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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93039	The midwives book, or, The whole art of midwifry discovered. Directing childbearing women how to behave themselves in their conception, breeding, bearing, and nursing of children in six books, viz. ... / By Mrs. Jane Sharp practitioner in the art of midwifry above thirty years.; Midwives book	Sharp, Jane, Mrs.	1671 (1671)	Wing S2969B; ESTC R203554	186,081	442

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 f● 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

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

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

or one foot and one head the postures are so many and strange that no woman Midwife nor man whatsoever hath seen them all We have an example in Scripture of two Children that Judah got incestuously upon his Daughter in Law Tamar who offered themselves to the Birth at the same time Gen. 38.26 And it came to pass in the time of her travel that behold Twins were in her womb and when she travelled one of them put forth his hand the Midwife took and b●und upon his hand a scarlet thred saying this came out first and it came to pass that as he drew his hand again back his brother came out and she said how hast thou broken forth this breach be upon thee therefore his name was called Pharez And after him came his brother that had the Scarlet thred upon his hand and his name was called Zerah We do not read but that she was safely delivered of them both and neither Mother nor Child died in the Birth But we find an example that will serve to our purpose concerning hard labor and that of Rachel a good woman wife to the Patriark Jacob Gen. 35.17 18. Rachel travelled and she had hard labor and when she was in travel the Midwife said to her fear not thou shalt have this Son also but her soul was departing for she died c. A single birth and a Boy which is easier labour as I said than of a Girle and a young woman who had born one child before yet Child-bearing is so dangerous that the pain must needs be great and if any feel but a little pain it is commonly harlots who are so used to it that they make little reckoning of it and are wont to fare better at present than vertuous persons do but they will one day give an account for it if they continue impenitent and be condemned to a torment of hell which far surpasses all pains in Child birth yet these doubtless are the greatest of all pains women usually undergo upon Earth There are many more causes of great pains in travel than have been yet spoken of for if a woman miscarry before the due time of Child birth if she come in three or four or five Moneths after she hath conceived the womb at that time is close shut by the course of nature and must be forced to open which if the Child come at the just time it should come opens it self but Abortion makes the woman that she ofttimes never can conceive again for she can hardly ever retain the mans Seed any more there is such a weakness caused in the retentive faculty or else she will hardly ever conceive again And I have heard some women complain that have miscarryed of the great pains they have endured at such a time and to profess that they have found less pain in bearing ten Children than when they have miscarryed with one But there is yet something worse than all this when a Child comes to be dead in the womb and is of full age to be born for then it cannot help the woman because it stirs not nor can it be turned that it may be brought forth but with great difficulty and if the woman have been long sick her self the infant cannot be strong in her womb if she have by some accident had her courses come down much after she is conceived with Child or had some extraordinary flux or looseness and if the Child do not stir as a living and healthful Child will these are signes of imbecillity Moreover the Secundine which covers the Child in the womb of which I gave you the description before that it is the Membranes and Coats Chorion and Amnios and these are ofttimes so strong that they will not break to make passage for the Child to come forth it may cause hard labour also if the Secundine be too thin and weak so that it cleaves asunder before the child be turned or fitted to come to the birth for by this means all the moisture and humours run forth of the womb and leave the after-birth dry and the Birth can hardly pass because the womb is not slippery wanting due moisture Cold also shuts the womb closer and heat causeth the woman to faint if either of them exceed so that she must be kept in a due temper or her delivery will not be so easy as it might be otherwise Besides these Diet is to be taken into consideration for sower and binding things will straiten the Orifice of the Matrix as Quinces and Chesnuts and Services and Medlars and Pears all these and such like cause dolour by contracting the womb sweet scents cause hard delivery because they draw the matrix upward too much hunger or thirst weariness or watching extraordinarily and to use cold baths after the fifth moneth or astringent mineral baths of Alum Salts or Iron or of vegetables that bind much will produce the like painful effects The woman may be assured also by the pains she feels before travel if they be above the Navel and in the back only and not below as they should be in time of delivery that all is not so well as not to put her to more than ordinary pain the signes of easie Birth are contrary to these for then the pains bear downwards and not upwards and so they are not so violent if she have usually been delivered with ease if the woman have cold fainting sweats and she swoon away and her Pulse beat out of measure there is much danger but if she be strong and lusty and the Child tumbles and strives much to come forth and the pains fall to the bottom of the belly there is no fear but know this all women are most in danger to miscarry in the first and second moneth after they have conceived for then the ligaments and all parts of it are weak and easily spoiled and torn in sunder and about the end of her going with Child the Child is heavy and the womb begins to open and so causeth danger of abortion but in about four five or six moneths there is least danger in taking Physick or letting blood if the women be oppressed with it for then she will not easily miscarry I told you before that women are all ready to be brought a bed at seven moneths end for that number of seven is the perfection of all numbers Pythagoras saith that seven is the knot that binds Mans life and Hippocrates lib. de Principiis saith that the time of all men is determined by seven every climatericall or seven years breeding a new alteration in the body of Man Children cast their Teeth at seven and Maids courses begin to flow at fourteen Seven times seven is of great danger to Mans life and the great Climaterical which few escape is seven times nine which makes sixty three But the signes of miscarriage in Childbirth are if the Child be faln lower toward the wombs mouth and so out of its

true place also if the woman have blackish courses chiefly if she be far gone with child she is in danger to lose the Child many women have their Terms in the first moneths but they are but watry pale coloured not fitting for the nourishment of the infant and they are also superfluous so that nature at first sends them out as being useful neither for nutriment for the Mother nor the Child I said before that the breasts will shew danger and of Twins which is most likely to suffer if the right breast flag she will miscarry of a Boy if the left of a Girle and the head shaking as with a Palsie the body trembling the face flushing with red the eyes pain●d inwardly if the body be afflicted with wind there is fear of miscariage in child birth but if she travel when she is sick of a sharp Feaver or some such dangerous disease seldom doth either Mother or the child escape death but the ordinary causes of Abortion are when the womb is too weak or corrupted by phlegmatick slippery slimy or watry humours so that it cannot retain the Child the pains of inflammation and Imposthumes hinder delivery extream Costiveness of the body by straining to go to stool forceth the child downwards and the dung staying in the right gut when the woman is bound oppresseth the child if she fall into a Tenesmus which is a great desire to go to stool and can do nothing Hippocrates saith Abortion is like to follow Piles and Hemorrhoids cause pain and miscarriage fat women have slippery wombs and lean women have as dry and want nourishment for the child neither are fit for child-bearing Bleeding is bad for childing women unless there be great need purging especially in the first or second or about the last months and vomiting is far worse too much fasting starves the child too much eating and drinking will stifle it great heats or baths or stoves force the child to press for a more free air and great cold is not good for it all immoderate exercises passions desires longings falls strokes and all violent running leaping coughing lifting and such like will bring on this misfortune There being then so many causes and accidents whereby women usually fall into such mishaps 't will be profitable for women with child to observe some good rules beforehand that when her time of delivery is at hand she may more easily undergo it and not so soon miscarry But as there are diverse causes of miscarriage so the times are diverse that we are to provide for either before or after conception And before she be conceived with child let her use means both by diet and physick to strengthen her womb and to further conception Drink wine that is first well boyled with the mother of Tyme for it is a pretious thing If the womb be too windy eat ten Juniper berries every morning if too moist the woman must exercise or sweat in a Stove or Hot-house or else take half a dram of Galingal and as much Cinnamon mingled in powder and drink it in Muskadel every morning but if she use moderate labour perhaps she may have no need of this but the most frequent cause of barrenness in young lusty women that are of a cholerick complexion is driness of the Matrix and this is easily known by their great desire of copulation It is to be corrected by cooling drinks and emulsions made of barley-water blanched Almonds white poppy seeds Cucumbers Citrons Melons and Gours and to drink frequently of this all violent exercise drinking of wine or strong waters must be forborn The Oyl of Nightshade is good to annoint the Reins some report that the seeds of Mandrakes are very useful to cool and purge a hot and foul womb such diseases are common to salt complexions and the dose of half a dram of Mandrake seed bruised and drunk at once in a cup of white wine cannot be dangerous for though the leaves be cold yet the seeds have a vital spirit in them to beget their like cold begets nothing but heat is an active quality for production There are many conjectures concerning those Mandrakes that Reuben found and that Rachel so much desired because she was then barren Gen. 30. it may be she knew that they were fit to cure her barrenness I grant that sometimes God is the cause of barrenness who shuts up the womb and will not suffer some women to conceive we have multitudes of examples in Scripture for it Rachel doubtless was not barren of her self and she was angry with Jacob that she said unto him Give me Children or else I die but he acknowledgeth God to be the chief cause of it And he said unto her Am I God who hath withheld the fruit of the womb from thee And again he makes the barren women to keep house and be a joyful mother of Children Prayer is then the chief remedy of their barrenness not neglecting such natural means to further conception and to remove impediments that God hath appointed and those means are chiefly either by a well ordering of the body and mind or else when need requires by taking of Physick The good order of the body consists in seasonable moderate eating and drinking of wholsome meats and drinks moderate exercise for idleness is a great enemy to conception and that may be the reason that so many City Dames have so few children if they have any they are commonly sickly and short lived it is not so with Country women who are always working they usually have many children and they are lusty and strong for moderate labour raiseth natural heat revives the spirits helps digestion opens the pores and wasts excrements comforts all the parts and strengtheneth the senses and spirits help nature in all her faculties and that is the way to have strong and many children As for working too much it wasts and destroys nature but I think few women are guilty of this fault Moderate rest refresheth nature as well as moderate work but there is a large difference between moderate rest and extreme idleness which dulls both mind and body and hastens old age and therefore Lycurgus commanded all the Spartans to work at least four hours in a day If women will be fair let them work as it is with the body so it is with the mind the mind must alwayes be intent upon something that is good yet this also admits of some relaxation and rest or else we are never able to endure but above all we must take heed of discontent for that wonderfully hinders conception whereas content of mind dilates the Heart and Arteries and distributes the vital blood and spirits through the body which exceedingly recreates nature in all her operations Much might be said in Divinity against discontent sullenness and murmuring which many women especially are too much guilty of for it troubles the imagination which should be pure in the act of conception it stirs up ill

slice the roots boil all in Rain water take out the mucilage and mix it with the foresaid Oyles then let the pounded Gum traganth and hens grease boil so long till the mucilage come to a Salve Use this annoynting every day for five or six weeks before she lye in But before I come to her time of delivery I shall speak a word of one frequent cause of womens miscarriage and that is their longings and sometimes of their unnatural and unreasonable desires after they have conceived with Child You must know that to exceed in the things not natural as Philosopers call eating and drinking fullness emptiness sleep and watchings exercise and rest and too great intention of the mind may hasten the birth and cause abortion Those women that use moderation in the foresaid things are not so often longing for what they can not easily attain to Nay sometimes you have Ladies at Court and Citizens Wives and Country women too will long to eat sand and dirt but their Children seldome live long that are begun thus That some women with child will desire to steal things from others this is no small argument that the Child she goes withal will be a Thief wherefore she must take care to give it good education and to bring it up in the fear of God When nature is thus perverted in what she desires she is forced to leave the conception because she cannot attain what she looks for This may be prevented by a decoction of vine leaves frequently taken it may be provided by preparing a decoction strong of it at time of the year and to boil that into a sirrup to use when need requires for it is said to be very proper for this distemper though I cannot call it a disease There is another cause not far unlike in the effects to womens longings and that is suddain fears for many a woman brings forth a Child with a hare lip being suddenly frighted when she conceived by the starting of a Hare or by longing after a piece of a Hare Miraldus thought so and many women cannot deny it to be true but he was a notable conceited old Philosopher and he bethought himself how he might find but a remedy to do poor women good and it is this which is easily proved let a woman slit her smock like her husbands shirt and that he saith upon his knowledge will do it BOOK IV. CHAP. I. Rules for Women that are come to their Labour ALl Women Midwives especially should be well seen against this time of necessity and all things provided that may cause them to be easily delivered and Childbed linnen at hand having first invoked the Divine assistance by whom we live and move and have our being When the Patient feels her Throws coming she should walk easily in her Chamber and then again lye down keep her self warm rest her self and then stir again till she feels the waters coming down and the womb to open let her not lye long a bed yet she may lye sometimes and sleep to strengthen her and to abate pain the Child will be the stronger Sometimes the Child is dead in the womb before and you may know it to be dead when the Breasts suddenly hang down slack Nature makes no Milk or provision for them for there is no reason she should Secondly she is cold all the belly over chiefly the Navel Thirdly Her water is thick and hath a stinking substance that falls to the bottom Fourthly The Child moves not though you wet your hand in warm water and rub it over her belly which is a true trial and it will stir if it be alive Fifthly She dreams of dead people and is frightned with it Sixthly Her breath smels filthily Seventhly She longs to eat strange things unfit for to eat Eightly She looks ill favouredly and sorrowfully Ninethly The Child falls to the side she lyeth on like a lump of lead But Garden Tansey or the Eagle stone will bring the Child to its right place if it be weak onely but if it be dead there is no way to help that but to hasten delivery as fast as may be for it is a misery beyond expression for a woman to go with a dead child in her womb as for two Twins to be born that grow together and one of them dead the living Child cannot long endure Virgil tells us of Mezenius a Tyrant Dead bodies to the living he did place Joyning them hand to hand and face to face Tenthty Corrupt stinking humours run from the womb chiefly if she have had some ill disease Eleventhly Her eyes look hollow and her nose strangely her lips wan and pale Twelfthly Her breath stinks if the Child have been dead two or three dayes The more of these signs appear at once the more certainty of the death of the Child Wherefore presently use medicines to expel it forth or Manual and Chirurgical operations with all care to save the Mothers life for she is in great danger of death also The signs of greater danger to her are 1. If she swoond in labor or be in a trance and memory be gone 2. If she be extream weak 3. If she will not answer when you call or very hardly 4. If she hath Convulsion fits or shrinking together in travel 5. If she loath meat 6. If her pulse beat high and quick But if none of these signes appear there is not so great danger wherefore presently hasten by medicaments to provoke the expulsive faculty to cast it forth but the physick must be stronger than for a live Child for a dead Child makes no way wanting motion but a living Child doth The vertue of the Eagle stone in such cases some commend but I fear it is but a fansie of Miraldus for I never saw it tried There must be no delay at such times especially to drive the dead Child forth before it be corrupted for then the Mother can scarcely escape Nature is sometimes strong and able to call forth a dead Birth without helps but then the danger is the more when help wants The causes that some Children dye in the womb are 1. Want of nutriment 2. Corrupt diet 3. Gluttony and surfeiting that choke the Infant 4. The Cups are sometimes broken by strokes sudden fears much sneesing coughing violent motion extream joy sorrow or trouble of mind or by medicaments that corrode or bitter drinks the infant loaths or things that provoke the courses or by acute diseases or lasty by hard labor or difficulty in bearing of Children These following Medicaments will God willing cause her to be delivered of the dead Child and her self escape death by them make her sneeze with powder of Pepper and white Hellebore snuft up into her nostrils drink a dram of Basil powdered with white wine it makes the delivery easy c. But if it fall out that these medicaments prevail not as sometimes they do not that disease is beyond the power of medicine

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

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

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

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

children are so like their Parents CHAP. VI. Of the resemblance or likeness of Children and Parents THere are according to Philosophers and Physicians three forms or likenesses in every living creature First Likeness of kind as when a creature of the same kind is produced a man from a man a horse from a horse and herein the likeness proceeds commonly from the matter and because the female usually brings more matter than the male more children are like the Mother than the Father So a she-Goat with a Ram breed a Kid but a he-Goat and a Sheep beget a Lamb. Secondly there is a likeness of sex and the cause why the child is a boy or a girl is the heat of the seed if the mans seed prevail in mixing above the womans it will be a boy else a girl Thirdly there is a likeness of forms and figures and other accidents that the child by them more resembles the father or the mother as these accidents are found in it more like to either of the two this saith Galen comes from the difference of parts and conformation of the members Hence one is black another white one with a high forehead or a Roman nose the other not Sometimes the child is very like the father sometimes the mother and oft-times like them both in many respects sometimes like neither but the grandfather or grandmother and there are many examples where children have been like to those who have had no part in the work but a strong fansie of the mother hath been the reason of it Authors and Travellers say that the Chineses children are like their Sires in many limbs and parts of their faces as the forehead nose beard and eyes In some Countries where they have Wives in common as a people called Cammate have Men make choice of their children by the likeness to themselves There are also childrens marks proper to some Families that are visible upon their bodies Thyestes had the likeness of a Crab some of a star The Thebans and Spartans a Lance Delemus and his offspring had their thighs crooked and like to an anchor and that lascivious strumpet Julia Augustus's daughter had no children but resembled her self for she was so cunning that she would admit of none besides her husband till she had conceived Some are of that opinion that all this proceeds from the strength of imagination so Empedocles so Paracelsus determine it and the last thought the Plague to be infectious only to those that phansie made it so But the Arabians ascribe so much power to imagination that it can change the very works of nature heal diseases work wonders command all kind of matter and they impute as much or more to that than Divines do to having Faith to which nothing is impossible but I cannot be altogether of their opinion Imagination is powerful in all living creatures for by it Jacob's Ewes conceived spotted and grisled the peeled rods being set before them when they were in conjunction Galen taught an Aethiopian to get a white child setting a picture before him for his wife to look on Their opinions also are not wide who say the cause of this likeness lieth much in the motion of the Seed and the forming faculty this was Aristotles's judgment We deny not but both may be true for imagination can do nothing without it and by the forming faculty Imagination works this similitude yet so that they both concur to the business The Soul lyeth in the Seed which makes its own house for all confess a forming faculty and this faculty must come from some substance that lyeth close in the seed though it appear not in the first act for want of fit organs to work with Three things are requisite to form a child 1. Fruitful seed from both sexes wherein the Soul rests with its forming faculty 2. The mothers blood to nourish it 3. A good constitution of the matrix to work it to perfection if any of these be wanting you must not expect a perfect child But as for the marks or likeness to the Parents sometimes this vertue lyeth hid some ages in the seed and appears not and then the child comes to be like those from whom it was descended by many succeeding generations for H●lin had a white daughter by a Black but that daughter had a black son born of her the forming faculty still continuing in the seed when it hath been stirred up by new imagination Plants being grafted experience shews will bear fruit of the nature of the graft but the kernels of that fruit sowed will bring fruit like the stock it was grafted on Graft an Apricock on a Pear stock you shall have Apricocks but a stone of those Apricocks set grows a Pear stock If the forming faculty be free children will be like their Parents but if it be overpowred or wrested by imagination the form will follow the stronger faculty if the mother long for figs or roses or such things the child is sometimes markt with them Avicen gives this reason for it that the aery spirits that are nimble of themselves are soon moved by the phansie and these mingle with the nutrimental blood of the child and imprint this likeness from imagination This is a deep speculation but it may be compared and represented to our understanding by those equivocal generations made in the air of frogs and flies and the like by the forming faculties of the Heavens so are the forms imagination sends forth engraven on the light spirits for the quick spirits receive all forms from the imagination and the seed that passeth through all parts and is derived from the whole body retains the images of them all CHAP. VII Of the sympathy between the womb and other parts and how it is wrought upon by them IT is strange to consider that the womb should discern between sweet and stinking scents and to be so diversly affected with these smels that some have miscarryed by smelling the snuff of a Candle insomuch that some have thought the womb to be a creature of a discerning quality and it receives this judgement from every part of the body it is delighted with sweet scents and displeased with the contrary Wise Men have been at a stand to give a reason for it Some refer it to a hidden quality but that is still the last refuge for ignorance There are indeed many things in nature secret to us of which we can give no certain reason as for the Loadstone to draw Iron we see it is so but we cannot say how it comes to pass In fits of the Mother sweet smels are good for they disperse the ill qualities and venenosities of the Air and so by a peculiar quality strengthen the womb by drawing down the spirits and humours but the different way of applying them will do good or harm For the sweetest things that are as Musk or Civet will cause fits of the Mother if you apply them to the womans nose

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

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 hi● 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 H●ppocrates saith great heat or cold of the feet or loyns violent causes external leaping or dancing may do it for these moisten and soke the ligaments if the woman take cold after she is delivered and the Terms flow Platerus ascribes it to the loosening of the fibrous neck the adjacent parts by the weight of the Matrix falling down but then the ligatures must be loose or broken but when a woman is so in a dropsie it is the salt water that causeth it and that drieth more than it moisteneth The signs to know it are that the womb is only fallen down if there be a little swelling within or without the privities like a skin stretched but if the swelling be like a Goose egg and a hole at the bottom there is then a great pain in the Os sacrum the bottom of the belly the loyns and secrets to which the womb is tied because the ligaments are relaxed or broken but the pain will abate soon and the woman can hardly go sometimes the vessels breaking blood comes forth the woman falls into Convulsions and a Feaver and cannot void her excrements by stool nor Urine at first it may be easily helpt but hardly afterwards yet it is not mortal though it be filthy and troublesome if it come with a Feaver or convulsion it is mortal in women with child if the ligaments be corroded the danger is the more The cure is thrust it up gently before the air change it or it swell and inflame first administer a gentle Glister to void the excrements then lay the woman on her back her head downwards her legs abroad and thighs lifted up and with your hand thrust it in gently remove the humours with a decoction of Mallows Marsh-mallows Cammomile flowers Bay berries Linseed and Fenugreek and annoint it with Oil of Lillies and Hens-greafe if it be inflamed stay a while before you put it up you may fright it in with a hot Iron presented near it as if you would burn it sprinkle on it the powder of Mastick Frankincense and the like when it is put up let her ly stretcht out with her legs and one leg upon the other for eight or ten dayes and a Pessary with a Sponge or Cork dipt in astringent wine with powder of Dragons-blood Bole or the ointment called the Caunlesses at the Apothecaries apply a large cupping glass to the Navel or breasts or both kidneys use astringent Plaisters to her back fomentations baths injections if evil humors cause it to fall out purge them first away because they sob the ligaments and then use drying drinks of Guaicum China Forta use Pessaries and ligaments as for the Rupture to keep it in its place of which see Francis Rauset you may use circles or balls in place of Pessaries made of Briony roots cut round or of Virgins wax with white Rosin and Turpentine when they are dried if it gangrene cut it off or bind it fast that it may fall of it self Rauset shews when you may ty it or cut it off without danger her diet must be drying and astringent and astringent red wine to drink If it encline to either side apply Cupping Glasses to the other side and the Midwife may annoint her finger with the oyl of sweet Almonds and by degrees draw it to its place CHAP. III. Of Feavers after Child-bearing THis disease frequently follows when she is not well purged of her burden or the purgations are corrupt that stay behind about the third or fourth day they will be Feaverish also by the turning of the blood from the womb to the breasts to make milk but this lasts not long nor is it any danger but you may mistake a putrid Feaver for a Feaver that comes from the milk for the humours may be inflamed from her labour in travel and corrupt though they appear not presently to be so the next day after she is delivered but from thence you must reckon the beginning of the Feaver it is probable then that this Feaver comes from some other cause especially if her purgings be stopt it may proceed from ill humours gathered in her body whilst she went with child and are only stirred by her labour if she be not well purged after travel the blood and ill humours retreat to the Liver by the great veins and cause a putrid Feaver but if they flow too much the Feaver may come long after A feaver from milk will come on the fourth day with pains in the shoulders and the back and the terms may flow well if she kept an ill diet when she was big with child the Feaver comes from ill humours if it come not from milk if it do it will end about eight or ten dayes after but if it come from stoppage of purgations if she have not a loosness it is very dangerous if black and ill savouring matter purge by the womb it is safe But if the Feaver come from ill humours and the body be Cacochymical it is worse for that shews the ill humours are many which nature cannot send forth by the after-purgings and

the woman is weak already by her travel Good diet and gentle sweating cure a Milk-Feaver but there must be purging and many remedies used for the other as bleeding in the foot cupping of the thighs to provoke the after purgations but if the time of after-purging be over if she be strong then open a vein in the Arm. It is dangerous to purge the woman after the seventh day as some do when she hath a Pleurisie because of her weakness after travel and because purges hinder the after-flux but you may if the flux of blood cease if need be give a gentle purge with Cassia or Manna sirrup of roses or Sena or Rhubarb Too cold and sharp things are naught take heed of cold drink or too much drink let her diet by degrees increase from thin to thicker If the Feaver came from too much milk or terms stopt open a vein in her foot then purge a way the gross humours with sirrup of Maidenhair Endive of each one ounce waters of Succory and Fennel an ounce and half a piece Sharp and putrified humours must be purged away with proper medicaments as water of Succory and violets of each two ounces sirrup of the same of each one ounce cooling Glisters are good here if there be need you may purge stronger but this is not usual I shall give you one example take two drams of Rhubarb in powder Diagridium four grains let them infuse all night in Succory and Anniseed water two ounces and half of each and one ounce of Borrage flower water warm them gently in the morning and strain them well through a linnen cloth add to the strained liquor one ounce of sirrup of Succory Cinnnamon water two spoonfuls drink it warm Then after you have well purged away the ill humours you may gently sweat her to open the passages of the body and womb you will find examples of them in the Treatise of the Courses stopt CHAP. IV. Of the looseness of the belly in child-bed Women THis may be thought a small matter in respect of other infirmities yet this is one of the most dangerous distempers and hardest to help in child-bed women for stop the flux you will stop her purgations if you stop it not she will perish by weakness nothing almost is safely given Physicians are at a stand in such a case but it is good be wary and moderate in what is done and it may be helpt God willing It is not safe to stop it presently and if it continue it may cause a Tenesmus or a dysentury if it come from ill diet let her mend that and strengthen her stomach outwardly if yet it continue use inward remedies that corroborate the stomach yet hurt not the womb as Barley water Honey and sirrup of roses cleansing Glisters are good and to temper sharp cholerick humours But the best way is to observe what loosenes of the belly she is molested with for if it be that they call Diarrhoea that will only discharge her body of ill humours therefore do nothing in that case but let her take strengthening food for when nature hath eased her self sufficiently she will stay both the looseness of the belly and her purgations from the womb and so no ill accidents will come but if the flux be Lienteria that the food comes away with the stools undigested annoint her belly with Oil of Mastick and of Myrtles and give her some sirrup of dried Roses pulp of Tamarinds or some torrified Rhubarb to purge the belly and not hurt the womb But if it rise to a Dysentery called the bloody flux then so soon as her Terms are purged away try to stay it 1. By purging as take half a dram of bark of yellow Mirobolans of rosted Rubarb as much finely powdered sirrup of Roses or of Quinces one ounce pulp of Cassia or of Tamarinds with Sugar half an ounce Plantane or Oaken water four ounces let her drink this at once 2. Abstersives are good as of whey or barley water or Glisters of Mallows Mellilot Wheat-bran and Oyl of sweet Almonds 3. Narcoticks to ease great pains Philonium Romanum two scruples Rose-water two ounces Maligo wine one ounce give it when she goes to sleep this is excellent In this case astringents are to be used but not in the former distempers here they profit there they are dangerous Of Womens vomiting in Child-Bed Women both before they fall in labour and at the time of their travel and also afterwards will sometimes fall to vomiting and it may proceed from ill diet or raw humors or from weakness of their stomach or consent of the womb when the after flux is stopt and sometimes they will vomit blood for the blood that is stopped below runs back to the great veins and liver and being much and sharp finds a way into the stomach and so comes forth at the mouth It is ill after child-birth especially the food being vomited there will be nothing to make milk for the child and sometimes in hard labour a Vein is broken and this may cause a dropsie if ill diet cause vomit rectifie that if ill humours stop it not presently but purge gently if blood come pull back by rubbing or cupping or bleeding opening a Vein in the foot ham or ankle and urging the after flux Sometimes the woman is costive then give her a suppository with Castle sope or Honey and then stay four or five days till you may give a Glister with Manna or Cassia If her Urine run away against her will bath her parts with a decoction of Betony Bays Sage Rosemary Origanum Stoechas and Penni-royal for her vomiting give her three spoonfuls of Cinnamon water one ounce and half of juice of Quinces about a spoonful at a time The leaves of Rosemary dried and brought into powder and so drank about a scruple or half a dram at a time in a cup of wine will stay vomiting preserve or Marmalade of Quinces or Medlars eaten or Pears or sowr Apples do strengthen the stomach juice of Barberries or of Pomegranates or sowr Cherries with Mint water There are many topical applications to be made to the pit of the stomach which being laid on and so continued prevail much as thus take the crum of the inside of a white loaf and tost it and steep it in good Maligo Wine and strew it lightly over with the powder of Cloves and Nutmegs or sirrup of Roses Rhubarb or pulp of Tamarinds and astringents of Roses Plantane Coral Tormentil if the Terms flow not at all the belly must be kept loose but vomiting is so perillous that it ought to be stopt alwaies provided it be done no sooner than it is needful and with good provisoes CHAP. V. Of Womens diseases in general WHosoever rightly considers it will presently find that the Female sex are subject to more diseases by odds than the Male kind are and therefore it is reason that great care should be had for the cure of that

preparatives use Steel powder to much effect giving first a vomit if need require This Medicament is good for all stoppings but if the Liver be stopt let the Steel be finely powdered Take prepared steel two ounces Agarick Species Diacrocuma and Darrhodon of each a dram two drams of Carthamus seed Cloves one dram Carrot seed and red Dock Roots of each one dram and a half If the woman vomit stop it not but I approve not so well of steel taken in substance as by infusion I am sure it must needs be the safest way Take steel in powder three ounces three pints of white wine and half an ounce of Cinnamon let all stand in the sun eight dayes stopt close in a Glass and every day stir them well the Dose is six or eight ounces for twenty daies together four hours before dinner Steel is best used in the Spring and in the Fall but alwaies you must purge the body and exercise both before and after the use of it and you must change the form of your Medicaments or the Patient will loath and grow weary of it Sweating and bathing are good Either Baths by Nature or Art made with Mugwort Calamints Niss Danewort Rosemary Sage Bays Elecampane Mercury Briony Roots Ivy When the Obstructions are opened and the body purged you shall see all the former symptomes flie a way But let the diet be meats of good digestion and good nourishment The air must be temperately hot all crude raw things must be avoided as green fruit Lettice Milk watry Fish Wine is good drink Sage and Cinnamon are good Sawce put Fennel seed into your bread and let it be well leavened Sleep moderately Marriage is a Soveraign Cure for those that cannot abstain Maids must not be suffered to eat Oatmeal or ashes or such ill trumpery though they desire them never so much for they will breed and increase the disease but Child-bearing women if they cannot be perswaded must have what they long for or they will miscarry Exercise I say is alwayes good to keep maids from this disease and to cure it when it is come For idleness causeth crudities but motion makes heat and helps to distribute the Nutriment through the body Yet moderation must be used for it will weaken faint people if it be too much First therefore onely rub and chafe the body then by degrees keep them from sleeping too much then increasing the labour after that the body hath been well cleansed by purging Hippocrates commends marriage as the chiefest remedy for Virgins sick of this disease if they once conceive that is their cure or as saith Johannes Langius for this disease never comes till they are fit for Copulation and then commonly it hasteneth and it is cured by opening of Obstructions and heating the womb which nothing can so soon and well perform as the Venereal acts to make the courses come down but yet it is very dangerous when these people are grown weak with this disease and their bodies are full of corrupt humours therefore they must purge them away before they marry for I have known some that have been so far from being cured that they died by it perhaps sooner than they would have done otherwise It may be good sometimes when the disease is new and the blood plentiful to open a vein when the courses are stopt and are not changed into some corrupt humour you may then b●eed freely this was the right judgment of Hippocrates but when the passages are stopt and the whole body is chilled with raw slimy humours there is no time to bleed then for that will augment the disease And because we are now upon this remedy of marriage for the cure of this infirmity though I touch'd it before I shall a little further discusse the matter Whether all maids have that sign of their Maiden-head which by Moses's Law Deut. 22. was so much to be taken notice of and Physicians call Hymen which signifies a Membrane some do absolutely deny that there is any such Membrane or skin and maintain also that if any maid have it it is only the closeness of the womb a disease in the Organ and not common to all And some of the best Anatomists maintain the contrary affirming that there is a skin in all or should be that is wrinkled with Caruncles like Myrtle-berries or a rose half blown and this makes the difference between maids and wives but it is broken at the first encounter with man and it makes a great alteration it is painful and bleeds when it is broken but what it is is not certainly known Some think it is a nervous Membrane interwoven with small veins that bleed at the first opening of the Matrix by copulation Some think they are four Caruncles fastened together with small Membranes Some observe a Circle that is fleshy about the Nimphe with little dark veins so that the skin is rather fleshy than nervous Doubtless there is a main difference between Virgins and Wives as to this very thing though Anatomists agree not about it because though all have it yet there may be causes whereby it may be broken before marriage as I instanced formerly and sometimes it is broken by the Midwives Leo Africanus writes that the African custome was whilest the wedding dinner was preparing to shut the married Pair into a room by themselves and there was some old woman appointed to stand at the Door to take the bloody sheet from the Bridegroom to shew it to the Guests and if no blood appeared the Bride was sent home to her friends with disgrace and the Guests dismissed without their dinner But the sign of bleeding perhaps is not so generally sure it is not so much ●n maids that are elderly as when they are very young bleeding is an undoubted token of Virginity But young wenches that are lascivious may lose this by unchast actions though they never knew man which is not much inferior if not worse than the act it self Amongst those signs of Maidenhead preserved is the straightness of the privy passage which differs according to several ages Habit of body and such like circumstances But it can be no infallible sign because unchast women will by astringent medicaments so contract the parts that they will seem to be maids again as she did who being married used a bath of Comfrey roots Some judge but falsely that if a maid have milk in her breasts she hath lost her Maidenhead There can be no milk say they till she hath conceived with child Maids want both the cause and the end for which nature sends milk namely to provide food for the child to be born If a maids courses stop they corrupt and turn not to milk The Breasts have a natural quality to make milk but they do it not unless convenient matter be sent to make it of and that is not done but for the foresaid end Hippocrates Galen there followers say that maids may have milk in

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 c●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

two ounces and ●ake three drams of clear Chimney Soot make a powder keep it close stopt in a glass to use ●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

a present Gratification from the Parents that is answerable to the Nurses pains But children should remember when they come to years to be thankful to their Nurses that bred them up and to requite their great care and pains having them in little less esteem than their own Mothers that bore them The Nurse on the other side must not neglect her Duty and doubtless some nurses are as fond of their nurse Children as if they were their own If the nurse use good Diet and Exercise it will breed good blood and good blood makes good milk but let her forbear all sharp sowr fiery melancholy meats or Mustard and Onyons or Leeks and Garlick and let her not drink much strong drink for that will enflame the Child and make it cholerick all Cheese breeds melancholy and Fish is Flegmatick Gross and thick air make gross blood and heavy bodies and dull wits Places that are near the Sea side and Bogs are very sickly and unwholsome but a clear air that is pure is as needful as Meat and Drink it makes the body sprightful and the reason and understanding ready good vital and animal spirits are bred by it whereby all things to reason become more subservient opinion fancy judgement resolution apprehension imagination memory knowledge mirth hope trust joy urbanity and what can be said almost are produced Meats and Drinks feed the body but the air guides the mind in almost all its actions and life and health sickness and death depend most upon it If the nurses milk be too hot Succory Purslain are good herbs for her to eat and if it be too cold then Vervain and Mother of time Cinnamon Borrage and Bugloss and all wholesome Herbs and Meats and Drinks that a little exceed in heat mend her milk If the child be ill the Nurses milk is commonly the cause of it if wind oppress the child let the Nurse but put Fennel seed and Anniseed into her meats or broths and the child will be well but of that more by and by as I pass on to speak of the diseases and infirmities of children but before I part with the Nurse it will be but reason to enquire when the Nurse should part with her child and wean it from the breasts I know there can be no general rule for all because some children are weak and must stay longer before they be weaned Avicenna saith two years is the time children should suck I have seen some in England that have kept their children sucking near four years who would carry their stool after their Nurses to sit down on to give them suck but a year old is sufficient to most children yet they are loth to leave the Dug till they be driven from it Breast milk is very sweet of good digestion and therefore some that are fallen into consumptions in their riper years are cured by sucking a wholesome womans breasts but sucking is not proper for children so soon as they can concoct other nutriment Milk is for Babes but strong meat for men I have known some women so fond of their children that they would never wean them by their good will But when children suck so over-long as three or four years I seldome hear of any of them that ever come to good insomuch that many women have repented of their folly when it was too late Their children by overcockering growing so stuborn and unnatural that they have proved a great grief to their parents It seems God sometimes thus punishes women for their folly and the children thus tenderly bred for want of stronger meat than breast milk in their child-hood grow lame and weak and sick of the Rickets Some women will not be contented with such children as God sends them but they will be mending the feature of their noses and their bodies till they make them very ill favoured that would have grown in good shape and some though they have Daughters will not be contented unless they may have a son God sometimes hears their prayers and sends them a Boy it may be a Fool that will be a boy as long as he lives I have shewed you that children be they Boys or Girls unless they be weak should not suck the breast above a year and if it be a nurses breasts and not the own mother that they suck it is the same thing for time yet the Nurse should be chosen as near to the constitution of the mother as possibly you can for then there will not be so great alteration in the constitution and manners of the child a Nurse is best after her second child if she be but between twenty and thirty years of age her milk must not be above ten months old when you chuse her nor under two months old for that will be too new If the nurses milk prove ill she must take a gentle purgation but if it be to purge the child it must be very gentle indeed for that purging quality of the Medicament passeth to the milk and will operate upon the Child which cannot otherwise be purged by Physick It hath been much argued whether the mother or some other women be best to nurse the child surely I should think the mother in all respects if she be sound and well because it agrees better with the childs temper for the milk of the mother is the same with that nutriment the child drew in in the Womb. But yet it will do good sometimes to change the nurse if the mothers milk contract any ill qualities or be too sharp or salt or otherwise offensive to the child for if the child do not take rest well or cry and complain doubtless the milk it feeds on is distempered Good milk is neither too thick nor too thin too thin is raw and breeds crudities too thick is hardly concocted by the infant it must be white and sweet scented if it smell sowr or burnt it will corrupt in the stomach and so it will if it taste salt or sowr or bitter or have any ill tast drop a drop of breast milk on your nail or upon a Glass and if it shew very white and neither stick like glew nor run off like water but be off a middle nature you may conclude that it is good When the blood is too full of Whey it breeds thin milk which gives little nourishment and the children by sucking of it fall into Fluxes and looseness of the belly and sharp milk makes them scabby purge away the whey of the blood if it be too hot cholerick with Rhubarb otherwise with Mechoachan or sirrup of Roses cold and moist breasts are mended by the contraries that is by hot and dry things If wheyish humours come from the Liver that must be mended hot and dry things that profit are bread well baked with Anniseed and Fennel seed Roast-meat Rice sweet Almonds but broth and Fish and Sallets and Summer fruits must be avoided good exercise breeds good blood gross diet makes

seed it is good for the child to smell to Rue and Assafaetida and sometimes rub the Nostrils with a drop of oil of Castor or of Costus it may proceed from ill milk in the childs stomach or by consent from other parts or from worms in the Guts or from ill vapours that ascend where bad humours abound These prick the Films of the brain and cause the childs distemper it may be originally bred in the brain or arise from some sudden fright or from breeding of teeth this last will be gone when the pain of the teeth is over Many young children die of this disease it may come with the Small Pox or Measles and when they come forth it will be cured if nature be strong the Nurses good diet is a great furtherer to the cure in the fit you may give Peony or Lavender Water and rub the Nape of the neck with a drop of oil of Amber and touch the Nose with it an Elks hoof or an Emrald are useful to hang about the neck and may be given inwardly If it proceed from corrupt milk in the stomach dip a feather in oil of Almonds and thrust it down the Throat to cause vomit The Florentines with a hot Iron burn the child in the nape of the neck to dry the brain and Celsus maintains it to be the very last remedy But Paulus Aequineta saith It would be sure to kill him with waking pain he would scarce be able to sleep after it To prevent this mischief so soon as the child is born give him this following powder male-Peony roots one scruple gathered in the Moons decreasing magistery of Coral half a scruple with Leaf God VIII Convulsion Fits come when the brain labours to cast off what offends its many die of it for the cause lieth in the nerves and marrow of the back wherefore wash the body and back with a decoction of Marsh-mallows Lilly roots Peony and Cammomile flowers The Sun-flower boiled in water is good to wash the Infant with and annoint the back with mans grease or Goose grease or with oils of Foxes or of worms or of Lillies or of Mastick or Turpentine This disease comes either of indigestion or of weakness of the attractive faculty especially in such children as are fat and moist the back may be anointed with oils of Rue or of Flower de Luce or bath the Limbs with a decoction of Primroses or of Cowslips or Cammomile flowers if you find great heat then mingle oil of Violets and oil of sweet Almonds and anoint with that IX Sometimes the childs navel swells and sticks out that should lie in the reason may be because the navel-string was not well tied and too much of it was left behind which sticks forth sometimes it may come from the childs crying or coughing and that looseneth the Peritonaeum it is without inflammmation but sometimes the navel hath an Ulcery and the Guts fall into it It falls out often so soon as the string is cut wherefore take Spike and ●eeth it in oil of sweet Almonds mingle a little Turpentine with it dip in a piece of Wool and bind it on the part but if crying or coughing or bruise or tall be the cause of it then use bitter Lupines mingled with the powder of an old Linnen cloth burnt to ashes mingle all with red wine dip in Cotton and apply it to the Navel if the navel be inflamed the Navel feels hard else it will feel soft and is neither hot nor red but will last longer than when it is enflamed if the Peritonaeum be loose only and not broken it will be no bigger when he cryeth nor doth the Navel come forth much but it will increase if it be broken if he either cry or stir much but it will not be seen when he lieth on his back ill outting of the Navel string is not so much dangerous as it is troublesome to the child it may be cured at first though it be too long or hath an Ulcer but in time if it be neglected the guts will fall into it and cause inflammation and an Iliack passion which will kill the child wind puffs up the Navel when the Peritonaeum is loose then take the powder of Cummin-seed Bay berries and Lupines with red wine or a bag of ●…ike and Cummin-seeds boiled in red wine for a Cataplasme and roul it on If the Peritonaeum be broken let the gut be first put in then lay on astringent Powders of Cypress-nuts Mirrh Frankincense Sarcocolla Mastick Allum and Isinglass of each a like quantity and make a Poultiss of it with Whites of eggs give the child inwardly such remedies as are good against Ruptures When the Navel is inflamed it looks red and is hard hot and pants much this shews it was not well tied for the pain draws the blood to it If it turns to an Imposthume and break the guts will come out and kill the child To ease the pain take two ounces of Mallows boiled and stampt Barley meal half an ounce with two drams of Lupines and Fenugreek make a Cataplasme of them with oil of Roses drive back the blood with an application made of one dram of Frankincense with Fleabane seed and Acacia of each half a dram incorporated with the white of an egg Keep it if possible from imposthumation but if it cannot be kept then take half an ounce of Turpentine two ounces of oil of Roses and with the Yolk of an Egg lay it on X. If the child be burst as young children often are it may be easily cured at first the Peritonaeum is either loose or broken and the small guts fall into the Cods when the child coughs much or cries or by some violent fall or straining to go to stool elder people are not so easily cured of this sometimes it is only a rupture which falls out of the belly into the Cods and the Peritonaeum is well If a Gut be fallen it is but of one side the right or left Groin and you may see it and feel it and the hole too through which the Gut fell but the watry rupture is all over even alike this will vanish of it self so soon as the water is consumed Keep the child loose and from crying and violent motion lay it upon the back and thrust up the gut gently the head lying low and the heels up then take Emplastrum ad Herniam or an ointment made of Comfrey roots with a thick bolster steeped in Smiths water and lay it on keep the child quiet and see the Bolster come not off never unbind it so in time the hole will grow narrow and the gut larger and will stay in its place You may lay on a Plaister made of Gum Elemi steept in vinegar till there be a cream on the top with that and oil of eggs make it up or take Frankincense one dram Aloes Acacia Cypress nuts of each two drams with a dram of Myrrh and Isinglass make a

a passage within the passage of the Peritoneum called the Bason or Laver placed between the right Gut and the bladder and it is whiter than the superficies of the bottom the cavity is deep but the mouth or entrance is much narrower it reacheth from the inward mouth of the womb to the outward mouth or lips of the Privities It is a fit sheath to receive the Yard and is long that by it the mans Seed may be carried to the orifice of the Womb it grows longer or shorter in time of Copulation and wider and narrower as the mans Yard is so it swells more or less is more open and more shut the length and wideness cannot be limited because it is fit for any Yard yet I have heard a French man complain sadly that when he first married his Wife it was no bigger nor wider than would fit his turn but now it was grown as a Sack Perhaps the fault was not the womans but his own his weapon shrunk and was grown too little for the scabbard The neck of the womb is continued with the bottom of it yet it hath a diverse substance from it for it is sinewy and skinny that it may with more care be enlarged or contracted not become too hard nor too soft The substance of it is spongy and fungous like that of a mans Yard that when there is Copulation it may close about the Yard which it doth by reason of many small Arteries which fill up the passage with spirits and make it become narrower Wherefore in women that are lustfull it swels in that time of desire and the caruncles strut out and the hole grows very strait In young maids it is more soft and delicate but it grows every day harder as they grow elder after many Children and in old women it becomes hard like a gristle by reason it is so often worn and by the Courses flowing forth It is smooth when you stretch it and slippery but otherwise full of wrinkles unless it be where it ends in the Lap. In the entrance of the passage and in the fore part there are many round folds and plaights which cause the more pleasure in Venus action by the attraction of the Nut of the Yard In young women these folds are smoother and narrower and the passage straiter that it will scarce admit a finger to go in yet through this do pass not onely the Menstruous blood but also corrupt humours in those that have that disease is called the Whites CHAP. XIV Of the Vessels preparing Seed in Women AS in Men so in Women the Seed vessels are either preparing or carrying Vessels The Preparing vessels are neither more nor less than they are in Men for they are just four two Veins and two Arteries and they arise as they do in men for the right Vein is derived from the pipe of the great Liver vein under the Emulgent but the left comes from the Emulgent on the left side both the Arteries come from the trunk of the great Artery yet I do not say that there is no difference between these in men and women for then it had been needless to go over this subject any more The differences are chiefly two 1. Because womens passages are shorter these vessels are shorter in women than they are in men for womens stones lye in their bellies but mens hang without in their Cods but womens Vessels have by far more windings and turnings hither and thither out and in than mens have that the matter they bring may be better prepared their windings up and down prove that they are not shorter if they had room to go any farther as they have in Men. It is worth observing that you may know that the Vessels of the womb have union and communion one with the other both the Veins the Arteries for the vital and natural blood are mingled to perform this great work and it is thus brought to pass The spermatick Veins passing by the side of the womb joyn with the foresaid Arteries and then they make this mixture and this is easily proved for if you blow up the Seed Vein with a hollow pipe or quill you shall see all the Vessels of the womb to swell at the same time and to be blown up with it which is enough to confirm that they are all mingled and united These four Vessels bring the Seed from all parts of the body that they may fit it make it ready for Natures use The right vein comes from the trunk of the hollow Liver vein below the Emulgent vein nigh unto the great hollow bone but the left vein comes from the left Emulgent vein for the great Artery is seated on this side by the hollow vein and that Artery beats throbs continually and if the left Seed vein had come from the Trunk of the hollow vein as the right doth it must have past over the great Artery and then the never ceasing beating of the Artery would have broken this thin Vein if nature had not provided the foresaid remedy against it The Arteries both of them have the same beginning as they have in men for they come from the Trunk of the great Artery near the great bone under the Emulgent vein and they are filled with vital blood as the two Veins are with natural blood Yet they do not fall out of the Peritoneum as the Arteries of men do nor do they reach the share-bone because women have no reason to cast their Seed out of themselvs but onely into their own womb which is but a short way nor do these Arteries interweave or grow together till they come into their stones but with some variation again they are divided for in women they are supported with fat membranes so brought to the Stones yet by the way as they come they inoculate the Veins with the Arteries and after that they branch into two parts and the one part makes the Seed vessels and that which is called Corpus varicosum affording to the Cods and stones some small twigs for to feed them but the other part is carried to the skin that cleaves to the bottom of the Matrix and supplieth the higher part of its bottom with nourishment and feeds the Infant in the womb also with blood and moreover by these Vessels the monthly Terms are voided forth especially of such women that are not with Child but in Men they are all wrought up into one body which is called Corpus varicosum The difference that they make in shortness from the same Vessels in men may be for this reason also because the womans Seed doth not need so strong and great preparing as mens Seed doth nor could their Vessels have been kept within the womans belly had they not been made shorter than mens But it is admirable to consider how strangely these Vessels are infolded and wrapt up one within the other to prepare the Seed Yet because womens stones are but small their

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

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

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

not so pure as the first riseth to the breasts to make milk and the grossest part of the three stays in the womb and comes away with the birth and after-birth But this is a long dispute how the child comes to be fed in the womb Alcmeon thought the childs body being soft like a sponge did draw nourishment by all parts of its body as a sponge sucks water not only drinking from the mothers veins but from the womb also Hippocrates as well as Democritus or Epicurus seems to say that the child sucks both nourishment and breath at the mouth from the mother when she breaths for these two causes 1. Because it could not suck so soon as it is born were it not used to it before 2. There are excrements found in the Guts of a new born child but all creatures that suck will do it presently by instinct of nature as Chickins that never fed before will presently pick up their food and as for the excrements found in the Guts they are not excrements of the first concoction for they stink not but are gross blood that came from the Vessels of the spleen to the Guts and are dried there but now it is agreed by all since the truth is found out that the child in the womb is fed by its Navel only they differ about the food it lives on the Peripateticks say it is fed by menstrual blood which is the excrement of the last nutriment of the fleshy parts which at certain times is purged forth by the womb in a moderate quantity but primarily ordained for the generation and nutriment of the child But Fernelius Pliny Columella and Columbus deny this because such blood is impure and will where it falls destroy Plants and Trees Dogs will run mad that eat it and ofttimes hurts the women themselves causing swimmings of the head pains swellings and suffocations this then were ill food for a tender infant But to answer all If the woman be in good health her monthly courses are no bad blood for quality though they hurt in quantity being more than she can concoct and therefore she sends forth what is too much but if her body be ill affected the blood that stays in the womb is naught as well as that she voids by her terms but when the courses are not duly voided but stay in being stopt beyond their time of evacuation then they cause those ill effects formerly mentioned else not but women have not these courses the greatest part of the time they are with child nor yet when they give suck for the most part if the child be not fed with this blood what becomes of this blood when women are with child certain it is it turns into milk when time serves to suckle the infant with Yet Hippocrates was mistaken who says that the last part of the time the child lieth in the womb after it is quick it s fed partly by the mother milk but this is certain that the infant in the womb is fed with pure blood conveyed in the Liver by the Navel-vein which is a branch of the great vein and spreads to the small veins of the Liver And here this blood is more refined the thick gross crude part goes to the Spleen and Kidneys and the gross excrement of it to the Guts and that is it is found in the Guts as soon as they are born The most pure part goes into the hollow vein and from thence through the whole body by small branches this blood hath a watry substance with it as all blood hath to make it run and keep it from clodding and this water in men and women breaths forth by sweat so it doth in a child and is contain'd in the Lamb-skin as I told you This watry substance that is joined with the blood when the blood comes to the kidneys parts from the blood and is sent by the kidneys that make their separation by the Ureters to the bladder nor doth the infant piss as he lieth in the womb by the Yard but the Urine is carryed by the Vrachos a vessel to carry it which is long and without blood to the Allantois ●or skin that is made to hold the childs water in so long as it remains in the womb this Vrachos or passage goeth from the bottom of the bladder to the Allantois and hath no muscle belongs unto it that the child may void the Urine when nature requires but when the child is born it hath muscles at the root of the bladder to shut and open that we may make it not a meer natural but partly a mixed action to follow our business and make water not alwayes but when we please but this is not the course with the child continually for the first month the childs Urine comes out through the passage of the Navel but in the last month by the Yard but it never goes to stool in the womb because it takes no nutriment by the mouth After forty five days the child lives but moves not commonly he moves in double the time he was formed and is born in thrice the time after he began to move If the child be fully formed in forty days her will move in ninety days and be born in the ninth month but he receives daily more food after the third and fourth month to the day of his birth A child born in six months is not perfect and must die but one born in seven months is perfect but one born in the eight month cannot live because in the seventh month the child useth all its force to come out and if it cannot it must stay two months longer to recover the strength lost upon the former attempt that had made it too feeble to get forth in the eighth month for if it come not forth at the seventh month it removes its station and changeth it self to some other place in the womb these two motions have so weakened it that it must stay behind a month longer for if it come forth before it is almost impossible for it to live But Astrologers determine this business another way for they affirm that children born in the seventh month do live by reason of the compleating of the motion of the seven planets allowing one month to each of them beginning with Saturn thus Saturn Jupiter Mars Sol Venus Mercury Luna Now if the child come not forth at the seventh month but stay till the eighth month the Planets having ruled every one his month Saturn begins to rule again who is an enemy to conception in all his qualities and so the child born in the eighth month will be born dead or live a very short time yet other Philosophers maintain that Saturn is no enemy to conception but ruling in the first month by his influence and retentive faculty the child is fixed in the womb but as the celestial bodies have their influence upon the terrestial and upon all the elements they cause all the changes

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

to its natural posture but if it come the feet forward and the legs abroad she must joyn the legs and feet together taking care that she remove not the hands from the place they should hang down close by the side If the infant with one or both the knees first strive to come forth she must put them back that both feet may first come down to the passage If the child come headlong with one hand thrust out then she must put the Child back with her hand upon the shoulders that the hand may goe to its natural place if this will not prevail lay the woman upright with her thighs and belly upwards that it may pass forth as it should do If both hands come out first she must thrust the Child back by the shoulders as formerly till the hands hang down by the sides of the Child If it would come forth arsewards the buttocks first she must return it back with her hands till the legs and feet may present themselves or the head first if it be possible which is most natural If the infant present both hands and both feet together to come forth so all at once she must take the Child carefully by the head and put the legs upward to take it forth If the shoulders come first she must put it back by the shoulders that the head may come first If it come the breast forward the legs and hands lying behind she must take it by the feet or by the head as she finds it to be most easy putting the other part upward that it may come forth right If a Woman have two Children at once that come together headlong she must take forth one after the other but beware the other retreat not back in the mean time so also must she receive them both that come together with the feet forward taking them out one after the other If they come one with his feet the other with the head forward at the same time she must receive that first which is most likely and next the passage and that which cometh with the feet first if she can receive last taking heed that they do not hurt one the other But let this general rule be observed still to annoint the passage with Ducks grease or Oyle of Lillies or sweet Almonds or such things as may smooth the passage and ease womans labour and Iikewise when she toucheth any part of the infant this will help much if there should be any aposthume in the place Particular helps to delivery are to lay the woman first all along on her back her head a little raised with a Pillow and a pillow under her back and another pillow larger than the other to raise her buttocks and rump lay her thighs and knees wide open asunder her legs must be bowed backwards toward her buttocks and drawn upwards her heels and soles of her feet must be fixed against a board to that purpose laid cross her bed Some woman must have a swathe-band above a foot broad four double this must be put under her Reins and two women standing on each side of her must hold it up straight and these two persons must lift up the swathe-band equally just when her throws come or else they may do her hurt and two more of the standers by must lay hold on the upper part of her shoulders that she may with more ease force the child forth The woman must hold her breath in and strive to be delivered and the Midwife must stroke down the birth from above the Navel easily with her hand for that will as I said before make the Infant move downwards CHAP. II. To know the fit time when the Child is ready to be born I Shall desire all Midwives to take heed how they give any thing inwardly to hasten the Birth unless they are sure the Birth is at hand many a child hath been lost for want of this knowledge and the mother put to more pain than she would have been Let not therefore the child be forced out unless there fall down an extreme flux of blood for in such cases it is best to save the Mothers life to drive forth the Child but there is great skill and care to be used or the woman were as good be set upon the Rack It is hard to know when the true time of her travel is near because many women have great pains many weeks before the time of delivery comes But I think the heat of their Reins is the cause of these pains but you may know whether the heat of their reins be the cause of it or not for if their legs swell their reins are too hot and the cure will be to annoint their backs to cool the reins with Oyl of Poppies water Lillies or Violets women whose reins are hot have alwaies hard labour A strong decoction of Plantane leaves and roots in water then strained and clarified with the white of an egg boil'd then to a sirrup with its weight in Sugar is excellent take a spoonful or two when you please or drink often the water and sirrups of Violets and water Lillies But if the birth be at hand you shall know when the skins Amnios and Allantois which as I told you serve to hold the sweat and urine of the child in the womb and by the means of which skins the infant is also supported in the Matrix do break by the violent motion of the child so that these excrements fall down to the neck of the womb Midwives call it the water and when that runs forth then the Birth is near this is the truest sign that is for when those skins are broken the Infant can no longer stay there than a naked man in a heap of snow These waters make the parts slippery and the birth easie if the child come presently with them but if it stay longer till the parts grow dry it will be hard therefore Midwives do ill to rend these skins open with their nails to make way for the water to come nature will make it come forth only when she needs it and not before but if the water breakaway long before the birth it is safe to give medicaments to drive the birth after the water But there are other signs of the birth approaching let the Midwife look well on the womans belly for if the upper part of it be sunk and hollow and the lower part big and full it is certain the child is sunk down again if the womans Throws be quick and strong coming from the reins downward all along the belly and not staying at the Navel but falling still lower to the groins and inwardly to the bottom of the belly where lieth the inmost neck of the womb this is another sure sign Then let the Midwife her hand annointed with fresh butter or with oyl of sweet Almonds put up her hand and if she feel the inward neck of the womb open or any substance to push

it the child by the mouth to drink But in what place this string must be cut Midwives and Physicians can scarce agree Elias lib. 4. c. 3. saith it must be cut four fingers breadth from the body but what is this Midwives fingers are not equal I suppose he means four inches for that was the opinion of the Antients Miraldus was critical in this point and from him some errors were begotten about it in late writers and Midwives Hence it is if Spigelius speak truth that Midwives cut the Females Navel-string shorter than they doe the Males for Boys privy parts must be longer than womens but it Females are cut short they say it will make them modest and their secrets narrower Spigelius and others laugh at this conceit for if Midwives by cutting their Navel-strings can make their secrets wider all women that have hard labour have good reason to complain of their Midwives for cutting their Navel-string so short Miraldus bids cut the navel-string long in both sexes for that the Instruments of Generation in both follow this proportion if womens Navel-strings be cut too short it will hinder their Childbearing Taisner an excellent Astrologer was of this mind If Nature framed the child by the Navel-string in the womb there is no small use of it afterward Miraldus saith that if a childs Navel-string be cut off and let fall to touch the ground that child shall never hold its water sleeping nor waking Also if you carry a piece of a Childs Navel-string about you you may saith Miraldus wear it for a foil in a Ring you shall never be troubled with convulsion fits nor the Falling sickness I have known all this tried but he saith farther that it will defend those that carry it from Devils and Witch-crafts and one may try this if they please If the Child be very weak when it is born put back gently the natural blood by the Navel vein and the vital by the Navel arteries and you shall see the child almost dead before to revive like one awak'd out of sleep if the child seem full of life and spirits then stop the navel-string near the Navel that no blood nor vital spirits go back and that will keep the child strong as it is having done this bind the Navel-string with a strong ligature and cut it not off too near to the string least it unloose you need not fear to bind the Navel-string very hard because it feels not and that piece of the Navel-string you leave on will fall off in a very few days for the whole course of Nature is soon changed in the Child and another way ordain'd to feed it It is no matter what you cut it off with so it be sharp to do it neatly The reason of so many nodes or knots in the childs Navel-string is that the blood and vital spirits might not come in too fast to choke the child Nature is a careful Nurse but Midwives say these knots in number signifie so many Children the reddish boys the whitish Girls and the long distance between knot and knot long time between child and child but all false for all women almost have equal knots and more knots with their last Children than with the first When the Navel-string is cut off apply a little Cotten or lint to the place to keep it warm least the cold get in and that it will do if it be not hard enough bound and if it do you cannot think of a greater mischief for the Child when part of the Navel-string left is fallen off Midwives use to burn a rag to tinder and to apply to the place a little powder of Bolearmoniack were better because it drieth Beasts can lick the Navel-string round enough to keep out the air but the curse lyeth heavier on women for our Grand-Mothers first sin than it doth upon beasts CHAP. V. What is best to bring away the Secundine or after-burden WOmen are in as great danger if not more after the young is born but Beasts are not the Caule or inward chamber of the womb the child did lye in stayeth oft-times long after the child is born which should presently follow it when it so happens if it begins especially to corrupt as it will soon do it causeth grievous pains and ofttimes death wherefore make hast to drive it forth but be sure the means you use be very gentle for the woman is now grown weak and her womb is quick of feeling but the Secundine is dead let the quick then cast forth the dead Midwives long nails may do mischief I grant delays are dangerous for if it be retain'd till it corrupt it will cause Feavers Imposthumes Convulsions and such like know this that what brings away the birth will also do good to call forth the after-birth then comfort the woman let her snuff up a little white Hellebore in powder to make her sneefe but put the woman to as little trouble as you can for she hath endured pain enough already The herb Vervain boil'd in wine or a sirrup made with the clarified juice as I told you of Tansie Featherfew and mugwort do the same but hardly so forcibly Alexanders boiled in wine and the wine drunk is excellent Sweet-Cecely Angelica roots or Master-wort doe the same so used The smoke of Mary-Gold flowers taken in by a Tunnel at the secrets will easily bring forth the Secundine though the Midwife have let go her hold Mugwort boil'd soft in water applied like a Poultess to the Navel brings birth and after-birth away but then remove it least it bring the womb after all Women suffer great pains in Child-birth because the womb that hath many Nerves and Sinews by which the body feels is strait till time of delivery and then it is stretched which causeth great pain and some women have more pain in bearing than others have because some womens passages are narrower and their wombs more full of Nerves as Anatomy will shew and some think the reason of the great soreness of some women is because the share-bone and os sacrum or holy-bone do part or give way in hard travel it was that excellent Anatomist Doctor Reads opinion and I believe it to be true for nature strives to the utmost in such times Crook and Columbus deny this but the bones are joyned with Cartilages and Ligaments which being wet with much moisture may give way though the bones open not but in all labour the Nerves that carrry feeling through the whole body are then stretcht and cause soreness till they have rest and be settled again CHAP. VI. Of the great pains and throws some Women suffer after they are delivered SOmetimes a woman delivered shall for two of three days after and now and then longer feel such bitter pains in her belly and above the Groin as if she should be delivered again these pains are not in the body and bottom of the womb but in the Vessels and Ligatures by

dry like Men that they have hardly any courses at all as the Indian women have none but they are barren if they abound with no more blood than will nourish their body Blood is wanting either because it is not made or not dispersed where it should but turned to other uses Old age cold constitutions diseased bodies will not make blood also often bleeding of the great vessels and much loss of blood or from Issues to make diversions the womb is not supplied with it Nature spends the blood in Nurses that give suck for an other end and fat women wear it on their backs sadness and fear not only wast but cool and corrupt the blood 4. The weakness of the woman hinders the courses and so long as she continues weak she will have no● But all these things must be judged of by the relation of the party whether the whole body be diseased or the defect be in the womb or vessels or the mouth of the womb turned aside If the cause be from heat that her courses are stopt her Pulses are swift and strong she is very thirsty and her head aketh and such like signs of heat If from cold the woman is drowsie and sleepy her Pulse beats slow and she is not thirsty the Veins are ill coloured if the woman be fat or lean that will discover the inward cause of it The usual cause of obstruction of the courses is thick slimy humours or from thick gross melancholly blood proceeding from a cold distemper of the Spleen and Liver by drinking cold Water or eating gross Food The Roman women drank snow water and that was the reason said Galen that they had few or no courses but in such cases they could not be very fruitful It will seem strange that some women are so hot of constitution that they have conceived yet never had their courses at all Courses stopt in maids are not the same as they are in women for the effects are very different Maids they pr●●●ntly fall into the Green sickness by it the blood going to and fro all the body over and is corrupted but in women it runs to the womb commonly and causes them to vomit and to loath their meat or to desire unnatural things You shall know a woman with child when her courses are stopt from a maid that hath hers stopt for the one looks wan and pale the other lively and well the one is sad the other merry the womans pains daily decrease and the others increase This obstruction causeth not only barrenness but strange distempers Suffocations Swellings Imposthumes Coffing Dropsies difficulty of breathings urine supprest Costiveness Heaviness Megrims Vertigoes Head ach and many more fearful distempers Hippocrates tells us that when the terms are long stopt the Womb is diseased with humours imposthumes ulcers barrenness Leucophlegmacy vomiting of blood heart-ach and head-ach if the symptomes be great there is danger of death The best way to move the courses in weak women is to forbear Physick and to feed them high with nourishing meats and drinks this is where the Woman is lean her Liver weak and blood is wanting but if blood abound then give a gentle purge or Glister then open a vein to draw down the blood to the womb open a vein in the foot or ancle one day one leg and another day the other four or five daies before the time the courses should come down use Frictions and binding of the parts below but Issues and opening of the Emrods do hurt and draw from the womb you may first loosen the belly with Hiera Picra or Pills de tribus For Phlegmatick bodies use the Decoction of Guaicum or Sarsa and Sassafras and Dittany fifteen drops without sweating purge with Agarick Mechoachan Turbith and Scamony or drink wine of their infusions if the stomach be foul give a vomit lest it get into the Reins Things that provoke the terms are hot and thin take sirrup of Mugwort and of the Fierwort of each one ounce and a half Oximel simple one ounce Water of Motherwort and Mugwort of each two ounces Pennyroyal and Nip of each one ounce sweeten it with a spoonful or two of Cinnamon water make a Julip to drink at thrice Pessaries are not fit for maids but Fumes may be used if she be no maid bruise Mercury with Centaury Flowers put in a bag for a pessary begin with the mildest remedies if it be from a humour provoke not the Terms but cure the swelling Some say that the blood going to other parts cause the Terms to stop but that is contrary for the blood goes to other parts because the Terms are stopt Authors agree not what veins must be opened to move the Terms Galen thinks the Ancle Vein and most men conclude the same because it opens obstructions and brings down the blood open the ancle twice or thrice rather than the arm once but in other diseases of the womb it is best to open a vein in the arm as when the Terms are too many or drop or the womb is inflamed The Saphaena is opened by putting the foot into warm water few terms flowing if the blood be but little there is no harm Diseases grow when they are stopt by thick blood as the Cancer Schirrhus and Erisipelas when the time is near then use the stronger remedies the weaker having made a way for them Tender natures as maids must have but gentle remedies as Aloes one dram and a half Agarick and Rhubarb of each one dram Myrrh Gum Ammoniack dissolved in Vinegar Gentian Root Asarum of each half a dram Cinnamon Mastich Spikenard of each one scruple five grains of Saffron make a mass of the fine powder with sirrup of Mugwort the Dose is one dram To urge the terms in strong Country people take pills Aureae and Aggregativae of each two drams pill Felid and Hiera of each four scruples at the Apothecaries Diagrid one scruple Trochischi Alhandal half a scruple with a hot pestle mix them well in a Mortar adding sirrup of Damask Roses one dram oil of Anniseed olympical half a scruple dissolve Gum Dragant in Cinnamon water and make your pills and let the woman take two scruples every morning before the time of their terms at least three or four drops Ointments and Plaisters are good also and pessaries made of Aromatical things and sweet smells and Fumes as take Benzoin Storax Calamita Bdellium Myrrh what you please mingle them and strew some on a pan of Coles the woman so placed that she may receive the Fume by a Tunnel broad at the lower end to keep the smoke in but lest these Fumes cause the head-ach keep the Fumes down with clothes about the woman that they come not to her head But do none of these things to women with child for that will be Murder give your remedy a little before the Full Moon or between the New and the full for then blood increaseth but never in the Wane of the Moon

for it doth no good Sometimes but seldome the courses stop with Fulness such must saith Riolanus be let blood in the arm but with great care CAHP. X. Of the overflowing of the Courses or immoderate flux thereof THis distemper is contrary to the former and Women are often subject to it and it brings many diseases great weakness loss of appetite ill digestion dropsies consumptions pains in the back and stomach Their ordinary continuance should be two or three daies or four or five daies in large People but if they stay longer it is not good or if they come oftener than once a month I mean the Moons Month passing through the twelve Signs that is twenty seven daies and odd minutes The causes may be falls or blows or strains or hard labour over-heating the body which makes the blood thin or from weakness of the retentive faculty and too much strength of the expulsive faculty or from crude raw blood and weakness or too much moisture and this is the cause that some women have their terms by drops and it lasts long and there is pain and the secrets are alwaies wet if this be not remedied it may cause Ulcers and inflammations if the blood be superfluous open the arm not the ancle vein if it be Cacochymical correct it if too thin and sharp correct and amend it by coolers and thickeners and strengthen the wombs retentive faculty by astringents and convenient driers Many think that the overflowing of the Terms and Issues in women are the same diseases but that is not so as Galen shews for by superfluous Flux of the courses only blood is voided but in too great a measure But women continual Issues send forth not only blood at certain periods but various humours that cause the disease The Terms exceed when they flow in too great abundance in a short time or continue longer than is needful the one resembles violent rain the other flow rain but lasts long If too much blood be the cause of this superfluity the blood will be whitish and pale if choller the terms will be yellow if melancholly they will be dark coloured black or blew it weakeneth all the body and the Liver and Bowels dip a clout in the blood and dry it in the shade and then the colour of the blood will shew the humour that offendeth and accordingly prepare your remedies Sometimes it causeth swounding paleness the whites or the dropsie If fulness be the cause abate blood opening the Liver vein of the right arm repel cool bind bleed little but often use cuppings to the back and breast against the Liver below the paps to draw the blood back but scarifie not under the breasts upon the Salvatella bind and rub the arms and shoulders Waters of Plantane Purslain Shepherds Purse Sorrel sirrup of Pomegranates or dried Roses will cool and thicken the blood and so will Bole or Sealed Earth sirrup of Poppeys Philonium Laudanum are good If it proceed from choller purge with sirrup of Roses of Rhubarb or with Senna or Manna if watry blood be the cause the Reins and Liver are out of temper sweat with China and strengthen those parts Do not force veins but use astringents take the juice of ass dung sirrup of Myrtles of each half an ounce with an ounce of Plantane water let the woman drink it and not know what she takes lest it offend her or give every day a dram of the powder of Mulberry tree roots When you use cold astringents temper them so that you stop not the Veins use no Pessaries except the Veins of the neck of the womb be open Cold and binding fomentations are better than baths for baths make the humours to flow more wash the legs and hips in cold water If choller persist Rhubarb powder in conserve of Roses is very good The principal causes of this overflowing are but four viz. 1. Some of the Vessels broken or much dilated 2. Violent Purgation 3. Corroding humours 4. Hard travel in Childbed or the Midwives unkind handling First if the Vessels be broken the blood gusheth forth in heaps if flowing of humors they come with much pain though the quantity be small Secondly All Physicians almost wish to stop the Courses first that are too many before you strengthen the woman But I think it more reasonable to strengthen nature first and nature will help her self with less means but strengthen the womb and annoint the reins and back with oils of roses Myrtles Quinces do this every night lay a piece of white bays then next your reins upon the bare skin and keep it there constantly inject the juice of Plantane into the Matrix it seldome fails You may drink of the decoctions of Sage Bistort Tormentil Knotgrass Sannicle Ladies-mantle Golden Rod Loos-strife Meadow Sweet Archangel Solomons Seal Purslane Shepherds Purse red Beets Bark and Cups of Oak and Acorns But I commend this medicine take of Comfry leaves or roots of either a handful and of Clowns all-heal the same bruise them and boil them well in Ale drink a good draught when you please and it will help you though the mouths of the Vessels be open Too much blood is lost in the overflowing of the courses when the faculty is hurt by it otherwise the quantity cannot be defined The immediate causes are the opening of the Vessels but the mediate cause is the blood offending in quantity or quality Vessels are opened three or four wayes by Anastomosis when the mouthes lye open by reason of a moist distemper or use of Aloes or hot and moist bathes or from Diapedesis when the blood sweats through the Coats this is not often or from Diaeresis when the sharpness of the blood eates the Vessels in sunder if a Vein be broken Coral Bole Myrtles Comfrey are good to bind or a Poultis with astringent powders and the White of an Egg. Thirdly If a vessel be Corroded a dram of the roots of Dropwort in a new Egg will glutinate Sleep long use little Exercise nor Venery but eat little if it come from Plethory use thin Nutriment beware of hot things alwayes purge the humour that offends vomits are good to stay and turn the course of the humours Take Conserve of Roses two ounces of water Lillies one ounce prepared Pearls and burnt Harts-horn of each half an ounce Bole Armoniac and Terra Lemnia of each half a scruple make an Electuary with sirrup of Plantane this is cooling thickning and binding or in case of great necessity take a Bolus made with old conserve of Roses half anounce Philonium or Requies Nicolai two scruples or but a scruple of each let them drink Red Wine or quench steel in their drink or bloil Plantane Seeds Leaves and Roots in their drink CHAP. XI Of the whites or Womens Disease from corruption of humors WHen the body grows Cacochymical womens Courses stop or run very slowly and sometimes they abound sometimes all humours run thither to a general vent

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

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 Hipp●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 t●ings ●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

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

for that is ordained to go to the breasts to make milk which is the reason that Nurses have few or no Courses because the blood goes to the breasts to make milk as I said But if this accident fall out that the blood runs forth at the breasts undigested not changed by the faculty of the breasts into Milk as it ought to be then open the Saphaena vein in the Foot and that will pull it back again and cure this Distemper There is so near agreement between the breasts and the womb that any distemper of the womb will change the very colour of the Nipples and therefore it is not well to prejudicate and to think they are not Maids when their Nipples change colour when it is onely a sign that their wombs are distempered The Nipples are red after Copulation red I say as a Strawberry that is their natural colour but Nurses Nipples when they give Suck are blew and they grow black when they are old If there be pain in the breasts from abundance of milk onely the pain is not very great it is onely by overstretching them but if the milk be sowr or sharp or salt or corroding the pain is more and will be greater if there be inflammation but when there is an Ulcer or a Cancer the pains are out of measure great you may know the c●use of the pain by the greatness of it and you have sufficient directions before how to cure them But having made way for it I shall now proceed to speak a few words of Nurses and Nursing of Children CHAP. V. How to Chuse a Nurse THis dispute about Nurses who are fit for it and who are not is much handled by Physicians and some there be that will tye every woman to Nurse her own Child because Sarah the wife to so great a Man as Abraham was nursed Isaac And indeed if there be no other obstacle the Argument may carry some weight with it for doubtless the mothers milk is commonly best agreeing with the child and if the mother do not Nurse her own Child it is a question whether she will ever love it so well as she doth that proves the Nurse to it as well as Mother and without doubt the child will be much alienated in his affections by sucking of strange Milk and that may be one great cause of Childrens proving so undutiful to their Parents The Lacedemonians chose the youngest son after his Father to succeed in the Kingdom rejected all the rest because the mother gave suck onely to the youngest Tacitus gives a reason why the Germans are so exceeding strong because saith he they are commonly sucked by their own Mothers Yet Alcibiades a strong and valiant Captain was thought to have come to his great strength by sucking the breasts of a Spartan woman for they are great vigorous and usually very strong women I cannot think it alwayes necessary for the mother to give her own Child suck she may have sore breasts and many infirmities that she cannot do it Moreover a Nurse ought to be of a good Complexion and Constitution and if the Mother be not so it will be good to change the milk by chosing a good wholesome nurse that may correct the natural humors of the Child drawn from the ill complexion of the Mother Many children dye whilest they are sucking the breasts or else get such Diseases if the milk be naught that they can hardly ever be cured and the chief cause is the Nurses milk If a Nurse be well complexioned her milk cannot be ill for a Fig-Tree bears not Thistles a good Tree will bring forth good Fruit. But few can tell when they see a Nurse whether her complexion be good or not wherefore I shall give you such Rules whereby you may be able to know that and I have gained most of it by my own experience Many Physicians have troubled themselves and others with unnecessary directions but the chifest is to choose a nurse of a sanguine complexion for that is most predominant in children and therefore that is most agreeing to their age but beware you choose not a woman that is crooked or squint-eyed nor with a mishapen Nose or body or with black ill-favoured Teeth or with stinking breath or with any notable depravation for these are signs of ill manners that the child will partake of by sucking such ill qualified milk as such people yield and the child will soon be squint-eyed by imitation for that age is subject to represent and take impression upon every occasion but a sanguine complexioned woman is commonly free from all these distempers unless by accident it fall out otherwise and her milk will be good and her breasts and nipples handsome and well proportioned she is of a mean stature not too tall nor too low not fat but well flesht of a ruddy merry cheerful delightsome countenance and clear skin'd that her Veins appear through it her hair is in a mean between black and white and red neither in the extream but a light brown that partakes somewhat of them all Such a woman is sociable not subject to melancholy nor to be angry and fretful nor peevish and passionate but jovial and will Sing and Dance taking great delight in children and therefore is the most fit to Nurse them whereas all the other tempers except sanguine as Flegm or Choler or melancholy breed milk that will agree well with no child and their own constitutions are not agreeable to the nursing of children though her complexion then be not exactly sanguine for that is seldom found let it suffice if blood be predominant above the rest Moreover be her temper naturally never so good yet if she be diseased she is not for your turn or if she be above fourty years old or under eighteen years she must be of ability to live well that there be no want and one that hath had good Education to instruct her for if she be not well bred she will never breed the child well she must have prudence and care to see to it But there is one rule from the Sex That a female Child must suck the breasts of a Nurse that had a Girl the last child she had and a Boy must suck her that lately had a boy But the Nurse must not company with Man so long as she gives suck to the child for if she conceive the child will suffer by it she must live in a well-tempered pure Air she must sleep well when she is sleepy that she may soon wake if the child cry She must use moderate exercise and indeed the Dancing and Rocking of the child will hardly suffer her to be idle and therefore all such as put their children to Nurse should do well to consider the great care and pains of the Nurse by well rewarding them when they have made a good choice for if the Nurse be not good they had better be without them Nor is it onely

to 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

or two of red Rose sirrup or of Pomegranates with Mint water may do much good or beat some Sorrel-seeds to powder and give it to eat with the yolk of a roasted Egg or bruise the seed and boil it in fountain water and let the child drink of it twice a day If the child be costive and cannot go to stool this comes oftentimes from a cold and dry distemper of the Guts from the birth or form slimy flegme that sticks to the Guts and wraps up the Dung this last comes from the milk when the Nurse drinks little or eates hard meats or astringent diet or else it may come from a hot distemper of the Kidneys and Liver that drieth the excrements or want of choler to provoke expulsion A dry distemper of the Guts is not easily helped when there wants choler the body looks yellow and the dung is white because the choller is gone some other way When the child is bound the Head will ache and there is pain in the belly wherefore it is more healthful if the belly be loose so it be moderate A hot distemper is remedied by bathing it often in a bath of boiled Lettice and Succory to mosten and cool it In a hot cause use coolers in a moist drying things let the nurse abstain from binding meats in dry causes as from Quinces Medlars Pease Beans and annoint the stomach and belly of the child with fresh butter oyl of Lillies hens grease if the child be grown give it the decoction of red Coleworts with a little Honey and salt Flegme is cured with sirrup of Roses or with Honey and to cool sirrup of Violets is effectual or emulsions of the four cold seeds When choler will not come from the Gall to the guts to move the expulsive faculty let it drink a decoction of Grass roots Maiden-hair Fennel and Sparagus if it will not yet void the Excrements make a suppository of Honey boiled hard let it be as big as a date stone or a little bigger and as long as your little finger or you may make it of the stalks or roots of Beets or flower de Luce dip them in oyl and thrust it up into the Fundament lay a piece of wool dipt in oyl to the childes navel and give it the quantity of a Pease of good honey When the child sucks give the Nurse a gentle purge to loosen the belly if soluble meats will not do it you may safely lay a plaister over the childes belly made of Mallowes and Marshmallowes of each one handful Holyhocks two ounces ten Figs Fenugreek and Linseed of each one ounce boil all in water and then stamp them in a mortar make it up with butter and hens-grease of each two ounces Saffron one scruple spread it on a Linnen Cloath or apply to the navel a walnut shell full of hens-grease and Oxe Gall and anoint the belly with softning things as with oyl of sweet Almonds and of Linseed bran with the juyce of Dwarf Elder will make a loosning Poultis for the belly VI. The child may be troubled with worms that breed in their Guts some like mites of Cheese and some like earth worms and some children have been observed to have them in their Mothers bellies for they have voided them so soon almost as they were born but the chief cause is by mingling milk with other meats when the constitution is hot and moist or from Summer Fruits and sweet Meats that worms love These worms are broad and small or round and long you may know when they have worms when their Mouthes water much and their breath stinks when they gnash their teeth and start in their sleep and cry when they have a dry cough loath their meat are very thirsty when they vomit and hicket when their bellies swell and they are much bound or very loose when they make thick white water with pain when their belly is empty and the worms want meat their face is covered with a cold sweat and their cheeks flush with red colour and suddenly become pale by this you may know what worms they are for these signs shew round worms commonly rather than flat sometimes children have no great hurt by it when they have worms till the worms grow too strong and then dangerous symptomes follow Long round worms are worst for they will eat quite through the belly and when there is a Feaver the danger is greater Those that do least hurt are white but the fewer and smaller the worms are the less is the danger It is best to eat meats of good juice with Oranges and Pomegranates forbearing all slimy sweet fat meats Fish and milk and Summer fruits and to take some powder of harts-horn and drink thin wine mingled with Grass and Sorrel waters these will keep worms that they breed not which is better than to let them breed and drive them out afterwards Keep the childs belly loose with Glisters when you know they have worms or give them the decoction of Sebestens before meat Scordium and Wormwood are good but children will not be perswaded to take bitter medicaments wherefore you may give them Grass water with juice of Lemmons or one or two drops of Spirit of Vitriol These things following will kill Worms and cast them forth eight grains of Mercurius Dulcis steept all night in Couch-grass water strain it finely and give nothing but the water Wormseed Harts-horn or Coralline are good lay Peach-leaves bruised to the Navel or a little Ox Gall Saint Johns wort and Wormwood Knot-grass water drank with milk Ox Gall and Cummin-seed laid to the Navel are good against great worms mingle with your juice of Wormwood and Ox Gall of each two ounces of Coloquintida one ounce made into a Cataplasme with Wheat meal lay it over the Belly and Navel If there be a Feaver withal use such cooling remedies as are here prescribed against a Feaver you must use several medicaments for the worms will quickly grow familiar with any medicament and will not stir for it the best time to administer your remedies is about the new or full of the Moon for then they will sooner move than in the quarters let the child be fasting and go to stool first if he can and give the medicament to destroy the Worms when they are hungry and the time the child that is of age is wont to eat his breakfast for the worms will look for it VII Sometimes children have Convulsion Fits and the Falling-sickness it is natural to some from their birth but others have it by accident the nurses ill milk may breed it let her cleanse her body and not use too much moist and cooling diet nor let the child suck too much at one time to over-charge the stomach The Male-Peony root hanged about the childs neck and a small quantity of the powder of the same given to the child in any convenient way with milk or pap or broth or drink is much commended and so is the

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

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

preserve the Lungs When the Pox are fully out then to make them die quickly rub the face with fresh hogs-grease old Lard melted and strained and mingled with water or with oil of sweet Almonds When the Pox are dead and begin to fall away to keep them from Pock-holes anoint the face with a feather dipt in an Ointment made of Chalk and Cream use this two or three daies it will smooth the skin handsomely and take away the spots XXVIII Children are exceedingly prone to breed Lice more than men of age though all people are troubled with them They breed from the Excrements of the head and body it is not only filth that breeds Lice but a certain matter fit for them for fleas will not breed of the same that lice are bred of Children and women that are hot and moist have many excrements to breed such things withall Some meats breed Lice as figs by their gross juice which naturally tends to the skin and variety of meat Lice breed most in Childrens heads and stick fast to the skin and roots of the hair some have died of Lice and Lice will leave some when they are dying To prevent Lice comb and keep childrens heads clean let them eat no rigs but meats of good juice and purge them with hot drying thin medicaments Use ●o Mercury nor Arsenick to childrens heads but use this Lotion take parts alike of round Birthwort Lupines Pine and Cypress leaves boil them in water then anoint the head with powder of Staves-acre three drams of Lupines half an ounce of Agarick two drams quick brimstone one dram and half Ox Gall half an ounce all made up wirh oil of Wormwood XXIX If the child fright in the sleep give it good breast milk but not too much let it not sleep presently but carry it about till the milk descend to the bottom of the stomack give it sometimes the oil of sweet Almonds or honey of Roses two spoonfuls To cleanse the stomack strengthen it with magistery of Coral or Confection of Jacinths with milk anoint the stomach with oil of Worm-wood Nard Mints Mastick Nutmegs if it be from worms you have the remedies before It is for the most part ill vapours that ascend by the Weasand and veins to the head when children cannot concoct what they have in their stomachs XXX Sometimes children cannot sleep it is by reason of corrupt milk that disturbs the animal spirits hence arise Catarrhs Convulsions Feavers driness let better milk be given it the Nurse must eat Lettice sweet Almonds Poppey seeds but sleeping medicaments are not good for infants Wash the feet with a decoction of Dill tops Cammomile flowers Sage Osiers Vine leaves Poppy heads to the Temples use oil of Dill or oil of Roses with oil of Nutmegs with Poppey seeds Breast milk Rose or Nightshade water with Saffron If the Childs brain be very dry moisten the covering of the Cradle XXXI Bad and sharp milk hurts the childs stomach for it cannot endure it for it breeds bad humours all these diseases spring from it the Thrush Bladders in the Gums and inflammation of the Tonsils Bladders in the Gums are cured with powder of Lentils husked and strewed upon them or with a Liviment of the flour of Milian and oil of Roses The inflammation of the Tonsils I suppose it is that disease in children called the Mumps that commonly comes between eleven and thirteen years old the parts being then so hard that the humour cannot breath forth alwaies keep the belly loose and anoint outwardly with oil of sweet Almonds or Cammomile or St. John's wort inwardly first repel secondly mix resolvers with repellers and lastly only resolvers but not too hot in age Gargarismes are best Infants may take Diamoron Honey of Roses sirrup of Myrtles and Pomegranates XXXII Sometimes childrens string of the tongue is so short that they cannot suck a skilful Chirurgeon must help it or use this Liviment boil clarified honey till you can powder it then dry yolks of eggs in a Glass in an Oven powder them take a dram weight Mastick and Frankincense of each one scruple burnt Allum six grains make it up with honey of roses The Frog is when the veins under the tongue swell with gross black blood and if the flegm sweat forth and stick in the passages the swelling is like Mushromes and make them stammer take Cuttlebone Salgem Pepper of each one dram burnt Spunge three drams make a powder or of Honey of Besome rub it under the tongue and lay a plaister of Goose dung and Honey boiled in Wine till the Wine be consumed under the Chin. XXXIII Some children grow lean and pine away and the cause is not known if it be from Witchcraft good prayers to God are the best remedy yet some hang Amber and Coral about the childs neck as a Soveraign Amulet But leanness may proceed from a dry distemper of the whole body then it is best to bath it in a decoction of Mallows Marshmallows Branc-Ursine Sheeps heads and anoint with oil of sweet Almonds if it be hot and dry add Roses Violets Lettice Poppey-heads and afterwards anoint with oils of Violets and Roses The child may be lean from want of milk or bad milk from the nurse remedy that or change the nurse for little or bad milk will breed no good blood and the children cannot thrive by it sometimes worms in the body draw away the nourishment sometimes very small worms breed without the body all over and in the Musculous parts and stick in the skin and will not come quite forth but after you rub the child in a Bath they will put forth their heads like black hairs and run in again when they feel the cold air they breed of slimy humours shut up in the Capillary veins which turn to worms for want of transpiration if you rub the child with Yarhound on the back and especially with Honey and Bread you shall see their black heads when you see the heads come forth run over them with a Rasor do it often XXXIV Children used to be galled with lying in piss'd clouts and the scarf skin comes from the true skin the skin looks red change the clouts often and keep the child clean by washing it then anoint the sore with Diapompholix or cast on this powder finely sprinkled of burnt Allum Frankincense Litharge of Silver and seeds and leaves of Roses XXXV Some children cannot hold their water but piss the bed when they sleep the bladder-closing muscle being weak so when piss pricks it it comes forth The stone in the bladder may hurt the Muscle the cause of weakness is a cold moist humour from superfluity or from tough and gross meats in Age it will be hard to be cured but in infants it easily may The nurse must use a hot drying diet with Sage Hyssop Marjoram the child must drink little anoint the region of the bladder outwardly with oil of Costus or Flower de luce and other