrow for Marrow is a superfluous substance made of blood to moisten and strengthen the bones but the pith of the back and brain are made of seed not to serve other parts but to be also parts of themselves for sense and motion that all the Nerves might grow originally from thence also Bones Gristles Coats and Membranes are bred from the seed Veins for the Liver Arteries for the Heart Nerves for the Brain besides all other pannicles and coverings the child is wrapped in But all fleshy substance as the Heart it self Liver and Lungs are made of the proper blood of the birth this is all ended in eighteen days of the first month and all that time it carrieth the name of seed and afterwards is called the birth and this birth so long as it is in the womb is fed with blood received through the Navel and therefore when women are with child the courses cease for after conception this blood is severed into three parts the best and finest serves for the childs nourishment the next in pureness though
from the Liver to the veins about the womb but those veins and vessels being very narrow and not yet open if the blood be stopt in that it cannot break forth it will corrupt and runs back again by the passages of the hollow vein and great Artery to the Liver the heart and the Midriff and stops the whole body which may be easily known for their faces will look green and pale and wan they have trembling of the heart pains of the head short breathing the arteries in the back the neck and the Temples will beat very thick and though not alwayes yet sometimes they will fall into a Feaver by reason of these corrupt humours but it is alwayes almost attended with disgust and loathing of good nutriment and longing after hurtful things The whole Body especially the Belly legs and thighs swelling with abundance of naughty humours the Hypocondriacal parts are extended by reason of the menstrual blood runing back to the greater vessels and they are much given to vomit but all these signs are not found in all persons alike but they are common to most and in some you shall find all these meet The cause is the Terms stopt and from thence ill humours abound for when the natural channel is stopt the blood must needs return to the great vessels whence it came and choak them up and so spoil the making of blood nothing but raw and corrupt humors are bred which can never turn to good nutriment or be ever perfectly joyned to the parts of the body the blood is flegmatick slimy stuff and sometimes it is bred from corrupt meats and drink that maids will long after as well as Childing women they will be alwayes eating Oatmeal scrapings of the wall earth or ashes or chalk and will drink Vinegar they are strangly affected with an inordinate desire to eat what is not fit for food whereupon their natural heat is choaked and their blood turns to water their body grows loose and spongy and they grow lazy and idle and will hardly stir their pulse beats little and faint as the vapours fly to several parts so they are ill affected by them the heart faints the head is dried and pained and the animal actions are hurt when melancholy is mixed with the humours in too great proportion Sometimes this white Feaver turns to a Dropsie or the liver grows hard like a stone that it can make no blood some fall dead suddenly when the heart is choaked by ill vapours and humours flying to it if the stomach be affected the danger is the greater but if onely the womb be out of frame the remedy is much more easy The best time of the year to cure Maids and those that are sick of the green sickness is the spring and the way of cure is to heat the cold humours and make the thick gross blood thin and this cannot be all performed by one work to draw away and to correct the whole mass of humours at once wherefore you must purge gently and often mingling things that heat and attenuate as well as purgatives to carry the ill humours forth But first it will be good to give a Glister and next to open a Vein in the foot or ancle Moreover your physick must vary according to the parts of the body that are most stopt and where the humors float If they lye above the stomach and mesentery then vomit if you find the Person fitted for vomit likewise the Spleen or liver or womb must be respected in their several kinds with Physick accordingly and to save you the labour of much reading and me of writing too often of the same thing under several heads you may find what is to be done almost in all respects where I write of the stopping of the Terms and by this rule I wish the Reader to apply the rest when he stands in need which he can never well do as I said till he have some judgement in it and then it will become familiar to him But in this Disease principally for the cure respect the Liver the Spleen and the Mesentery or Midriff for these are certainly obstructed and must be opened and above all be sure to keep a sparing diet and of a thin substance Secondly Let blood in the arm first though the courses be stopt and after that in the foot If the disease be of long standing you shall do well to give a gentle Purge First of all to purge the humours as Take powdered Rhubarb two drams Chicory and Anniseed-water three ounces apiece Infuse the Rhubarb all night then let them boyl one walm onely and then strain it forth and in the strained liquor dissolve sirrup of Damask Roses one ounce and a half Diacassia half an ounce Cinnamon-water half an ounce five grains of Diagridium let her drink it in the morning Next after this use opening decoction of Succory and Madder and Liquorish roots of each half an handful Anniseeds and Fennel seeds two drams a piece a handful of Harts-tongue Leaves Borrage Flowers and pale Roses of each half a handful one ounce of the roots of Sassafras stoned Rasins one ounce and a half and half a dram of Cinnamon Boyl all these in Fountain water to a third part onely wasted and then sweeten it with sirrup of Lemmons she may drink it when she pleaseth An Electuary made of the rob or pulp of Elder-berries boyl'd to a just substance four ounces with one ounce of bay berries dried and powdered two Nutmegs and one dram of burnt-hartshorn half a scruple of Amber and four scruples of species Diarrhoda mingled all with sirrup of Succory one ounce and half is excellent And finally it will not be from the purpose but very useful to anoint the womb and Liver with such Oyntments as will open their obstructions made with Oyl of Spike and bitter Almonds of each two ounces and juyces of Rue and Mugwort half as much and Vinegar a fourth part waste the watery part of these by boiling then add Spikenard Camels Hay Roots of Asarum of each one dram Cypress half a dram Wax sufficient to make an Unguent To provoke the Termes And that is effected with one ounce of the Five opening Roots and with Madder Elecampane Orris Roots Eryngo dried Citron Pills and Sarfa of each half an ounce Germander Mugwort Agrimony of each a handful two small handfuls of Savin an ounce of wilde Saffron seeds two ounces of Senna Agarick and Mechoachan of each half an ounce two Pugils of Stoechas Flowers of Galingal Anniseeds and Fennel of each two drams Boil all this to a Pint and half sweeten it for your Pallat and add to it a spoonful of Cinnamon water Quercetans Pills of Tartar and Gum Amoniacum are commended Take of each half a dram Spike a scruple three drops of Cinnamon Extract of wormwood half a scruple take a scruple or twenty grain weight in pills an hour before Meat Conserve of Marigold Flowers is very good Some after good
some but in others by accident from cold Air cold Diet and Medicaments or from too much idleness the signs are quite contrary to the former for the other are extreme desirous of Venery and these abhor it and take no pleasure in it they have few or no hairs about their Secrets and their seed is watry and Slimy their wombs are windy and they are subject to Gonorrhaeas and the Whites The Cure is long and hard to be done but they must use such things as warm the womb with drinking good wine and sometimes Cordial Waters and good warm nourishing Meats and of easie digestion with Anniseed Fennel seed and Time And Fumigations are good of Myrrh Frankincence Mastick Bay berries of each a dram Labdanum two drams Storax and Cloves of each a dram Gum Arabick and wine make Troches put one or two upon a Pan of coles and let her receive the Fume at the Matrix Then take Labdanum two ounces Frankincence Mastick Liquid Storax of each half an ounce oyl of Cloves and of Nutmegs of each half a scruple oyl of Lillies and Rue of each one ounce Wax sufficient make a Plaister and lay it over the Region of the womb But if the womb be moist and this is commonly joyned with a cold distemper it drowns the seed like as if a Man should sow Corn in a quagmire The causes are almost the same as of cold for it is Idleness that is the cause in most women that are troubled with it and such women have abundance of Courses but they are thin and waterish and the whites also their Secrets are alwayes wet they cannot retain the mans seed but it slips out again This must be cured as the cold distemper by a heating and drying Diet and Medicaments Baths Injections Fomentations wherein Brimstone is mingled but take heed of Astringents for they will make the Disease worse by stopping the ill humours in The fourth is a dry Distemper of the womb this is natural to some but to most it comes when they are old and past childing when the womb grows hard if it be from any other drying causes such women will be barren before they be old It may proceed from diseases as Feavers Inflammations Obstructions when the blood goes not to the Matrix to moisten it so that if they void any blood it comes from the Veins in the neck of the womb and not from the bottom they have but few courses little seed they are of a lean dry Constitution their lower Lip is of a blackish red and commonly chapt This Distemper if it be long is seldom cured moistning things must do it as Borage Bugloss Almonds Dates Figs Raisins Moistning and nourishing Diet is good and to forbear salt and dry meats avoid anger sadness fasting and use to sleep long and labour but little rub the parts with oyl of sweet Almonds Lillies Linseed sweet Butter Jesamine Hens or Ducks Grease Besides these four there are compound distempers as cold and moist wombs and hot and dry but I presume I need not in particular speak of them because I have given sufficient remedies in the several qualitis already which will be easie to apply I confess a compound distemper is harder to be cured than a simple therefore I shall add one or two remedies more First If then the Womb be cold and moist cure this with surrup of Mugwort Bettony Mints or Hyssop then purge the cold humor with Agarick Mechoachan Turbith and Sena Sudorificks of Guaicum Sarfa and China are very good Secondly If the womb be subject to a hot and dry distemper you must put away choler from the Liver and from the whole body those things that will do it are Manna and Tamarinds sirrup of Roses Rhubarb Senna Cassia and the like which are very safe gentle and effectual Remedies BOOK VI. CHAP. I. Of the Strangling of the womb and the effects of it with the Causes and Cure THe womb by its consent with other parts of the Body as well as by its own nature is subject to multitudes of diseases and it is not to be uttered almost what Miseries women in general by meanes thereof be they Maids Wives or widowes are affected with But amongst all diseases those that are called Hysterical Passions or strangling of the womb are held to be the most grievous Swounding and Falling Sickness are from hence by the consent the womb hath with the heart and brain and sometimes this comes to pass by stopping of the Terms which load the heart the brain and Womb with evil humors and sometimes it ariseth from the stopping in of the seed of Generation as is seen in Antient Maids and widowes for by reason hereof ill vapors and wind rise up from the womb to the Midriff and so stops their breath it is most commonly the widowes disease who were wont to use Copulation and are now constrained to live without it when the seed is thus retained it corrupts and sends up filthy vapours to the brain whereby the Animal Spirits are clouded and many ill consequents proceed from it as Falling Sicknesses Megrims Dulness Giddiness Drowsiness Shortness of breath Head-ache beating of the Heart Frenzy and Madness and indeed what not The same woman may be tormented with several of these at the same time when the seed and the Courses are mingled with ill humours being once corrupted The Menstrual blood and seed are noble parts but the best things once corrupted become the worst and degenerate into a venemous nature and are little better than Poyson When the Vessils of the womb lye near the Vessels of other parts of the body or there is near affinity of one part with the womb then by consent are many grievous Diseases produced The womb is of a membranous nature and for that reason it consents exceedingly with the nerves and membranes and so the parts that are near are soon offended by it and it conveys its ill qualities to the whole body by Nerves Veins and Arteries the Brain hath it by the membranes of the marrow of the Back and by Nerves the arteries they carry it to the Heart and the veins to the Liver and these are large in the womb and by them all the noxious blood and poisonous vapours return The Veins of the Mesentery give it a consent with the stomach and so do the arteries carry all to the Spleen which is the cause that some women in age grow hypochondriacal by heat of their blood because their courses did not flow sufficient when they were young It will be hard to distinguish these two diseases in women or to cure the one and not cure the other The Breasts they consent with the womb by Nerves and Veins that go from it to them so then it is clear that it holds a correspondence with the heart the Midriff the Brain and Head and all the instruments of motion and sense likewise with the Stomach Liver Spleen Bladder Belly Mesentery Hips Back straight Gut
burns and hot swellings and head-ach that comes of heat by a likeness and affinity it hath to draw hot vapours to it so Linseed oil is good against burnings Scaliger affirms that Camphire increaseth Venery it may do so if it be used seldome but often used it is certain that it will destroy it There is moreover from ill tempered seed and melancholly blood in the vessels near the Heart which contaminates the Vital and Animal Spirits a melancholy distemper that especially Maids and Widows are often troubled with and they grow exceeding pensive and sad for melancholy black blood abounding in the Vessels of the Matrix runs sometimes back by the great arteries to the heart and infects all the spirits when this blood lieth still they are well but if it be stirred or urged then presently they fall into this distemper they know not why and the arteries of the spleen and back beat strongly and melancholly vapours fly up They are sorely troubled and weary of all things they can take no rest their pain lieth most on their left side and sometimes on the left breast in time they will grow mad and their former great silence turns to prating exceedingly crying out that they see fearful spirits and dead men when it is gone so far it is hard to cure it is vain then to try to make them merry they despair and wish to die and when they find an opportunity they will kill or drown or hang themselves At first when the blood is hot and fiery open a vein in the arm if they have their courses if not in the foot or ancle to bring the courses down Cooling moistening cordials and such things as revive the spirits and conquer melancholy wil do much driers are naught for melancholly is dry Confectio Alkermes is commended for those that can away with it but Confectio de Hyacintho is better use a moistening diet To breed mirth give her waters of Balm and Borage of each three ounces sirrup of the juices of Borage and Bugloss of each one ounce and a half take this at twice and use it often To purge melancholly take six drams of Senna Agarick one dram and a half Borage and violet flowers of each a small handful two drams of Citron peels infuse all six hours in good Rhenish wine strain them and put to them sirrup of Violets one ounce CHAP. II. Of the Falling Sickness WHen Women by reason of the ill affections of the womb fall into Epilepsies and Falling sickness it is worse than any other cause as the symptomes prove for the poisonous vapor is not only in the Nerves as when it is from the brain but also in the membranes veins and arteries The same foul vapour that causeth strangling of the womb produceth this for it causeth divers diseases according to the parts it takes hold on but when it lights forcibly on the Nerves then it causeth the Falling-sickness Sometimes there is a convulsion of the whole body and sometimes but of some parts as of the head or tongue hands or legs eyes or ears some cannot hear others cannot see all lose the sense of feeling some cry out but know not wherefore They that fall if the vapour be not too strong when they rise they go to their work again as if they had no harm but here is not only convulsions as in those that have the Falling-sickness from other parts but stopping the breath as in the strangling of the womb but these seldome some at the mouth as those do for the brain is entire or not much offended nor is their hearing taken away quite by the vapour fastening upon the roots of the Nerves of the ears Rue and Castor that cure fits of the Mother are good here the cure is almost the same only you must add some things that respect the nerves and the Brain Use these Pills twice in a week before supper one hour and take a scruple or half a dram Take Senna and Peony root of each half an ounce Mugwort Rue Betony Yarrow half a handful of each boil them then clarifie the decoction put to it Aloes one ounce and a half of juice of the herb Mercury one ounce let it stand and settle pour off the clear liquor then add two drams of Rhubarb sprinkled with water of Cinnamon Agarick half an ounce Mastick and Epileptick powder of each half a dram make the pills with sirrup of Mugwort To mend the distemper of the head and Womb take conserve of Rosemary flowers and of the Tile tree of Balm and Lillies of the valley of the root Scorzonera Candied of each one ounce Diamoschu dulce one dram with two drams of the roots of Peony and seeds of Agnus Castus and sirrup of Stoechas make an Electuary to take at your pleasure Nor are these all the ill consequences of the wombs distempers but sometimes violent head-ach springs from it which is the greatest pain of all the rest and sometimes it is all over the head or but upon one side or in the eyes the ill vapours rising by the veins and arteries of the Womb to the membranes and films of the brain when the vessels are full of a thin sharp blood that is carried from the womb to the membranes it stretcheth and rends them and corrodes and bites so that the pain is intollerable the cure is to purge away the peccant humour that lieth in the Womb for this is not as other head-ach is that comes from other causes the pain runs also to the Loins and the Membranes there by some capillary veins from the womb The pain of the head by affection with the womb is in all the head commonly but is chiefly iâ— the hinder part of the head because the womb being Nervous consents with the membranes of the brain by the membrane of the Marrow of the back hence it is that women are more subject to the head-ach than men are because of the womb that holds such affinity with the Nerves of the head The violent beating of the heart and Arteries both in the Sides and Back is by consent from the womb when evil humors therein contained pass by the Arteries and Poysonous vapours arise to those parts Cordials are good as Cinnamon Water and Aqua Monefardi or Mathiolas his water the Disease seems small but it is not safe because the cause of it is very ill In this Disease the Artery that beats in the Back beats strongly because it is part of the great Artery but the Arteries that beat in the Hypochondrion beat not so strongly for they are smaller branches from the Spleen and Mesentery but the cause is the same The Arteries are inflamed by the ill vapours and humours sent from the womb and the heart is exceedingly heated by them but this hot humor sometimes beats by reason of the great Artery quite over the whole body but it lasts not long for there is little corruption of the humors Some say the blood
the motion is natural in the Heart and Arteries true it is that in these motion is alwayes necessary but the Yard moves only at some times and riseth sometimes to small purpose It stands in the sharebone in the middle as all know being of a round and long fashion with a hollow passage within it through which passe both the Urine and Seed the top of it is called the Head or Nut of the Yard and there it is compact and hard not very quick of feeling lest it should suffer pain in Copulation there is a soft loose skin called the foreskin which covers the head of it and will move forward and backward as it is moved this foreskin in the lower part only in the middle is fastned or tyed long ways to the greater part of the Head of the Yard by a certain skinny part called the string or bridle It is of temperament hot and moist it is joined to the middle of the share bone and with the Bladder by the Conduit pipe that carrieth the Urine with the brain by Nerves and Muscles that come to the skin of it to the Heart and Liver by Veins and Arteries that come from them The Yard hath three holes or Pipes in it one broad one and that is common to the Urine and Seed and two small ones by which the Seed comes into the common long Conduit pipe these two Arteries or Vessels enter into this pipe in the place called the Perinaeum which in men is the place between the root of the Yard and the Arse-hole or Fundament but in a woman it is the place between that and the cut of the neck of the womb from those holes to the Bladder that passage is called the neck of the Bladder and from thence to the head of the Yard is the common pipe or channel of the Yard The Yard hath four Muscles two towards the lower part on both sides one of them near the channel or pipe of the Yard and these are extended in length and they dilate the Yard and raise it up that the Seed may with ease pass through it two other muscles there are that come from the root of it near the share bone that comes slanting toward the top of the Yard in the upper part of it when these are stretched the Yard riseth and when they slacken then it falls again and if one of these be bent and the other be not the Yard bends to that muscle that is stretched or bent If the Yard be of a moderate size not too long nor too short it is good as the Tongue is but if the Yard be too long the spirits in the seed flee away if it be too short it cannot carry the Seed home to the place it should do The Yard also serveth to empty the Bladder of the water in it and that is easily proved by a Louse put into the pipe of the Yard which by biting will cause one to make water when the Urine is supprest The foreskin was made to defend the Yard that is tender and to cause delight in Copulation the Jews were commanded to cut it off Many diseases are incident to the Yard but a priapisme or standing of the Yard continually by reason of a windy matter is a disease that properly belongs to this part and is very dangerous sometimes The Yard of a man is not bony as in Dogs and Wolves and Foxes nor gristly for then it could not stand and fall as need is it is make of Skins Brawns Tendons Veins Arteries Sinews and great Ligaments yet not so full of Veins but it may be emptyed and filled again nor so full of Arteries as to beat alwayes yet you shall find it beat sometimes it consists not of Nerves for they are not hollow enough for the passages but it is compounded of a peculiar substance that is not found in any other part of the body the place of it as I said begins at the share-bone and it is fast knit to the Yard between the Cods and the Fundament so that there is a seam that comes up along the Cods and parts them in the midst between the Stones The Yard is not perfectly round but is somewhat broad on the back or upperside it differs a little in some from others the situation of it is so peculiar to Men that they have herein a preeminence above all other creatures Some men but chiefly fools have Yards so long that they are useless for generation It is generally held that the length or proportion of the Yard depends upon cutting the Navel string if you cut it too short and knit it too close in Infants it will be too short because of the string that comes from the Navel to the bottom of the bladder which draws up the Bladder and shortnes the Yard and this beside the general opinion stands with so much reason that all Midwives have cause to be careful to cut the Navel string long enough that when they tye it the Yard may have free liberty to move and extend it self alwayes remembring that moderation is best that it be not left too long which may be as bad as too short There are six parts to be observed of which the Yard consists 1. Two sinewy bodies 2. A sinewy substance to hold up the two side Ligaments and the urinary passage 3. The Urinary passage it self 4. The Nut of the Yard 5. The four Muscles and 6. The Vessels The two sinewy bodies are really two though they are joined together they are long and hard within they are spongy and full of black blood the spongy substance within seems to be woven network and is made of numberless Veins and Arteries and the black blood that is contained in them is full of spirits Motion and leisure in Copulation heats them and makes the Yard to stand and so will imagination the hollow weaving of them together was to hold the spirits as long as may be that the Yard fall not down before it hath performed the work of nature These side ligaments of the Yard where they are thick and round spring from the lower part of the share-bone and not the upper part as Galen supposed At the beginning they are parted and resemble a pair of Horns or the Letter Y where the common pipe for Urine and Seed goes between them It is thus manifest that the greatest part of the Yard is made of two sinewy parts one of them of each side and they both end at the top of the head of the Yard they come from two beginnings and lean upon the hip under the share-bone and so run on to the Nut of the Yard Also their substance is double the outside is sinewy hard and thick the inside black soft loose spongy and thin they are joined by a thin and sinewy skin which is strengthened by some slanting small Veins placed there like to a Weavers Shuttle they are parted at their first rising to make way
a passage within the passage of the Peritoneum called the Bason or Laver placed between the right Gut and the bladder and it is whiter than the superficies of the bottom the cavity is deep but the mouth or entrance is much narrower it reacheth from the inward mouth of the womb to the outward mouth or lips of the Privities It is a fit sheath to receive the Yard and is long that by it the mans Seed may be carried to the orifice of the Womb it grows longer or shorter in time of Copulation and wider and narrower as the mans Yard is so it swells more or less is more open and more shut the length and wideness cannot be limited because it is fit for any Yard yet I have heard a French man complain sadly that when he first married his Wife it was no bigger nor wider than would fit his turn but now it was grown as a Sack Perhaps the fault was not the womans but his own his weapon shrunk and was grown too little for the scabbard The neck of the womb is continued with the bottom of it yet it hath a diverse substance from it for it is sinewy and skinny that it may with more care be enlarged or contracted not become too hard nor too soft The substance of it is spongy and fungous like that of a mans Yard that when there is Copulation it may close about the Yard which it doth by reason of many small Arteries which fill up the passage with spirits and make it become narrower Wherefore in women that are lustfull it swels in that time of desire and the caruncles strut out and the hole grows very strait In young maids it is more soft and delicate but it grows every day harder as they grow elder after many Children and in old women it becomes hard like a gristle by reason it is so often worn and by the Courses flowing forth It is smooth when you stretch it and slippery but otherwise full of wrinkles unless it be where it ends in the Lap. In the entrance of the passage and in the fore part there are many round folds and plaights which cause the more pleasure in Venus action by the attraction of the Nut of the Yard In young women these folds are smoother and narrower and the passage straiter that it will scarce admit a finger to go in yet through this do pass not onely the Menstruous blood but also corrupt humours in those that have that disease is called the Whites CHAP. XIV Of the Vessels preparing Seed in Women AS in Men so in Women the Seed vessels are either preparing or carrying Vessels The Preparing vessels are neither more nor less than they are in Men for they are just four two Veins and two Arteries and they arise as they do in men for the right Vein is derived from the pipe of the great Liver vein under the Emulgent but the left comes from the Emulgent on the left side both the Arteries come from the trunk of the great Artery yet I do not say that there is no difference between these in men and women for then it had been needless to go over this subject any more The differences are chiefly two 1. Because womens passages are shorter these vessels are shorter in women than they are in men for womens stones lye in their bellies but mens hang without in their Cods but womens Vessels have by far more windings and turnings hither and thither out and in than mens have that the matter they bring may be better prepared their windings up and down prove that they are not shorter if they had room to go any farther as they have in Men. It is worth observing that you may know that the Vessels of the womb have union and communion one with the other both the Veins the Arteries for the vital and natural blood are mingled to perform this great work and it is thus brought to pass The spermatick Veins passing by the side of the womb joyn with the foresaid Arteries and then they make this mixture and this is easily proved for if you blow up the Seed Vein with a hollow pipe or quill you shall see all the Vessels of the womb to swell at the same time and to be blown up with it which is enough to confirm that they are all mingled and united These four Vessels bring the Seed from all parts of the body that they may fit it make it ready for Natures use The right vein comes from the trunk of the hollow Liver vein below the Emulgent vein nigh unto the great hollow bone but the left vein comes from the left Emulgent vein for the great Artery is seated on this side by the hollow vein and that Artery beats throbs continually and if the left Seed vein had come from the Trunk of the hollow vein as the right doth it must have past over the great Artery and then the never ceasing beating of the Artery would have broken this thin Vein if nature had not provided the foresaid remedy against it The Arteries both of them have the same beginning as they have in men for they come from the Trunk of the great Artery near the great bone under the Emulgent vein and they are filled with vital blood as the two Veins are with natural blood Yet they do not fall out of the Peritoneum as the Arteries of men do nor do they reach the share-bone because women have no reason to cast their Seed out of themselvs but onely into their own womb which is but a short way nor do these Arteries interweave or grow together till they come into their stones but with some variation again they are divided for in women they are supported with fat membranes so brought to the Stones yet by the way as they come they inoculate the Veins with the Arteries and after that they branch into two parts and the one part makes the Seed vessels and that which is called Corpus varicosum affording to the Cods and stones some small twigs for to feed them but the other part is carried to the skin that cleaves to the bottom of the Matrix and supplieth the higher part of its bottom with nourishment and feeds the Infant in the womb also with blood and moreover by these Vessels the monthly Terms are voided forth especially of such women that are not with Child but in Men they are all wrought up into one body which is called Corpus varicosum The difference that they make in shortness from the same Vessels in men may be for this reason also because the womans Seed doth not need so strong and great preparing as mens Seed doth nor could their Vessels have been kept within the womans belly had they not been made shorter than mens But it is admirable to consider how strangely these Vessels are infolded and wrapt up one within the other to prepare the Seed Yet because womens stones are but small their
to make it more strong and grows to it on both sides The inward membrane is double also but can scarce be seen but in exulcerations of the womb When the woman conceives it is thick and soft but it grows thicker daily and is thickest when the time of birth is Fibres of all kinds run between these membranes to draw and keep the Seed and to thrust forth the burthen and the flesh of the womb is chiefly made up of fleshy Fibres The three sorts of Fibres for Seed do plainly appear after women have gone long with Child those that draw the seed are inward and are not many because the Seed is most cast into the womb by the Yard the thwart Fibres are strongest and most and they are in the middle but the Fibres that lye transverse are strong also and lye outward because it is great force that is required in time of delivery The Veins Arteries that pass through the membranes of the womb come from divers places for two Veins and two Arteries come from the Seed Vessels and two veins and two Arteries from the vessels in the lower belly and run upward that from all the body both from above and under blood of all sorts might be conveighed to bring nourishment for the womb and for the infant in it also they serve as Scavengers to purge out the Terms every moneth The twigs of the Vein that is in the lower belly mingle in the womb with the branches of the Seed veins and the mouths of them reach into the hollow of the womb and they are called cups through these comes more blood alwaies than the infants needs that the Child may never want nutriment in the womb and there may be some to spare when the time comes for the Child to be born but after the birth this blood comes not hither but goes to the Breasts to make Milk but at all other times it is cast out monethly what is superfluous and if it be not it corrupts and causeth fits of the Mother yet they come oftner from the Seed corrupted and staying there than they do from blood It is not onely blood is voided by the Terms but multitude of humours and excrements and these purgations last sometimes three or four days sometimes a week and young folk have them when the Moon changeth but women in years at the full of the Moon which is to be observed that we may know when to give remedies to Maids whose Terms come not down for we must do it in the time when the Moon is new or ready to change and to elder women about the time that Nature useth to send them forth because a Physician is but a helper to nature and if he observe not natures rules he will sooner kill than cure The sinews of the womb are small but many and interwoven like Net-work which makes it quick of feeling they come to the upper part of the bottom from the branches of the Nerves of the sixth Conjugation which go to the root of the ribs and to the lower part of the bottom and to the neck of the Womb from the marrow of the Loins and the great bone Thus they by their quick feeling cause pleasure in Copulation and Expulsion of what offends the part they are most plentiful at the bottom of the Womb to quicken and strengthen it in attracting and embracing the seed of man There is but one continued passage from the top or Lap to the bottom of the Womb yet some divide it into four parts namely into the upper part or bottom for that lieth uppermost in the body 2. The mouth or inward orifice of the neck 3. The neck 4. The outward Lap Lips or Privity The chief part of these which is properly the Womb or Matrix is the bottom here is the Infant conceived kept formed and fed until the rational Soul be infused from above and the Child born The broader part or bottom is set above the share-bone that it may be dilated as the Child grows the outside is smooth and overlaid with a watry moisture there is a corner on each side above and when Women are not with Child the seed is poured out into these for the carrying Vessels for seed are planted into them They are to make more room for the Child and at first it is so small that the Parents seed fills it full for it embraceth it be it never so little as close as 't is possible the bottom is full of pores but they are but the mouths of the Cups by which the blood in Child-bearing comes out of the Veins of the womb into the cavity The corners of the wombs bottom are wrinkled the bottom is softer than the neck of it yet harder than the Lap and more thick From the lower part of the bottom comes a piece an inch long like the Nut of the mans Yard but small as ones little finger and a Pins point will but enter into it but it is rough to keep the Seed from recoiling after it is once attracted for when the parts are overslippery the humours are peccant and those women are barren Hippocrates saith that sometimes part of the kall falls between the bladder and the womb and makes women fruitless This part may well be reckoned for another part of the womb for it lieth between the beginning of the bottom and the mouth there is a clear passage in it The womb hath two mouths the inward mouth and the outward by the inward mouth the bottom opens directly into the neck this mouth lyeth overthwart like the mouth of a Place or the passage of the Nut of the Yard the whole Orifice with the slit transverse is like the Greek Letter Theta Θ it is so little and narrow that the Seed once in can scarce come back nor any offensive thing enter into the hollow of the womb The mouth lies directly against the bottom for the Seed goeth in a streight line from the neck to the bottom The womb is alwayes shut but in time of generation and then the bottom draws in the Seed and it presently shuts so close that no needle as I said can find an entrance and thus it continues till the time of delivery unless some ill accident or disease force it to open for when women with child are in Copulation with men they do give seed forth but that seed comes not from the bottom as some think but by the neck of the womb It must open when a child is born so wide as to give passage for it by degrees because the neck of the womb is of a compact thick substance and thicker when the birth is nigh wherefore there cleaves to it a body like glew and by that means the mouth opens safely without danger of being torn or broken and as often as the passage is open it comes away like a round crown and Midwives call it the Rose the Garland or the Crown If this mouth be too
when it is passed the navel it brancheth into two branches and these again divide and subdivide the skin called Chorion supporting the branches of it and these are joined to the Veins of the mothers womb and serve to suck and to carry the mothers blood from thence to feed the infant with whilest it stays there This Vein is for that end that the infant may be fed from the first time of conception untill it be born and then its use is over as to the first intention when the child comes to feed it self for then it hath no need to suck blood from the mother as it did before The Arteries are two on each side and these spring from the branches of the great artery of the mother that comes from the small Guts and these serve to carry vital blood to feed the Infant with when it is first well prepared and concocted by the mother The next part for servile use is a Nervous production called Vrachos and it comes from the bottom of the bladder of the child to its Navel and it serves as the name also implies to carry the childs Urine to the Allantois or skin that must retain it But Anatomists are not all of one mind about it for some say there is no such thing to be found in the after-burden of women but in beasts it is Let their ignorance or disputes be what they will to no purpose I shall satisfie all by true experience which cannot be contradicted he that reads the Anatomy Lecture of Montpelion in France Bartholomew Cabrolius a skilful Chirurgion professeth that he saw a maid whose Urine came forth at her Navel the ordinary passage of her water being obstructed and Dr. John Fernelius tells the same story of a man who was thirty years old who had a stopping in the neck of his bladder so that for many months continually his water came forth by his Navel yet he found no hurt at all by it but was very well in health and Fernelius saith the reason was because his Navel-string was not well tied and the passage of the Vrachos gave way because it was not well dried And there is another example that Valchier Coiler lays down of a German maid of Noremberge she was thirty four years of age These distempers are not frequent because she must be a very unskilful Midwife that knows not how to tie and cut the Navel string yet these accidents are sufficient in such a dark matter to prove that there is such a thing as a Vrachos or Urine-carrier from the Navel in both sexes men as well as women These four vessels as I said namely one Vein two Arteries and the Vrachos join together near the Navel and they are tyed by a skin they have from the Chorion or outward coat of the Secundine and so they seem to be a Chord or Gut without any feeling this is that that all People call the Navel-string if woman or man doubt of the truth of this relation let him only take the childs Navel-string when it is cut off and untwist it and open it and so they shall be able to satisfie themselves These Vessels are so joined for to strengthen them that they will not be broken nor yet are they entangled together when the child is born into the world then these Vessels as they hang without from the Navel serve for no other use but to be knit fast and to make a strong band to cover the Navel-hole Yet experience hath found a way to make a Physical use of them that what is spar'd from tying and to be cut off may not be thrown away as for the Secundine and the parts of it the parts of it are held to be four I shall shew you a little more concerning the description and use of them The first part is that which is commonly called a Sugar cake in Latine Placenta and indeed it is very like a cake in the form of it it is tied both to the Navel and to the strong outward sinewy Coat of the Child in the womb called Chorion and this is that which makes the greater part of the after burden or Secundine the flesh hereof is soft and of a red colour much like the spleen or milt tending somewhat to black there are abundance of small Veins and Arteries in it and it should be probable that the chief use it serves for is to cloath and keep the infant in the womb Columbus a very good Anatomist yet was much deceived when he affirms the Chorion or strongest and outward membrane that wraps the Child in the womb to be no skin It is undoubtedly known that the Chorion and Amnios do compass the child round above beneath and on all sides but the Allantois that contains the childs Urine doth not so Columbus he mistook this skin for the Placenta or cake but Hippocrates gives this name Secundine as general to the whole in that book he hath written of womens diseases for the Chorion is a skin very white and thick light and slippery and it is laced and adorned and branched with a great many small Veins and Arteries and we must not think that it serves only for a covering of the child in the womb for it serves farther to receive and to bind fast the roots of the Veins and Arteries or Navel-Vessels which I spake of before The Allantois or skin to contain the childs Urine in the womb is denied by many that there is any such Vessel to be found in mans body I must confess reason must help us to discern it for we can hardly see it or find it It is said that in Holland men are wont to be present at their wives labours as well as women and that few of the women use stools but they sit in their Husbands laps when they are delivered and they say there is such a a thing Galen maintains that there is as much reason and experience for it in men as in beasts good women as well as my self have done may look for it and find it too if they please a very fine white soft exceeding thin skin and it lieth just under the cake or Placenta and there it is tied to the Vrachos from which it takes in the Urine and its office is to keep the Urine apart from the sweat that the saltness of the Urine may not hurt the tender Infant which it must needs do were it not kept up in a place by its self The Amnios is the last and inmost skin and it is wonderful fine soft white transparent fed and interwoven with many Veins and Arteries this skin not only infolds the Infant but also holds the sweat that comes from it whilest it lieth in the womb BOOK III. CHAP. I. What it is that hinders Conception and may be the causes that some women are barren BArrenness as I said is either by Nature and that may be when two persons are joined in marriage that either both are deficient by
true place also if the woman have blackish courses chiefly if she be far gone with child she is in danger to lose the Child many women have their Terms in the first moneths but they are but watry pale coloured not fitting for the nourishment of the infant and they are also superfluous so that nature at first sends them out as being useful neither for nutriment for the Mother nor the Child I said before that the breasts will shew danger and of Twins which is most likely to suffer if the right breast flag she will miscarry of a Boy if the left of a Girle and the head shaking as with a Palsie the body trembling the face flushing with red the eyes painâ—d inwardly if the body be afflicted with wind there is fear of miscariage in child birth but if she travel when she is sick of a sharp Feaver or some such dangerous disease seldom doth either Mother or the child escape death but the ordinary causes of Abortion are when the womb is too weak or corrupted by phlegmatick slippery slimy or watry humours so that it cannot retain the Child the pains of inflammation and Imposthumes hinder delivery extream Costiveness of the body by straining to go to stool forceth the child downwards and the dung staying in the right gut when the woman is bound oppresseth the child if she fall into a Tenesmus which is a great desire to go to stool and can do nothing Hippocrates saith Abortion is like to follow Piles and Hemorrhoids cause pain and miscarriage fat women have slippery wombs and lean women have as dry and want nourishment for the child neither are fit for child-bearing Bleeding is bad for childing women unless there be great need purging especially in the first or second or about the last months and vomiting is far worse too much fasting starves the child too much eating and drinking will stifle it great heats or baths or stoves force the child to press for a more free air and great cold is not good for it all immoderate exercises passions desires longings falls strokes and all violent running leaping coughing lifting and such like will bring on this misfortune There being then so many causes and accidents whereby women usually fall into such mishaps 't will be profitable for women with child to observe some good rules beforehand that when her time of delivery is at hand she may more easily undergo it and not so soon miscarry But as there are diverse causes of miscarriage so the times are diverse that we are to provide for either before or after conception And before she be conceived with child let her use means both by diet and physick to strengthen her womb and to further conception Drink wine that is first well boyled with the mother of Tyme for it is a pretious thing If the womb be too windy eat ten Juniper berries every morning if too moist the woman must exercise or sweat in a Stove or Hot-house or else take half a dram of Galingal and as much Cinnamon mingled in powder and drink it in Muskadel every morning but if she use moderate labour perhaps she may have no need of this but the most frequent cause of barrenness in young lusty women that are of a cholerick complexion is driness of the Matrix and this is easily known by their great desire of copulation It is to be corrected by cooling drinks and emulsions made of barley-water blanched Almonds white poppy seeds Cucumbers Citrons Melons and Gours and to drink frequently of this all violent exercise drinking of wine or strong waters must be forborn The Oyl of Nightshade is good to annoint the Reins some report that the seeds of Mandrakes are very useful to cool and purge a hot and foul womb such diseases are common to salt complexions and the dose of half a dram of Mandrake seed bruised and drunk at once in a cup of white wine cannot be dangerous for though the leaves be cold yet the seeds have a vital spirit in them to beget their like cold begets nothing but heat is an active quality for production There are many conjectures concerning those Mandrakes that Reuben found and that Rachel so much desired because she was then barren Gen. 30. it may be she knew that they were fit to cure her barrenness I grant that sometimes God is the cause of barrenness who shuts up the womb and will not suffer some women to conceive we have multitudes of examples in Scripture for it Rachel doubtless was not barren of her self and she was angry with Jacob that she said unto him Give me Children or else I die but he acknowledgeth God to be the chief cause of it And he said unto her Am I God who hath withheld the fruit of the womb from thee And again he makes the barren women to keep house and be a joyful mother of Children Prayer is then the chief remedy of their barrenness not neglecting such natural means to further conception and to remove impediments that God hath appointed and those means are chiefly either by a well ordering of the body and mind or else when need requires by taking of Physick The good order of the body consists in seasonable moderate eating and drinking of wholsome meats and drinks moderate exercise for idleness is a great enemy to conception and that may be the reason that so many City Dames have so few children if they have any they are commonly sickly and short lived it is not so with Country women who are always working they usually have many children and they are lusty and strong for moderate labour raiseth natural heat revives the spirits helps digestion opens the pores and wasts excrements comforts all the parts and strengtheneth the senses and spirits help nature in all her faculties and that is the way to have strong and many children As for working too much it wasts and destroys nature but I think few women are guilty of this fault Moderate rest refresheth nature as well as moderate work but there is a large difference between moderate rest and extreme idleness which dulls both mind and body and hastens old age and therefore Lycurgus commanded all the Spartans to work at least four hours in a day If women will be fair let them work as it is with the body so it is with the mind the mind must alwayes be intent upon something that is good yet this also admits of some relaxation and rest or else we are never able to endure but above all we must take heed of discontent for that wonderfully hinders conception whereas content of mind dilates the Heart and Arteries and distributes the vital blood and spirits through the body which exceedingly recreates nature in all her operations Much might be said in Divinity against discontent sullenness and murmuring which many women especially are too much guilty of for it troubles the imagination which should be pure in the act of conception it stirs up ill
forward the child is coming but if the skin break and the waters come down that is the last and surest sign as I said when the waters precede and the child doth not follow presently in some reasonable time these things following hasten and ease delivery Featherfew or Mugwort boil'd in white wine let her drink a draught of the decoction the sirrups of either may be made in summer with their juice clarified and boyled to a sirrup with twice as much Sugar a spoonful at a time to be taken or drink a dram of the powder of Cinnamon in wine or the distill'd water of Mugwort Betony Dittander Peniroyal or Featherfew Tansie bruised and applyed or the Oyl of it as I said will do it but the Eagle stone held to the secrets draws out both Child and Secundine hold it to no longer for it will draw forth Womb and all Miraldus tells of many more pretty ways But for more assurance take this powder made of Dittany of Crele Penni-royal Roundbirthwort of each ten grains Cinnamon and Saffron of each twelve grains beat them to fine powder and let her drink it in wine or some fit liquor in the decoction or distill'd waters of red Pease Penniroyal Parsly c. Outward means is good applied to the secrets take Agrimony leaves and roots but after cast it away lest it draw forth the Matrix Henbane Polypody or Bistort roots are commended for the same use But let all hot and violent remedies be avoided for many times they bring the woman into a dangerous Feaver Also too much fasting or too much eating breed peril to women in travel a woman that is with child cannot so well digest her meat as they can that are not with child Midwives therefore must ask how long it was since that the woman did eat and what and how much that vpon occasion she may give her something to strengthen her in her labour if need be as warm broth or a potched egg and if her delivery be long in doing give her an ounce of Cinnamon water to comfort her or else a dram of Confectio Alkermes at twice in two spoonfuls of Claret wine but give her but one of these three things for you may soon cast her into a feaver by too much hot administrations and that may stop her purgations and breed many mischiefs CHAP. III. What must be done after the woman is delivered IT will be profitable when a woman hath had sore travel to wrap her back with a sheep-skin newly flead off and let her ly in it and to lay a Hare-skin rub'd over with Hares blood newly prepared to her belly let these things be worn two hours in winter and but one hour in Summer for these will close up the parts too much dilated by the childs birth and will expel all ill melancholly blood from those parts This being done swathe the woman with a Napkin about nine inches broad but annoint her belly with Oyl of St. Johns wort and then raise up the womb with a linnen cloth many times folded cover her flanks with a little pillow about a quarter of a Yard long then swathe her beginning a little a-above the hanches rather higher than lower winding it even lay warm cloths to her breasts forbearing those that repulse the milk till longer time and the body be setled lest repercussives should do her hurt let then her blood be first setled ten or twelve hours and that the blood which was cast upon the lungs by violent labour may return to its own place but you may ease the pains of her breasts and comfort them laying a linnen cloth doubled and not warm'd dipt in Oil of St. Johns wort and of Roses with the yolk and white of an egg beat together of each an ounce with an ounce of Rose-water and as much of Plantan-water Let her not sleep till about four hours after she is delivered but first give her some nourishing broth or Cawdle to comfort her let her eat no flesh till two dayes at least be over for she may not use a full diet after so great loss of blood suddenly as she grows stronger she may begin with meats of easie digestion as Chickens or Pullets she may drink small wines with a little Saffron Mace and Cloves infused equal parts all tied in a piece of linnen and let them lie in the wine so close stopt she may drink a small draught of it at dinner and supper for the whole month and besides her ordinary food she may if she will take nourishing broths and Aleberries with bread butter and Sugar Let her drink her Beer or Ale with a tost she may drink a decoction of Liquorish Raisins of the Sun and a little Cinnamon if the child be a boy she must lye in thirty dayes if a girl forty daies and remember that it is the time of her purification that her husband must abstain from her CHAP. IV. When and how to cut off the Childs navel-string and what is the Consequent thereof THe Navel-string is twisted that it might be the stronger and that the blood by that delay might be better prepared had the Vein in the Navel or the Arteries or Vrachos that carrye the piss being single the different postures of the child in the womb or the difference of the womans standing sitting or lying might press a single vessel and stop the passage of the blood in the Vein spirit in the Arteries or water in the Vrachos but the twisting hath prevented that The cutting of the Navel-string helps much for it keeps the blood and spirits in after the Child is born A Midwives skill is seen much if she can perform this rightly The time to do it is so soon as ever the Child is born whether he bring a part of the Secundine out with him or not for sometimes the infant brings a piece of the Coat Amnios upon his head and that they name the caule I know no wonders this Caule will work but if you find this Caule on the childs head you shall miss it in the after-birth if it be in the after-birth it will not be on his head The reason why some Children bring it with them on their head into the world is weakness and it signifies a short life and proves seldome otherwise But if it come with it or without it so soon as it is come forth consider whether the Child be strong or weak for by the Navel-string the Mother gives both vital and natural blood to the Child wherefore if the Child be weak you must gently put back part of the vital and natural blood into the childs body by the Navel for that will refresh a weak child if the child be strong you need not do it Many children seem to be born dead that recover by this meanes as very weak children often do but you must crush out six or seven drops of blood out of the navel-string I mean that part which is cut off give
it the child by the mouth to drink But in what place this string must be cut Midwives and Physicians can scarce agree Elias lib. 4. c. 3. saith it must be cut four fingers breadth from the body but what is this Midwives fingers are not equal I suppose he means four inches for that was the opinion of the Antients Miraldus was critical in this point and from him some errors were begotten about it in late writers and Midwives Hence it is if Spigelius speak truth that Midwives cut the Females Navel-string shorter than they doe the Males for Boys privy parts must be longer than womens but it Females are cut short they say it will make them modest and their secrets narrower Spigelius and others laugh at this conceit for if Midwives by cutting their Navel-strings can make their secrets wider all women that have hard labour have good reason to complain of their Midwives for cutting their Navel-string so short Miraldus bids cut the navel-string long in both sexes for that the Instruments of Generation in both follow this proportion if womens Navel-strings be cut too short it will hinder their Childbearing Taisner an excellent Astrologer was of this mind If Nature framed the child by the Navel-string in the womb there is no small use of it afterward Miraldus saith that if a childs Navel-string be cut off and let fall to touch the ground that child shall never hold its water sleeping nor waking Also if you carry a piece of a Childs Navel-string about you you may saith Miraldus wear it for a foil in a Ring you shall never be troubled with convulsion fits nor the Falling sickness I have known all this tried but he saith farther that it will defend those that carry it from Devils and Witch-crafts and one may try this if they please If the Child be very weak when it is born put back gently the natural blood by the Navel vein and the vital by the Navel arteries and you shall see the child almost dead before to revive like one awak'd out of sleep if the child seem full of life and spirits then stop the navel-string near the Navel that no blood nor vital spirits go back and that will keep the child strong as it is having done this bind the Navel-string with a strong ligature and cut it not off too near to the string least it unloose you need not fear to bind the Navel-string very hard because it feels not and that piece of the Navel-string you leave on will fall off in a very few days for the whole course of Nature is soon changed in the Child and another way ordain'd to feed it It is no matter what you cut it off with so it be sharp to do it neatly The reason of so many nodes or knots in the childs Navel-string is that the blood and vital spirits might not come in too fast to choke the child Nature is a careful Nurse but Midwives say these knots in number signifie so many Children the reddish boys the whitish Girls and the long distance between knot and knot long time between child and child but all false for all women almost have equal knots and more knots with their last Children than with the first When the Navel-string is cut off apply a little Cotten or lint to the place to keep it warm least the cold get in and that it will do if it be not hard enough bound and if it do you cannot think of a greater mischief for the Child when part of the Navel-string left is fallen off Midwives use to burn a rag to tinder and to apply to the place a little powder of Bolearmoniack were better because it drieth Beasts can lick the Navel-string round enough to keep out the air but the curse lyeth heavier on women for our Grand-Mothers first sin than it doth upon beasts CHAP. V. What is best to bring away the Secundine or after-burden WOmen are in as great danger if not more after the young is born but Beasts are not the Caule or inward chamber of the womb the child did lye in stayeth oft-times long after the child is born which should presently follow it when it so happens if it begins especially to corrupt as it will soon do it causeth grievous pains and ofttimes death wherefore make hast to drive it forth but be sure the means you use be very gentle for the woman is now grown weak and her womb is quick of feeling but the Secundine is dead let the quick then cast forth the dead Midwives long nails may do mischief I grant delays are dangerous for if it be retain'd till it corrupt it will cause Feavers Imposthumes Convulsions and such like know this that what brings away the birth will also do good to call forth the after-birth then comfort the woman let her snuff up a little white Hellebore in powder to make her sneefe but put the woman to as little trouble as you can for she hath endured pain enough already The herb Vervain boil'd in wine or a sirrup made with the clarified juice as I told you of Tansie Featherfew and mugwort do the same but hardly so forcibly Alexanders boiled in wine and the wine drunk is excellent Sweet-Cecely Angelica roots or Master-wort doe the same so used The smoke of Mary-Gold flowers taken in by a Tunnel at the secrets will easily bring forth the Secundine though the Midwife have let go her hold Mugwort boil'd soft in water applied like a Poultess to the Navel brings birth and after-birth away but then remove it least it bring the womb after all Women suffer great pains in Child-birth because the womb that hath many Nerves and Sinews by which the body feels is strait till time of delivery and then it is stretched which causeth great pain and some women have more pain in bearing than others have because some womens passages are narrower and their wombs more full of Nerves as Anatomy will shew and some think the reason of the great soreness of some women is because the share-bone and os sacrum or holy-bone do part or give way in hard travel it was that excellent Anatomist Doctor Reads opinion and I believe it to be true for nature strives to the utmost in such times Crook and Columbus deny this but the bones are joyned with Cartilages and Ligaments which being wet with much moisture may give way though the bones open not but in all labour the Nerves that carrry feeling through the whole body are then stretcht and cause soreness till they have rest and be settled again CHAP. VI. Of the great pains and throws some Women suffer after they are delivered SOmetimes a woman delivered shall for two of three days after and now and then longer feel such bitter pains in her belly and above the Groin as if she should be delivered again these pains are not in the body and bottom of the womb but in the Vessels and Ligatures by
in the Veins is too hot and over-heats the Artery but if this heat of the Artery affect the Brain the Patient will be mad if it go over the whole body she falls into a Consumption lay your hand on the left side and you shall feel the Arteries beat much So then this Disease hath several considerations and must be cured partly as hypochondriacal Melancholy partly as in the cure for stopping of the Courses and partly as Melancholy arising from the womb Physitians can hardly tell which way to proceed oftentimes in these Distempers because it is hard to say what Disease the woman is sick of when the Spleen and left Hypochondry are afflicted from the womb The womb hath two Arteries the one from the Hypogastrick Artery and another from the preparing Arteries that which comes from the Hypogastrick runs almost through the whole Abdomen when the foul corrupt blood in the womb runs backward to the Hypogastrick Artery it passeth to the Caeliac Artery and so to the Spleen and the parts near it and it is Natures present way to thrust ill humors to the ignoble parts When the courses are stopt these ill humors are thought to be onely in the Veins but the veins and Arteries mouthes are so joyned that they pass from the Veins to the Arteries and that is the reason that elderly women whose courses were stopt when they were young are troubled oftentimes with the Spleen hypochondriack Melancholy These cannot endure to smell to sweet Scents they are short breathed Costive and Belch often they have pain in the left side and are very sad when the thin part of the blood is inflamed they grow very hot and red in the Face but that lasts not long the disease it will produce if not cured is chiefly a Schirrhus of the Spleen open a Vein if the blood be hot and the Courses stopt use Leeches to the haemorroids and Purge often but very gently with Quercetan's Pill of Tartar or Fernelius his Cum Ammoniaco and Birth-wort or prepared Steel to open the Courses and to cure Melancholy that ariseth from the womb When the liver is hurt by the gross blood running back to the holow vein from the womb as it often doth if the courses be stopt blood abound it breeds raw flegmatick blood and causeth the Green-sickness for there are many more great veins in the womb than in any other part of the body and they are often obstructed and sometimes by this stopping not onely sundry Diseases but Hair will grow over the whole body for hairs grow from the Excrementitious part of the blood and if that Excrement be sent over the body it will produce hair So Hippocrates tells us of a woman with a great beard and it is not long since there was a woman to be seen here in England which had not onely a long beard but her whole Body covered with hair It is also by reason of the womb or by consent from it that many women have no stomach others have a very large Appetite and sometimes a desire to eat strange things not fit for Food they Vomit and have the Hiccough many such ill symptomes as the vapors are so are the Diseases if Cold then they breed cold diseases if hot such diseases as proceed of heat For these filthy vapors when the way is large easily ascend from the Arteries of the womb and get into the Hypogastrick and Caeliac Arteries hot vapors cause Thirst cold vapors destroy concoction and are the cause of many cruel diseases by their Malignity When the stomach is hurt by the womb it is easily perceived for the signes of it go away sometimes and come again onely when the Fumes fly to the stomach There is no cure for this but by first curing the womb for this disease is worse than if the stomach were originally the cause of the distemper Cure the womb and if there be no other cause the stomach is cured first give a vomit to cleanse the stomach and use often to take pills of Aloes and Mastick for these fortifie the stomach If one womb in a woman be the cause of so many strong and violent diseases she may be thought a happy woman of our sex that was born without a womb Columbus reports that he saw such a woman and that her secrets were as the secrets of other women and part of the neck out It will be needless to tell you what some have written that it hath been often seen that worms and Hair and Fat and Stones and many other strange things have been found in womens wombs but what a miserable case is she in that was born with two wombs Such a woman Julius Obsequeus related that he saw and Bauhinus speaks of a maid who had a Matrix like that of a Bitch divided in two parts But some perhaps may think these things fabulous I confess they are monstrous and out of the ordinary course of nature and I know no cure for them if such things should happen I forbear therefore to speak any more of them and shall proceed to some things more material to be known and such things as few women living but have frequent occasion to be provided with remedies for CHAP. III. Of Womens Breasts and Nipples NAture within some convenient time after the Child is conceived in the womb begins to provide nourishment for it so soon as it shall be born The breasts are two in number lest by accident one Breast should fail and sometimes women have Twins and more children than one to give suck to Some women saith Gardan have been seen with more than two breasts for they have had two breasts on each side but that is very rare The form of the breast is round and sharp at the Nipple yet these differ in many women for some have breasts no bigger than men and some have huge overgrown swoln breasts by reason of much blood abounding and strong heat to draw and to concoct it The breasts should be of a moderate size neither too great nor too small not too soft nor too hard it is not necessary to have them over-big though they can hold but little milk thee may hold sufficient but large breasts are in danger to be cancerated and inflamed besides that the milk is not so good because their wants a moderate heat The immediate causes of great Breasts is partly natural by birth the passages being loose and large and sleep and idleness furthers it and much handling of them heats and draws the blood thither their causes are not many It is best to prevent their growing too big at first for it is not easily done afterward Cooling Diet and drying and astringent repercussive Topical means are the best Binding things help loose breasts and make them hard all cold Narcotick stupefying Medicaments are forbidden they will bind the Vessels but they abate Natural heat and will let no milk breed When children are weaned Discussers and Driers
two ounces and â—ake three drams of clear Chimney Soot make a powder keep it close stopt in a glass to use â—fter one year and not before For the cure of any other Ulcers or Fistulaes of the breasts first try to dry up the milk and when the breasts hang down bind them up that the humours fall not down to them cleanse them with a decoction of Rhapontick Agrimony and Zedoary to heal take six quarts of strong wine and boil in it Rhus Obsoniox Cypress Nuts of each four ounces and two ounces of Green Galls to the thickness of Honey If the Fistula be Callous and hard about the edges open the Orifice with a Gentian root and take the redness away then cleanse and heal as ordinary Ulcers Sometimes stones hair or worms are bred in the breasts from corrupt blood or milk and so they may breed in the back or Navel Sometimes the Veins and Arteries of the breasts are so streight that they can contain no blood to make milk it is either gross humors that stop them as they do the Vessels of the womb or they are made so by the wombs vessels being stopt or from hard humors bred there Sometimes the Nipple hath no hold for the child to draw forth the milk by and it was so made at first or else it is from a wound or ulcer that leaves a scar that stops it The breasts then must needs pine away but if the milk cannot be suck'd forth the breasts are swoln the reason is that the Paps or veins for the milk are not as they should be When gross humours only obstruct that may be cured but a Nipple naturally without a hole or the hole stopt by a Schirrhus or Scar after an ulcer is cured cannot be healed often rubbing of the breasts will open the veins for milk but the Nipples for the child to suck by are oftentimes deficient or lie tied either one or both that women can hardly give suck if an ulcer have eaten away the Nipple or it was not made at her birth it will never be otherwise if the hole be never so small so there be a hole often sucking will make it larger especially by a sucking instrument Clefts and Chaps of the breasts are troublesome and usual to Nurses and in time those Chaps grow to foul Ulcers and hinder giving of suck You may prevent this mischief if in the two last months they go with child you lay two cups of wax made up with a little Rozin to cover the Nipples To cure the Nipples take oil of Myrtles of wax ointment of Lead and Tutty or take Tutty prepared one scruple and half a dram of Allum Camphire six grains with ointment of Roses and Capons grease make it up or take Pomatum one ounce and a half Mastick a scruple Powder of red roses and Gum Traganth of each half a scruple before the child sucks wash the breasts with Rose water and White-wine and that it may suck without pain cover the sore pap with a silver Nipple covered with the pap of a Cow new killed You may take what quantity you please of Mutton Suet or Lambs Suet and wash it in Rose water when it is melted and clarified and annoint the paps with it CHAP. IV. Directions for Nurses BUt there is one consideration more for the Nurse before I leave this and that is that she may not want good milk in her breasts for if she do the child will suffer more than the Nurse because he draws it from her to feed him Those that are fretful lean or sickly have bad Livers and Stomachs and ill digestion that they can have neither much nor yet good milk and bad diet hinders much Such as want milk should drink milk wherein Fennel Seed hath been soked and feed on good nourishment and drink good drink Barley Water and Almond milk are good for hot cholerick people let her eat Lettice Borrage Spuriache and Lamb sodden and eaten with Vervine Calves or Goats milk nourish and breed milk in the breasts the eating of Anniseeds Cummin seeds Carraway seeds or their decoction drank will help well all things that increase seed ripen milk when you go to bed drink two drams and a half of bruised Anniseeds in the decoction of Coleworts Use this Plaister take Deers suet half an ounce Parsley herb and root the like quantity barley meal one ounce and a half red Storax three drams boil the roots and herbs well and beat them to Pap and incorporate all with three ounces of oyl of sweet Almonds and lay them to the breasts and nipple There are many things hinder milk either little blood to breed it or the faculty of the breasts is deficient and cannot do it or the Organs are not right as they should be also much watching fasting labour sweating and great evacuations by stool or Urine strong passions or great pains sorrows cares or strong Feavers and other discussers may destroy or hinder milk in the breasts so may also the childs great weakness who cannot draw it thither it is easily known by any of these causes when the breasts swell not but flag and lie wrinkled you know there is no great store of milk in them if the fault be in the Liver that it breeds not good blood you must rectify the Liver yet she may be in good health sufficient as to other things but then the infant will be ruined by it and it is for that end that nature provides milk that the child may be fed The usual way for rich people is to put forth their children to nurse but that is a remedy that needs a remedy if it might be had because it changeth the natural disposition of the child and oftentimes exposeth the infant to many hazards if great care be not taken in the choice of the nurse There are not many Women that want milk to suckle their own children so there are some that may well be excused because of their weakness that they cannot give suck to their own children but multitudes pretend weakness when they have no cause for it because they have not so much love for their own as Dumb creatures have Nature indeed hath provided some helps where milk is wanting for the child but those are not many to shew women that nature commonly doth her part with most mothers to furnish them with milk without farther means than by good wholesome meats and drinks but there are abundance of things that will hinder milk or destroy it For all things that are cold or else hot and dry are enemies to womens milk but none will breed it but such things as are hot and moist or not very dry and of such things there are no great plenty Also they must be of easie digestion and that will breed good blood that the milk that is bred may have no strong qualities with it to offend the infant You may lay a plaister of Mustard all over the breasts and
for the water pipe but they are joined about the middle of the share-bone and there they lose near a third part of their sinewy substance The use of these two sinewy bodies that make the yard is for the vital spirits to run through the thin parts of them and fill the Yard with spirits and they are so thick and compact and strong on the outside that they hinder these spirits from breaking suddenly away for should they flee out the Yard will stand no longer but presently fall down In the inside of the substance of the Yard which is wrapt about by the outward sinewy substance there is seen a thin and tender artery coming from the root of the Yard and runs quite through the whole loose substance of it Besides these there is a Conduit pipe placed at the lower part of the Yard that serves both for Seed and Urine to be put forth by as common to them both and it runs through the middle of the foresaid two sinewy bodies and is of the same substance with them and is loose and thick soft and tender and runs equally in all respects from the neck of the bladder to the top of the Yard only it is something larger where it begins than where it ends at the top of the Nut. This pipe at first as I said hath three holes where it riseth from the neck of the bladder that in the middle is wider than the other two pipes or holes are which stand on both sides of it and which are derived from the passage that comes from the Seed Vessels and they carry the Seed into this great pipe In this great pipe where it is fastened to the Nut of the Yard and with the two sinewy bodies there is a little hollow place wherein when a man is troubled with the running of the Reins by reason of the Pox some corrupt Seed or sharp matter lyeth which occasions great pains and Ulcers and sometimes the Chirurgeon is forced to cut off the top of the Yard and sometimes from these Ulcers there will grow a piece of flesh in the Yards passage for Urine which hinders the Urine that it cannot come forth till that piece of flesh be taken away by conveighing something into that Urinary passage that may eat it off There is one thing more worth taking notice of by Chirurgions concerning this pipe or Urinary passage that from the place where it begins and goes forward from the neck of the bladder to the spermatick Vessels and forestanders that there is a thin and very tender skin which is of a most acute feeling and to stir up delight in the act of Venery and it will make the Yard stand upon any delightsome thoughts or desires If the Chirurgions be not careful when they thrust the springs in near that place they will soon break this skin and undoe their Patient This common pipe comes from the neck of the bladder that is it begins there but it doth not take its being from it for boyl the bladder of any creature and it will part from it whereby it is plain that it is only join'd to it and so runs on to the Nut of the Yard CHAP. VIII The Nut of the Yard THe Nut is a piece of soft thin brawny flesh that it may do no hurt to the Womb when it enters it is full of spirits and blood very quick and tender of feeling yet will endure to be touched the skin of it is very pure thin skin and if it be broken or rub'd off it will soon grow again but if the body of it be hurt in the fleshy part or once lost it will never grow again it is a little sharp at the end and made like to a top that it may enter the better it is fastened as I told you to the foreskin or the lower part with a ligament or bridle which is sometimes so streight tied and is so strong that it will pull the head of the Yard backwards when it stands but it is usually broken or gives way the first time that a man lyeth with a woman for the combate is then doubtless so furious that a man feels no pain of it by reason of the abundance of pleasure that takes it off otherwise doubtless the part is so quick of feeling that no man were able to endure it CHAP. IX The Muscles of the Yard A Muscle is an Instrument for voluntary motion for without that no part were in a capacity to move it self There is a little Book lately set forth and is well worth the reading concerning the reason of the motion of the Muscles Of these Muscles the Yard hath four two on each side to give motion to it These Muscles are a fibrous flesh to make up their body they have sinews for feeling veins for nourishment Arteries for vital blood a skin to cover them and to part one Muscle from another and all of them from the flesh you may if you please easily discern them in a leg of a Rabbit Of each side of the Yard one of these Muscles is shorter and thicker than the others are and they serve to raise the Yard and to make it stand and are therefore called raisers or erecters the other two are longer and smaller and they open the lower part of the Urinary pipe both when men make water and when they cast forth the Seed and are therefore called hasteners because they dispatch and hasten the work one pair of these Muscles comes from a part of the hip near the beginning of the Yard besides that they raise the Yard to make it stand they also bend the fore part of the Yard to be thrust into the womb so that all things are so exactly fitted by nature that a blind man cannot miss it The two longer Muscles come from the sphincter of the Fundament and are of a more fleshy substance and are full as long as the Yard under which they go downward ending at the side of the water pipe about the middle of the Yard were it not for these large Muscles to open the conduit pipe the passage would be stopt by repletion of nervy bodies both when men should make water or cast out the Seed They also hold the Yard firm that it lean not to either side and serve farther to press forth the Seed out of the forestanders all helping to the sudden and forceable casting it out in time of Copulation lest the spirits fly away and the Seed prove unfruitful There are all manner of Vessels in the Yard as Veins Nerves Arteries yet Columbus tells us that Vesalius a great Anatomist maintains that there is neither Vein nor Nerve in it which is very false for there are some Veins and Arteries to be seen in the outward skin of the Yard others are within and there the Arteries are far more than the Veins and are dispersed through the whole body of the Yard The right Artery runs to the left side of it and the left
foreskins within the neck a little toward the share bone there is a short entrance whose orifice is shut with certain fleshy and skinny additions whereby and by the aforesaid foreskin the air coming between they make a hissing noise when they make water The figure of the concavity of the Womb is four-quare with some roundness and hollow below like a bladder There is towards the neck of the Womb on both sides a strong ligament near the hanches binding the womb to the back they are like a Snails horns and therefore are called the horns of the womb About these horns there is one Stone on each side harder and smaller than Mens stones and not perfectly round but flat like an Almond Seed is bred in them not thick and hot as in Men but cold Watry seed These Stones have not one purse to hold them both as Mens stones have but each of them hath a covering of its own that springs from the Peritoneum binding them about the horns and each of them hath a small muscle to move them by The foresaid Seed-Vessels are plainted in these Stones and are called preparing Vessels descending from the Liver Vein the great Artery and the Emulgent Veins then there are other Vessels called carriers that continually dilate themselves and proceed as far as the concavity of the womb where it is joyned to the neck and they carry the Seed to the hollow of the Womb. The many Orifices of these Vessels are called Cups the menstruous blood runs forth by them and the Infant suck's its nutriment from them by the Veins and Arteries of the Navel that are joyned to these Cups A Woman hath no forestanders for a womans Vessels are soft and do not hurt the stones as they would do in Men because they are so hard The whole Matrix considered with the stones and Seed Vessels is like to a mans Yard and privities but Mens parts for Generation are compleat and appear outwardly by reason of heat but womens are not so compleat and are made within by reason of their small heat The Matrix is like the Yard turned inside outward for the neck of the womb is as the Yard and the hollow of it with its receivers and Vessels and Stones are like the Cods for the Cods turned in have a hollowness and within the womb lye the Stones and seed Vessels but Mens stones and Vessels are larger The place of the cut of the Matrix is between the Fundament and the share-hone and the place between both Arteries is called the Peritoneum The neck from the cut by the belly goeth upward as far as the womb and the place of it is between the right Gut and the bladder all these are placed at length in the cavity of the belly The womb is small in Maids and less than their bladder neither is the hollow compleat but groweth bigger as the body doth In Maids of ripe years it is not much bigger than you can comprehend in your hand unless when they come to be with Child yet it grows by reason of their courses The sides of it are fleshy hard and thick but when a Woman is with Child it is stretched out and made thin and seems more sinewy and then it riseth toward the Navel more or less accordding as the Child is in bigness It hath but one hollow Cell yet this at the bottom is in some manner divided into two as if there were two wombs fastened to one neck For the most part Boys are bred in the right side of it and Girles in the left It joyns to the Brain by Nerves to the Heart by Arteries to the Liver and Lightes by Veins to the right Gut by Pannicles to the bladder by the neck of it which neck is short and comes not forth as Mens do it is joyned to the hanches by the hornes the concavity of it is loose every way and therefore it will fall to the sides and sometimes it will come all forth of the body by the neck of it Perhaps it is no error to say the Wombs are two because there are two cavities like two hollow hands touching one the other both covered with one Pannicle and both end in one channel No Man that sees a womb can well discern it unless he be well skiled in the Aspects concerning limbs and shadows whereby Physicians are much helped in many practices as well as other Artificers The womb by reason of that which flows to it is hot and moist It is of great use to cleanse the body from superfluous blood but chiefly to preserve the Child It is subject to all diseases and the whole womb may be taken forth when it is corrupted as I have seen and yet the woman may live in good health when it is all cut away In the year of our Lord 1520 upon the 5th of October Domianus a Chirurgion cut out a whole womb from one called Gentil the wife of Christopher Briant of Millan in the presence of many Learned Doctors and other Students and that woman did afterwards follow her ordinary business and as she and her Husband confest and reported she kept company with her husband and cast-forth Seed in Copulation and had her monthly courses as she was wont to have before CHAP. XII Of the likeness of the Privities of both sexes BUt to handle these things more particularly Galen saith that women have all the parts of Generation that Men have but Mens are outwardly womens inwardly The womb is like to a mans Cod turned the inside outward and thrust inward between the bladder and the right Gut for then the stones which were in the Cod will stick on the outsides of it so that what was a Cod before will be a Matrix so the neck of the womb which is the passage for the Yard to enter resembleth a Yard turned inwards for they are both one length onely they differ like a pipe and the case for it so then it is plain that when the woman conceives the same members are made in both sexes but the Child proves to be a Boy or a Girle as the Seed is in temper and the parts are either thrust forth by heat or kept in for want of heat so a woman is not so perfect as a Man because her heat is weaker but the Man can do nothing without the woman to beget Children though some idle Coxcombs will needs undertake to shew how Children may be had without use of the woman CHAP. XIII Of the secrets of the Female sex and first of the privy passage SEven things are here to be observed 1. The Lips 2. The Wings 3. The Clitoris 4. The passage for Urine 5. The four fleshy Knobs 6. The membrane or sinewy skin that joynes these four fleshy knobs together 7. The neck of the womb The Lips or Laps of the Privities are outwardly seen and they are made of the common coverings of the body having some spongy fat both are to keep the inward parts
can sooner or later procure nourishment and spirits The parts therefore next the Liver are sooner made than those that are far from it and those are first made that the mothers blood first runs to that is first the Navel Vein and that being first made by that the blood is carried to other parts The Womb is like a Bottle or Bladder blown when the Infant is in it and it lieth in the lower belly and in the last place amongst the entrails by the water course because this is easily enlarged as the child grows in the Womb and the child is by this means more easily begot and the Woman delivered of it nor is it any hindrance to the parts of nutrition while the woman continues with Child but had the Womb where the Infant lieth been seated in the middle or upper belly the child would have been soon stifled for the womb could not have stretched wider according to the growth of the Child because the bones that compass the upper belly would have hindered it The hollow part of the belly where the Womb lieth is called the Bason and it is placed between the Bladder and the right Gut the bladder stands before it and is a strong membrane to defend it and the right Gut lieth behind it as a pillow to keep off the hardness of the backbone so that the womb lieth in the middle of the lowest belly to ballance the body equally and to contain the Womb the Bason is larger in women than in men as you may see by their larger buttocks As the child grows the bottom of the womb which lieth uppermost lying at liberty and not tyed grows upward towards the Navel and so leans upon the small Guts and so fills all the hollow of the flancks when women are near the time to bring forth The Womb is fastened and tied partly by the substance of it and also by four ligaments two above and two beneath but the bottom is not tied neither before nor behind nor above but is free and at liberty that it can stretch as need requires in Copulation or Child-bearing and it hath a kind of animal motion to satisfie its desire Galen saith that the sides are fastened to the hanch-bone by membranes ligaments coming from the muscles of the Loyns and interwoven oft-times with fleshy fibres and carried to other parts of the womb to hold it fast The neck of the womb is tied but not every side to the parts that lie near it at the sides it is loosely tied to the Peritoneum by certain membranes that grow to it and on the back part it is fastened with thin fibres and a little fat to the right Gut and the holy-bone it lieth upon that fat all along that passage and it grows into one with the Fundament above the Lap to which it is joined before if the Fundament chance to be ulcerated within the dung hath been seen to fall out at the Lap. The fore part is knit to the neck of the bladder and because the wombs neck is broader than the neck of the bladder some part of it is fastened by membranes coming from the Peritoneum to the share-bone from hence it happens that when the womb is inflamed the Woman hath a great desire to go to stool and to make water but cannot The lower strings that fasten the Womb are two also called the horns of the womb they are sinewy round reddish and hollow chiefly at their ends like to the husky membrane and sometimes this hollowness is full of fat these horns come from the sides of the Womb and at their first coming forth they touch the Seed-carrying Vessels When these productions are stretched too much as they are ofttimes in hard labour in Child-birth there happens to women a rupture as well as to men but they may be cured by cutting and strong ligatures Fleshy fibres are joined to these productions after they come forth of the Abdomen and they are small Muscles called holders up in Women they belong not to the Stones as they do in men because they join in men to the Seed Vessels When these ligaments come at the share-bone they change into a broad sinewy slenderness mingled with a membrane which toucheth and covers the forepart of the share-bone and upon this the Clitoris cleaveth and is tied which being nervous and of pure feeling when it is rubbed and stirred it causeth lustful thoughts which being communicated to these ligaments is passeth to the Vessels that carry the seed Yet these holders up serve for other uses for as they are Muscles that hold up the Stones in men so they hold up the womb in women that it may be kept fom falling out at the Lap. The parts then of the womb are two The neck or mouth and the bottom The neck is the entrance into it which will open and shut like a purse for in the act of Copulation it receives the Yard into it but after conception the point of a Bodkin cannot pass yet when the time comes for the Child to come forth it will open and make room enough for the greatest child that is conceived This made Galen wonder and so should we all to consider how fearfully and wonderfully God hath made us as the Psalmist saith The Works of the Lord are wonderful to be sought out of all those that take Pleasure therein The form of the womb is exactly round and in maids it is no bigger than a walnut yet it will stretch so after conception that it will easily contain the child and all that belongs to it it is small at first to embrace the Seed that is but little cast into it It is made of two skins an outward and an inward skin the outward is thick smooth and slippery excepting those parts where the Seed Vessels come into the womb the inward skin is full of small holes It is far different from the Matrix of beasts which Galen knew not for the Grecians in those daies held it an abomination to dissect any man or woman though they were dead all the knowledge of Anatomy they learned was by dissecting Apes and such Creatures that were the most like to mankind but the inside of men or women they saw not and so were ignorant of the difference between them Whence it is confirmed that they knew not the seat of some diseases so well as we do and therefore must need fall short of the cure nor would they use the means to find out what disease they died of which true Anatomy would have made known to them and would have been a great furtherance to preserve others that were sick of the same diseases that others died of before It hath been much and long disputed how many Cells are in the womb Mundinus and Galen say there are seven several Cells and that a woman may by reason of so many places distinct one from the other have seven Children at a birth and many midwives are of
often and unreasonably opened by too frequent coition or in over moist bodies or by the whites it makes women barren and therefore Whores have seldom any Children it is the same reason if it grow too hard or thick or fat also the Cancer and the Schirrhus two diseases incurable which happen but seldom till the courses fail are bred here Thus I have as briefly and as plainly as I could laid down a description of the parts of generation of both sexes purposely omitting hard names that I might have no cause to enlarge my work by giving you the meaning of them where there is no need unless it be for such persons who desire rather to know Words than Things BOOK II. CHAP. I. What things are required for the procreation of Children I Have in the former part made a short explanation of the parts of both sexes that are needful for this use but yet some think that there is no need of describing the parts of them both because some have written that the Generative parts in men differ not from those in women but in respect of place and situation in the body and that a woman may become a man and that one Tyesias was a man for many years and after that was strangely metamorphos'd into a woman and again from a woman to a man and that in regard he had been of both sexes he was chosen as the most fit Judge to determine that great question which of the two Male or Female find most pleasure in time of Copulation Some again hold that man may be changed into a woman but a woman can never become a man but let every man abound in his own opinion certain it is that neither of these opinions is true for the parts in men and women are different in number and likeness substance and proportion the Cod of a man turned inside outward is like the womb yet the difference is so great that they can never be the same for the Cod is a thin wrinkled skin but the womb at the bottom is a thick membrane all fleshy within and woven with many small fibres and the Seed-Vessels are implanted so that they can never change their place and moreover their Stones are for shape magnitude and composition too different to suffer a change of the sex so that of necessity there must be a conjunction of Male and Female for the begetting of children Insects and imperfect creatures are bred sundry wayes without conjunction but it is not so with mankind but both sexes must concur by mutual embracements and there must be a perfect mixture of Seed issueing from them both which vertually contain the Infant that must be formed from them God made all things of nothing but man must have some matter to work upon or he can produce nothing The two principles then that are necessary in this case are the seed of both sexes and the mothers blood the seed of the Male is more active than that of the Female in forming the creature though both be fruitful but the female adds blood as well as seed out of which the fleshy parts are made both the fleshy and spermatick parts are maintain'd and preserv'd What Hippocrates speaks of two sorts of Seed in both kinds strong and weak seed hot and cold is to be understood only of strong and weak people and as the seed is mingled so are Boys and Girls begotten The Mothers blood is another principle of Children to be made but the blood hath no active quality in this great work but the seed works upon it and of this blood are the chief parts of the bowels and the flesh of the muscles formed and with this both the spermatical and fleshy parts are fed this blood and the menstrual blood or monthly Terms are the same which is a blood ordained by Nature for the procreation and feeding of the Infant in the Womb and is at set times purged forth what is superfluous and it is an excrement of the last nutriment of the fleshy parts for what is too much for natures use she casts it forth for women have soft loose flesh and small heat and cannot concoct all the blood she provides nor discuss it but by this way of purgation The efficient cause of this purging are the Veins that are burdened with this superfluity of the remaining blood and desire to be discharged of it Yet nature keeps an exact method and order in all her works and therefore she doth not send this blood out but at certain periods of time viz. once every month and that only in some persons generally maids have their terms at fourteen years old and they cease at about fifty years for they want heat and cannot breed much good blood nor expel what is too much yet those that are weak sometimes have no courses till eighteen or twenty some that are strong have them till almost sixty years old fulness of blood and plenty of nutriment in diet brings them down sometimes at twelve years old but commonly in Climacterical or twice seven years they break forth heat and strength making way for them and then maids will not be easily ruled for their passages grow larger the humours flow and they find a way by their own thinness of parts being helped by the expulsive faculty Men about the same age begin to change their faces and to grow downy with hair and to change their notes and voices Maids breasts swell lustful thoughts draw away their minds and some fall into Consumptions others rage and grow almost mad with love The time of the courses is not so exact that it can be certainly determined by us who are not of Natures Cabinet counsel Sometimes sharp corroding humours force the passage before it is time and sometimes the blood is so thick that it cannot break forth Lusty and Menlike women send them forth in three days but idle persons and such as are always feeding will be seven or eight days about it but there is a mean between them both that proportions the time accordingly four dayes will be sufficient but the quantity of blood that is cast out is more or less considering the circumstance of age temperament diet and nature of the blood and that different according to the seasons of the year the places by which it comes forth are the Veins and the bottom of the womb for the veins come from under the belly and seed branches to the bottom and to the neck of the womb and when women are with Child the superfluous blood runs out by the veins of the neck but maids and such as are not with Child send this blood forth by the womb it self by this blood the seed conceived increaseth and when the Child is delivered then it returns to the breasts for to make Milk as we hinted at before Though the blood be a necessary cause and nothing will be done without it that comes to perfection yet the seed is the Principal cause
shivering or trembling to run through every part of her body and that is by reason of the heat that draws inward to keep the conception and so leaves the outward parts cold chill Secondly The pleasure she takes at that time is extraordinary and the mans seed comes not forth again for the womb closely embraceth it and will shut as fast as possibly may be Thirdly The womb sinks down to cherish the seed and so the belly grows flatter than it was before Fourthly She finds pain that goes about her belly chiefly about her Navel and lower belly which some call the Water-course Fifthly Her stomach becomes very weak she hath no desire to eat her meat but is troubled with sowr belchings Sixthly Her monthly terms stop at some unseasonable time that she lookt not for Seventhly She hath a preternatural desire to something not fit to eat nor drink as some women with child have longed to bite off a piece of their Husbands Buttocks Eightly Her Brests swell and grow round and hard and painful Ninthly She hath no great desire to copulation for some time she will be merry or sad suddenly upon no manifest cause Tenthly She so much loatheth her victuals that let her but exercise her body a little in motion and she will cast off what lieth upon her stomack Eleventhly Her Nipples will look more red at the ends than they usually do Twelfthly the veins of her breasts will swell and shew themselves very plain to be seen Thirteenthly Likewise the veins about the eyes will be more apparent Fourteenthly The womb pressing the right gut it is painful for her to go to stool she is weaker than she was her visage discoloured These are the common rules that are laid down But if a womans courses be stopt and the Veins under her lowest Eylid swell and the colour be changed and she hath not broken her rest by watching the night before these signs seldom or never fail of Conception for the first two months If you keep her water three dayes close stopt in a glass and then strain it through a fine linnen cloth you will find live worms in the cloth Also a needle laid twenty four hours in her Urine will be full of red spots if she have conceived or otherwise it will be black or dark coloured To know whether the Infant conceived be male or female I refer you to Hippocrates Aphor 48. for it is a very hard thing to discover 1. If it be a boy she is better coloured her right Breast will swell more for males lye most on the right side and her belly especially on that side lieth rounder and more tumified and the Child will be first felt to move on that side the woman is more cheerful and in better health her pains are not so often nor so great the right breast is harder and more plump the nipple a more clear red and the whole visage clear not swarthy 2. If the marks before mentioned be more apparent on the left side it is a Girle that she goes with all 3. If when she riseth from the place she sits on she move her right foot first and is more ready to lean on her right hand when she reposeth all signifies a boy Lastly Drop some drops of breast Milk into a Bason of water if it swim on the top it is a Boy if it sink in round drops judge the contrary CHAP. IV. Of false Conception and of the Mole or Moon Calf MAny women themselves have thought that they had conceived with Child because their bellies were swoln so great and their courses were staid and came not down according to natures custome whereas this swelling of the belly more and more and stopping of the Termes proceeded from nothing else but an ill shaped lump of flesh which grows greater every day in the womb and is fed by the Terms that flow to it and this is that Midwives call a Mole or Moon-Calf and these are of two sorts one the true the other the false Mole The true Mole is a mishapen piece of flesh without figure or order it is full of Veins and Vessels with discoloured veins or membranes of almost all colours without any entrails or bones or motion it is bred in the wombs hollowness and cleaves fast to the sides of it but takes no substance from it sometimes it hath a skin to cover it and is empty within sometimes it is long or round and some women have cast forth three at a time like the Yard of a man sometimes these Moles are without sense sometimes they have an obscure feeling sometimes they are bred with the Child and then is the Child in great danger to be opprest by them sometimes they are voided when the Child is delivered or before or after Widows have been known to have had these Moles formed in their wombs by their own seed and blood that flows thither But ordinarily I think this comes not to pass but it proceeds from a fault in the forming faculty when the mans seed in Copulation is weak or defective and too little so that it is overcome by the much quantity of the womans blood the faculty begins to work but cannot perfect and so onely Veins and Membranes are made but the Child is not made yet this Mole is of so different kinds that it is not possible to set them down according to their several varieties but doubtless a Mole is sooner formed if Men and Women ly together when they have their courses and the blood is not fit for formation by reason of impurity so that neither heat nor cold are the chief cause of this error but the uncleanness of the matter that is not endued with a forming faculty from corrupt seed or menstruous blood bad humours are ingendred and nature works in vain Some are called false Moles and of those are four sorts as their causes are for either they proceed from wind and are called windy swellings or from water flowing to the womb and called watry swellings or else diverse humours cause this swelling and sometimes it is nothing but a bag full of blood If the Child be conceived with a Mole it draws the nourishment from the Child Both sexes doubtless contribute to the making of most Moles the seed of the Man being choakt with the blood of the woman and wrapt both in a caule Nature will make something of it though nothing to the purpose If it be true that some widdows have had them they were neither of the same shape nor substance but voided will consume into water and this can be supposed only of dead Moles for living Moles that have some sense or feeling or true motion in them can never be produced but mans seed must be a part of their beginning as for Maids they cannot breed any true Mole because a true Mole must be made of the greatest part of the womans blood coming into the womb but the vessels passages in
for the womb consents or dissents by sympathy and antipathy and sweet things applied to the privities profit in such cases and stinking things to the nose as burnt leather feathers or the like There is a great agreement between the womb and the brain as Hippocrates proves by a smoke to try barrenness by and there is the like between the womb and the Heart by Nerves and Arteries Sweet scents are pleasing to all womens wombs and ill savours offend but not in all women alike for where the Matrix is well disposed and not disaffected by reason of ill humours that it is charged with those Women are much delighted with sweet smels but it is not so with others who are unclean for they cannot away with sweet smels for no sooner do they begin to scent them but they fall into those fits for while the womb resents those sweet swels the ill humours that lye hid in the womb especially where the seed is corrupted fly up with the spirits and carry the bad humours with them to the Heart and to the brain and so cause these stiflings of the womb This is general for all sweet things that the Matrix is pleased with them rightly applied for apply any sweet thing to the Privities the womb is quiet and well refresht by them and so the humours are still or else they move downward but contrarily stinking things by Antipathy with the womb are thrust out by the spirits when we apply such stinks to the nose for the spirits fly downwards and often there is an abortion thereby The womb cannot smell scents no more than it can hear sounds or see objects for scents belong to the nose which is the Organ of smelling as colours to the eyes that are the instruments of seeing the ears of hearing but the womb partakes with these scents by reason of a thin vapour or spirit that comes from any strong smell for the womb is affected as our senses are very suddenly as it feels exactly which is in some kind a general sense and is common to every part of the body our spirits are refresht with sweet vapours not discerning them but as they are placed and strengthened by them But how doth the womb chuse sweet smels and refuse the contrary if she cannot discern I know not why it is so unless the reason be because of the impurity of those vapours that arise from stinking things for all such things are noynoysome and not well concocted and defile the spirts contained in the parts of Generation and so cause faintings and swoundings whereas sweet smels are pleasant and refresh the spirits But why then doth Ambergreece and Musk cause suffocations being so extreamely sweet scented and Assafetida and Castoreum two stinking cure it The Answer is that all women are not so affected but onely they whose wombs as I said are charged with ill humours and then quick spirits arising from sweet smels presently move the brain and the membranes of it and so the membranous womb is soon drawn into consent the bad vapours that lay still before being stirred and raised by the Arteries flee to the heart and the brain and by secret passages cause such fits but noysome smels being raw and ill tempered stop the pores of the brain and come not to the inward membranes to prevent them Also Nature being offended with destructive ill qualified scents raiseth up all her forces as against an open enemy to oppose them and so casts out of the womb with the ill vapours the ill humours also from which these vapours rise so comes a crisis in acute diseases if Nature be strong she casts them forth and when a man takes a purge Nature helps her self against the ill qualities of the Medicament which she can no way conquer but by casting it forth and so what humours were peccant are cast forth with it It was the judgment of Hippocrates that womens wombs are the cause of all their diseases for let the womb be offended all the faculties Animal Vital and natural all the parts the Brain Heart Liver Kidneys Bladder Entrails and bones especially the share-bone partake with it but no part is so much of consent with the womb as the Breasts are The agreement between the womb and the Brain comes from the Nerves and membranes of the marrow of the back some fee great pains in the hinder part of the head some are frantick others so silent they cannot speak Some have dimness of sight dulness of hearing noyse in their ears strange passions and Convulsions It agrees with the Heart by the Arteries of the Seed and lower belly and if these be stopt or choked by a venemous air the hearts natural heat is dissolved faintings and swoondings and intermission of pulse follow with stopping of their breath so that you cannot perceive them to breath unless you apply a clear looking-glass to their mouth and if they breath at all there will be left a dewy vapor upon the Glass if not they are dead for some of these women draw in no more air than what comes in by the pores of the skin into the Arteries and so goes to the Heart and such persons sometimes lye in such fits twenty four hours at least and many of them have lain so long that their Friends have thought them to be dead and have caused them to be unhappily buried when they were alive and would no doubt have revived when the fit had been over I speak this for a warning to others to beware what they do upon such occasions and to give at least two or three dayes time before they put them into the ground some have been taken alive out of their Coffins long after they were thought to be dead The womb and Liver agree by Veins running from the Liver to the womb which is the cause of Jaundies Dropsies and Green-sickness if the blood be naught that comes to it And that the Kidnies by the seed-Seed-veins consents with the womb is manifest by the pains of the loins women suffer when they have their Courses for the left Seed-Vein comes from the left emulgent or kidney-vein on the same side So the womb the bladder and the right gut agree for if the womb be inflamed presently follows a desire to go to stool and to make water by reason of the nearness and communion these parts have one with the other by the membranes of the Peritoneum that tye the womb and these parts together and by common Vessels running betwixt for from the same branch of the vein of the under belly run small Fibres to these three parts but the consent of the womb with the breasts is most observable the humours passing ordinarily from one to the other whereby we may know the affections of the womb and how to cure them and of the state of the Child contained in it Lufitanus tells us that he saw two women that voided monethly blood by their Nipples when their Courses were
not so pure as the first riseth to the breasts to make milk and the grossest part of the three stays in the womb and comes away with the birth and after-birth But this is a long dispute how the child comes to be fed in the womb Alcmeon thought the childs body being soft like a sponge did draw nourishment by all parts of its body as a sponge sucks water not only drinking from the mothers veins but from the womb also Hippocrates as well as Democritus or Epicurus seems to say that the child sucks both nourishment and breath at the mouth from the mother when she breaths for these two causes 1. Because it could not suck so soon as it is born were it not used to it before 2. There are excrements found in the Guts of a new born child but all creatures that suck will do it presently by instinct of nature as Chickins that never fed before will presently pick up their food and as for the excrements found in the Guts they are not excrements of the first concoction for they stink not but are gross blood that came from the Vessels of the spleen to the Guts and are dried there but now it is agreed by all since the truth is found out that the child in the womb is fed by its Navel only they differ about the food it lives on the Peripateticks say it is fed by menstrual blood which is the excrement of the last nutriment of the fleshy parts which at certain times is purged forth by the womb in a moderate quantity but primarily ordained for the generation and nutriment of the child But Fernelius Pliny Columella and Columbus deny this because such blood is impure and will where it falls destroy Plants and Trees Dogs will run mad that eat it and ofttimes hurts the women themselves causing swimmings of the head pains swellings and suffocations this then were ill food for a tender infant But to answer all If the woman be in good health her monthly courses are no bad blood for quality though they hurt in quantity being more than she can concoct and therefore she sends forth what is too much but if her body be ill affected the blood that stays in the womb is naught as well as that she voids by her terms but when the courses are not duly voided but stay in being stopt beyond their time of evacuation then they cause those ill effects formerly mentioned else not but women have not these courses the greatest part of the time they are with child nor yet when they give suck for the most part if the child be not fed with this blood what becomes of this blood when women are with child certain it is it turns into milk when time serves to suckle the infant with Yet Hippocrates was mistaken who says that the last part of the time the child lieth in the womb after it is quick it s fed partly by the mother milk but this is certain that the infant in the womb is fed with pure blood conveyed in the Liver by the navel-Navel-vein which is a branch of the great vein and spreads to the small veins of the Liver And here this blood is more refined the thick gross crude part goes to the Spleen and Kidneys and the gross excrement of it to the Guts and that is it is found in the Guts as soon as they are born The most pure part goes into the hollow vein and from thence through the whole body by small branches this blood hath a watry substance with it as all blood hath to make it run and keep it from clodding and this water in men and women breaths forth by sweat so it doth in a child and is contain'd in the Lamb-skin as I told you This watry substance that is joined with the blood when the blood comes to the kidneys parts from the blood and is sent by the kidneys that make their separation by the Ureters to the bladder nor doth the infant piss as he lieth in the womb by the Yard but the Urine is carryed by the Vrachos a vessel to carry it which is long and without blood to the Allantois â—or skin that is made to hold the childs water in so long as it remains in the womb this Vrachos or passage goeth from the bottom of the bladder to the Allantois and hath no muscle belongs unto it that the child may void the Urine when nature requires but when the child is born it hath muscles at the root of the bladder to shut and open that we may make it not a meer natural but partly a mixed action to follow our business and make water not alwayes but when we please but this is not the course with the child continually for the first month the childs Urine comes out through the passage of the Navel but in the last month by the Yard but it never goes to stool in the womb because it takes no nutriment by the mouth After forty five days the child lives but moves not commonly he moves in double the time he was formed and is born in thrice the time after he began to move If the child be fully formed in forty days her will move in ninety days and be born in the ninth month but he receives daily more food after the third and fourth month to the day of his birth A child born in six months is not perfect and must die but one born in seven months is perfect but one born in the eight month cannot live because in the seventh month the child useth all its force to come out and if it cannot it must stay two months longer to recover the strength lost upon the former attempt that had made it too feeble to get forth in the eighth month for if it come not forth at the seventh month it removes its station and changeth it self to some other place in the womb these two motions have so weakened it that it must stay behind a month longer for if it come forth before it is almost impossible for it to live But Astrologers determine this business another way for they affirm that children born in the seventh month do live by reason of the compleating of the motion of the seven planets allowing one month to each of them beginning with Saturn thus Saturn Jupiter Mars Sol Venus Mercury Luna Now if the child come not forth at the seventh month but stay till the eighth month the Planets having ruled every one his month Saturn begins to rule again who is an enemy to conception in all his qualities and so the child born in the eighth month will be born dead or live a very short time yet other Philosophers maintain that Saturn is no enemy to conception but ruling in the first month by his influence and retentive faculty the child is fixed in the womb but as the celestial bodies have their influence upon the terrestial and upon all the elements they cause all the changes
which the womb hangs and so it passeth to the sides and belly The causes are the cold air that is got in by her sore travel in child-birth or sharp or clotted blood sticking in the womb and pricking for expulsion these pains make the woman weak and very troublesome wherefore you must strive to abate them Some women are so hardy that to hinder this they will drink cold water so soon as they are delivered if the woman be cholerick she may do it with a crust of tosted bread otherwise it is dangerous CHAP. VII Of the Chollick some women are afflicted within the time of their travel SOme women have the Chollick at the time they should bring forth a child which hinders the delivery and the pains surpass the pain of their travel you can scarce distinguish one of these pains from the other but whilst the chollick lasts the birth comes not forward at all the causes of this disease are great crudities and indigestions of the stomach Let her take Cinnamon water one ounce with two ounces of Oyl of sweet Almonds newly drawn if this do it not then give her a Glister against wind or use fomentations against wind both are good in this cases More remedies there are against wind for Child-bed Women but these may suffice CHAP. VIII Of Womens Miscarriage or Abortment with the Signs thereof THere are abundance of causes whereby women are driven to abort or miscarry and I have spoken somewhat of this before I shall add a little more to it the better to know the signs causes and remedies against it it is the bringing forth an untimely birth or fruit before it be ripe if it happen in seven daies after conception it is but an effluxion but if in fourteen daies after it is an untimely birth sometimes an untimely birth may be alive but it is very seldom that it continues the elder and stronger it is the more hopes for life some women have such large wombs or slippery full of slimy humours that the Seed cannot be contain'd but slips away sometimes it is an imposhumation causing pain that hinders retention but this is rather Effluxion than abortment But sometimes the Cups or Veins whereby the conception is tied to the womb through which also nourishment passeth to it as we said before are stopt with viscous ill humours and so swollen with wind or inflamed that the Cups break and the fruit is lost for want of food this happens commonly in the second or third month so Hippocrates tells us that this is the certain cause if the woman that miscarries be of a good state of body not too fat nor too lean Sometimes the right Gut or the womb may have an Ulcer or Piles or the Bladder or Ureters swollen with the Stone or Strangury and the pains thereof may break the Cups or if she have a Tenasmus great provocation to stool and can do nothing she brings forth her birth by straining downward and that before she should Also great coughs make the woman feeble and consumptive and the child consumes within her great bleeding at the nose or any great loss of blood or too great flux of her courses after conception cause miscarriage if they flow in in the third month else not Also opening of a vein may cause it if the woman want blood but such as are sanguine may let blood after the fourth month and before the seventh month but it is good to see there be cause for it else not Violent purging before the fourth month or after the seventh causes abortment But gentle purging between the fourth and the seventh month are safe Violent fluxing or vomiting make women strain too much especially lean folks and may perish the child and break the Cups If the woman hunger much for want of food Nature hath nothing to spare to keep the child alive it is the same thing with Beasts and Plants that want nutriment and too much will choak it Sharp diseases or Pestilential Feavers Imposthumes in the breast Palsies falling-sicknes kill the child and sometimes the child is sick in the womb Also change of weather may cause miscarriage saith Hippocrates when the winter is hot and moist and the Spring cold and dry that follows it the women that conceive in that Spring will easily abort and if they do not they will suffer hard labour in child-birth and the child will be weak and short liv'd the reason may be because the body is opened and made more tender by the foregoing heat and moist weather and then the succeeding cold makes it more dangerous Great labour as dancing leaping falls or bruises great passions suddenly coming not lookt for may make a woman miscarry let all women beware of it for it is more painful than a true delivery because one is natural and the other against nature nature helps the one but not the other Signs of Abortment I have spoken of in part but commonly about the third and fourth month womens bodies that will swell and puff up with hardness and stiffness stitches and windiness running about her yet she feels no more weight in her body this is a sign of miscarriage if it be not prevented There is nothing better after conception to prevent abortment than good natural food moderately taken and to use all things with moderation to avoid violent passions as care and anger joy fear or whatsoever may too much stir the blood use not Phlebotomy without great cause nor yet violent purgatives If the Matrix be too much dilated use things that contract and fasten as Baths prepared Unguents Ointments Fumes Odours Plaisters Some remedies are specifical against miscarriage and if the woman be in danger she may use them and that in divers ways that she may take them as thus take red Coral in powder two drams shavings of Ivory one dram and a half Mastick half a dram and one Nutmeg in powder give half a dram in a rear egg c. A Powder to hinder Abortion Take Bistort-roots one scruple Kermes berries Plantane and Purslain seeds of each one dram Coriander prepared two scruples Sugar all their weight take every day one scruple with a little Maligo Wine if the body be not costive For an Ague Sometimes women with Child fall into an Ague then take Barley meal juice of Sloes and of Housleek a sufficient quantity and with Vinegar make a Cataplasme and lay it upon a double cloth and lay it often upon the womans belly and this will preserve the child from it For the wind Some are much troubled with wind that will cause them to miscarry then take Cumminseed and boyl it in water give her four spoonful of it twice a week with a dram of Methridate Against sudden frights Take Mastick Frankincence of each one dram Dragons blood Myrtles Bolearmoniak Hermes berries of each half a scruple make them into powder and give half a dram at once with White Wine or Chicken broth To strengthen the Child in
ligaments are so strong that tye it down and the falling of it down is onely by reason of moisture that relax the ligaments but that will not make it ascend and though it be enlarged in conception that is not presently but by degrees nor are the ligaments always much relaxed in Childbearing but what is that if it be not the womb that may sometimes be felt to move above the womans navel as round as a Ball that round ball is the womans stones together with that blind Vessel Fallopius found out like to the great end of a Trumpet and is therefore called Fallopius hiâ— Trumpet the stones they hang and the body of the Trumpet is like a pipe that is loose and moving and when they are full swoln with vapours and corrupt seed they stir to and fro and come up to the navel and Riolanus saith this Trumpet and the stones make this great round Ball. Whasoever fills them with corrupt seed and venemous windy vapours causeth this moving and from thence suffocation of the womb when these poysonous vapours are freely carried by the Nerves veins and arteries to all the principal parts the Brain the Heart the Liver and the rest it is not extream dangerous yet it may turn to the strangling of the womb if means be not used such as are good against suffocations of the womb when they seem to be strangled but of that afterwards Sometimes it falls as low as the middle of the thighs and sometimes near the knees when the ligaments are loose it falls by its own weight when the Terms are stopt and the Veins and arteries are full that go to the womb it is drawn on one side if there be a Mole on one side the Liver veins too full on the right side or the spleen on the left are the cause of it But how it comes to be loose is questioned Hâ—ppocrates saith great heat or cold of the feet or loyns violent causes external leaping or dancing may do it for these moisten and soke the ligaments if the woman take cold after she is delivered and the Terms flow Platerus ascribes it to the loosening of the fibrous neck the adjacent parts by the weight of the Matrix falling down but then the ligatures must be loose or broken but when a woman is so in a dropsie it is the salt water that causeth it and that drieth more than it moisteneth The signs to know it are that the womb is only fallen down if there be a little swelling within or without the privities like a skin stretched but if the swelling be like a Goose egg and a hole at the bottom there is then a great pain in the Os sacrum the bottom of the belly the loyns and secrets to which the womb is tied because the ligaments are relaxed or broken but the pain will abate soon and the woman can hardly go sometimes the vessels breaking blood comes forth the woman falls into Convulsions and a Feaver and cannot void her excrements by stool nor Urine at first it may be easily helpt but hardly afterwards yet it is not mortal though it be filthy and troublesome if it come with a Feaver or convulsion it is mortal in women with child if the ligaments be corroded the danger is the more The cure is thrust it up gently before the air change it or it swell and inflame first administer a gentle Glister to void the excrements then lay the woman on her back her head downwards her legs abroad and thighs lifted up and with your hand thrust it in gently remove the humours with a decoction of Mallows Marsh-mallows Cammomile flowers Bay berries Linseed and Fenugreek and annoint it with Oil of Lillies and Hens-greafe if it be inflamed stay a while before you put it up you may fright it in with a hot Iron presented near it as if you would burn it sprinkle on it the powder of Mastick Frankincense and the like when it is put up let her ly stretcht out with her legs and one leg upon the other for eight or ten dayes and a Pessary with a Sponge or Cork dipt in astringent wine with powder of Dragons-blood Bole or the ointment called the Caunlesses at the Apothecaries apply a large cupping glass to the Navel or breasts or both kidneys use astringent Plaisters to her back fomentations baths injections if evil humors cause it to fall out purge them first away because they sob the ligaments and then use drying drinks of Guaicum China Forta use Pessaries and ligaments as for the Rupture to keep it in its place of which see Francis Rauset you may use circles or balls in place of Pessaries made of Briony roots cut round or of Virgins wax with white Rosin and Turpentine when they are dried if it gangrene cut it off or bind it fast that it may fall of it self Rauset shews when you may ty it or cut it off without danger her diet must be drying and astringent and astringent red wine to drink If it encline to either side apply Cupping Glasses to the other side and the Midwife may annoint her finger with the oyl of sweet Almonds and by degrees draw it to its place CHAP. III. Of Feavers after Child-bearing THis disease frequently follows when she is not well purged of her burden or the purgations are corrupt that stay behind about the third or fourth day they will be Feaverish also by the turning of the blood from the womb to the breasts to make milk but this lasts not long nor is it any danger but you may mistake a putrid Feaver for a Feaver that comes from the milk for the humours may be inflamed from her labour in travel and corrupt though they appear not presently to be so the next day after she is delivered but from thence you must reckon the beginning of the Feaver it is probable then that this Feaver comes from some other cause especially if her purgings be stopt it may proceed from ill humours gathered in her body whilst she went with child and are only stirred by her labour if she be not well purged after travel the blood and ill humours retreat to the Liver by the great veins and cause a putrid Feaver but if they flow too much the Feaver may come long after A feaver from milk will come on the fourth day with pains in the shoulders and the back and the terms may flow well if she kept an ill diet when she was big with child the Feaver comes from ill humours if it come not from milk if it do it will end about eight or ten dayes after but if it come from stoppage of purgations if she have not a loosness it is very dangerous if black and ill savouring matter purge by the womb it is safe But if the Feaver come from ill humours and the body be Cacochymical it is worse for that shews the ill humours are many which nature cannot send forth by the after-purgings and
the woman is weak already by her travel Good diet and gentle sweating cure a Milk-Feaver but there must be purging and many remedies used for the other as bleeding in the foot cupping of the thighs to provoke the after purgations but if the time of after-purging be over if she be strong then open a vein in the Arm. It is dangerous to purge the woman after the seventh day as some do when she hath a Pleurisie because of her weakness after travel and because purges hinder the after-flux but you may if the flux of blood cease if need be give a gentle purge with Cassia or Manna sirrup of roses or Sena or Rhubarb Too cold and sharp things are naught take heed of cold drink or too much drink let her diet by degrees increase from thin to thicker If the Feaver came from too much milk or terms stopt open a vein in her foot then purge a way the gross humours with sirrup of Maidenhair Endive of each one ounce waters of Succory and Fennel an ounce and half a piece Sharp and putrified humours must be purged away with proper medicaments as water of Succory and violets of each two ounces sirrup of the same of each one ounce cooling Glisters are good here if there be need you may purge stronger but this is not usual I shall give you one example take two drams of Rhubarb in powder Diagridium four grains let them infuse all night in Succory and Anniseed water two ounces and half of each and one ounce of Borrage flower water warm them gently in the morning and strain them well through a linnen cloth add to the strained liquor one ounce of sirrup of Succory Cinnnamon water two spoonfuls drink it warm Then after you have well purged away the ill humours you may gently sweat her to open the passages of the body and womb you will find examples of them in the Treatise of the Courses stopt CHAP. IV. Of the looseness of the belly in child-bed Women THis may be thought a small matter in respect of other infirmities yet this is one of the most dangerous distempers and hardest to help in child-bed women for stop the flux you will stop her purgations if you stop it not she will perish by weakness nothing almost is safely given Physicians are at a stand in such a case but it is good be wary and moderate in what is done and it may be helpt God willing It is not safe to stop it presently and if it continue it may cause a Tenesmus or a dysentury if it come from ill diet let her mend that and strengthen her stomach outwardly if yet it continue use inward remedies that corroborate the stomach yet hurt not the womb as Barley water Honey and sirrup of roses cleansing Glisters are good and to temper sharp cholerick humours But the best way is to observe what loosenes of the belly she is molested with for if it be that they call Diarrhoea that will only discharge her body of ill humours therefore do nothing in that case but let her take strengthening food for when nature hath eased her self sufficiently she will stay both the looseness of the belly and her purgations from the womb and so no ill accidents will come but if the flux be Lienteria that the food comes away with the stools undigested annoint her belly with Oil of Mastick and of Myrtles and give her some sirrup of dried Roses pulp of Tamarinds or some torrified Rhubarb to purge the belly and not hurt the womb But if it rise to a Dysentery called the bloody flux then so soon as her Terms are purged away try to stay it 1. By purging as take half a dram of bark of yellow Mirobolans of rosted Rubarb as much finely powdered sirrup of Roses or of Quinces one ounce pulp of Cassia or of Tamarinds with Sugar half an ounce Plantane or Oaken water four ounces let her drink this at once 2. Abstersives are good as of whey or barley water or Glisters of Mallows Mellilot Wheat-bran and Oyl of sweet Almonds 3. Narcoticks to ease great pains Philonium Romanum two scruples Rose-water two ounces Maligo wine one ounce give it when she goes to sleep this is excellent In this case astringents are to be used but not in the former distempers here they profit there they are dangerous Of Womens vomiting in Child-Bed Women both before they fall in labour and at the time of their travel and also afterwards will sometimes fall to vomiting and it may proceed from ill diet or raw humors or from weakness of their stomach or consent of the womb when the after flux is stopt and sometimes they will vomit blood for the blood that is stopped below runs back to the great veins and liver and being much and sharp finds a way into the stomach and so comes forth at the mouth It is ill after child-birth especially the food being vomited there will be nothing to make milk for the child and sometimes in hard labour a Vein is broken and this may cause a dropsie if ill diet cause vomit rectifie that if ill humours stop it not presently but purge gently if blood come pull back by rubbing or cupping or bleeding opening a Vein in the foot ham or ankle and urging the after flux Sometimes the woman is costive then give her a suppository with Castle sope or Honey and then stay four or five days till you may give a Glister with Manna or Cassia If her Urine run away against her will bath her parts with a decoction of Betony Bays Sage Rosemary Origanum Stoechas and Penni-royal for her vomiting give her three spoonfuls of Cinnamon water one ounce and half of juice of Quinces about a spoonful at a time The leaves of Rosemary dried and brought into powder and so drank about a scruple or half a dram at a time in a cup of wine will stay vomiting preserve or Marmalade of Quinces or Medlars eaten or Pears or sowr Apples do strengthen the stomach juice of Barberries or of Pomegranates or sowr Cherries with Mint water There are many topical applications to be made to the pit of the stomach which being laid on and so continued prevail much as thus take the crum of the inside of a white loaf and tost it and steep it in good Maligo Wine and strew it lightly over with the powder of Cloves and Nutmegs or sirrup of Roses Rhubarb or pulp of Tamarinds and astringents of Roses Plantane Coral Tormentil if the Terms flow not at all the belly must be kept loose but vomiting is so perillous that it ought to be stopt alwaies provided it be done no sooner than it is needful and with good provisoes CHAP. V. Of Womens diseases in general WHosoever rightly considers it will presently find that the Female sex are subject to more diseases by odds than the Male kind are and therefore it is reason that great care should be had for the cure of that
sex that is the weaker and most subject to infirmities in some respects above the other The Female sex then that it may be more nearly provided for wheresoever it is deficient must be considered under three several considerations that is as maids as wives as widows and their several distempers that befall them almost commonly respect either the womb or their breasts or both and many of these diseases and distempers are common to all the Female sex I mean they sometimes happen to them in any of the foresaid three estates of life but Virgins or Maids diseases that are more peculiar to them though not essential because many of them are incident to the rest the causes may be the same they are that wich is called the white Feaver or green Sickness fits of the Mother strangling of the Womb Rage of the Matrix extreme Melancholly Falling-sickness Head-ach beating of the arteries in the back and sides great palpitations of the heart Hypochondriacal diseases from the Spleen stoppings of the Liver and ill affections of the stomach by consent from the womb But that I may make as perfect an enumeration as may be of all diseases incident to our sex give you some of the best remedies that are prescribed by the most Authentick authors or what I my self have proved by long experience Know then that there are some diseases that happen about the secrets of women as when the mouth of the Matrix is too narrow or too great when there is a Yard in the womb like a mans Yard when the secrets are full of Pimples or very rugged when there are swellings or small excrescenses in the Womb or else Warts in the neck of it or the Piles or Chaps Ulcers or Fistulaes or Cancers or Gangreens and Sphacelus or Mortification all these and more that may be reduced to these heads are found in the entrance or mouth of the womb 2. As to the womb it self it is frequently offended with ill distempers being either too hot or too cold too dry or too moist and of these are many more compounded as too hot and too dry too moist and too cold these are all to be cured by their contraries cold by heat moist by driers Or the womb is sometimes ill shaped and strange things are found in it some women have two wombs and some again have none at all Again the vessels of the womb sometimes will open preternaturally and blood run forth in abundance sometimes the womb swells and grows bigger than it should be It may be troubled with a Dropsie with swelling of its veins from too much blood also it may be inflamed displaced broken and it may fall out of the body It may be rotten or else cancerated and sometimes womens stones and vessels for generation are diseased Further the womb may be troubled with an itch it may be weak or painful or suffer by sympathy and antipathy from sweet or stinking smells Moreover the terms sometimes flow too soon sometimes too late they are too many or too few or are quite stopt that they flow not at all Sometimes they fall by drops and again sometimes they overflow sometimes they cause pain sometimes they are of an evil colour and not according to nature sometimes they are voided not by the womb but some other way sometimes strange things are sent forth by the womb and sometimes they are troubled with flux of seed or the whites As for women with child they are subject to miscarry to hard labour to disorderly births of their children sometimes the child is dead in the womb sometimes alive but must be taken forth by cutting or the woman cannot be delivered sometimes she is troubled with false conceptions with ill formations of the child with superfetations another child begot before she is delivered of her first with monsters or Moles and many more such like infirmities And as for women in child-bed sometimes the Secundine or after-birth will not follow their purgations are too few or too many they are in great pains in their belly their privities are rended by hard delivery as far as their Fundament also they are inflamed many times and ulcerated and cannot go to stool but their fundament will fall forth They have swoonding and epileptick fits watching and dotings their whole body swels especially their belly legs and feet they are subject to hot sharp Feavers and acute diseases to vomiting and costiveness to fluxes to incontinence of Urine that they cannot hold their water As for their breasts that hold the greatest consent with the womb of all the parts of the body they are sometimes exceeding great or swelled with milk or increased in number more breasts than there should be by nature sometimes the breasts are inflamed and trouble with an Erisipelas or hard swellings or Scirrhus or full of kernels or tumors called the Kings evil or strange things may be bred in the breasts besides this some breasts are diseased with Ulcers and Fustulaes or Cankers and some have no nipples or are chopt or Ulcerated and sometimes women have breasts will breed no milk to suckle the child with To speak then particularly to all these diseases that belong to our sex might be thought to be over tedious however I shall so handle the matter that I may not troubled the Reader with impertinences that I shall apply my self to what is most needful for the knowledge and cure of them all but because many diseases may be refered to the chief in that kind and the remedies that will cure one may be sufficient to cure the rest the judicious Reader may according as he shall have occasion make a more special application For it is in vain for any one to make use of what is written if they have no Judgement in the things they use in such cases it will be best for them to ask counsel of others first till they may attain to some farther insight themselves and then no doubt but when they shall meet with sufficient remedies to cure the greatest distempers they will be able to make use of the same without farther direction in the cure of those diseases that are lesse not that I intend to omit any thing that is material in the whole but that I may not trouble the Reader with needless repetitions of the same things as too many authours doe which breeds tediousness and can give little or no satisfaction at all CHAP. VI. Of the Green-sickness some call it Leucophlegmatia or Cachexia an ill habit or white Feaver THough both wives and widows are sometimes troubled with this disease yet it is more common to maids of ripe years when they are in love and desirous to keep company with a man It comes from obstruction of the vessels of the womb when the humours corrupt the whole mass of blood and over cool it running back into the great veins For so soon as Maids are ripe their courses begin to flow Nature sending the menstrual blood
preparatives use Steel powder to much effect giving first a vomit if need require This Medicament is good for all stoppings but if the Liver be stopt let the Steel be finely powdered Take prepared steel two ounces Agarick Species Diacrocuma and Darrhodon of each a dram two drams of Carthamus seed Cloves one dram Carrot seed and red Dock Roots of each one dram and a half If the woman vomit stop it not but I approve not so well of steel taken in substance as by infusion I am sure it must needs be the safest way Take steel in powder three ounces three pints of white wine and half an ounce of Cinnamon let all stand in the sun eight dayes stopt close in a Glass and every day stir them well the Dose is six or eight ounces for twenty daies together four hours before dinner Steel is best used in the Spring and in the Fall but alwaies you must purge the body and exercise both before and after the use of it and you must change the form of your Medicaments or the Patient will loath and grow weary of it Sweating and bathing are good Either Baths by Nature or Art made with Mugwort Calamints Niss Danewort Rosemary Sage Bays Elecampane Mercury Briony Roots Ivy When the Obstructions are opened and the body purged you shall see all the former symptomes flie a way But let the diet be meats of good digestion and good nourishment The air must be temperately hot all crude raw things must be avoided as green fruit Lettice Milk watry Fish Wine is good drink Sage and Cinnamon are good Sawce put Fennel seed into your bread and let it be well leavened Sleep moderately Marriage is a Soveraign Cure for those that cannot abstain Maids must not be suffered to eat Oatmeal or ashes or such ill trumpery though they desire them never so much for they will breed and increase the disease but Child-bearing women if they cannot be perswaded must have what they long for or they will miscarry Exercise I say is alwayes good to keep maids from this disease and to cure it when it is come For idleness causeth crudities but motion makes heat and helps to distribute the Nutriment through the body Yet moderation must be used for it will weaken faint people if it be too much First therefore onely rub and chafe the body then by degrees keep them from sleeping too much then increasing the labour after that the body hath been well cleansed by purging Hippocrates commends marriage as the chiefest remedy for Virgins sick of this disease if they once conceive that is their cure or as saith Johannes Langius for this disease never comes till they are fit for Copulation and then commonly it hasteneth and it is cured by opening of Obstructions and heating the womb which nothing can so soon and well perform as the Venereal acts to make the courses come down but yet it is very dangerous when these people are grown weak with this disease and their bodies are full of corrupt humours therefore they must purge them away before they marry for I have known some that have been so far from being cured that they died by it perhaps sooner than they would have done otherwise It may be good sometimes when the disease is new and the blood plentiful to open a vein when the courses are stopt and are not changed into some corrupt humour you may then bâ—eed freely this was the right judgment of Hippocrates but when the passages are stopt and the whole body is chilled with raw slimy humours there is no time to bleed then for that will augment the disease And because we are now upon this remedy of marriage for the cure of this infirmity though I touch'd it before I shall a little further discusse the matter Whether all maids have that sign of their Maiden-head which by Moses's Law Deut. 22. was so much to be taken notice of and Physicians call Hymen which signifies a Membrane some do absolutely deny that there is any such Membrane or skin and maintain also that if any maid have it it is only the closeness of the womb a disease in the Organ and not common to all And some of the best Anatomists maintain the contrary affirming that there is a skin in all or should be that is wrinkled with Caruncles like Myrtle-berries or a rose half blown and this makes the difference between maids and wives but it is broken at the first encounter with man and it makes a great alteration it is painful and bleeds when it is broken but what it is is not certainly known Some think it is a nervous Membrane interwoven with small veins that bleed at the first opening of the Matrix by copulation Some think they are four Caruncles fastened together with small Membranes Some observe a Circle that is fleshy about the Nimphe with little dark veins so that the skin is rather fleshy than nervous Doubtless there is a main difference between Virgins and Wives as to this very thing though Anatomists agree not about it because though all have it yet there may be causes whereby it may be broken before marriage as I instanced formerly and sometimes it is broken by the Midwives Leo Africanus writes that the African custome was whilest the wedding dinner was preparing to shut the married Pair into a room by themselves and there was some old woman appointed to stand at the Door to take the bloody sheet from the Bridegroom to shew it to the Guests and if no blood appeared the Bride was sent home to her friends with disgrace and the Guests dismissed without their dinner But the sign of bleeding perhaps is not so generally sure it is not so much â—n maids that are elderly as when they are very young bleeding is an undoubted token of Virginity But young wenches that are lascivious may lose this by unchast actions though they never knew man which is not much inferior if not worse than the act it self Amongst those signs of Maidenhead preserved is the straightness of the privy passage which differs according to several ages Habit of body and such like circumstances But it can be no infallible sign because unchast women will by astringent medicaments so contract the parts that they will seem to be maids again as she did who being married used a bath of Comfrey roots Some judge but falsely that if a maid have milk in her breasts she hath lost her Maidenhead There can be no milk say they till she hath conceived with child Maids want both the cause and the end for which nature sends milk namely to provide food for the child to be born If a maids courses stop they corrupt and turn not to milk The Breasts have a natural quality to make milk but they do it not unless convenient matter be sent to make it of and that is not done but for the foresaid end Hippocrates Galen there followers say that maids may have milk in
their brests True it is that it is a certain sign of a living child in the womb when there is milk in the Breasts and of a mole or false conception when there is no milk But that milk that maids sometimes have in their breasts is only a watry humour when their courses are stopt and cannot get forth of the womb then the Breasts by their faculty make whey but cannot make milk without there be first carnal copulation it is white as milk is but not so white nor so thick neither comes it to the breasts by the same veins that that blood that makes Milk comes into them by for this breeds in the veins of maids from the superfluous nutriment of their breasts But to enlarge a little more concerning that distinction of Maids from Wives by the straitness of the Orifice of the womb There are three diseases in this part of the secrets either the mouth is too strait or too wide or sometimes there hangs forth the Yard of a woman The Privity is too strait when there is not room for the Fore-man to enter Such persons seldom child and are delivered with great danger and difficulty and if this come from ill conformation that nature hath made them so it will be hard to cure them by any thing but copulation and bringing forth of Children to enlarge the place yet sometimes this straitness comes from the use of astringent Medicaments when whores desire to appear to be maids sometimes the passage is so close shut up on the outside that nothing can come forth but water and the courses and sometimes neither of them because they are attracted not bored nor pierced by nature This disease is threefold it is either in the mouth neck or middle body of the womb it is never good for copulation conception or for the courses to be voided by I remember I saw a woman that had the Orifice of the matrix so little that nothing but the Urine and her courses could pass through yet she conceived with child no man can suppose how she received the mans seed but by attraction of the Matrix the midwives when she was to be delivered discovered the difficulty and a Chirurgeon made the Orifice wider and she was by that means happily brought a bed of a Son The cleft may be also close stopt by reason of some wound or Ulcer cured in that part I saw a woman which by the French disease had been much eaten off yet when it was healed it grew close together that there was no passage left but for her Urine to come forth by either proud flesh in foul diseases or else some membrane by evil conformation may stop the passage if it be in the mouth of the secrets it is visible but if in the neck it lieth concealed Unless it be when the courses are flowing or Copulation is used it is not painful and maids are supposed to be with child for the belly tumifies and the body is discoloured The terms cannot well come forth of the neck or the Veins of the womb if there be an Ulcer or inflammation you may know almost whence it came but if a membrane stop it the place is white if the flesh be red and you touch it the touch will discover it for a membrane is harder than the Flesh the hazards are great for childing women CHAP. VII Of the Straitness of the womb SOmetimes there are superfluous Excrescences that fill up the Privites and are like a tail I spoke something before of a Clitoris but these are not that for a Clitoris if it be rubbed increases pleasure in copulation but these fleshy excrescensces are painful to be touched and hinder copulation you may safely cut them off if you can come at them because they are redundant There are a kind of wings in a womans secrets much like to the comb of a cock for colour and shape it swells like a Yard sometimes in lust it is full of spirits and is hard and Nervous at the top of it sometimes it is no less than the Yard of a man and some women by it have been suspected to be men it proceeds from much nutriment and frequent handling of the part that is loose To cure it you must first discuss and dry it with easie astringents then you may go on to Causticks that are not dangerous as burnt Allum or Egyptiac if these cure it not then you may at last cut it off or tie it with a horse hair or piece of Silk till it fall off but cut it not at first for fear of pain and inflammation The way to cut it off is taught by Aetius to cut it neatly between both the wings causing as little pain as possible may be and after that foment the place with an astringent Decoction of wine with Pomegranate Flowers Cypress nuts Bay Berries Roses and Myrtles Some call this disease Tentigro when the Clitoris grows bigger by odds than it should be it is a nervous piece of flesh which is lapt in by the lips of the Privitie and it riseth in the act of Copulation it hangs below the Privy parts outwardly like a Gooses Neck in bigness and it comes from a great Flux of humours to the part being loose and often handled The way to cure it is to purge superfluous humours forth and to draw blood and use a spare diet and very cooling and to discuss with the leaves of Mastich tree or of the Olive You may take away the excrescence by Sope being boiled with Roman Vitriol and last of all add a little Opium make some Troches and sprinkle the powder upon the superfluous part and after that cut it off or cure it by ligature as I said before There is another fleshy substance that sometimes fills up the privy parts coming from the mouth of the womb and hangs oftentimes out like a Tail it may be easier taken a way than the former by the same means of cutting or binding with a thread or silk dipt in sublimate water There are many other infirmities that stop up the secrets of the womb of which I shall briefly speak but the straitness of the neck of the womb it self is not so usual as too much wideness is you may know when it is too strait by the stopping of the Courses and a weighty pain bearing down It proceeds partly from ill conformation by nature and partly from Diseases sometimes it is so shut up outwardly that neither the courses can come forth nor the mans Yard enter in that it is not possible for her to be with child if the straitness be in the inward Orifice the courses run back again for want of passage and hinder conception It may happen when the caule lieth to that and presseth upon the neck of the womb the stone in the bladder or swelling in the straight Gut may cause it also if the parts cling together naturally either soft red flesh or a white hard skin causes
this straitness as I said But the straitness of the womb it self and its vessels are sometimes natural by ill conformation and such women will miscarry in the fourth or fifth month because the womb that naturally stretcheth as the child grows in bigness will after the woman is delivered shrink as small as it was before in some women will not be extended But if the straitness be in the vessels or neck of the womb Conception is hindered because the terms cannot flow gross humours especially when the womb is cold and weak stop the mouths of the veins and arteries Inflammations or Swellings or Scars or Schirrhus or the like may be the causes sometimes thick Flegm abounds if there were a wound or the after-burden were forcibly pulled out If the terms be stopt from an old obstruction of grown humors the cure is hard a Schirrhus or humour that shuts up the vessels cannot be cured what is to be cured must first be done by general evacuations of purging and bleeding then use means to provoke the terms if the straitness come from diseases first cure them Sometimes the Secrets of women are full of pushes and scurf with itching and pain wheals rising in the neck of the womb They are of two sorts some are gentle but most commonly they are venemous and come from the foul disease and will impart it unto men They proceed from burnt sharp cholerick malignant humours hard to be cured Sirrup of Fumitory is very good in such cases it is also profitable to wash the parts with wine and Salt-Peter Draw blood if it abound first in the arm then in the ancle but first if be the disease drink the decoction of Sarsa and Guaicum for it Avoid sharp sowr meats it is good to purge with Confectio Hamech or Fumitory Pills You may see the cause of this great itching and scurf if you search with Speculum Matricis an instrument Chirurgeons use Sometimes Tubercles grow in the neck of the womb with heat and pain you may see them them for they are a kind of swelling wrinkles like the wrinkles you see when you close your Fist but they are much larger and when they swell they make these Tubercles they are usual in the secrets or Fundament and come from the same malignant causes with the former and some are more enflamed and painful than others are The swellings are hard proceeding from thick burnt humours Powder of egg-shels burnt is good to strew upon them to dry them up if they be new and there be no inflammation but if they be old and dry they must first be softened These wrinkled skins when they are many resemble a bunch of Grapes Cure the Pox first for usually that is the cause and then they will vanish of themselves If Medicaments prevail not some old authors bid us to use an actual Cautery and to burn them away Likewise Warts in the secrets are bred by a gross dreggy ill humour and is of kind with the forementioned Nature sends it forth to the outward skin and there it becomes Warts if they be hard or blew and painful you may know what they are the Pox is in them and hard to be got out and they lie where medicines can scarce be applied to them to remain if you apply sharp Topicals use a defensative of Bole and Vinegar that you hurt not the parts and so you may touch them with Aqua fortis or Spirit of Vitriol or of Brimstone There are several sorts of these Excrescences there are those that are called Myrmeciae leave an Ulcer if you cut them off Thymi Clavi will grow again but Acrocordanes leave no root if they be once cut away The powder of Mulberries is good to cure Warts and swellings upon the privities of men and I recommend it to women in the same cases Sometimes women have the piles of the womb like those in the Fundament they proceed from gross blood that staies about the ends of these veins in the neck of the womb Women that are thus troubled look pale and are very faint and weary this may come from too long flowing of the courses and grow thick and cannot get forth they are painful and bleed disorderly you may see them by the help of Speculum Matricis and touch them The cure is by revulsion of the humour by letting blood in the arm or heel and by gentle applications if the pains be great if nature open them and they bleed moderately you may give way to nature but if they run violently open a vein in the arm two or three times Purge with Rhubarb Tamarinds and Mirobolans mingled and use Topicals to stay the blood The blind Piles bleed not at all they are cured by letting young women bleed freely and by softening the parts with emollient Fomentations to open the veins and to dispel the humour made with mallows Marshmallows Cammomile Melilot Maâ—lius Linseed Fenugreek Anoint where the pain is with butter Populeon and Opium if the pain be gone and they bleed not use Driers of Bole Ceruss Allum burnt Lead wash'd if the veins swell with blood rub them with Fig leaves or with Horse Leeches applied draw blood from them This disease of the Piles of the womb differs from the flowing of the courses because this is with great pain and moreover the courses run from the veins of the womb and the neck of it but the Piles are caused when the blood runs too much to the veins that force the secrets and either stops there or comes forth sometimes by them but some say they differ from the courses namely by their great pain but that they make the body lean if they last long and the blood comes not forth so orderly nor at certain periods and set times as the courses use to do Sometimes the womb hath Ulcers bred there some are cleaner and some again are sordid and malignant all hard to be cured They proceed generally from a virulent Gonorrhoea or the Pox but they may rise from inflammation by abundance of sharp corroding humors from abortion or hard labour or sharp medicines or when the after-birth is pulled out by force and rends the womb The pain of Ulcers is biting and increased by sharp injections of Wine or Honey and Water All Ulcers are hard to heal there because of the sensibility and moistness of the part and a light Excoriation or rawness will not easily be healed but eating Ulcers never are cured there almost but by Death Ulcers by Venery if they be cured you must first cure the Pox. All Ulcers in the secrets of Wombs may be cured if they be not Cankered and the way to cure them is by Purging and bleeding to cleanse and carry away and divert the ill Humours and moisture from the Womb if there be great pain abait that with Mucilage of Fleabane and whites of Eggs or an Emulsion of Poppey Seeds Warm Injections into the Womb will help forward the Cure made of
to Ulcers yet sometimes the substance of the womb hath been Ulcerated and rotted away A dead child in the womb may cause an Ulcer but all these Ulcers and Rottenness are to be dealt withal as I have shewed before Sometimes there may be a Rupture of the womb I never saw but one and that was exceeding rare it happens so seldome The womb is so fenced by the adjacent parts that it is seldom wounded unless the Chirurgeon chance to do it in cutting the Child forth of the womb There is more pain in the neck of the womb than in the bottom of it but this cutting may be cured by Injections and Glisters for the womb made with Decoctions of round Birthwort Cypress Nuts boiled in Steel water and Astringent Wine and a little Honyed water and Agrimony Mugwort Plantane Roses Camels Hay Horehound If the pain be great use Anodynes or Pessaries made with a wax candle dipt in Vulnerary Oyntments as take Turpentine Goose Grease wax and Butter of each a dram Bulls Grease Deers Marrow Honey Oyl of Roses of each two drams I have refer'd all the foresaid Diseases to a natural or Accidental straitness of the mouth or neck or Middle of the womb all of them being a hinderance to Copulation and making compression upon the parts CHAP. VIII Of the Largeness of the womb THe opposite to straitness of the womb is the largeness of the Orifice and sometimes more Cuts than nature makes which may proceed from Copulation or bearing of Children By the largeness of the Orifice women are often barren and sometimes the womb falls out as Hippocrates saith Nor do men desire to keep company with such women The cure after Child-birth is with Astringent Fomentations and Bathes of Allum water binding things of Bole Dragons blood Comfrey Roots Pomegranat Flowers Mastick Allum Galls of each half a dram powder all and make a Pessary to thrust into the Orifice dipt in this Mixture made fit with steel'd water Hard Labour doth sometimes cleave the Privy parts as low as the Fundament whereby the rent is made so wide that it goeth from one to the other hole a long piece of Allum put into the cleft may do good to help it but if there be many passages in the secret parts it comes from an error in nature there being a passage open from the womb to the straight gut There are some diseases whereby Physicians are much deceived thinking the cause to lye in the womb when it doth not for womens stones and Vessels of procreation may be sorely distempered and their womb be no wayes affected with it Gasper Bauhin and John Scenkius tell us of a Maid whose belly was swoln as though she had been with child but when she died she desired to be opened to let the World know her innocency and it did so appear for her stones were swelled as big as a white penny Loafe they were blew and spungy and full of water The womb is sometimes subject to great paines besides what proceed from the former Diseases for there is that which is called the Cholick of the womb it is usual to women with child as the Inflammation of the womb is it binds the belly and stops the veins all women are subject to it either from sharp humours or from clotted blood that sticks to the hollow of the womb Drinking of cold drink may cause it sometimes it comes from retention and corruption of the seed that is cured as fits of the Mother If it come from ill humours that lye there purge them forth if from windy vapours that rise from the heat of ill humours these must be discussed give a Glister of Maligo wine and Nut oyl of each three ounces Aquavitae one ounce oyl of Juniper and Rue distiled of each two drams apply it warm lay on a plaister to the Navel of Tacamahac and Gum Caranna CHAP. IX Of the Termes THe Monthly courses of women are called Termes in Latin Menstrua quasi Monstrua for it is a Monstrous thing that no creature but a women hath them or else Menstrua because they should flow every Moneth and they are named Flowers because Fruit follows and so would theirs if they came down orderly they are then a sign that such people are capable of Children it preserves health to have them naturally but if they be stopt there must be danger when the woman is conceived then they stop they begin commonly at fourteen years old and stop at fifty or in some at sixty years old they are of no ill quality naturally but are onely superfluous moisture and blood the Female sex abounds withal for when they stop the Child in the womb is supplied by them The Termes run longer two or three dayes with some women than with others for they differ as women do according to plenty or less plenty of good diet and labour or idleness or the like Hippocrates saith They should bleed in all but two pints at most or a pint and a half the colour of the blood and substance differs according to divers tempers it should not be too thick nor too thin without any ill scent and of a red or reddish colour and the veins of the womb are the passages which are double from the Spermatick and Hypogastrick double branch on both sides to send forth superfluous menstrual blood from all parts of the body some say this blood is venomous and will poison plants it falls upon discolour a fair looking glass by the breath of her that hath her courses and comes but near to breath upon the Glass that Ivory will be obscured by it It hath strong qualities indeed when it is mixed with ill humours But were the blood venomous it self it could not remain a full month in the womans body and not hurt her nor yet the Infant after conceprion for then it flows not forth but serves for the childs nutriment We read of a child but five years old that had her monthly purgations and John Fernelius writes of one that was but eight years old that had them but certainly it must be a sign of a lascivious disposition and of a short life Some womens courses stop not only by conception but from other causes that have come again very well seven or eight months after but if the terms fail there is either want of blood or the blood is stopt but some refer the causes of stopping the courses to four heads viz. 1. Corruption of the blood 2. The Womb ill disposed 3. An ill habit of the body 4. An ill Custome of the faculties of the Body 1. If the Womb be diseased as it is subject to many the Terms will increase or diminish wherefore the womb must be first healed 2. If the blood be corrupt it will be too thick or too thin by reason of ill humours and ill diet 3. If the body be ill disposed it sends not blood as it should do some laborious Country Women become so hot and
dry like Men that they have hardly any courses at all as the Indian women have none but they are barren if they abound with no more blood than will nourish their body Blood is wanting either because it is not made or not dispersed where it should but turned to other uses Old age cold constitutions diseased bodies will not make blood also often bleeding of the great vessels and much loss of blood or from Issues to make diversions the womb is not supplied with it Nature spends the blood in Nurses that give suck for an other end and fat women wear it on their backs sadness and fear not only wast but cool and corrupt the blood 4. The weakness of the woman hinders the courses and so long as she continues weak she will have noâ— But all these things must be judged of by the relation of the party whether the whole body be diseased or the defect be in the womb or vessels or the mouth of the womb turned aside If the cause be from heat that her courses are stopt her Pulses are swift and strong she is very thirsty and her head aketh and such like signs of heat If from cold the woman is drowsie and sleepy her Pulse beats slow and she is not thirsty the Veins are ill coloured if the woman be fat or lean that will discover the inward cause of it The usual cause of obstruction of the courses is thick slimy humours or from thick gross melancholly blood proceeding from a cold distemper of the Spleen and Liver by drinking cold Water or eating gross Food The Roman women drank snow water and that was the reason said Galen that they had few or no courses but in such cases they could not be very fruitful It will seem strange that some women are so hot of constitution that they have conceived yet never had their courses at all Courses stopt in maids are not the same as they are in women for the effects are very different Maids they prâ—â—â—ntly fall into the Green sickness by it the blood going to and fro all the body over and is corrupted but in women it runs to the womb commonly and causes them to vomit and to loath their meat or to desire unnatural things You shall know a woman with child when her courses are stopt from a maid that hath hers stopt for the one looks wan and pale the other lively and well the one is sad the other merry the womans pains daily decrease and the others increase This obstruction causeth not only barrenness but strange distempers Suffocations Swellings Imposthumes Coffing Dropsies difficulty of breathings urine supprest Costiveness Heaviness Megrims Vertigoes Head ach and many more fearful distempers Hippocrates tells us that when the terms are long stopt the Womb is diseased with humours imposthumes ulcers barrenness Leucophlegmacy vomiting of blood heart-ach and head-ach if the symptomes be great there is danger of death The best way to move the courses in weak women is to forbear Physick and to feed them high with nourishing meats and drinks this is where the Woman is lean her Liver weak and blood is wanting but if blood abound then give a gentle purge or Glister then open a vein to draw down the blood to the womb open a vein in the foot or ancle one day one leg and another day the other four or five daies before the time the courses should come down use Frictions and binding of the parts below but Issues and opening of the Emrods do hurt and draw from the womb you may first loosen the belly with Hiera Picra or Pills de tribus For Phlegmatick bodies use the Decoction of Guaicum or Sarsa and Sassafras and Dittany fifteen drops without sweating purge with Agarick Mechoachan Turbith and Scamony or drink wine of their infusions if the stomach be foul give a vomit lest it get into the Reins Things that provoke the terms are hot and thin take sirrup of Mugwort and of the Fierwort of each one ounce and a half Oximel simple one ounce Water of Motherwort and Mugwort of each two ounces Pennyroyal and Nip of each one ounce sweeten it with a spoonful or two of Cinnamon water make a Julip to drink at thrice Pessaries are not fit for maids but Fumes may be used if she be no maid bruise Mercury with Centaury Flowers put in a bag for a pessary begin with the mildest remedies if it be from a humour provoke not the Terms but cure the swelling Some say that the blood going to other parts cause the Terms to stop but that is contrary for the blood goes to other parts because the Terms are stopt Authors agree not what veins must be opened to move the Terms Galen thinks the Ancle Vein and most men conclude the same because it opens obstructions and brings down the blood open the ancle twice or thrice rather than the arm once but in other diseases of the womb it is best to open a vein in the arm as when the Terms are too many or drop or the womb is inflamed The Saphaena is opened by putting the foot into warm water few terms flowing if the blood be but little there is no harm Diseases grow when they are stopt by thick blood as the Cancer Schirrhus and Erisipelas when the time is near then use the stronger remedies the weaker having made a way for them Tender natures as maids must have but gentle remedies as Aloes one dram and a half Agarick and Rhubarb of each one dram Myrrh Gum Ammoniack dissolved in Vinegar Gentian Root Asarum of each half a dram Cinnamon Mastich Spikenard of each one scruple five grains of Saffron make a mass of the fine powder with sirrup of Mugwort the Dose is one dram To urge the terms in strong Country people take pills Aureae and Aggregativae of each two drams pill Felid and Hiera of each four scruples at the Apothecaries Diagrid one scruple Trochischi Alhandal half a scruple with a hot pestle mix them well in a Mortar adding sirrup of Damask Roses one dram oil of Anniseed olympical half a scruple dissolve Gum Dragant in Cinnamon water and make your pills and let the woman take two scruples every morning before the time of their terms at least three or four drops Ointments and Plaisters are good also and pessaries made of Aromatical things and sweet smells and Fumes as take Benzoin Storax Calamita Bdellium Myrrh what you please mingle them and strew some on a pan of Coles the woman so placed that she may receive the Fume by a Tunnel broad at the lower end to keep the smoke in but lest these Fumes cause the head-ach keep the Fumes down with clothes about the woman that they come not to her head But do none of these things to women with child for that will be Murder give your remedy a little before the Full Moon or between the New and the full for then blood increaseth but never in the Wane of the Moon
for it doth no good Sometimes but seldome the courses stop with Fulness such must saith Riolanus be let blood in the arm but with great care CAHP. X. Of the overflowing of the Courses or immoderate flux thereof THis distemper is contrary to the former and Women are often subject to it and it brings many diseases great weakness loss of appetite ill digestion dropsies consumptions pains in the back and stomach Their ordinary continuance should be two or three daies or four or five daies in large People but if they stay longer it is not good or if they come oftener than once a month I mean the Moons Month passing through the twelve Signs that is twenty seven daies and odd minutes The causes may be falls or blows or strains or hard labour over-heating the body which makes the blood thin or from weakness of the retentive faculty and too much strength of the expulsive faculty or from crude raw blood and weakness or too much moisture and this is the cause that some women have their terms by drops and it lasts long and there is pain and the secrets are alwaies wet if this be not remedied it may cause Ulcers and inflammations if the blood be superfluous open the arm not the ancle vein if it be Cacochymical correct it if too thin and sharp correct and amend it by coolers and thickeners and strengthen the wombs retentive faculty by astringents and convenient driers Many think that the overflowing of the Terms and Issues in women are the same diseases but that is not so as Galen shews for by superfluous Flux of the courses only blood is voided but in too great a measure But women continual Issues send forth not only blood at certain periods but various humours that cause the disease The Terms exceed when they flow in too great abundance in a short time or continue longer than is needful the one resembles violent rain the other flow rain but lasts long If too much blood be the cause of this superfluity the blood will be whitish and pale if choller the terms will be yellow if melancholly they will be dark coloured black or blew it weakeneth all the body and the Liver and Bowels dip a clout in the blood and dry it in the shade and then the colour of the blood will shew the humour that offendeth and accordingly prepare your remedies Sometimes it causeth swounding paleness the whites or the dropsie If fulness be the cause abate blood opening the Liver vein of the right arm repel cool bind bleed little but often use cuppings to the back and breast against the Liver below the paps to draw the blood back but scarifie not under the breasts upon the Salvatella bind and rub the arms and shoulders Waters of Plantane Purslain Shepherds Purse Sorrel sirrup of Pomegranates or dried Roses will cool and thicken the blood and so will Bole or Sealed Earth sirrup of Poppeys Philonium Laudanum are good If it proceed from choller purge with sirrup of Roses of Rhubarb or with Senna or Manna if watry blood be the cause the Reins and Liver are out of temper sweat with China and strengthen those parts Do not force veins but use astringents take the juice of ass dung sirrup of Myrtles of each half an ounce with an ounce of Plantane water let the woman drink it and not know what she takes lest it offend her or give every day a dram of the powder of Mulberry tree roots When you use cold astringents temper them so that you stop not the Veins use no Pessaries except the Veins of the neck of the womb be open Cold and binding fomentations are better than baths for baths make the humours to flow more wash the legs and hips in cold water If choller persist Rhubarb powder in conserve of Roses is very good The principal causes of this overflowing are but four viz. 1. Some of the Vessels broken or much dilated 2. Violent Purgation 3. Corroding humours 4. Hard travel in Childbed or the Midwives unkind handling First if the Vessels be broken the blood gusheth forth in heaps if flowing of humors they come with much pain though the quantity be small Secondly All Physicians almost wish to stop the Courses first that are too many before you strengthen the woman But I think it more reasonable to strengthen nature first and nature will help her self with less means but strengthen the womb and annoint the reins and back with oils of roses Myrtles Quinces do this every night lay a piece of white bays then next your reins upon the bare skin and keep it there constantly inject the juice of Plantane into the Matrix it seldome fails You may drink of the decoctions of Sage Bistort Tormentil Knotgrass Sannicle Ladies-mantle Golden Rod Loos-strife Meadow Sweet Archangel Solomons Seal Purslane Shepherds Purse red Beets Bark and Cups of Oak and Acorns But I commend this medicine take of Comfry leaves or roots of either a handful and of Clowns all-heal the same bruise them and boil them well in Ale drink a good draught when you please and it will help you though the mouths of the Vessels be open Too much blood is lost in the overflowing of the courses when the faculty is hurt by it otherwise the quantity cannot be defined The immediate causes are the opening of the Vessels but the mediate cause is the blood offending in quantity or quality Vessels are opened three or four wayes by Anastomosis when the mouthes lye open by reason of a moist distemper or use of Aloes or hot and moist bathes or from Diapedesis when the blood sweats through the Coats this is not often or from Diaeresis when the sharpness of the blood eates the Vessels in sunder if a Vein be broken Coral Bole Myrtles Comfrey are good to bind or a Poultis with astringent powders and the White of an Egg. Thirdly If a vessel be Corroded a dram of the roots of Dropwort in a new Egg will glutinate Sleep long use little Exercise nor Venery but eat little if it come from Plethory use thin Nutriment beware of hot things alwayes purge the humour that offends vomits are good to stay and turn the course of the humours Take Conserve of Roses two ounces of water Lillies one ounce prepared Pearls and burnt Harts-horn of each half an ounce Bole Armoniac and Terra Lemnia of each half a scruple make an Electuary with sirrup of Plantane this is cooling thickning and binding or in case of great necessity take a Bolus made with old conserve of Roses half anounce Philonium or Requies Nicolai two scruples or but a scruple of each let them drink Red Wine or quench steel in their drink or bloil Plantane Seeds Leaves and Roots in their drink CHAP. XI Of the whites or Womens Disease from corruption of humors WHen the body grows Cacochymical womens Courses stop or run very slowly and sometimes they abound sometimes all humours run thither to a general vent
and the whole body is purged by it but the womb is not affected it is a filthy disorderly Evacuation either before or after Terms or when they are wholly stopt the colour of the matter is blew or green or reddish few maids have this Disease women with child may it is not the running of the Reins for that is in less quantity whiter and thicker nor from nightly Pollutions which come onely in sleep The cause is some excrementitious humor sometimes like watry blood a cold and moist womb breeds this Disease or when ill humors are gathered in the whole body or Liver Spleen or stomach they are sometimes thus voided nature that useth to send forth good blood by the Veins casts forth these ill humours by them they are of divers colours and stink If it be from a Phlegmatick humor the Ligaments of womb grow loose and the womb falls out in time they make thick veins and they are discoloured in their Faces short breathed if the humor be not bred in the womb it comes from a Cacochymy of the whole body if it comes from the whole it is more in quantity if onely from the womb it is but little Many have had this Disease long and found no great hurt but if it be not timely looked to it will do mischief causing Consumptions Faintings and Convulsions when the matter is sent to the nerves and brain You must not stop it suddenly for so it will find a way to the nobler parts Bleeding is naught in this case general Evacuations are good and after particulars according to the part diseased The whites and over-flowing of the Terms I say are a disease and although it resemble the Gonorrhaea it is not the same it is also like the matter that flows from an Ulcer of the womb but it is not that neither The running of the Reins in Men women is not the same disease with this the running of the Reins is peculiar to unchast women but this flux of whites may proceed from too much cold or too much heat and hath many differences as will appear by the colour of the matter sent forth the colour shews the peccant humor it is necessary for the cure to search whether it be a Gonorrhaea or involuntary flux of seed which both women and Men are subject to and the remedies are the same as the causes are in both Women commonly call the whites the running of the Reins but the running of the Reins comes most commonly by unlawful Venery or excess in that Act but the proper cause of the whites is too much superfluity of Excrement but where those Excrements are bred is doubted Some say these corrupt humours are daily bred in the principal parts others say they come onely from the womb and seed Vessels others say from the Reins onely and the womb is unaffected But Galen plainly shews that the whole body is affected that dischargeth it self by the womb and therefore weak and flegmatick women are most subject to have the whites To cure it first observe a strict Diet cleanse the whole body by purging letting blood Sweating and Diureticks in very moist bodies prepare the humours three or four dayes before purging or take Cassia new drawn one ounce powder of Rhubarb one dram with sirrup of water Lillies or Violets take it in the morning dissolve it if you please in Posset drink and about two hours after take some broth You may take every day a dram of Trochisci de Carabe in Plantane water or give every second or third day a dram of the filings of Ivory in Plantane water a very laudable remedy To sweat also is very laudable in this case take Barley water three ounces strong wine two ounces drink it warm and lie and sweat Conserve of Roses and Marmalade are excellent for this disease drink the decoction of Comfrey Roots with Sugar to sweeten it take three or four ounces at a draught Whites of eggs well beaten with red Rose water and made with Cotton or Linnen into a Pessary and put into the Matrix with a string tied to it to pull it out again is commended Diureticks are not good till the body be well purged and then they will help to drive the ill humour forth by Urine Lest the womb be hurt with ill humours inject a decoction of Barley Honey of Roses and Whey with sirrup of dried Roses Take red Saunders two drams and a half yellow Saunders one dram and a halfe red Roses three drams fine Bole a quarter of an ounce burnt Ivory one dram Camphire half a dram white wax one ounce oil of Roses three ounces make an ointment This is not only good to anoint the secrets but also to cool the inflammation of the kidneys stomach liver and other parts If the Whites flow from abundance of superfluous humours you may evacuate much through the skin by often rubbing of the body but first rub easily and by degrees rub harder Of these fluxes there are three sorts White Red and Yellow and there are three kinds of Archangel or dead nettles to cure them First The White Flowers helps the Whites Secondly The Red are to cure the Reds Thirdly And the Yellow flux is cured by the Yellow Half a dram of Myrrh taken every morning is commended or a scruple of the Pills of Amber at night often taken they will not work till the day following Many strange things are oftentimes voided by the Womb as Stones and Gravel And Peter Diversas relates that a Nun voided a rugged Stone as large as a Ducks Egg and it gave her some ease but there followed a foule flux of the Womb that killed her Garcias Lopius saw a Woman that voided many Ascarides or small Worms by the Womb. When stinking humors are cast forth this way it is not properly the Running of the reins for both sexes have sometimes the running of the reins and most commonly it comes from a foul course whereas the whites come from a corruption of humours if it run white and little and thick it is a true flux of seed if it last and be not cured it brings a wasting of body and barrenness if this flux grow from fulness of Seed the buds of willow steept in wine will cure it if it proceed from a weak retention give half a scruple of Castor and use astringents to the reins and belly or a bath of willow leaves Myrtles Quinces each two handfuls red Roses Rosemary each a handful Cypress Nuts three ounces let her sit up to the Navel apply bags of the same to the Loins and Privities and anoint the said parts with oil of Mastich and Myrtles CHAP. XII Of the Swelling and Puffing up of the Body especially the Belly and the Feet of Women after Delivery THe Swellings of these parts in Childbed women come either from a depraved diet used whilest they were with child or else drinking immoderately after delivery or it may be they abound with more blood
will do well to consume the Moisture that is superfluous Take the Meal of Beans and Orobus of each two ounces and a half Powder of Comfrey roots half an ounce Mints three drams Wormwood Cammomile Flowers Roses of each two drams when they are boiled with two ounces of oil of Mastick make a Cataplasme or take red Roses Myrtle leaves Horstail Mints Plantain a handful of each Flowers of sowr Pomegranates two Pugils boil all in Vinegar and red wine and with a spunge lay it warm to the breasts and let it dry on If Milk be too much in the breasts after the child is born and the child be not able to suck it all the breasts will very frequently inflame or Imposthumes breed in them they swell and grow red and are painful being over-stretched whence hard tumours grow too much blood is the cause of it or the child is too weak and cannot draw it forth Sometimes it goeth away without any remedies but if you need help then hinder the breeding of more milk and try to consume that which is bred if the child cannot draw it forth Glasses are made to suck it forth The woman must eat and drink with moderation and use a drying diet if she nurse not the child her self or if the child be weaned to dry up the milk take a good quantity of Rozin mingle it with Cream and being luke-warm lay it all over the breasts or make a plaister to dry up the Milk with Bean meal red Vinegar and oil of Roses lay it on warm If the Breasts be inflamed keep a good reasonable cooling Diet moistening and comfortable it is blood and not milk that causeth inflamation for milk when it grows hot makes pain and thereby the blood that staies in the small capillar veins being out of the vessels is inflamed and corrupt it may also come from Falls or bruises or strait lacing of the breasts if there be a Feaver and a throbbing pain and a red hard swelling the breasts are inflamed Inflammations may be without danger but the breasts that are loose and full of Kernels will soon turn to a Schirrhus or a Cancer If the body then be full of blood open a vein but if the Courses be stopt open a vein in the Ancle and after that in the arm You may purge bad humors easily with Manna or Senna if the blood be over hot eat Endive Lettice Water-Lillies Plantane Purslain use repercussives and moderate cooling things Apply a cloth dipt in oil of Roses with Honey and Water when the strength of the inflammation is past use Discussers as well as repercussives as take white-bread Crumbs Barley-flour of each one ounce and a half Flour of Beans and Fenugreek of each half an ounce Powder of Cammomile Flowers and red Roses of each tow drams boil them then mingle Rose Vinegar one ounce and as much of oyle of Roses and Camomil lay it over the breasts then use onely Discutients as take Bean Meal Lupines Fenugreek Linseed and Powder of Camomil Flowers each an ounce make a Cataplasme if the Matter begin to grow hard use things that soften and attenuate as take a handful of Mallowes and boil them soft Powder of Linseed Marshmallows and Camomil Flowers each one ounce boil all again and with an ounce of oyl of Jessamine make a Cataplasme If you find that it will come to suppuration lay on a Plaister of Diachylon if it turn to Matter and the Impostume break otherwise open it with a Lancet and let out the Matter then câ—eanse it thus Take Turpentine and Honey of Roses of each one ounce Myrrh a scruple it will be hard to cure the Ulcer unless you dry the Milk in the other breast because much blood will run thither to breed Milk An Erisipelas of the breasts comes from great Anger or some Fright which turns to an inflammation and is cured as the former apply no fat things nor cold repercussives to discuss the thin blood that makes the inflammation lay on a clout dipt in Elder-water and give her Harts-horn Terra Sigillata and Carduus with Elder-water to make her sweat Some womens breasts are too small when the blood cannot find a way to the breasts but is repelled and forced some other way or when the Liver is dry and the woman Feaverish toils over much or watcheth or from some cause that wasts the body Therefore feed well and foment the breasts with Warm water and white-wine wherein softning things have been boiled then anoint them with oyl of sweet Almonds and rub the Breasts often to attract the blood Sometimes hard cold swellings will breed in womens breasts and Phlegmatick swellings as we see in persons that have the Green-sickness their breasts will pill for the part is loose and spungy it is larger when the terms are like to flow and when they are gone it abateth for a while If it come from an ill habit of the body derived from the womb it is to be feared otherwise it may be discust or dissolved dry and hot meats and means are best If the Courses be stopt open them and cure the ill habit then use Topicks to discuss and strengthen the part they must be temperately hot otherwise you will cause a Schirrhus by resolving the thin parts and leave the thick to grow harder Make a ly of Colewort and vine Ashes and brimstone or a decoction with Hyssop Sage Origanum and Camomile Flowers then anoint with oyl of Lillies Bays and Camomile or take four ounces of Barley Meal and half an ounce of Linseed and of Fenugreek Dill and Camomile Flowers as much one ounce of Marshmallow Roots with oyl of Dill and Camomile make an application These Phlegmatick swellings must be discust at first or they may turn into Cancers She must eat Bread well baked parched Almonds dryed Raisins let her drink a decoction of China Roots Sassafras and Sarsa forbear Milk-meats unleavened Bread and Sleeping presently after meat Besides watry and Hydropick humours there are Kernels growing in the breasts which are small round spungy bodies and sometimes swell by humors flowing thither there grow sometimes other hard swellings caused by that they call the Kings-evil it is engendred of gross Phlegm or thick mattery blood and grows hard under the skin the stopping of the Courses is the ordinary cause when the Menstrual blood runs back to the breasts this will soon become a Cancer if it be not prevented by softning means and a moderate thin Diet keeping her self warm and using good exercise before Meats avoid idleness and meats of hard digestion Baths of Brimstone are good to be prescribed against windy and watry swellings But Celsus saith That the Scrofula of the Breasts is seldome seen for that must proceed from a thick Phlegmatick humor mixt with a melancholy humors it is sometimes painful and somewhat like a Cancer or will soon be turned to one but stands often times at the same pass for many years It comes from disorder or stopping
change it often and lay on another all such things as being eaten breed milk will do the like if you lay them on outwardly or foment the breasts with this decoction as Fennel Smallage Mints pound them and lay them on with Barley meal half an ounce the seeds of Gith one dram and with two drams of Storax Calamita and two ounces of the oil of Lillies to make a Poultis Some say that by sympathy a Cows Udder dried in an oven first cut into pieces and then powdered half a pound of this powder to an ounce of Anniseed and as much of sweet Fennel-seed with two ounces of Cummin seed and four ounces of Sugar will make milk increase exceedingly or boil a handful of Green Parsly and a handful of Fennel with a small handful of Barley and half an ounce of red Pease in chicken broth or sweeten the former decoction with fine Sugar and so drink it Dill and Basil and Rochet and Chrystal also but this must be warily taken not too often nor too much are good to cause milk in the breasts some prescribe the hoofs of a Cows forefeet dried and powdered and a dram taken every morning in Ale I think it should be the hoofs of the hinder feet for they stand nearest the Udder where milk is bred I mislike not the experiment but our Ladies thistle is by Signature and the white milky veins it hath well known to be a very good help to women that want milk A woman may be of a good complexion and yet want milk in her breasts and there is a Royal Person now living that I will not be so bold to name here that when his Nurse wanted milk the Physicians Doctor Mayhern and others were desirous to put her off from being nurse because they said she had not milk sufficient to supply the child with but his Sacred Majesty of Blessed and Glorious Memory spoke in the womans behalf when the Physicians confest That the milk she had was very good What saith his Majesty is not a pint of Cream as good as a quart of Milk Some women there are that are full of blood lusty and strong and so well tempered to increase milk that they can suckle a child of their own and another for a friend and it will not be amiss for them when they have too great plenty to do so if they be poor for it will help them with food and not hurt their own child for if a child suck too much milk it will soon fall into Convulsion fits if the children be full bodied and if milk be too much in the breasts it will clodder and corrupt and inflame the blood if it be not drawn forth When blood first comes to the breasts to make milk though it come in great plenty we may not stop it but afterwards labour to diminish it by a slender diet and eating things that breed small nourishment or else lay repercussive medicaments to the veins under the arms and above the breasts to drive the blood back you may also open a vein Calamints and Agnus Castus Coriander seed and Hemlock are enemies to breeding of milk When you suspect that the blood will be inflamed by too great plenty of milk then make a Poultiss of Housleek Lettice Poppies and Water Lillies this will drive it back They that are desirous to put forth their Children to Nurse may use this decoction of Bays Mallows Fennel Smallage Parsley Mints half a handful of each to foment the breasts and afterwards they must anoint them with oyl Omphacine made of sowr grapes then take Turpentine washt with Wine and Rose-water three ounces and two or three Eggs with one scruple of Saffron and a sufficient quantity of wax to make a Plaister lay this on upon the breasts fresh every day before Supper but leave a hole in the middle of the Plaister for the Nipple to come forth If the milk be much and stay long in the breasts it does curdle when the thinner part evaporates and the thick stayes behind and turns into kernels and hard swellings which being the Cheesy part of the milk will soon grow hard and this will easily inflame and impostumate besides the plenty it may be salt or sharp or exceed in many other ill qualities when milk is too much it will cause pain in the breasts and clefts but to hinder it from clotting and congealing make a pap of grated white bread new milk and oyl of Roses seethe them all together and lay it warm over the breasts let her use to eat Saffron Cinnamon and Mints with her Meats and observe a moderate Diet with moist Meats which breed but thin milk but if the milk be clodded and inflamed pound Chickweed and lay it warm over the breasts or annoint them with the mucilage of Fleawort Purslane seeds and Fenugreek made up with wax to an ointment But sometimes the woman takes cold and falls into an Ague then lay on a Poultis to the breasts made with Melilot Camomile Fennel seeds Anniseeds Dill seeds Linseeds Fenugreek Southernwood Basil and Ginger with oyl of Camomile to hinder the curdling take two ounces of Coriander seed and as much of Mints and one ounce of oyl of Dill made to a Livint with a little wax and to dissolve what is already curdled take an ounce of each of these roots Fennel and Eringos and half a handful of green Fennel tops and one dram of Anniseeds boil all to a pint add Oxymel Simple two ounces and as much of the sirrup of the two opening roots at the Apothecaries It is a thing to be wondered at how Nature sometimes will find strange conveniences passages that are not ordinary in some women for some have voided their breasts milk by their Urine and sometimes by the womb and it hath been a great Dispute by which of the two the milk came forth the shortest way for the milk to return is the way the blood came to the breasts to make the milk not from the veins of the breasts to the hypogastrick Veins and next to the womb but from the breast veins to the epigastrick veins and from them to the hypogastrick and so to the womb but this is seldome seen or heard of but strange things have come forth of the breasts and sometimes the menstrual blood unchanged runs forth this way at certain seasons Hippocrates Writes that when the blood comes out of the Nipples those women are Mad yet Amaâ—us Lusitanus tells us of his own experience that he saw two women at whose Paps their Monthly Terms came forth and yet neither of them was Mad. But we must rightly understand Hippocrates meaning for he doth mean of her fiery blood that flies up and enflames the party whereof part goes to the breasts and much to the the brain causing pain and inflammations and that is a forerunner of Madness but it is not menstrual blood will do this unless it be endued with some extraordinary malignant quality
for that is ordained to go to the breasts to make milk which is the reason that Nurses have few or no Courses because the blood goes to the breasts to make milk as I said But if this accident fall out that the blood runs forth at the breasts undigested not changed by the faculty of the breasts into Milk as it ought to be then open the Saphaena vein in the Foot and that will pull it back again and cure this Distemper There is so near agreement between the breasts and the womb that any distemper of the womb will change the very colour of the Nipples and therefore it is not well to prejudicate and to think they are not Maids when their Nipples change colour when it is onely a sign that their wombs are distempered The Nipples are red after Copulation red I say as a Strawberry that is their natural colour but Nurses Nipples when they give Suck are blew and they grow black when they are old If there be pain in the breasts from abundance of milk onely the pain is not very great it is onely by overstretching them but if the milk be sowr or sharp or salt or corroding the pain is more and will be greater if there be inflammation but when there is an Ulcer or a Cancer the pains are out of measure great you may know the câ—use of the pain by the greatness of it and you have sufficient directions before how to cure them But having made way for it I shall now proceed to speak a few words of Nurses and Nursing of Children CHAP. V. How to Chuse a Nurse THis dispute about Nurses who are fit for it and who are not is much handled by Physicians and some there be that will tye every woman to Nurse her own Child because Sarah the wife to so great a Man as Abraham was nursed Isaac And indeed if there be no other obstacle the Argument may carry some weight with it for doubtless the mothers milk is commonly best agreeing with the child and if the mother do not Nurse her own Child it is a question whether she will ever love it so well as she doth that proves the Nurse to it as well as Mother and without doubt the child will be much alienated in his affections by sucking of strange Milk and that may be one great cause of Childrens proving so undutiful to their Parents The Lacedemonians chose the youngest son after his Father to succeed in the Kingdom rejected all the rest because the mother gave suck onely to the youngest Tacitus gives a reason why the Germans are so exceeding strong because saith he they are commonly sucked by their own Mothers Yet Alcibiades a strong and valiant Captain was thought to have come to his great strength by sucking the breasts of a Spartan woman for they are great vigorous and usually very strong women I cannot think it alwayes necessary for the mother to give her own Child suck she may have sore breasts and many infirmities that she cannot do it Moreover a Nurse ought to be of a good Complexion and Constitution and if the Mother be not so it will be good to change the milk by chosing a good wholesome nurse that may correct the natural humors of the Child drawn from the ill complexion of the Mother Many children dye whilest they are sucking the breasts or else get such Diseases if the milk be naught that they can hardly ever be cured and the chief cause is the Nurses milk If a Nurse be well complexioned her milk cannot be ill for a Fig-Tree bears not Thistles a good Tree will bring forth good Fruit. But few can tell when they see a Nurse whether her complexion be good or not wherefore I shall give you such Rules whereby you may be able to know that and I have gained most of it by my own experience Many Physicians have troubled themselves and others with unnecessary directions but the chifest is to choose a nurse of a sanguine complexion for that is most predominant in children and therefore that is most agreeing to their age but beware you choose not a woman that is crooked or squint-eyed nor with a mishapen Nose or body or with black ill-favoured Teeth or with stinking breath or with any notable depravation for these are signs of ill manners that the child will partake of by sucking such ill qualified milk as such people yield and the child will soon be squint-eyed by imitation for that age is subject to represent and take impression upon every occasion but a sanguine complexioned woman is commonly free from all these distempers unless by accident it fall out otherwise and her milk will be good and her breasts and nipples handsome and well proportioned she is of a mean stature not too tall nor too low not fat but well flesht of a ruddy merry cheerful delightsome countenance and clear skin'd that her Veins appear through it her hair is in a mean between black and white and red neither in the extream but a light brown that partakes somewhat of them all Such a woman is sociable not subject to melancholy nor to be angry and fretful nor peevish and passionate but jovial and will Sing and Dance taking great delight in children and therefore is the most fit to Nurse them whereas all the other tempers except sanguine as Flegm or Choler or melancholy breed milk that will agree well with no child and their own constitutions are not agreeable to the nursing of children though her complexion then be not exactly sanguine for that is seldom found let it suffice if blood be predominant above the rest Moreover be her temper naturally never so good yet if she be diseased she is not for your turn or if she be above fourty years old or under eighteen years she must be of ability to live well that there be no want and one that hath had good Education to instruct her for if she be not well bred she will never breed the child well she must have prudence and care to see to it But there is one rule from the Sex That a female Child must suck the breasts of a Nurse that had a Girl the last child she had and a Boy must suck her that lately had a boy But the Nurse must not company with Man so long as she gives suck to the child for if she conceive the child will suffer by it she must live in a well-tempered pure Air she must sleep well when she is sleepy that she may soon wake if the child cry She must use moderate exercise and indeed the Dancing and Rocking of the child will hardly suffer her to be idle and therefore all such as put their children to Nurse should do well to consider the great care and pains of the Nurse by well rewarding them when they have made a good choice for if the Nurse be not good they had better be without them Nor is it onely
to the right side the veins that appear on the outside of it and on the foreskin come from the under belly and these Veins do swell with a frothy blood when the Yard begins to stand It hath also two sinews the lesser of the two goes upon the skin the greater upon the muscles and body of the Yard These sinews scatter themselves from the marrow of that bone which is called the holy bone and they pass quite through the Yard and cause exceeding great delight when the Yard stands and they prick forward in the action of Venery The Yard is stretched and made to swell by reason of fulness of Seed and plenty of wind and therefore all windy meats as Pulse Beans and Pease and the like will make the Yard stand and sometimes they cause a priapisme or continual standing of the Yard which will be more troublesome than if it should never stand at all It is not to be imagined what pains some have undergone who by indiscreet taking of Cantharides have fallen into this grievous distemper wherefore I would wish men to take heed lest they pay for it at last for the Proverb is commonly true sweet meat must have sour sawce Sometimes the bladder is full of Urine and the veins are very hot which make the Yard to rise The Yard is placed betwixt the thighs that it may stand the stronger to perform its work with all the force a man is able and at the lower end of it to add more strength it is more fleshy and that flesh is musculous and besides that it hath two muscles as I said on both sides to poise it equally when it stands they are indeed but small muscles yet they are exceeding strong The skin of the Yard is long and loose that it may swell or slack as the Yard doth and the foreskin of that skin sometimes covers the head of the Yard and sometimes goes so far back that it will not come forward again This skin in time of the Venerious action keeps the mouth of the womb close that no cold air get in yet some think the action migh be better performed without it the Jews indeed were commanded to be Circumcised but now Circumcision a vails not is forbidden by the Apostle I hope no man will be so void of reason and Religion as to be Circumcised to make trial which of these two opinions is the best but the world was never without some mad men who will do any thing to be singular were the foreskin any hindrance to procreation or pleasure nature had never made it who made all things for these very ends and purposes The top of the Nut hath a hole for the Urine and Seed to come forth by and nature hath made a little round circle at the bottom of the Nut with a fit jetting out from the body of the Yard and when the Yard casts the Seed into the Womb the neck of the womb with her own slanting fibres lays hold of it and embraceth it and by this circle the Seed is kept in the womb that it cannot fly out again The Nut of the Yard when it is half covered with the foreskin looks like an Acorn in the Cup and therefore some call it Glans which in Latin signifies an Acorn in this Acorn or Nut of the Yard lyeth all the pleasure of Copulation so that if the Nut were gone many think there could be no more tickling or moving in the Seed but all fruitful Copulation would be lost or at least there would be no pleasure in the act of Generation though the Stones might move a desire to it by transmitting of the Seed which is made by them Let men be careful then how they enter too far for it will be hard to say which were the greater loss of the Stones or the Nut. CHAP. X. Of the Generation or Privy parts in Women MAn in the act of procreation is the agent and tiller and sower of the Ground Woman is the Patient or Ground to be tilled who brings Seed also as well as the Man to sow the ground with I am now to proceed to speak of this ground or Field which is the Womans womb and the parts that serve to this work we women have no more cause to be angry or be ashamed of what Nature hath given us than men have we cannot be without ours no more than they can want theirs The things most considerable to be spoken to are 1. The neck of the womb or privy entrance 2. The womb it self 3. The Stones 4. The Vessels of Seed At the bottom of the womans belly is a little bank called a mountain of pleasure near the well-spring and the place where the hair coming forth shews Virgins to be ready for procreation in some far younger than others some are more forward at twelve years than some at sixteen years of age as they are hotter and riper in constitution Under this hill is the spring-head which is a passage having two lips set about with hair as the upper part is I shall give you a brief account of the parts of it both within and without and of the likeness and proportion between the Generative parts in both sexes CHAP. XI Of the Womb. THe Matrix or Womb hath two parts the great hollow part within and the neck that leads to it and it is a member made by Nature for propagation of children The substance of the concavity of it is sinewy mingled with flesh so that it is not very quick of feeling it is covered with a sinewy Coat that it may stretch in time of Copulation and may give way when the Child is to be born when it takes in the Seed from Man the whole concavity moves towards the Center and embraceth it and toucheth it with both its sides The substance of the neck of it is musculous and gristly with some fat and it hath one wrinkle upon another and these cause pleasure in the time of Copulation this part is very quick of feeling The concavity or hollow of it is called the Womb or house for the infant to lie in Between the neck and the Womb there is a skinny fleshy substance within quick of feeling hollow in the middle that will open and shut called the Mouth of the Womb and it is like the head of a Tench or of a young Kitten it opens naturally in Copulation in voiding menstrous blood and in child-birth but at other times especially when a woman is with Child it shuts so close that the smallest needle cannot get in but by force The neck is long round hollow at first it is no wider than a mans Yard makes it but in maids much less About the middle of it is a Pannicle called the Virgin Pannicle made like a net with many fine ligaments and Veins but a woman loseth it in the first act for it is then broken At the end of the neck there are small skins which are called
Seed vessels needed not to be great so that if they have any Prostates saith Galen to keep the Seed in they are so small they can hardly be discerned CHAP. XV. Of the Seed-carrying Vessels in Women THese vessels that carry the Seed come from the lower part of the stones they are on each side one and are propt up by the ligaments of the womb they are white and sinewy they do not go directly to the womb but with many windings and turnings because the way is short they are broad near the stones then they grow less and again when they come to the womb they are enlarged they go to the horns of the womb and there they end and by those horns they pass into the womb this may be plainly seen in other Female creatures as well as in women though with much difference These vessels in their twistings are like to the Seed bladders as are in men full of wrinkles in the midst they have a hole or mouth like to a Trumpets mouth and it is curled up like Vine tendrils they are more folded together than in Men because they are not to pass through the Peritoneum for womens stones do not hang forth as mens do Also they do not come from the stones presently to the neck of the bladder as with men but they go from the stones to the womb and when they come to the sides of it called the horns there they part and one part which is larger and shorter enters into the middle of the horns of his own side or very near it and there it delivers in and so into the cavity of the womb Seed perfectly concocted but the other part which is longer though it be narrower passeth along by the sides of the womb to the neck of it on both sides and below the innermost mouth of the womb they are implanted under the neck of it into the forestanders which are not so plain to be seen as they are with men yet these hold the Seed there till it is the time of Copulation and then they cast it forth for thus women great with Child do spend their Seed and not by opening the innermost mouth of the womb as some falsely think for so soon as a woman conceives the mouth of the womb is most exactly shut close yet they can lye with men all that while and some women before others will take more pleasure and are more desirous of their Husbands company than before which is scarce seen in any other female creatures besides most of them being fully satisfied after they have conceived but it was needful for man that it should be so because polygamy is forbidden by the Laws of God CHAP. XVI Of Women stones WOmen have need of stones to concoct and digest their Seed as well as men the use of stones in both sexes is to make Seed fruitful for if either the stones of the man or woman be out of temper they must needs be barren and unfruitful nor is there any greater sign of health than when the stones are well and of this Jugement was that great Physician Hippocrates There are many differences betwixt the stones of both sexes 1. In place because women are colder than men their stones are kept within their lower belly to keep them warm and to make them fruitful and they lye on either side of the womb above the bottom when women are not with Child but when they are with Child these stones lye near the place where the hanch-bone and the holy-bone join and they are contained in loose skins coming from the Peritoneum which skins cover also half the Stones and they lie upon the Muscles of the Loins within the Abdomen 2. Womans Stones have no Cod to hold them as Mens have they have but one skin to cover them for lying within the body they need no more but mens Stones have four several skins to keep them warm because they hang without their bellies Also the Cod or rather coat for the Stones is softer and thinner than the mans and cleaves fast to them that it seems to be the same body with them this coat also receives the Vessels of blood and wrapping them fast keeps the blood from shedding forth 3. Womens Stones are not so thick nor great nor round nor smooth nor hard as mens are but they are small and uneven and broad and flat both before and behind whereas mens are oval smooth large round and equall the upper side of womens Stones are so unequal that they resemble small kernels of the Kall joined together and they are long and hollow with small textures in them and they are full of a watry humour like very thick Whey when Women are in good health but when they are sickly they seem like bladders full of a clear watry humour and sometimes of a yellow colour like Saffron and will stink so that it oftentimes causeth the strangling of the Mother which Midwives call fits of the Mother 4. Their Stones are also colder and moister and so is their Seed and therefore women have no Beards on their faces because of the coldness of their Stones 5. They have no forestanders Mans Seed is the agent and womans Seed the patient or at least not so active as the mans Aristotle denyed that women had any seed at all and Jovianus Pontanus would prove this by the Moon which Aristotle likeneth to women in act of Procreation who held that the Moon doth nothing but bring moist matter for the Sun to work upon in things below but Hermetick Philosophy will prove that the moisture the Moon brings hath an active principle as well as the Sun and so doubtless women are not only passive in Procreation but active also as well as the man though not in so high a degree of action her seed is more watry and mans seed full of vital spirits more condensed thick and glutinous for had the womans seed been as thick as the mans they could never have been so perfectly mingled together CHAP. XVII Of the Womb it self or Matrix THe Womb is that Field of Nature into which the Seed of man and woman is cast and it hath also an attractive faculty to draw in a magnetique quality as the Load-stone draweth Iron or Fire the light of the Candle and to this seed runs the Womans blood also to beget nourish encrease and preserve the Infant till it is time for it to be born for the natural and vegetable Soul is virtually in the Seed and runs through the whole mass and is brought into act by the Virtue and heat of the Woman that receives the Seed and by the forming faculty which lies hid in the Seed of both Sexes and in the disposition of the womb both Seeds are well mingled together at the same time in all parts of the body I mean as to the parts made of Seed but as for the parts made with blood they are made at several times as they
the Womb. Take two pound of the crumbs of the inward part of white Bread Cammomile flowers one handful Mastick two drams Cloves half a dram bruise them and mingle them well with some Maligo Wine and two ounces of rose Vinegar boil them to a Pultiss and lay it on a double Cloth to the Os pubis Purgations may not be used unless the belly be bound and then a gentle Glister or some Manna or Cassia about half an ounce is safe to give by Potion Slipperiness of the womb is cured by an injection made of Pomegranate pills boil'd in Oyl of Lillies Or take Mastick Myrtle Gallia moscala of each half a dram mix them with Goose-grease and Sheeps-Wool and sew them in a linnen cloth and make a pastry and tye a string to it to pull it out again when you have put it up into the place To strengthen the Matrix Take four ounces of the Oyl of Nuts Barrows-grease one ounce and half Cypress-nuts Mastich of each one dram and half boyl them all about five hours and with this annoint her belly womb and reins of her back BOOK V. CHAP. I. How women after Child-birth must be governed THere is great differences in Womens constitutions and education you may kill one with that which will preserve the other tender women that are bred delicately must not be governed after the same manner that hardy Country women must for one is commonly weak stomach'd but the other is strong if you should give the weak woman presently after delivery strong broth or Eggs or milk it will cast her into a Feaver but the other that is strong will bear it but tender women must be tenderly fed and nothing given them that is of hard digestion nor yet what they have no mind to provided that what she desires be not offensive but for the first week she lies in let her have boil'd and not roast Jellies and Juice of Veal or Capon but no mutton Broth for that may make her Feaverish let her drink barley water or boyl one dram of Cinnamon in a pint of water dissolving two ounces of fine Sugar in it if she will drink wine mingle twice as much water or two third parts with it but let it be white wine in the morning and Claret in the after-noon she may sometimes drink Almond-milk but beware of crudities Some women when they lie in are still sleeping some cannot sleep if she cannot sleep let her drink barley water well boyled not straining it at all but let her forbear it after the first week lest it nourish too much and stop the Liver Baths for Child-bed Women For the first week let her Womb and Privities be bathed with a decoction of Chervil a good handful boiled in a good quantity of water adding to it after it is boiled one ounce of Honey of Roses this will draw away the purgations and cleanse and heal the parts and it will take away all inflammations For the second week boil Province Roses put in Bays Wine and water and with this decoction bath her secrets Keep her not too hot for that weakens nature and dissolves her strength nor too cold for cold getting in will cause torments hurt the Nerves and make the womb swell Let her diet be hot and eat but little at once some Nurses perswade them to eat apace because they have lost much blood but they are simple that say so for the blood voided doth not weaken but unburden nature for if it had not come away long diseases or death would have succeeded some say Oat-meal Candles are good for them but oat-meal makes people troubled with the green sickness by its binding quality boyling will never make a binding thing to purge ill humours as they say it doth Child-bed Women but purging things by boyling may sometimes be made to bind Let her for three daies keep the room dark for her eyes are weak and light offends them let all great noises be forborn and all unquietness remembering to be praising God for her safe delivery First then so soon as she is laid give her a draught of white wine burnt with a dram of Spermaâ—cety melted in it Vervain is an herb that fortifies the womb it is fit to gather in May and June you may dry it in the Sun and keep it to boil with her meat and drinks you shall profit more in two daies with it than in two weeks without it If the woman be Feaverish boil Plantane leaves and roots with it and if she be not yet they will do well together for the heat of the one is tempered by the coldness of the other But if her purgations stop for Plantane take Mother of tyme. If her purgations be clotted and smell filthily or the after-burden be not quite come away boyl Featherfew Mugwort Penniroyal Mother of time in white wine sweetened with Sugar let her drink that new laid eggs and Sugar Penides are best for her to eat often of moderately and boyl Cinnamon in all her meats and drinks Let her talk little nor stir much especially if she be weak for six or seven dayes after she is delivered is a decoction of Mallows with a little red Sugar is a good Glister if she be too costive Crato prescribes Coleworts and Chrysippus makes them to be a universal remedy for all diseases but they are too windy for women in Child-bed After the first week if she be near clean of her purgations she may use Comfry and knot-grass in broths to close the womb that hath been so much opened you may use a little purging with them Therefore put in some Poâ—ypody of the Oak that is best leaves and roots both being bruised the quantities are almost at your discretion Sometimes pains encrease after delivery Hippocrates saith women are most subject to them after the birth of their first child some Physicians think it is by reason of the thinness and sharpness others from the thickness and sliminess of the blood but if you use the former directions these pains may be prevented What I said of Vervain before is a good remedy or else boil an egg soft and mingle the yelk with a spoonful of water of Cinnamon and let her drink it also a fume of the powder of bay-berries cast on a chafing dish of coals received at her secrets is a great help And for present ease boyl an equal quantity of tar and barrows grease together when it boyls put in a little pidgeons dung to it spread it on a linnen cloth and lay it hot to her reins she may drink half a dram of Bay-berries in powder in a quarter of a pint of Muskadel you may see by this that cold and wind cause these pains For Excoriation of the Privities Annoint them with Oyl of sweet Almonds or Oyl of St. John's wort which is better Against the Piles or Hemorrhoids Take Polypody bruised and boyl it with your drinks or meats Let her be let blood in the Saphena
vein Cut a great hole in an onion fill the hole with Oyl roast it and stamp it and lay it warm to the Fundament Also take snails without or with shells I mean either kind and bruise them with some Oyl warm it and lay it to the place Sows or wood-lice called Hog-lice so bruised with Oyl are as effectual The Menstrual blood stopt We read Levit. 12. that a woman delivered of a Boy must continue in her purification thirty three dayes and for a girl sixty six days Hippocrates de Natura pueri saith a woman must continue purging her blood forth so long as the child was forming in the womb that is thirty dayes for a Male and forty two dayes for a Female Hippocrates rules may be calculated chiefly for his own Country of Greece and the Levitical Law most concerns the seed of Abraham but this is to be observed though not so precisely to a day by all women after delivery for women that give their own children suck have their purgations not so long as those that do not It is not good for a woman presently to suckle her child because those unclean purgations cannot make good milk the first milk is naught for even the first Milk of a Cow is salt and brackish and will turn to curds and whey You shall know if a woman be well cleansed by her health for if she be not she cannot be well and lusty I shewed you before what herbs will bring her purgations down She may if she please take every morning two or three spoonfuls of Briony water to be had at the Apothecaries or a dram of the powder of Gentian roots every morning in a cup of Wine the roots of Birth-wort are as good or take twelve Peony seeds powdered in a little Carduus posset drink to sweat and if it cures not do it again three hours after Against the too great running down of the Menstrual blood This disease seldom troubles women after delivery if it should Comfrey and Knot-grass are good remedies or else take Shepherds-pouch boyled in drink and powdered or bramble leaves a dram of either every morning in a little wine or a decoction made of the same Women when they ly in use to be cost ive because they keep their bed and some foolish Nurses are so bold as to purge them with Sena before nature be setled whereby many sad accidents have followed but neither loosning broths nor Prune broths nor bak'd Apples are then good but rather gentle Glisters and suppositories taken twice a week will prevent mischief and make the breasts abound with good milk CHAP. II. Of looseness of the Womb. THis may proceed from sundry causes as when great fluxes of humours take the ligaments and relax them falls or great burdens carried in the womb will unloosen them or chiefly when women travel before their time they overstrein themselves because the passage is then shut but unskilful Midwives often make it so when they thrust in their hand to pull forth the Secundine they tear part of the womb a way with it for the Secundine is fastened to its bottom sometimes they cause the woman to cast out the Secundine by strong vomit or by holding Bay salt in her mouth All causes except those that come from strong defluxions which must first be removed will be cured by the same remedies Take Nuts of Cypress and Galls and flowers of Pomegranates and Roch Allum two ounces of each Province Roses four ounces Scarlet Grains Rinds of Pomegranates and Cassia Rinds of each three ounces waters of Myrtles of Sloes an ounce and half Smiths water wine of each 4 ounces and a half then boil two little bags each a quarter of a yard long in the said waters in a new pot then hold the womans head and Reins low and apply these bags first one and then the other upon the os pubis and chafe her often Let her take in the morning a little Mastick in an egg or some Plantan seed but if the disease be long confirmed then make a Pessary half round and half oval of a thick Cork with a great hole in the middle for her Terms and ill vapours to come out by tye a pack threed to the end of it to pull it out by cover it over with white wax that it may not be offensive dip it in sallet Oyl to make it go in it must be strait that it may not quickly fall out when she doth her need let her hold it with her hand take it not away till her purgations be over the thickness of the Cork makes the Matrix mount higher if she be in Child-bed the Midwife or Nurse must not suffer the woman to strain but must keep her with her hand or finger to keep back the Matrix laying her head low and her Reins high with a pillow under her hips Women that are troubled with this disease must not lace themselves too strait for that thrusts down the womb makes the woman gor-bellied makes her carry her Child upon her hips hinders it from lying as it should in the womb and though the womans wast may be made slender by it her belly is as great and ill favoured But somtimes there happens a relaxation of the skin that covers the right gut when the head of the child when the woman begins to travel falls downward and draws it low lacing Childing women too hard is a frequent cause of it also for this makes so much wind fly to those parts that some are deceived and think it is the head of the child and the women can hardly stand or go let her then be kept soluble and eat Annis Coriander seed to dispell wind a fume of Sage Agrimony Balm Motherwort wormwood Rue Marjoram a little Time and Cammomile pick out the stalks cut the herbs small mingled put them into a maple platter put hot cinders upon them and another handful of herbs upon them cover the platter close with a cloth and let her take the fume beneath The womb falls out of its place when the ligaments by which it is bound to other parts of the body are by any means relaxed it is bound with four ligaments two broad membraces and above that spring from the Peritoneum and two round hollow nervous productions below also it is tied to the great vessels by veins and Arteries and to the back by Sinews but the Bottom of the womb is not tied the ligaments being onely upon the sides of it sometimes it falls forward quite out of the Privities but whether it can ascend and go upward is doubted by some Physicians say it will if sweet things be held to the nose if to the secrets it will fall downward if stinking things be put to them it flyes from them it may be discerned by their breathing and by some meats the womb greedily accepts But Galen saith it is very little that the womb can go upward it cannot reach the stomach the