Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bring_v	child_n	good_a	1,431	5	3.9500	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35976	A late discourse made in a solemne assembly of nobles and learned men at Montpellier in France touching the cure of wounds by the powder of sympathy : with instructions how to make the said powder : whereby many other secrets of nature are unfolded / by Sr. Kenelme Digby, knight ; rendred faithfully out of French into English by R. White.	Digby, Kenelm, Sir, 1603-1665.; White, R., Gent.	1658 (1658)	Wing D1435; ESTC R27859	54,616	164

unto you a marvailous accident known all over the Court of England in confirmation of the activity and impression which the imagination of the mother makes upon the body of the Infant whereof the was big A Lady that was my Kinswoman she was the neece of Fortescu the Daughter of Count Arundel came to give me visits sometimes in London she was fair and of a good feature and she knew it well taking great complacency not only to keep her self so but to adde that which she could further thereupon she was perswaded that the patches and flies which she put upon her face gave her a great deal of ornament therefore she was carfull to wear the most curious fort but as it is very hard to keep a moderation in things which depend more upon Opinion than Nature she wore them in excesse and patched most of her face with them although that did not much adde to her beauty and that I took the liberty to tell her so accordingly yet I thought it no oportunity then to do any thing that should give her the least distast since with so much civility and sweetnesse she came to visit me Neverthelesse one day I thought good in a kind of drolling way so that she might not apprehend any discontentment and Ridentem dicere verum quis vitat to tell her of it so I let fall my discourse upon her big belly advising her to have a care of her health where of she was some what negligent acording to the custom of young vigorous women which know not yet what it is to be subject to indispositions she gently thanked me for my care herein saying That she could do no more for the preservation of her health than she did though she was in that case you should at least I replyed have a care of your child O for that said she there is nothing that can be contributed more Yet I told her see how many patches you wear upon your face are you not afraid that the Infant in your womb may haply be born with such marks on his face But said she What danger is there that my child should bear such marks though I put them on artificially Then you have not heard I replyed again the marvelous effects that the imaginations of Mothers work upon the bodies of their children while they are yet big with them therefore I will raccount unto you some of them so I related unto her sundry stories upon this subject as that of the Queen of Ethiopia who was delivered of a white boy which was attributed to a Picture of the Blessed Virgin which she had near the teaster of her bed whereunto she bore great devotion I urged another of a woman who was brought to bed of a child all hairie because of a pourtrait of Saint Iohn Baptist in the Wildernesse when he wore a coat of Camels hair I raccounted unto her also the strange antipathy which the late King Iames had to a naked sword whereof the cause was ascribed in regard some Schotch Lords had entered once violently into the bed-chamber of the Queen his mother while she was with child of him where her Secretary an Italian was dispatching some letters for her whom they hacked and killed with naked swords before her face and threw him at her feet and they grew so barbarous that there wanted but little but that they had hurt the Queen her self who endeavoured to save her Secretary by interposing her self at least her skin was rased in divers places Bucanan makes mention of this Tragedy Hence it came that her son King Iames had such an aversion all his life time to a naked sword that he could not see one without a great emotion of the spirits although otherwise couragious enough yet he could not over-master his passions in this particular I remember when he dubbed me Knight in the ceremony of puting the point of a naked sword upon my shoulder he could not endure to look upon it but turned his face another way insomuch that in lieu of touching my shoulder he had almost thrust the point into my eyes had not the Duke of Buckingham guided his hand aright I alleadged her divers such stories to make her apprehend that a strong imagination of the mother might cause some notable impression upon the body of her child to his prejudice Moreover I pray consider how attentive you are to your patches and that you have them continually in your imagination for I observed that you have looked upon them ten times since you came to this room in the looking-glasse Have you therefore no apprehension that your child may be born with half moons upon his face or rarather that all the black which you bear up and down in small portions may assemble in one and appear in the middle of his forehead the most apparant and remarkable part of the visage and may be as broad as a Iacobus and then what a grace would it be to the child Oimee said she rather then that should happen I will wear no more patches while I am with child Thereupon at that instant she pulled them all off and hurld them away When her friends saw her afterwards without patches they demanded how it came to passe that the who was esteemed to be one of the most curious beauties of the Court in point of patches should so suddenly give over the wearing of them she answered that her Uncle in whom she had a great deal of belief assured her that if she wore them during the time she was with child the Infant would have a large black patch in the midst of his forehead Now this conceit was so lively engraven in her imagination that she could not be delivered of it And so this poor Lady who was so fearful that her child might not bear some black mark in his face yet she could not prevent but it came so into the World but that he had a spot as large as a crown of gold in the midst of his forehead according as she had figured before in her imagination it was a daughter that she brought forth very beautifull throughout this excepted And t is but few moneths agoe that I saw her bearing the said mole or spot which proceeded from the force of the imagination of her mother I need not tell you of your neighbour of Carcassona who lately was brought to bed of a prodigious Monster exactly resembling an Ape which she took pleasure to look upon during the time she was with child for I conceave you know the story better than I. Nor that of the woman of St. Maixent who could not forbear going to see an infortunate child of a poor passenger woman who was born without armes and she her self was delivered afterwards of such a Monster who neverthelesse had some small excrescences of flesh upon the sholders about the place whence the armes should have come forth As also of her who was desirous to see the

by the tast by the smell by the colour and consistence thereof And sometimes they cause it to be boyled untill it come to an evaporation and see its residence with other accidents and circumstances which may be learnt and discerned by these meanes But those of whose milk this last experiment hath been made felt themselves tormented in their papps and duggs while their milk was a boyling therefore having once endured this pain they would never consent that their milk should be carried away out of their sight and presence although they willingly submitted to any other proof than that by fire Now to confirm this experiment of the attraction which the cowes udder makes of the fire and vapour of the burned milk I am going to racount unto you another of the same nature whereof I my self have seen the truth more than once and whereof any one may easily make try all Take the excrements of a dog and hurle it into the fire more than once at the beginning you shall find him heated and moved but in a short time you shall see him as if he were burned all over panting and stretching out his tongue as if he had run a long course Now this alteration befalls him because his entrailes drawing unto them the vapour of the burn'd excrement and with that vapour the atomes of fire which did accompany it they are so changed and inflam'd that the dog having alwaies a fever upon him and not being able to take any nourishment his flancks do lock up which causeth his death at last It were not proper to divulge this experience among such persons as are subject to make use of any thing for doing of mischief for the same effects which happen to beasts would fall upon mens bodies if one should try such a conclusion upon their excrements There happened a remarkable thing to this purpose to a neighbour of mine in England the last time I sojournied there He had a very pretty and delicate child and because he would have his eies alwaies upon him he entertained the nurse at his house I saw him often for he was a pragmaticall man and of good addresses and I had occasion to use such a man One day I found him very sad and his wife a weeping whereof demanding the reason they told me that their little child was very ill and that he had a burning feaver which inflamed all his body over which appeared by the rednesse of his face that he forced himself to go to stool but he could do little and that little which he did was covered with bloud and that he refused also to suck And that which troubled them most was that they could not conjecture any cause how this indisposition should befall him for his nurse was very well her milk was as good as could be wished and in all other things there was as much care had of him as could be I told them that the last time I was with them I observed one particularity whereof I thought fit to give them notice but something or other still diverted me It was that their child making a signe that he was desirous to be set on his feet he let fall his excrements on the ground and his nurse presently took the fire-shovell and covered it with embers and then threw all into the fire the mother began to make her excuses that they were not so carefull to correct this ill habit of the child saying that as he advanced in yeares he should be corrected for it I replied that t was not for this consideration that I held this discourse with her but I was curious to know the reason of her childs distemper and consequently to find some remedy And thereupon I related unto them the like accident which had happened two or three yeares before to a child of one of the most illustrious Magistrates of the Parliament of Paris who was bred up in the house of a Doctor of Physick of great reputation in the same town I told them also what I have now related unto you touching the excrements of dogs and I made reflections unto them upon that which they had often heard and what is often practised in our Countrey which is that within the villages which are alwaies dirty in the winter if it happens that there be a Farmer which is more proper than others and who keeps more neatly the approaches to his house than his neighbours do the boyes use to come thither in the night time or when it begins to be dark to discharge their bellies there because that in such villages there is not much commodity of easements besides that in such places so fitly accommodated these gallants the boyes are out of danger to sink into the dirt which otherwise might rise up higher than their shooes but the good houswifes in the morning when they open their doores use to find such an ill favoured smell that transports them with choller But they who are acquainted with this trick go presently and fire red hot a broach or fire-shovel and then they thrust it into the excrements all hot and when the fire lessens they heat it again oftentimes to the same purpose In the mean time the boy which made the ordure feels a kind of pain and collick in his bowells with an inflammation in his fundament and a continuall desire to go to stool and he is hardly quit of it till he suffer a kind of fever all that day which is the cause that he returnes thither no more And these women to be freed from such affronts do passe among the Ignorant for sorceresses and to have made a compact with the divell since they torment people in that fashion without seeing or touching them This Gentleman did not disallow those things which I have already told you but was confirmed farther when I told him that he should look farther into the fundament of his child for without doubt he should find it red and inflamed and that visiting him he should find that it was full of pimples and excoriated It was not long after that this poor child fell into a languishment and with much pain and pittifull cries he voyded some small matter which in lieu of casting it into the fire or to be covered with embers I caused to be put into a bason of cold water which was put in a fresh place which was continued to be done every time that the child gave occasion and he began to amend the very same hour and within four or five daies he became perfectly well recovered But fearing to trespasse too much upon your patience I will hold you no longer but with one experiment onely very familiar in our Countrey and afterwards I will make a summary of all that hath been said to make you see the force and value of this whole Discourse We have in England as I touched before excellent pasturage for the nourishment and fatting of cattle so abundantly that it falls out often