in this building for the seed is the workmaster that makes the Infant and therefore the stones that make this seed must needs be Principal parts though some exclude them making only the Heart the Brain and the Liver to be of the first rank but the stones may in some sort be put in the first rank not onely to make the body fruitful but to work a change in the whole Take away a Mans stones and he is no more the same man but growes cold of constitution though he were never so hot before and is subject to Convulsion fits also their voice grows shrill and Feminine and their manners and dispositions are commonly naught Eunuchs may live without them and it hath been an approved cure for the Leprosy in former times but Hippocrates tells us that the stones are the strength and vigour of Manhood and that a convulsion of the stones threatneth Death and the firmness or looseness of them is a great sign of good or evil and that applications to the stones are very effectual to the strengthning of the body It is then very needful for all to keep the Organs of procreation pure and clean that they may send forth good seed to make the work perfect and that Children may be long lived which they cannot well be nor of sound constitutions if they are begotten from corrupt Seed or unnatural blood Alchymists lay the cause of all Childrens diseases on the Seed of the Parents as plants have not the causes of their destruction from the Elements but from their own Seed as also we see that when the Plague or any Epidemical disease rageth all are not infected because they have not that matter in them that will so soon take as it doth with others That therefore the matter may be fit for the work of nature there are two things very useful good diet moderately taken and conveniet labour and exercise of body Ill diet causeth ill blood and excess in meat or drink choakes the natural heat causeth raw crude humours which will never make good blood and ill blood will never make good seed for every part hath its natural propriety to change the nutriment into its own likeness as the Breasts change blood into Milk the stones change it into seed alwayes supposing such previous preparations that are needful or it cannot be done as it should be Temperance in eating and drinking will make both Parents and Children to be long lived and there is as much difference between good and bad nourishment as there is between pure Fountain water and ditch water but temperance is not to be understood as if there were a set proportion for all alike for it is according to every ones constitution what is too much for one Man or woman may be too little for another it is then such a quantity of meat or drink that the stomach can well master and digest for the feeding of the body Those that work hard must eat more than Schollars that follow their studies for the work of the stomach is called off by the intention of the mind their meat must be less and of easier digestion They that live in hot climates or near the Sun have not so strong stomachs as in colder regions nor is it with us all one in Summer and winter but every man or woman of years by good observation may know his own temper and what quantity will best agree with him and so if he be not a fool he may be his own Physician Youth and age cannot feed alike Children are often feeding because they want both for growth and nourishment but old age not near so much sick and healthful differ in the same kind I never could endure that preposterous way that most persons observe to the destruction of their Friends that when they are sick they will never let them alone but provoke them to eat whereas fasting is the better Doctor so it be not out of measure The causes of great eating and drinking beyond the bounds of nature are a liquorish appetite and a fancy beyond reason But having found out the causes I shall prescribe some remedies withal It is easy to know when you have eat or drank too much or what agrees not with you when you find nature charged with it and is not able to digest it vapours rising from the stomach that is glutted will choak the brain and cause defluxions and multitudes of diseases if you be sleepy after meat and drink you have taken too much for moderation makes a Man cheerful and not sleepy Also refrain from all meats and drinks that agree not with your constitution for they will never breed good blood but if you have done amiss in surfeiting your self or over eating or using any thing that agrees not with you remember that nature abhors all sudden changes and therefore you must not withdraw all at once but by degrees till you can bring your selves safely to a moderation This intemperance of Parents is the cause that many Children die before their time for what is too much can never be well concocted but turns to ill and raw humours and if the stomach turn the food into crude juyce or chyle the Liver that makes the second concoction can never mend it to make good blood nor can the third concoction of the stones to turn that blood into seed make good seed of ill blood for what is bad in the first concoction the second concoction nor third can ever rectify but if the chyle be good blood and seed will be good But you must know that nothing furthers good concoction more than moderate labour for it stirs up natural heat whereas idle persons breed crude humours And therefore Lycurgus the Lacedemonian Law-giver commanded Maids to work for saith he this keeps their bodies in good temper and free from crudities and when they come to marry their Children will be strong There 's as much difference between labour and sloth as between the earth in Summer and Winter in Summer the Sun by its heat makes it fruitful in Winter it is chill for want of the Suns heat Convenient labour sends the spirits to all parts of the body when the Elements are unequally divided death follows so the better the spirits are distrubuted to the seed the better will the seed be and your Children the stronger which is no small effect of moderate exercise when sloth is the cause of their hasty dissolution moderate labour open the pores of the body and by sweat or insensible transpriation sends forth all fuliginous and smoky vapours that choke the spirits and cause divers maladies we find all this to be true in reason and experience confirms it for Countrey people that work hard digest what they eat and their Children are usually strong and long liv'd But Citizens and such as refuse to labour and live idle lives I do not say all I hope there will be the fewer for what I have taken the pains to
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
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
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-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
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
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
Legs and arms and is the cause of strange symptomes in them all For Galen saith well the strangling of the Mother or Hysterical Passion is but one by name but the symptomes are scarce to be numbered It alters womens complexions they grow sandy or pale and yellow or swarthy and now and then their eyes and faces shew red and very sanguine When this strange affection falls upon them they will gnash theit teeth and become speechless for their breath is stopt and it hath been often observed that they have been supposed to be dead neither breath nor Pulse nor Life to be found for that time and sometimes their breath is stopt so close and it holds so long that they have died of it The causes of this disease are very many for a sudden fear a bad news related hath cast divers women into these fits for by this Melancholly gets the mastery of them it were but reason therefore for men to forbear relating any sad accident to them but with great proviso When the womb is strangled no one disease can determine it for that seldome comes alone sometimes only the breath is stopt sometimes the speech and animal actions of the brain fail and the whole body is chill and almost dead by ill vapors that choke it rising from the womb The Malignant Vapors then sent from thence by the Nerves Veins and arteries are the immediate causes of all the hurt that is done and these vapors are much like the wind very powerful and almost unperceived they are so subtil and thin that they pass in a moment of time through the whole body it will choke the Patient when they flie to the Throat as people are that eat White Hellebore or venomous mushromes Ofttimes you shall see the woman to loth and vomit and draw her breath short and her heart akes if the vapour strike the heart first it will cease from moving and she falls into a swound but if it flie to the brain she is void of all sense and motion There is nothing worse than corrupt seed to offend the Body Women with Child are not free from this disease when corrupt humours rise from an unclean womb The chief seat of this ill humour lieth in the Trumpet of the womb and in her stones for the substance of it is loose and hollow and the Stones lie in bladders full of water and women that have strangling of the womb have this water of a yellow colour and grosser than it should be Many Physicians have mistook the stones and the Trumpet for the womb it self when putrified rotten seed makes them swell and windy humours cause them to rise as far as the Navel but I spoke of this before when I shewed the reason how the womb is thought to ascend higher than nature hath placed it It hath sometimes a long time to breed in and sometimes it comes suddenly according as the corruption of the humours is which sometimes also lie still and so soon as they are but moved they evacuate and send a poisonous fume into other parts of the body And nothing will sooner stir these vapours and humours in women who are subject to this disease than anger or fear or such like passions or sweet scents and smells applied to their noses which is an argument that the womb is delighted with sweet scents but cannot away with stinking things for let Musk or Civet be held to such womens noses they are presently sick till they be taken away What Distemper this strangling of the womb is Physicians agree not some say it is a cold distemper but coldness is not the chief symptome though cold be great others say it is a convulsion or Syncope or breathing stopt but it cannot be set forth by any one symptome for though the venomous vapor be small that breeds it it goes many waies and spreads through all the body But the true causes of this Disease are the poisonous vapours that rise from the womb it is not an apparent quality that this vapour works by but a secret quality as the Torpedo or Scorpion small creatures prevail with to do great mischief as they are enemies to the natural heat and vital spirits and when the heart suffers there can be no good animal spirits bred because the vital are corrupted but blood and seed whilest they are in their own proper vessels hurt not unless they are mingled with ill humors Fernelius saith that the womb and seed the place and matter of life are the breeding of the most deadly poisons Hippâ—crates in these fits bids give them wine to refresh their weakness Avicenna bids give them no wine but water and forbids eating flesh because they ingender more seed and blood but when she is in the fit wine is best for a little wine will not presently get to the womb Sometimes both maids and widdows from such like causes are troubled with the rage of the womb that they will grow even mad with carnal desire and entice men to lie with them they are hot but not feaverish and they are inclined to madness Modest women will die of consumptions when they have this rage of the womb rather than declare their desire but some women are shameless The cause is great store of sharp hot seed that is not natural but the next degree to it that bites and swells and provokes nature to expulsion the brain suffers by consent the womb in the Nymphe is most affected which swells with heat but the Clitoris and not the Nymphe is the seat of lust hot blood and humours in the womb breed this and they are increased by hot spiced meats and drinks idleneness and bawdy acts and objects at first it may be cured but the end of it is frenzy and madness if it be neglected Maids must marry that cannot live chast or draw blood to abate the heat and sharpness of it let them purge these humours gently and use cooling and moistening meats and drinks and all with moderation Lettice Violets and water-Lillies and Purslain are good coolers and take away the windiness of the parts the seed leaves and flowers of Agnus Castus strewed in their beds or Camphire smelt unto are very good in such cases Let them use this Electuary take conserve of water Lillies Violets tops of Agnus Castus of each one ounce of red Roses half an ounce of red Coral and emralds in powder of each half a dram of Coleworts and Lettice candid of each one ounce with sirrup of Violets and water-Lillies make an Electuary lay a plate of lead to their backs Nuns and such as cannot marry may use tâ—ings â—hat by a hidden quality diminish seed but they cause barrenness let them eat no eggs nor much nourishing meats and sleep little Camphire that is so much commended against this preternatural desire is hot and sharp and bitter it will burn and flame and being of thin parts penetrates deep but it hath cold operations for it will cure
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
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
to to tell those that knew them before but by their leave they that know some things may be ignorant of other things what one knew before it may be another knew not and what she knew not another might know There are many things here that most women desire to know the reason is the same why all meats are eaten and all Maids may be married for if we all were taken with the same thing there could be no living in the world CHAP. VII Of the Diseases that Infants and children are often troubled with I. SOmetimes the child so soon almost as it is but new born will fall into strange throws and convulsions Hippocrates divides childrens diseases according to their several ages Children new born are subject to inflammation of the navel after it is cut to moistness of the Eares to Coughs and Vomitings and Ulcers in the mouth to Feares and watchings When the Teeth begin to breed there are Feavers Convulsions and Fluxes of the Belly chiefly when the Eye-Teeth breed when they grow older the Tonsils are enflamed the Turnbones of the neck are laxated inwardly they have short breath and are troubled with the stone in the bladder round wormes and Ascarides Strangury Kings-evil and standing Yards as they grow still new diseases come on as the Measels Small-pox some are Tongue-tyed until the Ligament be cut that is too short and hinders their Speech Use no strong Vomitings or purgings or Glisters to children nor bleed them but give them gentle means such are Suppositories and mild Glisters with a little Sugar and Milk give stronger Physick to the Nurse if need require to purge the child strong medicaments given to the nurse may endanger the child that sucks the breasts but weak purges are sufficient to do it good You may give the child a Glister thus take Mallows and violet leaves of each one handful flowers of violets and camomile of each a small handful boil them and take four or five ounces of the decoction and with four or six drams of sirrup of roses and half an ounce of oyl of Violets make it ready to give luke-warm or something more hot as it may well endure II. If a Child be troubled with flegme lay it not on the back for you may soon choak it but turn it to lie on one side or the other Keep the belly loose thrust up a suppository of Castle sope rubbed over with fresh butter to make it more smooth gentle to pass into the body a spoonful of sirrup of Violets afterwards will force down the flegme you may if the child be temperate in heat mingle half the quantity of sweet Almond oyl with half so much sirrup of Violets but rub the belly down with sweet butter as often as it is undressed III. If the childs Codds be swoln observe whether wind or water be the cause of it the water will sweat out if you chafe the part with fresh butter if it be wind swing the child well and dance it and put the decoction of Anniseeds in their drink but there may be many causes of the swelling of the Codds if wind be the cause the Codds will shew thin as a horn and be as stiff as a Drums head too much crying may cause an inflammation or bursting If the swelling arise from heat cooling herbs will cure it but for wind boil a handful of bay leaves of Dill Camomile and Fennel of each a handful Rue half a handful boil all in a quart of Beer wort to a pint strain it out hard and with the liquor boil as much Bean meal as will make a poultis putting to it two or three spoonfuls of oyl of Camomile apply it hot to the Codds IV. If the childs Fundament slip forth as it will oftentimes in many children when they are bound and strain to go to stool or have taken cold or the Muscles are relaxed by moisture when there is a looseness of the Belly and a Tenesmus or Needing then the Muscle that bindes up the hole will come forth if it come from straining it is easily cured at first but too much moisture causing it will be hard to overcome especially when the belly is loose for then the Medicaments are driven off For the cure then if it be swoln and will not be put in bath it first with a decoction of Mallows and Marshmallows or annoint it with oyl of Lillies then try to put it up having cast some astringents upon it or take Galls Acorn cups Myrtle berries dryed red Roses burnt Harts-horn burnt Allum and flowers of sowr Pomegranates of each a like quantity make a strong decoction in water and whilest it is warm bath the Gut with it and put it into its place and to make it flag up spread a little melted wax Frankincense and Mastick together upon a Linnen Clout and lay it to the Fundament so bind it on and take it off onely when the child goes to stool sprinkle the Gut with this following powder Of red roses and sowr Pomegranate flowers of each half a dram Frankincense and mastick of each one dram V. If the Infant be too loose bellyed and cannot contain its Excrements this proceeds either from breeding of Teeth and that is usually with a feaver or from concoction depraved and the nourishment corrupted or from much waking or great pain or Feaverish humors stirring in the body or when they drink or suck too much being over-hot taking cold may also bring a Looseness if the Excrements be yellow and green and stink some sharp humor is the cause of it When children breed teeth it is good to have the belly somewhat loose but if it exceed it must be stopt for the child will consume If the Excrements be black and the child feaverish it is an ill sign But a Sucking child needs not be cured so much as the Nurse mend her milk or get another Nurse and let her avoid green fruit and Meats of hard digestion When the child is past sucking then purge things that leave a binding quality behind will do it such are sirrup or honey of red Roses You may give a Glister of two or three ounces of the decoction of Milium and Myrobolans with an ounce or two of sirrup of dried red Roses If it proceed from a hot cause cleanse first then give sirrup of dried roses Quinces Myrtles Currants Coral Mastick Harts-horn or powder of Myrtles with a little Dragons blood and annoint the belly with oyl of roses of Mastick of Myrtles In a cold cause the Excrements will be white then give sirrup of mastick and Quinces with mint water and take half a scruple of Frankincense and of Nutmeg as much temper it with the juyce of a Quince and give it the child Lay a plaister to the childs belly made with the seeds of red Roses Cummin Anniseed and Smallage Barley meal and juyce of Plantane with a little Vinegar boil all together When the stools are red or yellow a spoonful
finger into his mouth and holding the nipple faster than they were wont when the tooth is coming forth the Gum is whiter than in other parts the watching breeds cholerick humours and inflames the body and brings a Feaver If the teeth be long before they can come forth children commonly will die of Feavers and Convulsion fits they that scowr have seldome any Convulsion When the gums are thick the teeth can scarce get forth wherefore soften the Gum with rubbing it with Honey and Fresh Butter or let the child chew a candle of Virgins Wax Let the Nurse keep a moderate Diet inclining to cold as Barley Broths Water-Gruel Lettice Endive Rear-eggs take heed of salt spiced meats and wine but anoint the childs Gum with a Mucilage of Quinces made with Mallows water or with the brains of an Hare XXII If the Gums be ulcerated let the Nurse rub the childs gums and Wheals and Pushes with her finger and anoint them with Hens grease Hares brains oil of Cammomile and Mel Rosarum or sirrup of violets with Plantane water and if the inflammation be great boil Pomegranate flowers Roses and Sanders of each two drams Allum half a dram in water strain out three ounces and dissolve in it the sirrup of Mulberries half an ounce If the Pushes and Wheals be white take Pomegranate flowers Amber Cypress nuts of each two drams Roses and Myrtle flowers of each half a handful boil them in water add to the decoction one ounce and a half of honey of Roses .. Sometimes there riseth between the Gums and the great teeth a little fleshy substance to consume that wash it with a deccoction of the roots of Plantain Bugloss Agrimony of each a handful Barley a small handful and red Roses a handful four Dates Flowers of Pomegranates two drams Liquorish one dram and a half XXIII Children are very much molested with destillations Coughs and Catarrhs if the humour be sharp and hot that falls from the brain the child will look red in the face if it be a cold humour much matter will run forth at the nose and mouth then keep the child resonably warm and give it Sugar candy with oil of sweet Almonds wash the childs feet with Ale boiled with Betony Marjoram Rosemary then anoint the soles of the feet with Goose grease rub the breast with fresh butter and oil of sweet Almonds and lay on warm linnen cloths for slimy humours give it a spoonful of sirrup of Maiden-hair or of Liquorish and Hyssop mingled Take also Gum Traganth Arabick Quince seeds juice of Liquorish and Sugar Pelets mingle them and in new milk let the child take of it every day Where the cause is cold that makes the Cough beat a little Myrrh to powder and give it the child with oil of sweet Almonds and a little honey when it comes from heat make a decoction of Raisins in water and with white poppey seed and Gum Dragant each two drams seeds of Gourds four drams beat all together and give the child a four penny weight in the foresaid decoction XXIV If the breath be short let it take an Electuary of Honey and Linseed and anoint the ears and parts about them with Olive oil XXV If the childs nose be stopt put a little Ointment of Roses and good Pomatum into the Nostrils to soften the hard matter Wash the inflamed or Gummy eyes that will not open with breast milk or Plantain and Rose Water Childrens moist brains breed moist humours that run to their ears make them clean with a rag and drop in Honey of Roses mingled with oil of bitter Almonds XXVI If the child new born be in great pain then rub it with Pellitory of the wall and fresh Butter or with Spinach and Hogs-grease and lay it to the Navel take care it be not too hot or make a cake of oils of eggs and of Nuts for the Navel give it a Glister if it need with Milk Sugar and the yolk of an Egg. XXVII Children are subject to all sorts of Feavers but chiefly to Feavers from corrupt milk and Feavers with breeding of teeth They have epidemical Feavers sometimes that cast forth the Meazles or small Pox the mothers menstrual blood is the original cause but the corrupt air stirs it up for as the air is pure or impure so these diseases are more raging or less It is oftentimes infectious and the humours so corrupt that worms breed under the scabs and corrode the bones and inward parts as hath been proved by opening some that died If it be a Feaverish time that it spreads much give good Antidotes and change the air but all children almost will have them first or last Before there is a Feaver you may fortifie nature and give a a gentle purge but for my part I approve not of purging or bleeding in these distempers unless it be long before So soon as you see the feaver drive them out by Cordials and prefer the eyes and throat and prevent deformity The first signs of this disease for they are both from one cause are pains of the head redness in the eyes a dry Cough with a feaver then little pimples break forth all the body over but chiefly they aim at the throat and face The small Pox is dangerous to all but most to those that are of an ill habit of body and if they come forth in heaps and not orderly or if they look blew black or ill coloured they are exceeding dangerous If the child suck the nurse must use a moderate diet she may eat Hen broth with herbs of Succory Borrage Bugloss and Endive boiled in it Let her drink this drink following to make them come easily and quickly forth take peeled Lentils half an ounce fat figs two ounces Gum Lac two drams Gum Traganth and Fennel seed of each two drams and a half boil this in fountain water strain it and sweeten two pints of it with Sugar and sirrup of Maiden-hair let her drink half a pint fasting If the child be weaned give it a Julep of cordial waters two ounces and a half sirrup of Lemmons one ounce use this often and four or five hours after give it some Unicorns horn and Oriental Bezoar in powder To preserve the eyes anoint the Eye-lids with Plantane and Rose water and a little Saffron To preserve the nose take Rose water and Betony of each one ounce Vinegar half an ounce and as much powder of peels of Citrons add to it Saffron six grains let the child smell to it often dip some cotton in it and stop the ears to keep the Small Pox from thence You may preserve the mouth the tongue and the throat with a handful of barley and leaves of Plantain Sorrel Agrimony and of Vervain of each a handful all boiled in water to six ounces dissolve in it sirrup of Pomegranates and of Roses of each half an ounce Saffron half a scruple make a Gargarisme sirrup of Juniper of Violets and of water-Lillies
THE MIDWIVES BOOK Or the whole ART of MIDWIFRY DISCOVERED Directing Childbearing Women how to behave themselves In their Conception Breeding Bearing and Nursing of CHILDREN In Six Books Viz. I. An Anatomical Description of the Parts of Men and Women II. What is requisite for Procreation Signes of a Womans being with Child and whether it be Male or Female and how the Child is formed in the womb III. The causes and hinderance of conception and Barrenness and of the paines and difficulties of Childbearing with their causes signes and cures IV. Rules to know when a woman is near her labour and when she is near conception and how to order the Child when born V. How to order women in Childbirth and of several diseases and cures for women in that condition VI. Of Diseases incident to women after conception Rules for the choice of a nurse her office with proper cures for all diseases Incident to young Children By Mrs. Jane Sharp Practitioner in the Art of MIDWIFRY above thirty years London Printed for Simon Miller at the Star at the West End of St. Pauls 1671. TO HER MUCH ESTEEMED AND EVER HONOVRED FRIEND THE LADY ELLENOUR TALBUTT BE THESE My Poor and Weak Endeavours Humbly Presented BY Madam An Admirer of Your Vertue and Piety Jane Sharp TO THE MIDWIVES OF ENGLAND Sisters I Have often sate down sad in the Consideration of the many Miseries Women endure in the Hands of unskilful Midwives many professing the Art without any skill in Anatomy which is the Principal part effectually necessary for a Midwife meerly for Lucres sake I have been at Great Cost in Translations for all Books either French Dutch or Italian of this kind All which I offer with my own Experience Humbly begging the assistance of Almighty God to aid you in this Great Work and am Your Affectionate Friend Jane Sharp THE CONTENTS Of the several CHAPTERS BOOK I. OF the necessity and usefulness of the Art of Midwifry Page 1. CHAP. I. A brief description of the Generative parts in both Sexes and first of the Vessels in Men appropriated to Generation p. 5. CHAP. II. Of the Seed-preparing Vessels p. 6. CHAP. III. Of the Vessels that make the Change of the Red Blood into a white substance like Seed p. 8. CHAP. IV. Of the Cods or rather the Stones contained therein p. 10. CHAP. V. Of the Carrying Vessels p. 14. CHAP. VI. Of the Vessels for Seed p. 16 CHAP. VII Of a Mans Yard p. 18. CHAP. VIII Of the Nut of the Yard p. 27. CHAP. IX Of the Muscles of the Yard p. 28. CHAP. X. Of the Generative parts in Women p. 33. CHAP. XI Of the Womb p. 38. CHAP. XII Of the likeness of the Privities in both Sexes p. 40. CHAP. XIII Of the Privy passage in the Secrets of the Female Sex p. 41. CHAP. XIV Of the Seed-preparing Vessels in Women p. 54. CHAP. XV. Of the Seed-carrying Vessels in Women p. 58. CHAP. XVI Of Womens Stones p. 60. CHAP. XVII Of the Womb or Matrix p. 63. CHAP. XVIII Of the fashion of the Womb and the parts of which it is made p. 73. BOOK II. CHAP. I. WHat things are required for the Procreation of Children p. 87. CHAP. II. Of true Conception p. 92. CHAP. III. Signes that a Women hath conceived and whether it be a boy or Girle p. 102. CHAP. IV. Of false Conception and of the Mole or Moon calf p. 106. CHAP. V. Of the Causes of Monstrous Conceptions p. 116. CHAP. VI. Of the resemblance or likeness of Children to Parents p. 120. CHAP. VII Of the sympathy between the Womb and other parts p. 125 CHAP. VIII How the Child grows in the Womb and how the parts of it are successively made p. 132. CHAP. IX Of the Posture the Child lieth in the Womb. p. 153. BOOK III. CHAP. I. WHat hinders Conception and the causes of Womens Barrenness p. 163. CHAP. II. Of the great pain and difficulty of Child-bearing with the signes cause and Cure p. 166. BOOK IV. CHAP. I. RVles for Women when near their labour p. 187. CHAP. II. To know the fit time when the child is ready to be born p. 205. CHAP. III. What must be done after the woman is delivered p. 210. CHAP. IV. When and how to cut off the Child's Navel-string and what is the consequent thereof p. 212. CHAP. V. What is best to bring away the Secundine or After-birth p. 217. CHAP. VI. Of the great pains and throws some Women suffer after they are delivered p. 219. CHAP. VII Of the Cholick some women are afflicted with in the time of their travel p. 220 CHAP. VIII Of Womens miscarrying or Abortment with the Signs thereof p. 221. BOOK V. CHAP. I. HOw Women in Childbirth must be governed p. 228. CHAP. II. Of the loosness of the Womb p. 236. CHAP. III. Of Feavers after Child-bearing p. 243. CHAP. IV. Of Womens Vomiting p. 248. CHAP. V. Of Womens diseases in general p. 250. CHAP. VI. Of the Green Sickness or white Feaver p. 266. CHAP. VII Of the straitness of the Womb o. 299. CHAP. VIII Of the largeness of the Womb p. 285. CHAI IX Of the Terms in Women p. 288. CHAP. X. Of the overflowing of the Courses and immoderate Flux thereof p. 296. CHAP. XI Of the Whites or Womans disease from corruption of Humours p. 302. CHAP. XII Of the swelling and puffing up fâ— the Body especially the Belly and Feet of Women after delivery p. 308. CHAP. XIII Of Cold Moist Hot Dry and all the several distempers of the Womb p. 313. BOOK VI. CHAP. I. OF the Strangling of the Womb and the effects of it with the Causes and Cure p. 317. CHAP. II. Of the Falling Sickness p 328. CHAP. III. Of Womens Breasts and Nipples the Diseases incident to the same with their Cures p. 336. CHAP. IV. Necessary Directions for Nurses p. 351. CHAP. V. Instructions in the choice of Nurses p. 360. CHAP. VI. Of the Child p. 372. CHAP. VII Discoveries of the several Diseases incident to Children with the Cure p. 377. THE MID-WIVES BOOK BOOK I. The Introduction Of the necessity and Vsefulness of the Art of Midwifry THe Art of Midwifry is doubtless one of the most useful and necessary of all Arts for the being and well-being of Mankind and therefore it is extremely requisite that a Midwife be both fearing God faithful and exceeding well experienced in that profession Her fidelity shall find not only a reward here from man but God hath given a special example of it Exod. 1. in the Midwives of Israel who were so faithful to their trust that the Command of a King could not make them depart from it viz. But the Midwives feared God and did not as the King of Egypt commanded them but saved the men children alive Therefore God dealt well with the Midwives and because they feared God he made them Houses As for their knowledge it must be two-fold Speculative and Practical she that wants the knowledge of
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
and so goes upward till it touch the bone of the small guts keeping close to the preparing vessels till it pierce the production of the Hypogastrium or lower belly which is the upper part of the place where the hair grows above the Privities it reacheth from the Navil to that hair and so it runnes from thence through the hollowness of the hip and sides between the bladder and the straight gut till it come as far as the forestanders and so fixeth it self where it ends at the root of the Yard where it begins so long as it remains amongst the Coats of the stones it is full of many windings forward and backward but near the end it hath many little Bladders like Warts CHAP. V. Of the carrying Vessels THe carrying Vessels on both sides are certain small bladders united between the Bladder and the right Gut the last of them with the seminary Vessels by a little pipe ends in the forestanders These carry and conveigh the seed that is first fully concocted in the stones by the great heat of them by reason of the vital blood that is brought to them to the seminary Vessels which are to hold the Seed till there is cause to cast it forth They are but two white nervous sinews obscure hollow Pipes they rise from the Stones to the Belly not far from the preparing Vessels from the hollow of the belly they return and go to the backside of the bladder betwixt that and the right gut and near the neck of the bladder they are joyned to the Vessels for Seed which are like a Honey-comb these Honey-combs or hollow Cells have an oyly matter in them for they attract the fatty substance from the Seed and that they send forth into the urinary passage chiefly in the act of carnal copulation lest the thin skin of the Yard which is very quick of feeling should be hurt by the sharpness of the Seed The carrying Vessels fall at last into the vessels ordain'd to the Seed till there is use for it The carriers strengthen the vessels for the seed and are storehouses for it that the whole store be not wasted in one act you shall find in some persons enough to serve for severall acts of copulation They are hollow and round to contain the more Seed and they are full of membrances that they may be shortned or lengthened as the Seed is more or less in quantity and are full of meanders and turnings that the seed pass not away without a mans will CHAP. VI. The Vessels for seed THe Vessels for Seed are such as you call kernels in your meat we call them here forestanders they are two little stones seated at the root of the Yard a little above the sphyaster of the the bladder they are wrapt up with a skin that covers them they seem to be round but they are flat behind and before they are loose and spongy as kernels usually are and white and hard in some persons more or less they having a quick feeling to stir up delight in Copulation they have some small pipes which open into the common pipes through which the Seed passeth into the Yard these kernels or forestanders being pressed by the lower muscles of the Yard besides the oyly fat substance they defend the urinary passage by they also defend the Vessels that carry the seed to them lest by much standing and stretching of the Yard the carriers of seed should be hurt they have another use also for lying between the bladder and the right gut they serve for cushions for the vessels to rest upon to keep them from violent pressing and this is the cause why those that are costive and cannot easily go to stool when they strain to do their business they press those kernels and sometimes void some Seed and also must needs make some water more or less when they go to stool These kernels compass the vessels that carry the seed and through the midst of these passeth the water or Urine pipe or common passage both for seed and Urine or conduit of the Yard At the mouth of this conduit where the carrying vessels meet with it there is a thin skin that keeps the vessels for seed that are like a spunge in nature that they shed not forth the seed against mens will But this skin is full of holes which open by the violent heat and motion in Copulation and so the seed finds its way out for it is a thin spirit and the rather by reason of motion and passes like Quicksilver through a piece of leather there are no more holes to be seen in this skin than in a piece of leather unless it be seen in some persons after death who were in their lifetime troubled with a great running of the Reins as it is called but properly an involuntary shedding of the Seed because these holes are become so great that the subtile seed cannot be kept back by it the reins are to part the Urine from the blood and to send that to the bladder by the conduits of Urine but not to send forth seed or to provide it that is the work of the stones as I said Yet by communication of parts if the reins be much offended the seminary parts cannot perform their office as they should but an involuntary shedding of Seed will follow untill such time as the reins be strengthened and cured I shall give onely one observation and so conclude this Chapter And that is a warning to all that cut for the stone in the bladder of what age soever they be who are cut oftentimes in drawing forth the stone they so rend and tear the seed vessels that such persons are never able to beget Children they may hatch the Cuckows Eggs and keep other mens if they please but they shall never get any themselves these kernels are a hard and spungy substance near as great as a Walnut CHAP. VII Of a mans yard THe Yard is as it were the Plow wherewith the ground is tilled and made fit for production of Fruit we see that some fruitful persons have a Crop by it almost every year only plowing up their own ground and live more plentifully by it than the Countryman can with all his toil and cost some there are that plow up other mens ground when they can find such lascivious women that will pay them well for their pains to their shame be it spoken but commonly they pay dear for it in the end if timely they repent not The Yard is of a ligamental substance sinewy and hollow as a spunge having some muscles to help it in its several postures The Yard and the Tongue have more great Veins and Arteries in them than any part of the Body for their bigness by these porosities by help of Imagination the Yard is sometimes raised and swels with a windy spirit only for there is a natural inclination and force by which it is raised when men are moved to Copulation as
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
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
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
write now for their better instruction and reformation then will Men wonder no longer what becomes of so many Children as are born in the City one can hardly find as many living as are born in half a years time I am perswaded not so many can be found to have lived to seven years of age They that love their Children will take my advice and they and their Children will have good cause to thank me for it and besides the avoiding the mischiefs of intemperance to themselves and posterity they shall find the blessing of God upon them as a great reward of this vertue of moderation and the poor will have just cause to pray for me and them for what is wastfully spent by the riotous may be charitably bestowed upon their poor neighbours that stand in need of it CHAP. II. Of true conception TRue Conception is then when the seed of both sexes is good and duly prepared and cast into the womb as into fruitful ground and is there so fitly and equally mingled the Man's seed with the womans that a perfect Child is by degrees framed for first small threads as it were of the solid and substantial parts are formed out and the womans blood flowes to them to make the bowels and to supply all parts of the infant with food and nourishment Conception is the proper action of the womb after fruitful seed cast in by both sexes and this Conception is performed in less than seven hours after the seed is mingled for nature is not a minute idle in her work but acts to the utmost of her power it is not copulation but the mixture of both seeds is called conception when the heat of the womb fastens them if the woman conceives not the seed will fall out of the womb in seven daies and abortion and conception are reckoned upon the same time The Seeds of both must be first perfectly mixed and when that is done the Matrix contracts it self and so closely embraceth it being greedy to perfect this work that by succession of time she stirs up the formative faculty which lieth hid in the seed and brings it into act which was before but in possibilty this is the natural property of the womb to make prolifick Seed fruitful it is not all the art of man that setting the womb aside can form a living child To conceive with child is the earnest desire if not of all yet of most women Nature having put into all a will to effect and produce their like Some there are who hold conception to be a curse because God laid it upon Eve for tasting of the forbidden fruit I will greatly multiply thy conception but forasmuch as encrease and multiply was the blessing of God it is not the conception but the sorrow to bring forth that was laid as a curse We see that there is in women so great a longing to conceive with child that ofttimes for want of it the womb falls into convulsions and distracts the whole body The womb as I said is fast tied at the neck and about the middle but the bottom hangs lose so that it doth ofttimes fall into strange motions The natural motion of it comes from the moving faculty but the unnatural motions from some unhealthful and convulsive cause which is most commonly bred in it for want of conception and not bearing of children we see no women ordinarily that are better in health than those that often conceive with child and some are so fruitful that they conceive with many children about the same time so that considering his magnitude surely no creature multiplies more than man for he hath a priority in this blessing above the beasts Twins are frequent and sometimes two or three children at one birth are not the same thing with superfetation when children are got again before the first be delivered you must not think divers Cells in the womb to be the cause of this multiplicity of children for there is no such thing in the womb to be the cause of this multiplicity of children for there is no such thing in the womb but only one line that parts one side from the other but such women have larger wombs than others and so the seed divided finds place to form more children than one if their be sufficient strength in the several parts of the seed to do it Yet when Twins are begotten they have no more than one cake called Placenta that both their Navel vessels are received by though they have different Secundines or Coats that cover them It may be discerned but with some difficulty that a woman will have more than one child by their heavy burden and slow motion also by the unevenness of their bellies and that there is a kind of separation made by certain wrinkles and seams to shew the children are parted in the womb and if she be not very strong to go through with it in her Travel she is in danger both she and her children If the twins be both boys or both girls they will fare the better Yet one is found by frequent examples to be more lusty longer liv'd than the other be they both of one sex or one a boy the other a girl that which is strongest encreaseth but the weaker decayes or fails by reason of the prevailing force of the other Sometimes the woman conceives again a long time after her conception the womb opening it self by reason of great delight in the action though it were shut so close as no air could enter for the Matrix attracts and makes room for it And this may fall out not only for once but at a third Copulation that a woman may have one mischance and two children yet no twins It may be discerned by the several motions of the Infants but the mother is in great danger of her life by losing of so great a quantity of blood as she must needs lose at two births in so short a compass of time It is most dangerous to spurr nature to delivery before her period wherefore in such cases leave it to the work of nature using only Corroboratives and some such remedies as may facilitate her progress therein But women may avoid this mischief that often happens if they will rest themselves content when they have once conceived But that Story which I touched before seems to me to be but a meer Romance of Margaret Countess of Hennenberge and sister to William King of the Romans as some writers record that when she was forty years old she was delivered at one birth successively of as many children as there are daies in the year namely three hundred sixty five the one half boys and the other half girls and the odd child was divided to both sexes an Hermaphrodite partly male partly female and that the cause of this miracle was from a curse of her sister some say a poor beggar woman at her door laid upon her for her causeless jealousie and
farther it is constantly reported that these children were all baptized living at the Church of Lardune in Holland near the Hague and the boys were all called Johns the girls Elizabeths there were two Silver Basons that they were Christned in and Guido the Suffragan of Vtrecht keeps them for to shew to strangers and one of these Basons as it is reported was brought for a present to King Charles the second before he came from thence and they say farther that presently after they were baptized the mother and all her children died Some write of another Countess in Frederick the eleventh's daies who had five hundred boys at one birth But to leave this and to proceed to the causes of Conception Notwithstanding that God gave the blessing generally to our first Parent and so by consequent to all her succeeding generations yet we find that some women are exceeding fruitful to conceive and others barren that they conceive not at all God reserving to himself a prerogative of furthering and hindering Conception where he pleaseth that men and women may more earnestly pray unto God for his blessing of Procreation and be thankful unto him for it so Psal 127.3 the Psalmist tells us Loe Children and the fruit of the Womb are an heritage and gift that cometh from the Lord. So Hannah pray'd in the first of Samuel and gave thanks when God had heard her prayer Some women are by nature barren though both they themselves and their husbands are no way deficient to perform the acts of Generation and are in all parts as perfect as the most fruitful persons can be Some think the cause is too much likeness and similitude in their complexions for God having framed an Harmonious world by a due disposing of contraries they that are too like of constitution can never beget any thing this I confess is hard to find that they should agree in all respects no difference of complexion at all yet sometimes Physicians judge barrenness proceeds from too great similitude of persons but I should rather think from some disproportion of the Organs or some impediment not easily perceived else how comes it to pass that some that have continued barren many years at last have proved fruitful I remember a story that I heard of a Watch-maker who had an excellent Watch that was out of tune and he could never make it go true what the fault was he could not find at length he grew so angry that he threw the watch against the wall and took it up again and then he found it goe exceeding true and by that means he came also to know the cause of the former defect for indeed it proved to be nothing else but some inequality in the Case of the watch which by throwing it against the wall accidentally was amended wherefore a small matter sometimes will remove the impediment if we can but find what it is Some say again the cause of barrenness is want of love in man and wife whose Seed never mixeth as it should to Procreation of children their hatred is so great as it is recorded of Eleocles and Polynices two Theban Princes who killed each other and when their bodies were afterwards burn'd as the manner of burial was in their daies to preserve only their ashes in a pot as if the hatred still continued in their dead bodies the flames parted in the midst and ascended with two points and this extream hatred is the reason why women seldom or never conceive when they are ravished and it proves as ineffectual as Onan's Seed when he spilt it upon the ground The cause of this hatred in married people is commonly when they are contracted and married by unkind Parents for some sinister ends against their wills which makes some children complain of their Parents cruelty herein all the daies of their lives but as Parents do ill to compel their children in such cases so children should not be drawn away by their own foolish fansies but take their Parents counsel along with them when they go about such a great work as marriage is wherein consists their greatest woe or welfare so long as they live upon the earth Another cause that women prove barren is when they are let blood in the arm before their courses come down whereas to provoke the Terms when they flow not as they should Women or Maids ought rather to be let blood in the foot for that draws them down to the place nature hath provided but to let blood in the arm keeps them from falling down and is as great a mischief as can be to hinder them wherefore let the Terms first come naturally before you venture to draw blood in the arm unless the cause be so great that there is no help for it otherwise The time of the courses to appear for maids is fourteen or thirteen or the soonest at twelve years old yet I remember that in France I saw a child but of nine years old that was very sickly until such time as she was let blood in the arm and then she recovered immediately but this is no president for others especially in our climate blood-letting being the ordinary remedy in those parts when the Patient is charged with fulness of blood of what age almost soever they be There is besides this natural barrenness of women another barrenness by accident by the ill disposition of the body and generative parts when the courses are either more or fewer than stands with the state of the womans body when humours fall down to the womb and have found a passage that way and will hardly be brought to keep their natural rode or when the womb is disaffected either by any preternatural quality that exceeds the bounds of nature as heat or cold or dryness or moisture or windy vapours Lastly There is barrenness by inchantment when a man cannot lye with his wife by reason of some charm that hath disabled him the French in such a case advise a man to thred the needle Nouer C'eguilliette as much as to say to piss through his wives wedding ring and not to spill a drop and then he shall be perfectly cured Let him try it that pleaseth CHAP. III. Signs that a woman is conceived with Child and whether it be a Son or a Daughter YOung women especially of their first Child are so ignorant commonly that they cannot tell whether they have conceived or not and not one of twenty almost keeps a just account else they would be better provided against the time of their lying in and not so suddenly be surprised as many of them are Wherefore divers Physicians have laid down rules whereby to know when a woman hath conceived with Child and these rules are drawn from almost all parts of the body The rules are too general to be certainly proved in all women yet some of them seldom fail in any First if when the seed is cast into the womb she feel the womb shut close and a
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
maids are too narrow so that there is no flux of blood thither to make this Mole of as it is in women that have had the use of man but without dispute the principal cause is womens carnally knowing their Husbands when their Terms are purging forth from whence Moles and Monsters distorted imperfect ill qualified Childred are begotten Let such as fear God or love themselves or their posterity beware of it The windy Mole proceeds from an over-cold womb Spleen and Liver which breeds wind that fastneth in the hollow of the part Sometimes the womb is weak and cannot transmute the blood for nourishment but it turns to water which cannot be all sent forth but part of it remains in the womb also the womb ofttimes receives a great confluence of water from the spleen or from some parts nigh unto it The Mole made of many humors flowing to the womb proceeds from the Whites or ill purgations coming from the menstruous Veins The fourth Mole is a skin full of blood with many white diaphanous vessels if you cast it into the water the skin coagulates like a clod of seed and the blood runs away It is very hard to know a false conception from a true until four moneths be past and then the motion of the body of the thing conceived will shew it for if it be a living Child that moves quick and lively but the false conception falls from one side to another like a stone as the woman turns her self in her bed if it stir at all it is but like a sponge trembling and beating and contracts and dilates it self like the beating of the pulse almost This false conception hath many signes whereby it personates and shews like a true Conception for the Terms stop their stomachs fail they loath their meat they vomit and belch sowrly their breasts and belly swell cunning Midwives and women themselves that have them are deceived taking one for the other There are many other things bred in the womb sometimes besides these Moles Two famous Physician of Senon tell us of a woman that had a Child in her womb that did not corrupt nor stink though it lay long dead there untill it was turned into a stone cold and heat and driness might keep the child from corrupting but there was also a petrifying humour mixt with the seed and blood or it could never have been turned into a stone there is but this single History that I ever read of this kind and Authors say the mother lived twenty eight years after she was delivered of it but it is no great wonder why it did not stink nor corrupt in the womb for many aged women live many years with a Mole in the body yet it never stinks nor corrupts though they keep it in them till they dye As for Monsters of all sorts to be formed in the womb all nations can bring some examples Worms Toades Mice Serpents Gordonius saith are common in Lumbardy and so are those they call Soole kints in the Low Countries which are certainly caused by the heat of their stones and menstrual blood to work upon in women that have had company with men and these are sometimes alive with the infant and when the Child is brought forth these stay behind and the woman is sometimes thought to be with Child again as I knew one there my self which was after her child-birth delivered of two like Serpents and both run away into the Burg wall as the women supposed but it was at least three moneths after she was delivered of a Child and they came forth without any loss of blood for there was no after burden Again in time of Copulation Imagination ofttimes also produceth Monstrous births when women look too much on strange objects To distinguish then false conceptions from true but if there be both true and false at once that is very hard to know False Conceptions cause the greatest pains in their Backs and Groins and Loyns and Head their Bellies swell sooner they faint more their Faces and Feet and Legs swell their Bellies grow hard like a Dropsie they have such pain in their Bellies that they cannot sleep because they carry such a dead weight within them and though their Faces and breasts swell they grow daily soft and lank and no milk in their Breasts but what is like water or very little whereas women with Child about the fourth moneth have their Breasts swoln with milk Some women look well with these false Conceptions but most of them look pale and wan and ill favoured If it be a boy that is conceived he will stir at the beginning of the third Moneth and a Girle at the beginning of the third or fourth moneth and so soon as the infant moves there is Milk bred in the Breasts as any one may prove that will The Child that is alive moves to all sides and upward and downward without any help but oftenest to the right flanck A false conception may have a motion from the expulsive faculty but not from it self and being not tied by ligaments as a living Child is it tumbles to one side or other and if she lye on her back and one press it down with his hand gently there it will stay and not remove up again of it self If she go with a Mole nine months compleat her belly will swell more and more but she will wax lean and wan and never offer to be delivered Yet a woman may go ten or eleven months with child before her time be perfect to bring forth but this depends upon the time when the child was begotten and some women ordinarily go longer or shorter before they come to bring forth Those that have Moles are usually barren or their Privities are ulcerated for it hurts the womb and the whole fabrick of their bodies The windy Mole will swell the belly like a Bladder and it will sound like a Drum but it is softer than the fleshy Mole or the watry it grows sooner and sooner disappears and she will feel her self lighter when it abates but sometimes it will heat the belly with such violence as if she were upon the rack The watry Mole is a fluctuation of water from one side to another as the woman turns her self when she lieth and then that lide will be higher where the water falls and the other side will sink down the more and grow flatter The Mole caused from many humours doth not make the belly swell so much as the watry Mole doth because the water comes more in quantity and is clear whereas the humours are reddish and stink when they come forth like water wherein flesh hath been washed There is one observation more concerning false conceptions that when they happen the Flowers stop presently and never come down whereas they do sometimes the first two months in true conceptions because they are superfluous in strong full fed persons before the child comes to want more nutriment also the Navel
of the woman doth not rise higher in false conceptions but in true it doth Some women have their Terms well and their wombs well disposed yet their bellies have swoln and the cause not discerned till they were dead for being opened one or both corners of the womb have had little bags of water or else clusters of kernels and strange flesh growing in them Some women have also a piece of flesh hanging within the inward neck of the womb fastned about a finger broad at the root and growing dayly downward in form like a bell and sometimes fills all the privy members orifice and may be seen hanging forth all these make the belly swell round but are not properly Moles as they are before spoken of Amongst false conceptions all monstrous births may be reckoned for a monster saith Aristotle is an error of nature failing of the end she works for by some corrupted principle sometimes this happens when the sex is imperfect that you cannot know a boy from a girl they call these Hermaphrodites there is but one kind of Women Hermaphrodites when a thing like a Yard stands in the place of the Clitoris above the top of the genital and bears out in the bottom of the share-bone sometimes in boys there is seen a small privy part of the woman above the root of the Yard and in girls a Yard is seen at the Lesk or in the Peritoneum But three ways a boy may be of doubtful sex 1. When there is seen a womans member between the Cods and the Fundament 2. When it is seen in the Cod but no excrement coming forth by it 3. When they piss through it But Monsters most ordinarily falling out are when the child born is of some strange feature or like a dog or any other creature as the Tartar lately captivated by the Germans in their last war against the Turks if the relation be true he had a head and neck like a horse some think he was begotten of a beast a custom too frequent amongst those miscreants Some are monsters in magnitude when one part as the head is too great for the body or a Gyant or a Pigmy is brought forth Sometimes in place when the parts are displaced as when the eyes stand in the forehead or the ears behind in the poll many such strange births have been in the world and sometime children have been born with six fingers on a hand and six toes like those Gyants the Scripture speaks of and others there are born with but one eye or one hand one ear and the like CHAP. V. Of the causes of Monstrous Conceptions WHat should be the causes of Monstrous Conceptions hath troubled many great Learned men Alcabitius saith if the Moon be in some Degrees when the child is conceived it will be a Monster Astrologers they seek the cause in the stars but Ministers refer it to the just judgements of God they do not condemn the Parent or the Child in such cases but take our blessed Saviours answer to his Disciples who askt him who sinned the Parent or the Child that he was born blind our Saviour replyed neither he nor his Parents but that the Judgments of God might be made manifest in him In all such cases we must not exclude the Divine vengeance nor his Instruments the stars influence yet all these errors of Nature as to the Instrumental causes are either from the material or efficient cause of procreation The matter is the seed which may fail three several wayes either when it is too much and then the members are larger or more than they should be or too little and then there will be some part or the whole too little or else the seed of both sexes is ill mixed as of men or women with beasts certainly it is likely that no such creatures are born but by unnatural mixtures yet God can punish the world with such grievous punishments and that justly for our sins Aristotle tells us that in Africa so many monsters are bred amongst beasts because going far together to water they that are of different kinds ingender there and so dayly new Monsters are begotten But the efficient cause of Monsters is either from the forming faculty in the Seed or else the strength of imagination joyned with it add to these the menstruous blood and the disposition of the Matrix sometimes the mother is frighted or conceives wonders or longs strangely for things not to be had and the child is markt accordingly by it The unfitness of the matter hinders formation for an agent cannot produce the effect where the patient is not fit to receive it Imagination can do much as a woman that lookt on a Black-more brought forth a child like to a Black-more and one I knew that seeing a boy with two thumbs on one hand brought forth such another but ordinarily the spirits and humours are disturbed by the passions of the mind and so the forming faculty is hindered and overcome with too great plenty of humours that flow to the matrix or the spirits are called off and gone another way But the imagination is so strong in some persons with child that they produce such real effects that can proceed from nothing else as that woman who brought forth a child all hairy like a Camel because she usually said prayers kneeling before the image of St. John Baptist who was clothed with camels hair How the imagination can work such wonders is hard to say but there must be some strength of mind that can convey the species from the external senses to the formative faculty for by this means there is a consent between the faculties superior and inferior The Soul is all in all and all in every part of the body yet it works in several parts as occasions serves The child in the Mothers womb hath a soul of its own yet it is a part of the mother untill she be delivered as a branch is part of a Tree while it grows there and so the mothers imagination makes an impression upon the child but it must be a strong imagination at that very time when the forming faculty is at work or else it will not do but since the child takes part of the mothers life whilst he is in the womb as the fruit doth of the tree whatsoever moves the faculties of the mothers soul may do the like in the child So the parts of the infant will be hairy where no hair should grow or Strawberries or Mulberries or the like be fashioned upon them or have lips or parts divided or joined together according as the imagination transported by violent passions may sometimes be the cause of it The Arabians say a strange imagination can do as much as the Heavens can to make plants and mettals in the earth The second cause is the heat or place of conception which molds the matter quickly into sundry forms But imagination holds the first place and thence it is that
reason of ill conformity of the generative parts or but one of them for if both be not perfect to all respects as to that work of copulation they shall never have any children and such marriages are not lawful by the Laws of God or man because that procreating and bearing children is one of the chief ends of marriage but accidental barrenness may happen to them by reason of some curable infirmity and when that is removed they may be as fruitful as others that are naturally so Physicians and Midwives have tried many ways to discover when man and wife cannot fructifie where the fault lieth whether the hinderance be from the man or from his wife or from both the best experiment that ever I could find was to take some small quantity of Barley or any other Corn that will soon grow and soak part of it in the mans Urine and part in the womans Urine for a whole day and a night then take the Corn out of both their Urines and lay them apart upon some floor or in parts where it may dry and in every morning water them both with their own Urine and so continue that Corn that grow first is the most fruitful and so is the person whose Urine was the cause of it if one or neither part of these grains grow they are one or both of them barren almost all men and women desire to be fruitful naturally and it is a kind of self-destroying not to be willing to leave some succession after us nay it seems to be more general and to tend to the ruine of the world which cannot be continued without fruitfulness in copulation Virginity and single life in some cases is preferred before Matrimony because it is a singular blessing and gift of God which all people are not capable of But for men or women to mutilate themselves on purpose or use destructive means to cause barrenness besides the means prescribed of Prayer and fasting I cannot think to be justifiable though some persons have presumptuously ventured upon it Let the Votaries of the Roman Church look to it when they make vows of chastity which the greatest part of them doubtless are never able to keep but by using unlawful means I much doubt whether they pray and fast so much as they pretend to The principal cause of barrenness in man or woman lieth in the generative parts and if children be born defective it is not we that are Midwives can cure it what Nature wants Art can hardly make perfect It is not my design so much to speak of unfruitfulness in men but of women in relation to their Conception and Child-bearing and I conceive the chiefest cause of womens barrenness to be from the womb of them that is ill formed or ill disposed and not as naturally it should be in those that may have children There are many infirmities that we women especially are made unfruitful by but God hath appointed several remedies for most accidents that none need to despair of help true it is that the Scripture relates of a woman that had an issue of blood twelve years and could find no cure but had spent all upon Physicians yet at last she was cured by touching the hem of Christ's Garment it is probable God would not have her cured by man that her faith might be confirmed by the surpassing vertue she found in Christ But before I come to speak of this I shall speak of the things that are most proper to follow in order namely concerning delivery of women with child CHAP. II. Of great pain and difficulty in Child-bearing with the Signs and causes and cures I Have done with that part of Anatomy that concerns principally us Midwives to know that we may be able to help and give directions to such women as send for us in their extremities and had we not some competent insight into the Theory we could never know how to proceed to practice that we may be able to give a handsome account of what we come for The accidents and hazards that women lye under when they bring their Children into the world are not few hard labour attends most of them it was that curse that God laid upon our sex to bring forth in sorrow that is the general cause and common to all as we descended from the same great Mother Eve who first tasted the forbidden fruit but the particular causes are diverse according to several ages and constitutions and conformations or infirmities For sometimes Maids are married very young at twelve or fourteen years of age and prove so soon with Child when the passage is very little dilated but is very strait and narrow in such a case the labour in Child-bearing must needs be great for the infant to find passage and for the Mother to endure it and it must of necessity be much greater if some diseases go along with it which happens oft in those parts as Pushes and Pyles and Aposthumes that Nature can hardly give way for the Child to be born Sometimes the Bladder or near parts are offended and the womb is a sufferer by consent and this will hinder delivery And so if her body be bound that she cannot go to stool the belly stopt with excrement will make the pain in travel the greater because the womb hath not room to enlarge it self So if women be too old as well as too young or if they be weak by accident or naturally of feeble constitutions if they be fearful cannot well endure pain be they too lean or too spare bodies too gross or too fat or if they be unruly will not be governed they will suffer the greater pain in Child-birth and it is not without reason maintained also that a Boy is sooner and easier brought forth than a Girle the reasons are many but they serve also for the whole time she goes with Child for women are lustier that are with Child with Boys and therefore they will be better able to run through with it the weaker they are the greater the pain because they are less able to endure it and the strength of the Child is much for it will sooner break forth than when it is weak though it be of the same sex if the Child be large and the passage strait as it is alwayes though not alike in all she must look for a great deal of pain when the time of delivery comes but none more painful and dangerous than Monstrous births Sometimes the Child doth not come at the time appointed by Nature or it offers not it self in such a posture as that it may find a passage forth as when the feet first present themselves to the neck of the womb either both feet together or else but one foot and both hands upwards or both knees together or else more dangerous yet lying all upon one side thwart the womb or else backward or arselong or two Children offer themselves at once with their feet first
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
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
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
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
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
of the Terms there being so great consent betwixt the breasts and the womb you may feel the small kernels of the breast but that I speak of now is one unmoveable humor but the other are small If it lye near the skin it is soon dissolved but if it lye deep it will hardly be dissolved because the substance of it is so earthy first Purge then bleed after that apply softning and discussing remedies that are strong as you must do for a Schirrhus humor Take Orris Roots and boil them in Oxynel and stamp them mix them with Oyntment of Marshmallowes and Turpentine of each three ounces and one ounce of Mucilage of the seed of Fenugreek If you cannot discuss it ripen it or cut it open but take heed how you do it for this is troublesome and dangerous All these humors if they be unskilfully handled will soon turn to a Schirrhus from melancholy in the veins flowing to the breasts and it is thick flegm dried there are two kinds of it one is bred of Melancholy blood which is gross feculent or thick flegm mixed with it and this feels no pain but the other is not so hard for it is not yet fully come to its perfection and it is probable that it is mingled with other humors A perfect Schirrhus grows from the stoppings of the Spleen whereby the Melancholy blood is retained and being in great quantity falls upon the Breasts or else the courses stopt fly thither There is a double intention for the cure First Use emollient means to soften all that is hard and knotty in the breasts then keep a good Diet and beware of salt Meats and such as are smoak'd and hard of digestion and moreover all things of a sharp corroding faculty use moderate Exercise and Mirth provoke the courses if they be stopt and set on Leeches or bleed in the foot Sena and Rhubarb are good to purge the body well and when you have purged do so no more till you have used some Cordials as Conserve of Bugloss and Orange Flowers Confectio Alkermes Electuarium Degemus and Triosantules Sometimes flegm and melancholy are mingled to cause this Schirrhus but then it is but a bastard Schirrhus if burnt humors abound most it will be a Schrrhus if Melancholy a cancer Secondly The perfect signs of a Schirrhus are that it is very hard and feels no pain if it feel any it is not yet fixed it is coloured according to the humor white or black or blew a bastard Schirrhus is hot and painful if it go on it will be a Cancer and the Veins will swell and look blew if hairs once grow upon it there is no hopes of cure and the bigger and harder it is the more incurable Let general medicaments proceed and cure the cause from the Matrix and from the whole body soften attenuate and discuss the hardness but take heed of hot things that will discuss the thin parts and leave the thick behind neither use too many moistning softning means for that will ferment the matter and change the Schirrhus to a Cancer that is far worse but either soften and moisten and digest together or by turns A Fomentation of Mallows Marshmallows brank Ursine Camomile Flowers Linseed and Fenugreek are good anoint afterwards with oyl of sweet Almonds Hens grease Marrow of a Calf oyntment of Marshmallowes lay on the great Diachylon or the Plaister of Frogs take the Fume of a hot stone sprinkling wine upon it lay on a Plaister of Gum Ammoniacum dissolved in Vinegar of Squills a bastard Schirrhus will soon Cancerate Bleed purge away the humor that breeds black blood to hinder humors from flowing to it anoint with oyl of Roses and juyce of Plantane if it be hot beat them well in a mortar of Lead till they shew another colour then mix Ceruss and Litharge of silver one ounce with wax make an oyntment or take one ounce of Mallow Roots boil bruise them let Sheeps Suet and Capons greese of each two ounces be added to it with wax sufficient to make an Oyntment But the disease worse than a Schirrhus is a Cancer of the breasts and William Fabricius saith that if it be not an Ulcerated Cancer the woman may live above forty years with it and no pain molest her but if you lay on any thing to soften and ripen these swellings she will dye in half a year Many orderly women have lived long with Cancers as if they ailed nothing Hippocrates bids not to cure an occult Cancer if you do the person will dye of the cure because the breasts are loose and spungy Cancers are soon bred there Burnt blood flowing from the womb of one who is of a hot and dry Constitution and the Terms stopping after a Tumor they make an Internal or External Cancer A Cancer that comes naturally undiscerned is hardly known at first being no greater than a Pease and daily increaseth with roots spreading and Veins about it when the skin is eaten through it becomes a loathsome Ulcer the Matter is black and the lips are hard it is scarce curable because it is bred of black burnt blood that is malign and the Vessels are loosned and relapsed by softners and ripeners misapplyed to it so that the passage is made for the humors to pass to and fro and serve to infect the rest Purge melancholy and draw blood but use no Topicks to ripen or rot the part onely Anodynes that will take away pain as oyl of Frogs and Snails with Frogs ashes made to an oyntment with Nightshade water Ashâ—â— of Crayfish or of the herb Robert or the iâ—ward Rind of an Ash-Tree Arceas shewes the way to cut them for 〈◊〉 and to burn the part if the Ulcer be deep â—…bricius bids burn the roots first and afteâ—wards to consume the Reliques and to stoâ— the blood when the root is cut up You must often Purge away melanchoâ—â—â— humors and provoke the Courses or thâ— Cancer will return Mithridate and Treacle with juyces of Sorrel and Borrage and Cray-fish Broth and Asses milk are approved good to palliate the Cure and to keep it from going farther and ease pain This water is commended Take Scrofularia roots and herb Robert of each one handful Lambs Tongue Nightshade Bugloss Borage Purslane Bettony Eybright of each half a handful one Frog two whites of Eggs with Quince seeds and Fenugreeck each one ounce a pint of rose water as much of Eybright water distil them in a Leaden still Cancers must not be handled like other Ulcers for softners Drawers and healers exasperate and kill the woman with great dolour Fichsius his blessed powder against a Cancer is this take white arsenick that shineth like Glass one ounce pour on Aquavitae on the powder of it pour it off again and put on â—â—â—sh Aquavitae every third day for fifteen â—yes together then take roots of great Draâ—on gathered in August or July slice them â—â—d dry them in the wind
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
Cloves of each one scruple Frankincense Bark Calamus of each half a dram Marjoram water three ounces snuff up this water often and drop hot oils into the ears If the water be not dissipated in twenty daies you must open the skull and let out the water by degrees and beware that the child take no cold If such means as are outwardly applied will not help it the last remedy is by the Chirurgion XIV Sometimes children are much vexed with the Hiccough or Hickets or Huckets as they call it it comes commonly from too much repletion and fulness wherefore dip a feather in oil and put it down the childs Throat and make it vomit It may come from a cold stomach then anoint the stomach with oil of Cammomile of Worm wood of Mastick and Quinces and dissolve a scruple of the Troches of Diarrhodon in the Nurses Milk and give it the child If this disease come from too much Milk the belly swells and the child vomits if the Nurses Milk be bad it comes from thence and the Excrements will smell of stinking Milk This is no dangerous disease unless the cause be violent for then it will flie to the Nerves and cause a Convulsion Falling sickness and death Give the child sirrups of Mints and Betony to strengthen the stomach and anoint it with oil of Mints of Mastick and of Dill. There is a disease like the Hickets in children from grief or anger when the spirits flie from the Heart to the Midriff and stop the breath but it is soon over XV. Children are sometimes subject to vomiting from too much or from ill milk or from flegm that falls from the head to the stomach a moist loose stomach is the immediate cause if they vomit milk they are better for it if the milk be naught the matter that comes forth will shew that for it is yellow green or filthy coloured and it stinks Worms may make them vomit but that will be known by the signs children that vomit often are best in health and thrive best because their stomach is kept clean of ill humours but to vomit too much will make them wast away cleanse the stomach with honey of Roses and strengthen it with sirrup of Quinces and of Mints When the humour is too sharp and hot give the sirrup of Pomegranates or of Coral or of Currants Coral hath a hidden vertue and some hang it about their necks Anoint the stomach with oils of Mastick Mints Quinces Wormwood of each half an ounce oil of Nutmegs by expression half a dram oil of Mints chymically extracted three drops or dip bread in hot Wine and lay it to the mouth of the Stomach XVI If the child be griped and pained in the belly you shall know it by the great unquietness and crying and turning it self from side to side it is oft with a scowring and from bad milk that breeds sharp windy humours it gets to the guts and gnaws them and sometimes it is from worms if it be wind it will cease when they break wind but ill humors cause a constant pain Tough flegm binds the belly and the Dung is slimy sharp humours cause a green and yellow flux if this pain last long it casts them into convulsions and falling-sicknesses and is dangerous Foment the belly with a decoction of Lavender Fennel and Cummin seed or take oil of Olives and Dill seed and dip a piece of Wool in it and lay it over the belly warm Give the child some oil of sweet Almonds with Sugar-Candy and a scruple of Anni-seeds and purge it with Honey of Roses which is good also when the body is swoln with wind or too much milk not digested and use a decoction of Cardiaca Cammomile flowers and Cummin seed or boil the top of dwarf-Elder and of Elder in white wine and bath the parts that are swoln with it If the griping pain comes from the sharp milk sirrup of Succory with Rhubarb or sirrup or Honey of Roses or a Glister of the decoction of bran and Pellitory of the wall with sirrup of Roses is very good using an outward Ointment of oil of Dill and Cammomile XVII Sometimes children will sneeze mightily it may come from an imposthume in the head then cooling oils and ointments are commended but if any other cause produce it put the powder of Bazil into the nostrils If heat cause it the childs eyes will sink in then bruise Purslain leaves and with oil of Roses Barley meal and the yolk of an egg mingled make an Application to the Head XVIII When the child is Feaverish and hot the nurse must eat cooling and moistening things and anoint all the parts of the child with oil of Roses and Unguent Populeon and lay to the breasts clarified juice of Wormwood Plantane Mallows Seagreen made to a Cataplasme of Barley meal XIX It falls oftentimes out that children are squint-eyed and that comes when they lie in their Cradle and the Candle or light stands behind them or on one side It may come from the Falling-sickness or by birth but that is seldome and not curable if ill custom have bred it put your candle on the other side or a Picture till the childs eyes come to look right but you may prevent all if you set the candle before the child and not on either side for the child will stare after the light you may when you find the childs eyes distorted hang cloths of all colours on the other side to make the child to turn the eyes the contrary way to gaze on them till it be cured XX. Sometimes children have sore eyes with great pain with Ulcers and Worms and inflammations for childrens brains are very moist and there are many excrements which nature casts forth at other places because the natural Emunctories will not carry them all out much of this goes to their ears which will be very sore that they will cry and not suffer them to be touched it is dangerous for it will not let them sleep the heat and pain is so great it causeth the Falling-sickness and fouls the spongy bones and breeds Worms and sometimes makes children deaf so long as they live you cannot use strong remedies to children drop a little hemp seed oil with Wine into their ears to allay the pain use warm milk about their ears or oil of Violets or the decoction of Poppey tops to dry up the moisture use honey of Roses or water of honey to drop in their ears XXI The usual painful disease of all children is the breeding of their teeth it is very dangerous to some about the seventh month first come forth the fore teeth then the eyteeth lastly the grinders first the Gums itch then they prick like needles by reason of the sharp bones which causeth watchings and inflammations of the Gums Feavers Convulsions Scourings especially when they breed their eye-teeth The beginning of the seventh month is the time that discovers it and the childs putting his
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