this place vndertake to discourse as it were easie for mee though briefly as I began yet the shortnesse of the partes I see would amount vnto too long a summe to bee comprehended in a Preface especially considering wee shall at large prosecute euery particular in the following discourse wherefore after we haue giuen you another kinde of distribution of them in the Chapter following we will apply our selues vnto their particular Histories CHAP. I. A distribution of the naturall parts contained in the lower Belly HAuing already intreated of the Inuesting or Cōtayning parts of the lower region or nether Belly it followeth now that we continue our discourse to the parts contayned also These are of double vse for either they serue for nourishment or for generation those that belong to generation and propagation of the kinde we refer vnto the The parts belonging to nutrition To chilification Stomack Kell Sweet bread Guts Mensentery To sanguification Meseraicke Veines Gate veine Liuer Hollow vein Parts auoyding the excrements The bladder of gall The spleene Vas breue Haemorroid veines Kidneyes Vreters Bladder and yarde next Booke The nourishing parts doe either perfect the Chylus which we call Chilification or the bloud which wee call Sanguification For the first some make and concoct the Chylus as the stomacke some helpe and further this concoction as the Kell and the Sweet-bread others put to the last hand of perfection and then distribute it as the small guts others receiue and auoyde the grosse and thicke excrements as the great Guts and these together with the smal are fastned vnto the Mesenterie For Sanguification some parts sucke the Chylus out of the Guts alter it and giue it a certaine rudiment or tincture of bloud as the Meseraicke veines which also carry it by the Port veine vnto the gate of the Liuer and thence into the substance thereof where it receiueth the perfection of bloud Others when it is thus perfected doe distribute it into the whole body as the hollow veine by his faire forked branches Others receiue the excrements either yelow choller as the Bladder of Gall and that which wee call Porus Biliarius and conueyeth it into the Guttes or blacke and feculent choler as the spleene or Milt in which it receiueth a farther concoction and the more laudable part it reserueth for his owne nourishment but the very Lees it sendeth away either vpward vnto the stomacke by a short vessell called Vas breue where it becommeth the Appetites remembrancer or downward to the Haemorrhoidall veines Finally the serous or wheyie part of the bloud is still destilled away by the Kidneyes wherein there is a segregation or separation made of that whey or vrine from the bloud the bloud remayning behind for the nourishment of the Kidneyes but the whey is deriued by the vreters into the bladder from whence it is deliuered out by the Conduite Of all which parts we will entreat as I said before according to the order of Dissection beginning with the Kell or Omentum CHAP. II. Of the Omentum or Kall THE Kall or Kell which is deciphered in the sixt Table of the second booke The names the reasons of them and in the first and second of this third booke is called Omentum as it were Operimentum that is a couering of the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to swim vpon because it swimmeth vppon the bottome of the stomacke Table 2 bb and the vppermost guts Table 2 cc. From the wandring and implicated passages of his vessels which may be likened to a fishers net Table 1. Figure 1. and 2. it Table 1. Lib. 3. The first figure sheweth the Kall or Omentum whole and loosed on euery side resembling a Satchell or a small fishers Net with the course of the Veines Arteries Sinewes running through it The second figure contayneth the lower membrane of the Omentum the vpper being remooued with the Collicke gut which it contayneth and the vessels FIG I. FIG II. It is a large membrane scituated before vpon the bottome of the stomacke Table 6. The scituation of the Kal. PP Lib. 2. and downeward ouer the guts Table 6. XXXX Lib. 2. vnto the Nauill Sometimes but seldome and that in Apes and Dogges it is stretched euen vnto the sharebone and vsually in dissections it is obserued to bee rowled vp or doubled towards the spleene not onely in such as are hanged or drowned sayeth Vesalius but also in those that die of other Vesalius ordinary diseases or come to their ends by sodaine mischances Sometimes also it insinuateth it selfe into the conuolutions or windings of the guts and sometimes in Women it passeth betweene the bottomes of the wombe and the bladder and by streightning the mouth of the wombe becommeth an ordinary but yet not a perpetuall cause of barrennesse or sterility as also Hippocrates obserued in his book de natura Muliebri In some women after their trauell it remayneth gathered together about the middle of their Bellies Hippocrates and there is the cause of sore paynes But if it fall into the passage that descendeth into the Cod it causeth a soft rupture which disease no creature is subiect vnto but Men Apes as sayeth Galen in the third Chapter of his sixt booke de administrationibus Anatomicis Galen It is fastned alwayes to the stomacke Table 6. MNO Lib. 2. to the Spleen and the Collicke His connection gut Table 1. Figure 2. GGHH to other parts sometimes it is ioyned sometimes it is free from them for it behooued not sayth Galen in the 11. chapter of the fourth booke de vsu partium that it should hang loosely least it should be crumpled together and should leaue many parts vncouered which stand in neede of his warmth The forme of it is likest to a Purse-net or Faulkners bagge Table 1. Fig. 1. and 2. II The forme of it consisting of a double membrane knit together in the bottome Columbus sayth but only reflexed or turned backe againe It hath a round orifice Table 1. Figure 1. bb which ascendeth higher in the hinder part then before and belowe it is round Table 1. Figure 1. and 2. It is compounded of membranes and vessels and a muddy and easily putrifying Fatte The frame or composition which composition Galen expresseth vnder the name of his originall in the place next aboue named The Membranes are two whence of some it is called a double Peritonaeum His two membranes and those very fine and smooth least the guts should bee ouer burdened with his waight lying one vpon the top of another the vpper is called the vpper wing the lower the lower wing Table 2. cc. The vpper and formost ariseth at the bottome of the stomacke Tab. 2. aa bb from the Peritonaeum which compasseth it about and maketh his third coat and is ioyned in a right line with a portion of the inferiour membrane in the hollow parts of
and falling into it selfe it is necessary that it must haue certaine contorsions or wrethings that the partes within contained may bee defended from outward cold wherefore then it is shorter and narrower but in coition it is distended vnto the measure Whē women take most cold of the yarde in the birth to the measure of the Infant which are to passe through it and therefore when the courses flowe but especially when the time of deliuerance is at hand the necke becomming right straight and open women are most subiect to take colde by it In the end of this necke immediatly aboue the necke table 9. figure 2. m figure 3. e fig. The Hymen 4. L of the bladder they place in Virgins the Hymen or Eugion table 9. figure 4. n which many will haue to bee a slender membrane neruous not thicke placed ouerthwart that it may shut the cauity of the necke of the wombe yet perforated in the middest like a ring that in growne mayds it will admit the top of a little finger that through it the courses may passe sprinkled also with veines This they say is broken in the devirgination from whence comes the paine and effusion of blood and after it vanisheth as doth the bridle of the nut of a mans yarde with this also are the wings or lips of the lap tyed together because there is no vse of a large entrance before coition But let vs set downe with your patience the true History of the Hymen which Seuerinus Pinaeus the French Kings Chyrurgion hath diligently and at large recorded A discourse of the Hymen out of Pinaeus In the middle of the trench which is in the great slit or clift lyeth alwayes hid the orifice of the Maidens bosome of modesty being placed not in the end of the trench but in the inner end of that production which is annexed to the trench This production which is peculiar to Virgins is as long as the little finger is broad in the middest and is incircled aboue with a round cauity The figure of it is round yet determineth into a sharpnes and in the end hath one notable passage which will admit the top of the little finger The substance is partly fleshy partly membranous being compounded of Caruncles or little peeces of flesh and membranes The Caruncles are foure and are like the berries of The Caruncles the Mirtle in euery corner of the bosome one the membranes tying them together are also foure which are not disposed ouerthwart but runne all right downward from the inner end of the sayed bosome and are placed each in the distances betweene euery Caruncle with which they are almost equally extended or streatched forth But these both Caruncles and membranes are in some bodies shorter or longer thicker or thinner thē in others as also the orifice at the end of them is in some wider in some narrower and then especially is at the straightest when the Caruncles and the fleshy membranes are nearest ioined together Whence commeth the pain in deuirgination from whence comes either geater or lesse payne in devirgination or deflowring which Terence calleth The sharpe coition All these particles together make the forme of the cup of a little rose halfe blowne when the bearded leaues are taken away Or this production with the lappe or priuity may be likened to the great Cloue Gilly-flower when it is moderately blowne Galen in the 2. Chapter of his Booke de vteri dissectione likneth this production to the prepuce or fore-skin of a man because it is somewhat long and perforated in the end yet is it a little more fleshy and softer then the fore-skin It is called Hymen quasi Limen as it were the entrance Hymen the piller or locke or flower of virginity For being whole it is the onely sure note of vnsteyned virginity yet some also haue other quaint deuices to try virginity with as if a thred measured from the tip of the nose along the fore-heade to the end of the sagitall suture or An od trick to try amayd seame will also fitly encompasse the womans necke for when the yarde entreth into the necke of the wombe then the fleshy membranes which are among the caruncles are torn The true cause of pain in deuirgination vp euen to their rootes and the Caruncles are so fretted and streatched that a man would beleeue they were neuer ioyned some notable vessels are opened and in the breaking is payne which in young wenches is more because of the drynesse of the part but the effusion of blood the lesse because of the smalnesse of the vessels In elder maids whose courses haue now some good time flowed there is lesse paine because of the moysture and laxitie of the Hymen but the effusion of blood is greater because the vessels are grown larger and the blood gotten a fuller course vnto them For all virgins although they be neuer so mellow Why some haue no paine in deuirgination yet haue their first coition painfull but some more some lesse vnlesse they then are menstruous or haue beene within three or foure dayes for then they admit the yard with lesse trouble because of the relaxation and lubricity of these moyst partes whereupon the Membranes are dilated with little or no paine And this hath beene the cause why some A good caueate for Mothers concerning their daughters honor men haue vnworthily suspected the vncorrupted chastity of their wiues Wherefore it were fit the mothers or women friends of such Virgins should haue care of their Honor by giuing warning to their Bride-groomes of their Brides purgations if at that time they be vpon them and very often they are when the Brides are growne women and well complexioned because the ioy and priuate pleasures of affianced young folkes as also their dancings and frolicke diet with such like do often by moouing the body accelerate and hasten such purgations and being come do cause them longer to endure The torne Membranes of this production in their vtmost compasse indented do somtimes hang downe on either hand in the sides by the cleft like vnto values for so Pinaeus calleth them or leafe-gates which are much lesse then the Nymphae but of the same figure vse These are not lost before a woman hath borne a childe but are reserued being returned vpward to the orifice of the necke of the wombe nowe made much wider then in the time of virginity but in those that haue often brought forth large limb'd Infants or whose wombe hath falne downward and so the necke of it being inuerted or turned they are lesned and contracted or drawne vpward toward the necke and so perfectly vnited to the caruncles to which they adhere that they seeme to be vtterly perished But the foure Caruncles which are like Mirtle berries whereof one and the foremost is placed at the orifice of the bladder another and the hindmost with the two laterall scituated The Caruncles
he recordeth to haue hapned to Namisia the wife of Gorgippus in Thaso Namisia Wherefore say they if a Woman may become a man and her parts of generation which before lay hid within may come foorth and hang as mens do then do women differ from men onely in the scite or position of their parts of generation Notwithstanding all this against this opinion there are two mighty arguments one is Reasons and experience against the former opinion taken from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in dissection another from reason which two are the Philosophers Bloud-hounds by which they tract the causes of things For first of all saith Laurentius these partes in men and women differ in number The From the number of the parts What parts of man a woman wanteth small bladders which first Herophylus found and called varicosos adstites that is the Parastatae women haue not at all nor the Prostatae which are placed at the roote of the yard and necke of the bladder in which seede is treasured vp for the necessary vses of nature although there be some that thinke that women haue them but so smal that they are insensible which is saith he to begge the question Againe me thinks it is very absurd to say that the neck From the forme structure of the parts of the wombe inuerted is like the member of a man for the necke of the womb hath but one cauity and that is long and large like a sneath to receiue the virile member but the member or yard of a man consisteth of two hollow Nerues a common passage for seede and vrine and foure Muscles Neyther is the cauity of a mans yard so large and ample as that of the necke of the wombe Add to this that the necke of the bladder in women doth not equall in length the necke of the womb but in men it equalleth the whole length of the member or yard Howsoeuer therefore the necke of the wombe shall be inuerted yet will it neuer make the virile member for three hollow bodies cannot be made of one but the yard consisteth of three hollow bodies two Ligaments arising from bones and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as we haue before sufficiently shewed If any man instance in the Tentigo of the Ancients or Fallopius his Clitoris bearing the shape of a mans yard as which hath two Ligaments and foure Muscles yet see how these two differ The Clitoris is a small body not continuated Concerning Fallopius his Clitoris at all with the bladder but placed in the height of the lap the Clitoris hath no passage for the emission of seede but the virile member is long and hath a passage in the middest by which it powreth seede into the necke of the wombe Neither is there saith Laurentius any similitude betweene the bottome of the wombe inuerted and the scrotum or cod of a man For the cod is a rugous and thin skin the bottome Concerning the Cod and the bottom of the wombe of the wombe is a very thicke and thight membrane all fleshy within and vvouen with manifold fibres Finally the insertion of the spermaticke vessels the different figure of the mans and womans The insertion of the spermaticke Vessels Testicles their magnitude substance and structure or composition doe strongly gainsay this opinion But what shall we say to those so many stories of women changed into men Truely I thinke saith he all of them monstrous and some not credible But if such a thing shal happen Answeres to the obiection of the change of sexes The first The second it may well be answered that such parties were Hermophradites that is had the parts of both sexes which because of the weakenesse of their heate in their nonage lay hid but brake out afterward as their heate grew vnto strength Or we may safely say that there are some women so hot by nature that their Clitoris hangeth foorth in the fashion of a mans member which because it may be distended and againe growe loose and flaccid may deceiue ignorant people Againe Midwiues may oft be deceiued because of the faultie conformation of those parts for sometimes the member and testicles are so small and sinke The third so deepe into the body that they cannot easily be discerned Pinaeus writeth that at Paris in the yeare 1577. in the streete of S. Dennis a woman trauelled and brought foorth a sonne which because of the weaknesse of the infant was suddenly baptized for a daughter and was called Ioanna A fewe dayes after in dressing the A Historie Infant the Mother perceyued it to be a manchilde and so did the standers by and they named it Iohn As for the authority of Hippocrates It followeth not that all those women whose voyces Answere to the authoritie of Hippocrates turne strong or haue beards and grow hairy do presently also change their parts of generation neither doth Hippocrates say so but plainly the contrary for he addeth When we had tried all meanes we could not bring downe her courses but she perished Wherefore hir parts of generation remained as those of a Woman although her bodye grew mannish and hairie QVEST. IX Of the motions of the wombe ANother question there is whether the wombe moue locally and Mathematically How the womb is saide to mooue or Physically onely concerning which we wil resolue thus There is a threefold motion of the wombe one altogether naturall another altogether Symptomicall and Convulsiue the third mixt partly Naturall partly Symptomical The A threefolde motion Naturall motion is meerely from the faculty of the soule the Symptomatical meerly from an vnhealthfull cause the third from them both together The naturall motion is when the wombe draweth seed out of the neck into his bottom for then it runneth downward to meete it insomuch that sometimes it hath beene seene euen The natural motion of the wombe to fall out it mooueth also naturally when in conception it is contracted and imbraceth the seede strictly on euery side as also when it excludeth the Infant the after-birth or any other thing contayned in it beside Nature For the accomplishment of this motion it hath right fibres and very many transuerse or ouerthwart and this motion comes from the necessity of Nature The symptomaticall motion is onely from a cause that is morbous or diseasefull and The symptomatical motion of the wombe The suffocati on er strangulation of the matrixe that is convulsiue which motion is manifest in the suffocation of the matrixe for then the wombe is moued vpward because it is drawne convulsiuely and that comes either from repletion or from exhaustion or emptines the ligaments either being by drought exsiccated or steeped in ouermuch moysture sometimes it commeth from a poysonous breath from the suppression of the courses or the retention and corruption of the womans seede falne into it out of the vessels In this convulsiue motion the
before in the capacity of the Abdomen drawing it thence into the guttes and yet we knowe no direct passages from the one part to the other and this hath made men to say that as open as the body of Dropsy water how purged glasse is to the light although it be very solide so open is the whole body as to external aire of which we finde our body oftentimes very sensible so to humours much more to spirits and thinne and subtile vapours Experience hereof we haue in the vse of Tobacco for a man The working of Tobacco in the fingers ends shall often finde it sensibly in his toes and fingers ends presently vpon the raking But of this we shall take leaue in the next discourse to speake a little more largely seeing it not onely concerneth almost all women but may serue somewhat to stay their minds vppon many accidents which euery day befall them QVEST. XI Of the wonderfull consent betweene the wombe and almost all the parts of womens bodis COncerning the wonderfull sympathy that is betweene the wombe and almost all the parts of womens bodies that place of Hippocrates in his An enumeration of the parts with which the wombe doth sympathize Booke de locis in homine is most remarkable where he sayeth That the wombs of women are the causes of all diseases that is to say The wombe being affected there follow manifest signes of distemper in all the parts of the body as the Brayne the Heart the Liuer the Kidneyes the Bladder the Guts the Share-bones and in all the faculties Animall Vitall and Natural but aboue all the sympathy betweene the wombe and the breastes is most notable yet will we not sticke a little to insist vpon the former particulars Betweene the Brayne and the wombe there is very great consent as well by the nerues The consent between the wombe and the braine as by the membranes of the marrow of the backe hence in affects of the mother come the paynes which some women often feele in the backe-parts of their heade their frenzies or franticke fittes their dumbe silence and indeede inabilitie to speake their strange fearefulnesse sometimes loathing their liues yet fearing beyond measure to die their convulsions the calligation or dimnesse of their sight the hissing of their eares and a world of such like and of vnlike accidents Betweene the heart and the wombe the consent is made by the mediation of manie Betweene the heart and the wombe notable Arteries called Spermaticall and Hypogastricall that is the Arteries of seede of the inferiour part of the lower belly Hence come light faintings desperate swoondings the cessation of breathing and intermission of the pulse the vse of them both being taken away by a venemous breath which dissolueth the naturall heate of the heart and such women liue onely by transpiration that is by such aer as is drawne through the pores of the What it is to liue by transpiration skin into the Arteries and so reacheth vnto the heart so that it is impossible almost to perceiue whether such women do yet liue or no and doubtlesse many are buried in such fits for they will last sometimes 24. houres or more and the bodies grow colde and rigid like Many womeÌ„ buried quick dead carkasses who would recouer if space were giuen In my time there went a woman begging about this Cittie who had a Coffin carried with her and oftentimes she fell into those Hystericall fits and would lye so long in them nothing differing from a dead carkasse till the wonted time of her reuiuing Hence it may A Historie be came the Prouerbe Thou shalt not beleeue a woman that she will die no not vvhen shee is deade This is a sore accident and therefore it shall not bee amisse to tell you how you may know whether such haue any life left in them or no. A downy feather applyed vnto their How to know whether a woman be aliue or dead mouth will not sometimes serue the turne for you shall not perceiue it to shake and yet the woman liues the onely infallible token of life or death is if you apply a cleare looking glasse close vpon their mouths for then if they liue the glasse will haue a little dew vpon it if they be dead none at all But the safest way is not to be ouer-hasty to burie women especially such as dye suddenly and not vppon euident cause til 2. or 3 dayes bee ouer for some A miserable case haue beene knowne so long after their supposed deaths to reuiue and some taken agayne out of their Coffins haue beene found to haue beaten themselues vpon their reuiuing before their stiâ—ling into the graue if we will beleeue the reports of such as we haue no great reason to mistrust But to returne to our simpathy Betweene the Liuer and the wombe the simpathy is a little aboue expressed to which Betweene the Liuer and the wombe see aboue Iandises Greensicknes Dropsies we may adde that as from other parts affected so from the ill affection of the womb somtimes come Iaundises Cacexies that is ill habits of the bodie green sicknesses and then which nothing is more ordinary the Dropsie it selfe Betweene the Kidneyes and the wombe the consent is euident in the torments and pains of the Loines which women and Maids haue in or about the time of their courses Inso much as some haue told me they had as leefe beare a childe as endure that paine and my Betweene the kidnies the wombe selfe haue seene some to my thinking by their deportment in as great extremity in the one as in the other This consent commeth by the mediation of the spermaticke veines for the left of these vessels ariseth out of the emulgent or kidny vein on the same side The like may be said of the simpathie between the womb the bladder and the right gut for vpon inflamation of the wombe as Hippoc. writeth in his first Booke de Morb. mulier commeth the disease Betweene the bladder the right gut and the wombe of the right gut called Tenesmus that is a vaine desire to empty the belly and also the Strangurie because the inflamation presseth both partes so that neither the excrements nor the vrine can be long kept This consent is by reason of the vicinity or neighbour-hood of the parts as also by communion The communion is by the membranes of the Peritonaeum which tye the wombe How this consent cemmeth to these partes and by their common vessels for from the same braunch of the Hypogastricall Veine come small riuerets to the bladder the wombe and the right gut Neyther is the Connexion of the wombe with the share-bone and the Lesk to be ouer passed without The Connexion of the womb remembrance which is made by two exceeding strong Ligaments for which cause in the suffocations of the matrix we apply Cupping-glasses to the sides of
QVEST. XII Concerning the Acetabula the hornes and coates of the wombe COncerning the endings of the vessels in the bottome of the womb to which the after-birth cleaueth till it be seuered either by the strength of the Infant or after Cotyledones what they are by the dexterity of the Midwife they are called Acetabula in Latine in Greeke Cotyledones which are nothing else but the ioyning of the endes of two paire of veines one comming from the spermaticall another from the Hypogastricall braunch with the mouths of the vmbilicall veine and so making a sumphysis or connexion between the mother and the Infant The latter Anatomists deny that there are any such conspicuous in women but only In what Creatures they are found in Sheep and Goates Aristotle sayth in his 3. Book of the Historie and the second of the Generation of Creatures they are onely to be found in horned Beasts we say There is a 3. fould acceptation of this word Acetabula in Galens Booke of the dissection of the wombe First they signifie visible holes into which the vessels of the wombe doe ende in fashion resembling the hearbe called Venus Nauill which we call in English Penny-grasse or hippewort What Galen meaneth by Acetabula These Acetabula are neuer found in women but in Sheep and Goates are very conspicuous Secondly by Acetabula we vnderstand the mouthes of the vesselles swelling like Nipples And lastly they are the ends of the vessels at the bottom of the wombe ioyning How they are to be found in women with the vmbilicall or Nauill veines In this third acception no man will deny but that they are to be found in the wombe of a woman These mouthes of the vessels sayeth Hippocrates in the 45. Aphorisme of the fift Section A cause of abortion if they be ful of mucous or slimy water are the cause of abortment because it dissolueth the continuity or connexion of the Infant with the mother Concerning the horns of the womb which bud out at the sides therof Diocles first of all Of the hornes of the wombe men made mention of theÌ„ Galen almost all Anatomists following him do confesse them to be in the wombe of a woman but the truth is that they are only conspicuous in Sheep Goates and Kine Indeede the sides of a womans wombe doe swell a little and are raysed where the leading vessels doe end but not sufficiently to expresse the forme of hornes or Nipples Lastly Galen seemeth to speake diuersly concerning the coats of the wombe somtimes Of the coates of the wombe affirming it hath but one as in the third Booke of Naturall faculties againe in his Book of the dissection of the wombe he sayeth it hath two the outward neruous the inward venal Galen reconciled to himselfe the outward simple the inward double but these places may easily be accorded for wheras he sayeth it hath but one he vnderstandeth the proper coate of the wombe which is the thickest of all the coates of the body but when he sayeth it hath two he addeth to the proper a common coate comming from the Peritonaeum or Rim of the Belly QVEST. XIII Of the Membrane called Hymen and the markes of virginitie IT hath been an old question and so continueth to this day whether there be any certaine markes or notes of virginity in women and what they are What the Hymen is thought by some to be Almost all Physitians thinke that there is a certain membrane sometimes in the middest of the necke of the wombe sometimes immediately after the passage of the water placed ouerthwart which they call Hymen This membrane they say is perforated in the middest to giue way to their courses and is broken or torne in their first accompanying with men and therefore they call it The lock of virginity Claustrum virginitatis The lock of virginity for which their opinion they bring testimonies out of the holy scriptures For it was a custome among the Iewes that the Brides should A custome among the Iewes not accompany with their Bridegroomes but vpon a sheete wherein the bloud should bee kept which was giuen to the Brides parents as a witnesse of their daughters true virginity Falopius yeeldeth to this opinion Columbus writeth that he hath seene it Laurentius sayeth Laurentius his opinion that he hath cut vp mayden children borne before their time of three moneths of 3. 4 6. and 7. yeares old and yet hee could neuer finde it though he searched curiously for it with a Probe which sayth he might haue beene felt to resist the Probe if there had beene any such thing and therfore he thinketh that it is but a meere fable Yet notwithstanding thus far he giueth credite to Columbus and Falopius that hee thinketh there is sometimes such a membrane found but if it be stretched ouerthwart in the middle or at the end of the neck of the wombe then hee thinketh it is not Naturall but an Organicall disease or of the instrument being faulty in conformation So oftentimes at the very end or extremity of the lap there groweth sometimes a membrane sometimes a Caruncle or small peece of flesh which affection or disease Auicen calleth clausuram or the inclosure the Grecians call it Imperforatae mulieres 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such women 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is imperforatas Some are so from their infancie some by mishap as by an vlcer inflamation or some other tumor against nature but hee that will reade more of this disease let him resort to Aetius Paulus Celsus Albucasis and Oribesius Aeti Tetra 4. ser â— cap. 96. Paul lib. 6 cap. 73. Celsus lib. 7. cap. 28. Albucasis lib. 2. Oribas Colâ—ect mediem lib. 24 who thinketh that there is at all no such matter Wee must therefore finde out some other locke of Virginitie Some thinke the sides of the necke of the wombe do cleaue together in mayds and in the deuirgination are separated Almanzor writeth that the necke of the womb in virgins is very narrow and rugous those foulds or plights are wouen together with many small veines and arteries which are broken in the first coition Laurentius is of opinion that those foure Caruncles described in the history of the womb and placed not ouerthwart but longwise doe so ioyne together in virgines by the interuening of exceeding thin membranes that in the first coition both the Caruncles are fretted and the membranes torne and that thence floweth the blood This ioyning of the Caruncles Seuerinus Pinaeus a learned Chyrurgion belonging to the French King hath notably described in a Booke which hee wrote of purpose concerning the marks or notes of Virginity which wee also remembred before in our discourse And thus much shall suffice to haue spoken concerning the partes of Generation both in men and women and the Controuersies thereto be longing Honi soit que mal y pense The End of
Liuer is ministred But because Nature doth all her businesses in order and therefore prescribeth lawes vnto The vniuersal time of the courses and the reasons thereof herselfe she doth not endeuour this excretion in euery age at all times nor euery day but at set times and by determined periods which shee of herselfe neither anticipateth nor procrastinateth that is doth not either preuent or foreslow vnlesse shee be prouoked and hastned before her time or else hindered or interrupted at her owne time These Natural times are either vniuersall or particular The Vniuersal time all men do accord beginneth for the most part in the second seauen yeares that is at 14. yeares olde and endeth the seauenth seuen that is at 49. or 50. Now the reason why this bloud floweth not before the 14. yeare is this because both the vessels are narrower and beside the heate ouercome with the aboundance of the humour cannot expell the reliques which after it hath gotten more strength it is able to maister and driue as it were out of the field Adde hereto that in the first yeares a great part of the bloud is consumed in the growth of the body and beside before the woman is fit to conceiue Nature doth not bestow this matter of the menstruall blood vpon her Now at the second seauen yeares the heate begins to gather strength to burst foorth as Why the courses flow â—â— 4. yeares old the Sunne in his brightnes and to rule in the Horizon of the body from which heate doe proceede as necessary consequencies the largenes of the wayes and vesselles the motions and commotions of the humours their subtilty or thinnesse and finally the strength of the expelling faculty At that time men begin to grow hayrie to haue lustfull imaginations and to change their voyce womens Pappes begin to swell and they to thinke vppon husbands After the fiftieth yeare the courses cease because the heate being nowe become more weake is not able to engender any notable portion of laudable bloud neither yet if Why they stay at 50. there be any such ouerplus is able to euacuate or expell the same you may adde also that Natures intention and power of procreation beeing determined it is no more necessary that there should be any nourishment set aside Concerning the particular times of this monthly euacuation Aristotle is of opinion that it cannot be precisely set downe and almost all learned men herein consent with him Notwithstanding The particular times of the courses Aristotle it is reasonable we say to think that Nature hath set and determined motions and established lawes albeit wee are ignorant of them for who was euer so neare of Natures counsell but that he might in some things erre in somethings be to seek These times knowne to herselfe shee keepeth immutable and inviolate vnlesse either the narrownes of the wayes or the thicknes of the humour doe interrupt her or else shee bee prouoked by the acrimony of a corroding quality in the bloud or by some other outward prouocatioÌ„ to poure them forth before her owne stinted and limitted time Once therefore euery moneth she endeuoreth at least this menstruall excretion sometimes in the full of the Moon sometimes in the waine and in those women which we cal viragines that is who are more mannish for three dayes together in others that are more soft idle and delicate such as Hippocrates in his first Booke de diaeta calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is waterish women for a whole seuen-night And againe in the first Section of his sixt Booke Epidem In women that are waterish the courses continue longer In those women that are of a middle and meane disposition they continue foure dayes and these we cal Particular times The quantity of this monthly euacuation cannot be defined For as Hippocrates obserueth Hippocrates in his Book de natura muliebri the blood issueth more freely or more sparingly according to the variety of their colour temperament age habite and the time of the yeare Those women which are fayre and white haue such aboundance of humour that it issueth diuerse wayes contrary to those are browne and swart skins which are commonly drier In moderate and meane tempered women the quantity of the courses is about two Hemina that is 18. ounces which is Hippocrates his proportion The wayes ordayned for this euacuation are the veines of the womb and the womb it The wayes of the courses selfe The veines do run from the Hipogastrick and spermatick branches to the bottom necke of the wombe by the veines of the necke of the wombe it issueth in those women which are with child by the other in virgins and such as are not conceiued but not per diapedosim that is by transudation but per anastomosim that is by the opening of the orificies of large and patent veines Now if it be asked why the blood is purged through the womb I answere it is done by a wonderfull prouidence of Nature that the bloud being accustomed to make his iourney Why nature purgeth the bloud throgh the wombe this way it might after conception presently accrew for the nourishment and generation of the Infant Hence we gather the finall cause of the menstruous bloud which was the last poynt in our definition to be double the generation of the parenchymata or substances of the bowels The finall cause of the menstruous bloud double and the flesh as also the nourishment and sustentation of the Infant as well whilest it is in the mothers wombe as also after it is borne into the world For howe should the seede conceiued atteine either nourishment or increase vnlesse this bloud should be disposed into these wayes wherein the Infant is conceiued Afterward when it is born the same blood returneth by knowne and accustomed waies also into the pappes and there is whitned into milke to suckle it And this we take to be the nature of the second principle of our generation the mothers bloud or the monthly courses CHAP. IIII. Of Conception THese two principles of Generation Seede and the Mothers bloud are not at one and the same time auoyded in coition because the spermaticall and the The order of the accesse of the principles fleshy parts are not at one and the same time delineated But if the generation goe rightly on first both sexes doe affoord fruitfull and pure seedes which are poured out into the wombe as it were into a fertil field Afterward when the filaments or threds of the solide parts are lined out then the bloud floweth thereto as wel for the structure of the parenchymata or substaÌ„ces of the bowels as also for the nourishment of the whole embryo or little Infant The man therefore and the woman ioyned together in holy wedlocke and desirous to raise a posterity for the honour of God and propagation of their family in their mutual imbracements Hippocrates expounded doe either of them
Saint Anthonies fires and scirrhous that is What diseases come therefrom hard and indolent tumors If it returne vnto the vpper partes it breedeth many diseases which follow the Nature of the part affected and the offending humour In the Liuer it breedeth the Caecexta the Iaundise the Dropsie In the Spleene obstructions and Sctrrhous tumors in the Stomacke depraued Appetite and strange longings in the Heart palpitations and Syncopes or sounding in the Lungs Vlcers and Consumptions in the Brayn the falling sicknes and mad melancholly and many other such like Amongst the new writers Fernelius the best learned Physician of them all in the 7. book Fernelius opinion of his Phisiologie proueth that this bloud is not Alimentarie nor of the same Nature with that by which the Infant is nourished in the mothers wombe but thinketh it noxious and hurtfull both in the quantity and quality On the contrary we thinke and perswade our selues wee shall also conuince others that this bloud which is monthly euacuated by the wombe is all one with that bloud whereof The contrary opinion that it is naturall the Parenchymata or flesh of our bowels are made and wherewith the Infant in the wombe is nourished and that it is in his owne nature laudable and pure bloud and no way offensiue to the woman but onely in the quantity thereof And this we hope wee shall euict both by authority of the Antients and by inuicible and demonstratiue arguments First of all Hippocrates fauoureth this opinion as also doth Galen Hippocrates in his first Hippocrates Booke de morbis mulierū hath this saying The bloud falleth from a woman like the bloud of a stickt Sacrifice which soone cloddeth or caketh together because it is sound and healthfull And this also he repeateth in his Booke de Natura pueri now the conditions of laudable bloud are to be red and quickly to cake Galen in his third Booke de causis symptomatum writeth Galen Reasons to proue it naturall that this bloud is not vnnaturall but offendeth onely in quantity And this may also be demonstrated by good and true reasons this bloud in a sound woman for if shee bee sickly the whole masse of bloud is corrupted the bloud I say that is auoyded euery month by the wombe is made of the same causes by and of which the other bloud is made with which the flesh is satisfied and nourished For the matter is the same the same heat of the Liuer the same vesselles conteyning it why then should there bee any difference in their qualities Moreouer if as the Philosopher often vrgeth the Finall cause be the most noble and preuayleth in the workes of Nature ouer all the rest why should this superfluous bloud redound First in the colde Nature of women vnlesse that it might become an Aliment vnto the conceiued and formed Infant why doeth shee purge it rather by the wombe then by the The second nose as it is often auoided in men vnlesse it be to accustome her selfe to this way that after the conception it may exhibit it selfe for the nourishment of the Infant This is the small cause of the menstruous bloud acknowledged by Hippocrates Aristotle Galen and all the whole schoole of Physitians Aristotle sayeth that such is the Nature of a woman that their bloud perpetually falleth to the wombe and the principall parts therfore if they be haile and sound of body and haue their courses in good order they are neuer troubled with varices or swollen veines neuer with the Haemerrhoids nor with bleeding at the nose as men are Now if these courses doe affect the way into the wombe for no other cause but onely for the nourishment of the Infant then no man will deny but that it is benigne and laudable bloud For Hippocrates in his Booke de Natura pueri and in the first booke de morbis mulierum sayeth that the Infant is nourished with pure and sweete bloud in the first place he sayth that the Infant draweth out of the bloud that which is the sweetest in the second that the woman with childe is pale all ouer because her pure bloud is consumed in the nourishment and increase of the Infant Moreouer that the bloud which Nature purgeth by the wombe of a sound woman is Third pure and Elementary this is a manifest argument because of it returning to the paps milke is generated and therefore Nurses haue not their courses as long as they giue sucke nowe that milke is made of the purest blood Hippocrates witnesseth in his Booke de Natura pueri Aristotle in the first Chapter of his fourth Book de Generatione Animalium sayth that the Why Nurses haue not their courses neither yet conceiue nature of the Milke and of the menstruous bloud is one and the same and thence it is that those that giue sucke haue not their courses neither yet do conceiue with childe and if they do happen to conceiue then their milk faileth Add hereto that if the impurity of the courses were so great as some would haue it then it would follow that when women are with childe and their courses faile vppon that cause they should be worse disposed then if they should faile vppon other causes because the Infant drawing away the purer part of the bloud that other which is venomous or of a malignant quality would rage so much the more hauing lost the bridle whereby it is restrayned moreouer those symptomes would be more violent in the last moneths then in the first after conception all which is contradicted by common experience Wherefore the menstruall bloud is onely aboundant in women and hath no other fault Conclusion at all if they be sound and hayle and is of the same Colour Nature and Temperament with the rest of the bloud conteyned in the trunke of the hollow veine and wherewith the flesh is nourished Yet is it called an excrement but that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 abusiuely because the flesh being therewith filled and satisfied doth returne that which remayneth back into the veines and voyde it out so the Stomacke beeing satisfied with the Chylus thrusteth it into the Guttes But Auicen maketh a question whether this menstruall bloud be an excrement of the second Auicens question or of the third concoction we say it is of both but in a diuerse respect It is an excrement of the second concoction because the whole masse of bloud hath his first Generation in the Liuer the seate of the second concoction and from the Liuer is powred as an ouerplus Answered or redundancie into the trunk of the hollowveine It is an excrement of the third concoction because it is as we sayd vomited away by the flesh when it is satisfied after the third concoction Those arguments which before were alleadged against this truth are but veine and light Answere to the former arguments For as we grant that all those mischiefes and
of themselues make the species of the Creature If it bee granted also according to Aristotle that they are imperfect essences or beings it is necessary that they should bee Aristotle mixed otherwise they cannot bee nourished or animated together as Hippocrates sayeth in Hippocrates his Booke de Natura pueri And in his first Booke de diaeta he blameth them that doubt whether of two fires a third may arise If any man sayth he deny that a Soule is mingled with a Soule that is one seede with another let him be held for an Idiot in Physicke And in the very beginning of his Booke de Natura pueri If the geniture proceeding from both the parents be retayned in the wombe of the woman they are presently mixed into one And thus much of the effusion of the seedes of both Sexes the pleasure thereuppon conceiued and the permixtion of the seeds themselues QVEST. XII Whether the wombe haue any operatiue or actiue power in the conformation of the Creature IT wil not be hard to vntie this knot According to the Philosophers rule there is a double agent one Principall another Helpfull or assistant onely A principall agent no man will say the wombe is because then a woman could conceiue A double agent alone without the helpe of the man and besides Females onely Males neuer should be formed The wombe therfore worketh as Causa sine qua non a cause not so much of the being as without which it could not be because it awaketh and stirreth vp the sleepy and hidden vertue of the seede The Physitians make three kindes of 3. kinds of Efficent causes among Physitians Efficient causes Principall Helping or that without which a thing cannot be done So in Purgations the principall cause is the propriety of the medicine the Helping cause is the hot Temper the cause sine qua non is our naturall heate without which the power of the medicine being drowsie would neuer be brought into act So in the conformation of the Infant the principal cause is the Seed I meane the spirits of the seed by which as by workemen the Soule which is the noble and chiefe Architect frameth a mansion fit for the performance of her different functions The Helping cause is a laudable Temper of the seedes and of the wombe The Causa sine qua non is the wombe For because the seeds are not actually Animated but only potentially they need another principle whereby their How many wayes the wombe worketh power may be brought into act the wombe therefore worketh diuerse wayes First of all it draweth the Seede of the man through the necke no otherwise then a Hart draweth a Snake by his nosethrilles out of the earth For the seede is not powred into the cauity of the wombe as some of the Auntients thought but into the necke thereof The bottome First by traction therefore of the wombe meeteth with the Seede halfe way and with his inward mouth as with a hand it snatcheth it vnto it selfe and layeth it vp safely in her bosome And euen as sayeth Galen in his first Booke de semine a hungery stomack runneth with his bottom euen vnto the throate to snatch the meate out of the mouth before it be halfe chewed so the wombe which is the very seat of Concupiscence being desirous and longing after the seed moueth it selfe wholly euen to the priuities and this is the first action of the womb to wit the traction of the Seede of the man The second action of the wombe is the permixtion of the seedes now they be mixed either 2. By mixtion by themselues or by another not of themselues because they are not alwayes auoided at the same time as we haue in the question before going proued out of Hippocrates Aristotle neither yet are they eiaculated into the same place for the mans seede is cast into the neck of the wombe the womans into the sides of the bottome which we call the horns of the wombe the wombe therefore maketh this permixtion of the seedes which the Barbarians call Aggregation The third action of the wombe is the Retention of the seedes in which the woman feeleth a manifest motion of the wombe for it gathereth crumpleth and corrugateth it selfe 3. By retention and so exquisitly shutteth his orifice that it will not admit the poynt of a Probe The last action of the wombe is the suscitation or raising vp of the seedes which wee 4. By conception commonly call Conception Now the faculty of the seed is raysed or rowsed not so much by the heate of the wombe as by his in-bred propriety for if the seede should be cast into any other part of the body though it were hotter then the vvombe it would not be conceyued but putrified After Conception the action of the vvombe ceaseth the vvhole processe of the vvorke of Nature in fourming nourishing and increasing is left vnto the Infant this one thing the vvombe performeth it conteyneth preserueth and cherisheth the Infant because the place is the preseruer of that which is placed therein QVEST. XIII Of vitious or faulty Conceptions and especially of the Mola THat Conception is made by the in-bred propriety of the Wombe this among the rest manifestly prooueth that into what part of the body soeuer sauing into this the seede is powred this power or efficacy is neuer stirred vp neither commeth into acte so that conception is as properly the action of the wombe as Chylification is the action of the stomacke But that conception may be perfect the seede which is yeelded and reteined must be pure and fruitfull What is required to perfect conception By pure I vnderstand with Hippocrates that which is not sickly or diseased neither yet mingled with blood For blood is not requisite to generation till after the description of the spermaticall parts is begun otherwise the seede being choaked by the aboundance of the blood neither at all attempteth his worke neither can it bring to perfection that it could haue well begun Againe if the seedes be vnfruitfull what hope can there be of a haruest To perfect conception there is further required an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or lawdable temper of the wombe for those whose wombes are either hot or colde or moyst or dry aboue measure do not conceiue as saith Hippocrates If therefore any of these things be wanting wee cannot hope for a lawfull conception but either there will bee none at all or a depraued and vitious such as is of the Moone-calfe or Mola For Nature rather endeauoureth an imperfect Nature endeuoureth a depraued conception rather then none why and depraued Conception then none at all because she is greedy of propagation and diligent to maintaine the perpetuity of he kindes of things wherefore rather then she will do nothing she will endeuour any thing how imperfect soeuer So when Nature maketh wormes in the stomacke and guts she doth
the Imagination commandeth the forming faculty because the formatiue faculty is but a production of the procreating power which is Naturall but the Imagination is a Principall faculty now what Imagination can doe as well in the conformation as after it we haue touched already to which we will adde these things to make vp the question with Oftentimes the Imagination of that thing is imprinted in the tender Infant which the mother with childe doth ardently desire which is onely to bee imputed to the strength of Why and how the impression is made vpon the infant the fancy For the reall species of a Figge or a Mulbery is not transported to the wombe but onely the spirituall forme or abstracted notion which is sooner fastned vppon the Infant then vpon the wombe because an impression is sooner made in soft waxe then in hard yron Furthermore the manner of this impression Auicen hath expressed in his first Booke De Answere out of Auicen Animalibus where he saith That a strong Imagination doth instantly mooue aery spirites which are mooueable of their owne Nature and in these it setteth the stampe of the thing desired the spirits being mingled with the blood which is the immediate Aliment of the Infant do imprint in it the same figure they receyued from the Imagination But howe the spirits should so suddenly receiue and apprehend the spectra or Images represented by the imagination belongeth to a higher contemplation Our opinion is that as the forming faculty in the heauens of those creatures whose generation is equiuocall is imprinted How the spirits receyue the impressiō of the imagination in the aer after the same maner the formes of the Imagination are insculped or engrauen in the aery spirites As therefore the aer is full of formes as wee shall shew more at large when we come to the Nature of the sight so our spirits which are aery doe easily admit all species or formes of things So the seede by reason of the spirits which wander and gad vp and downe through all the parts of the body dooth containe in it selfe as wee haue shewed already the Idea and images of all the particular parts QVEST. XXI How Twinnes or more Infants are generated THe Immortall God of his Diuine prouidence hath giuen almost to all brute creatures a power to bring foorth many young at once least their kindes should be extinguished for that of themselues they are but short liued Why man engendreth not so many yong as bruit beasts beside serue man for food raiment yea prey also one vpon another Man the most temperate and of longest continuance by the prescript of Nature breedeth but one infant at once or at the most but two because there is but one bosom in the wombe of a woman but two parts thereof the right and the left distinguished only by aline not disscuered by any partition and onely two dugges appointed to nourish two infants which we call Twinnes And if at any time a Woman bring foorth three or more that seemeth to the Philosophers to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vnnaturall Wee haue many Elegant Histories of such manifolde burthens In Egypt where Nylus that fruitfull Riuer runnes women bring sometimes six at a birth Aristotle in his seuenth Booke De Historia animalium affirmeth that one Woman at foure birthes brought into the Histories of manifolde infāts at a birth world twenty al perfect Tragus reporteth that in Egyp it hath been known that a woman hath borne seauen infants at once Albertus telleth a tale of a woman in Germany who hauing two and twenty infants formed in hir wombe suffered abortment and of another who had at once 150. all of them being a bigge as a mans little finger Margaret Countesle of Holland is saide to haue brought foorth at one burthen 364 liuing infants who were all christned but dyed presently after the Males were named Iohn and the Females Elizabeth there remaineth to this day a stately Marble Sepulchre of him in a Monastery in Holland Ther are also many other Histories of such like burthens as these which I willingly pretermit being more willing to spend my time in searching out the causes of them Many of the Ancients referre the cause of Twinnes and manifolde burthens to the variety The cause of Twinnes of the bosomes of the wombe for they make seauen bosomes in the wombe of a Woman which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Cels three in the right side of the VVombe appointed for male children and three in the left appointed for females the seuenth in the midst wherin Hermophradytes are engendred but these are idle conceites next a Kinne to Olde wiues tales For in a womans wombe there is but one bosom as there is but one cauity in the stomacke Is not the variety of Cels. which yet may be diuided into the right side and the left These sides are diseuered by no partition whatsoeuer Auicenna Haliabbas many other Anatomists do auouch as they are in sheepe but onely distinguished by a line which Aristotle calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is A middle Line which word he tooke out of Hippocrates in his Coacae Praenotiones Moreouer But one bosome in a womans wombe that the variety of Celles cannot be the cause of the multiplicity of the burthen that among other things may bee an argument because sometime twenty young ones or more may at once bee conceiued but no man I thinke will say there are so many bosomes in the womb neither yet in other creatures are there so many bosomes as there are yong as appeareth in Fishes who haue an infinit number of spawn yet no partition or distinction between them Erasistratus referreth the cause of Twins to a repetition of conception Empedocles vnto the plenty of seede Ptolomy to the diuerse positions of the Starres The true cause Hippocrates acknowledgeth in his first Booke de Diaeta to be the Diuision of the seede So it was necessarie that the Seede be diuided equally into both sides of the wombe For often times in coition all the seede is not at once eiaculated but by fittes or turnes so saveth 〈…〉 neither doth the seed alwayes issue at once but it boyleth had is eiaculated 〈…〉 or thrice A part therefore of the soed falleth into one side of the womb and another part into another and so Twins are conceiued Asclepiades referreth the cause of Twinnes to the excellency of the seede which if it bee Asclepiades opinion strong is able to make many Infants Auicen addeth as another cause the motion of the wombe which draweth vnto it selfe the seede of a man and disposeth it diuersly bestowing Auicens opinion the parts of the seede in this side and that side of the wombe from whence domes a multiplicity of Conceptions And these are all the cause of Twinnes or many Infants But that their Conception and Conformation may the better bee manifest wee
fit for generation yet is it sufficient to prouoke pleasure VVe acknowledge other causes of this disposition of women and those naturall For the Morall causes of which Lactantius writeth in his book de vero cultu we leaue to diuines The true causes thereof First The first is the scituation and conformation of the wombe for in other creatures when they are great with yong the wombe is nearer the outward parts and therefore more in danger to be violated by the Male whose genitals are of a great length and for the most part of a harder substance But a womans womb is scituated further inward and beyond the mans reach and therefore she beareth him the more easilier Again to beasts the vse of Venus Second is onely giuen for the preseruation of their kinde if therefore they conceiue the finall cause being satisfied their desire of coition is also appeased but man vseth these pleasures not onely to propagate his kind but also to sweeten and mittigate the tedious and irksome labors and cares of his life Poppea the daughter of Agrippa being asked this question why Poppea her accute answere beasts did not copulate after they had conceiued her answer was because they were beastes and truely the answere beside the quicknesse of it was not amisse for it is a prerogatiue which Nature hath giuen to man aboue other creatures but to returne to our question It appeareth therefore that the reason why superfaetation is more ordinary in women then in How superfoetation is all other creatures is because when shee hath conceiued yet shee may desire the society of the Male. Now let vs enquire how this superfaetation may be Most certaine it is that the wombe is so greedy of seede that after Conception it is so contracted that there is no void space left in it and the inward orifice so close shut that nothing can passe into it or issue out of it This Galen teacheth vs in many places and Hippocrates Hippocrates The opinion of some in the 51. Aphorisme of the 5. Section Those that are with child haue the mouth of their wombes closed How therefore can it be that the seede of the Male can ariue into the bosome of the wombe to make a second Conception There haue beene some of the Antients who dreamt that by a wonderfull prouidence of Nature the womb at certaine times did open it selfe to auoyde those things which might otherwise offend it at which times if a woman with child should accompany with a man the wombe might entertaine his seed Consuted and so breede a Superfoetation But I take these to be but idle and addle imaginations For if through the whole course of those nine months the wombe should at certaine times open it self to expell that that is superuacuous why then are the Lochia i those purgations which issue after trauel reteined all the time in the womb Or can the womb at the same time that it auoideth that wherewith it is offended receiue also the seede whereby it is pleased and conceiue the same Rather the seed would so be extinguished Among the late writers there are some who thinke that the wombe is neuer so exquisitly shut but that it may admit seede which their opinion they establish by these Reasons Another opinion of the new writers Reason 1. When women are with child they often auoide their Courses pallid Flegmatick or black which out of question lay lurking in the cauity of the VVombe and therefore the Orifice thereof is not so perfectly shut Againe a woman with childe in coition looseth seede which she perceyueth to yssue from her by her lap which way it could not yssue vnlesse it came thorough the necke from the cauity of the wombe because a woman eiaculateth her seede by the sides into the bottome of her wombe The orifice therefore of the wombe is alwayes open and so hapneth superfoetation the more easily With these arguments they think they haue won the cause Disproued whereas for want of skill in Anatomy they cast a mist ouer Hippocrates Sunshine For that I may answer their first argument It is manifest by this maner of reasoning that they are ignorant The first reason satisfied that there are two veines which disperse their branches through the wombe some of which are carried to the inward cauity thereof by which the infant is nourished others run to the outward part of the wombe euen vnto the necke and the lap it selfe By these all the time of their ingrauidation or in which they go with childe the bloode yssueth and the superfluities of the body are purged without interruption although the inward orifice of the wombe be neuer so closely shut Their latter reason would vrge more The second reason answered but that we finde two passages whereby the womans seede is auoyded The first passage determineth in the hornes or sides of the wombe by which the seede is eiaculated into the bosome of the wombe when a woman is not with childe for it is the shorter and the opener way The other passage was vnknown to the Ancients and to many also of the later Anatomists Two passages of seede but easie to be obserued in Dissection if it be diligently sort for It ioyneth vvith the former but is longer and runneth along the sides of the wombe and the necke and endeth in the lap By this passage we beleeue that women with childe do auoide their seede and therefore do conceyue greater pleasure in their husbands companies because the Seede runneth a longer course through the vessels and beside through the Membranous neck of the wombe both which are of exquisite sense The manner of Superfoetation Hippocrates first of all opened in his Booke de Superfoetatione where hee saith Superfoetation hapneth to those women the mouth of whose wombe after The manner of superfoetation out of Hippocrates their first Conception is not close shut For if at that time a woman do againe accompanie with her husband she will easily receyue his seede and lay it vp in the bosom of the womb from whence commeth a second Conception Now this must be vnderstood of the thirde or fourth day after the first conception for the wombe cannot abide open all the time of Conformation But a Question may be asked whither Superfoetation may happen after the first second Whether superfoetation may be after two or three moneths Answere or third month of the first conception as many men do write and alledge manie examples therefore We answere we thinke it may so happen but very rarely For the wombe may be so enraged that it may open againe and receiue new seede and yet the former conception not be violated if the woman be sound and the infant strong as well because it is firmly tied to the wombe by the mouths of the vesselles as also because as yet it seeketh not to bee enlarged This we sayth Laurentius haue sometimes obserued in
obseruation and our knowledge Notwithstanding I do not thinke fit to transcribe them heere but referre him that desireth satisfaction vnto Aristotle himselfe And thus much shall be sufficient to haue spoken of the infant all the while he is conteyned and contenteth himselfe with the prison of the wombe it remaineth now in the last place that we speake of the birth of the infant QVEST. XXIX Of the Nature and Differences of the birth WE now enter into a vast Sea a huge and enorme Tract when wee vndertake to dispute of the Nature Times and Causes of the birth of Man wherein wee shall meete with many contrary gusts of opinions many vnpassable and thorny wayes How many reciprocall waues in the concertations of the Ancients how many quick sands in the accounts of months and dayes howe many rockes in the search after the causes of things amongst which vnlesse a man bee well steared by reason he must needs set vpon some misaduenture Notwithstanding so necessary and profitable a voyage this is as we will aduenture our selues the Pole we are guided by is fixed truth and the Pilote shall be Hippocrates who as saith Macrobius Coulde neuer deceiue or be deceiued out of his Bookes De Septimestri Octimestripartu De Naturapueri De Principijs de Alimento and De Morbis mulierum will we draw our demonstrations But that we may proceed in order through the whol course of our disputation that the capacities of such as are not throughly grounded may not be confounded we will diuide our Three heads of the questiō discourse into three heads In the first we will open vnto you the Nature of the Birth and all the differences of the same In the second wee will handle the Times of the Birth by a computation of the yeares the months and the dayes In the last place wee will manifest the Causes of the varieties of the Birth as well the Generall as the Particular the Naturall the Physicall the Arithmeticall the Geometricall and the Astrologiall Causes To begin therefore with the first The Birth which the Graecians call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we define to be an Edition or bringing into the world of an infant perfected and absolued in the womb What a byrth is so that whatsoeuer month day or houre the infant arriueth into the worlde that arriuall may properly and truely be called the birth To this perfection wee speake of there is required not onely a dearticulation of the parts for then if a woman should miscarry at foure moneths that miscarriage should be called a Birth but also their strength growth which because the Infant attayneth not before the seauenth moneth we cannot properly call it a What is required to a perfect birth Birth before the seauenth moneth but either an abortment or a miscarrying An abortment the Grecians call by diuerse names 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 VVe therefore define an abortment to be Either the issuing of an imperfect The names of an abortment The definitiō Infant or his extinction and death in the wombe Some there are who will not haue it called an abortment before the infant hath moued so that a woman shall not bee sayed to abort but from the third moneth to the seauenth and that before the motion it shall be called The error of some an effluxion or miscariage But these men seeme to me not to conceiue Hippocrates meaning aright for Hippocrates after the Embryo is formed vseth to cal it an abortment if it come before the due time whether Hippocrates it be before the motion of the Infant or after it As in the 44. Aphorisme of the first Section Those women that are too much extenuated doe abort at two moneths and in the Aphorisme following in the same Section Those that are naturally disposed doe abort at three What an effluxion is moneths But if the Geniture be auoyded before conformation then is it not properly called an abortment but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Effluxion so sayeth Hippocrates in his Booke de septimestri partu Those corruptions which happen a few dayes after the Conception are called effluxions not abortments Aristotle also in the fourth Chapter of his seauenth Booke de Natura Animalinm calleth those corruptions which fall out before perfect conformation Effluxions Hippocrates all excesed Wherefore some say that Hippocrates is not to bee accused of impiety or of breach of his oath because hee counselled the dauncing Dame hee calleth Psaltria to prouoke an abortment because she lost not an Infant but suffered onely an effluxion seauen dayes after shee had conceiued But howsoeuer we in Schooles may distinguish thus nicely yet God iudgeth after another manner as we may perceiue by his iudgement vpon Onan Neither do we by abortment onely vnderstand an exclusion of an imperfect Infant but we say that a woman may His large acceptation of an abortmēt abort in her wombe though the Embryo be not brought away so sayeth Hippocrates in his first Booke de morbis mulierum When a woman aborteth and the Infant is not excluded So that abortment signifieth not onely an exclusion of the Infant before the due time but also the extinction or death of the same in the wombe before the due time of birth For an Infant may be carried in the wombe after he is dead many yeares as may bee proued by many examples Among the rest that is notable of the Infant which the mother bare in her body 28. yeares which was turned into a stone as it is recorded by Iohannes Albosius a learned Two strange stories Physitian Likewise that about Newarke not many yeares since which after it dyed in the mothers wombe remayned there a good space and after was vomited vp by peece-meale out of the stomacke a Story past all beleefe sauing that it hath so many eye-witnesses yet Octimestris partus is not an abortment liuing and ready to iustifie the trueth of it Thus we see out of Hippocrates what is a Birth what an Abortment and what an Effluxion Birth is when an Infant perfected in the wombe commeth into the world whether it issue aliue or dead So that they are in no small error who call the Infant of eight moneths old an abortment because it is not aliue for it is not simply and absolutely of the essence of the birth that the Infant should be borne aliue but that it should be borne perfect now at eight moneths it is perfect To be aliue or not aliue to be legitimate or not ligitimate are differences of the Birth as wee shall say by and by An abortment is an exclusion or extinction of an vnperfect infant an Effluxion or miscariage is an auoyding of the geniture before perfect conformation Hauing thus made plaine the Nature of the birth wee
Some of the Interpreters that they might auoide these snares haue disallowed of his Booke de Septimestri partu as if it were not Hippocrates owne at least they boldly affirme that this place is corrupted But wee on the other side are as confident that it is truly Hippocraticall That Hippoc. Booke de Sept. partu is legitimate For not onely Galen Commented vpon it a few fragments of whose labour remaine to this day but also the Lawyers of that time vvhen Learning did most flourish at â—ome and Athens did translate this very sentence according as we at this day read it into the number of their Sanctions Wherefore these diuers not contrary places concerning the number of dayes we will thus reconcile The Latitude of the seauenth month is very great neither is the seauenth-moneth birth Hip. interpreted alwayes brought into the world in one and the same day There is a seauenth moneth beginning and a seauenth month perfected The Beginning consisteth of a hundred eighty daies a part the perfection consisteth of two hundred ten dayes Before an hundred eighty two dayes no infant suruiueth so that this is the first limit of the seauenth moneth After two hundred and ten daies it is no more called a seuenth-month but an eight-month birth The first births in the beginning of the seauenth moneth are indeede vitall yet verie languid and weake the latter are very strong Wherefore Hippocrates in the places before quoted expressed onely the two extreame times of the seauenth-month birth that is to say the first and the last The middle times he maketh no mention of as of two hundred foure daies because they are sufficiently knowne by the nature of that extreame vnto The vtmost time of the seuen-month birth which they approach the neerest And this is not my interpretation of Hippocrates but Hippocrates owne For as in his Booke de Octimestripartu he calleth those Decimestres not onely who accomplish ten whole months but also that reach a few dayes within the tenth month So those are called Septimestres who beside six full months do attaine some dayes of the seauenth And yet more plainly in his Book de Alimento after he hath described the Septimestres Octimesters Nonimestres and Decimestres partus at length he breaketh out into these words In these months are begotten or rather breede more and fewer according vnto the whole and the parts that is either in a part of the moneth or in the whole and full moneth And in his Booke de Septimestri partu he saith that the fiue months which come between the first and the seuenth must be numbred whole but the first and the seuenth it skilleth not much though they be imperfect So in the computation of the Critical dayes those daies which go before the Crisis must be accompted whole but the Criticall day it selfe wherein Nature endeauoureth the Crisis hath a great latitude for a Crisis yea a happy and prosperous one may fal out in the beginning The intermediate daies months are onely perfect in the middest or in the end of the seauenth or the fourteenth daies wherefore those months which go before the birth must be al accompted whol excepting the first againe the very month of the birth which is of the same nature for accompt with the Criticall day hath two extreames and many intermediate times In any of which if the infant be borne he may suruiue And thus I thinke you may cleare your selfe out of the Thornie and intricate passages of months and dayes in the Computation of the legitimate or illegitimate times of the birth QVEST. XXXI What are the vniuersall and particular Causes of the Birth DEmocritus a great Philosopher of his time complaineth that the truth is drowned in a deepe well The Pyrronij or Scepticke Philosophers thinke that all Democritus The Septickes Aristotle things are vncertaine and that nothing can be determinately knowne Aristotle the Father of the Schoole of Philosophers saith that the certaine and Naturall causes of all things naturall are onely knowne to Philosophers which before Philosophy it selfe was borne our admired maister Hippocrates in his Booke de Aere aquis locis hath thus expressed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nothing in Nature is done vvithout Hippocrates Nature that is without a naturall cause These causes if any man with Heraclitus shal deny he shall not onely entangle himselfe in a thousand Labyrinths of absurdities but also for feite Heraclitus all knowledge and assured demonstration for to know saith the Philosopher is to vnderstand the Causes of things Seeing therefore the birth is a naturall action and that the times therof are very different it shal not be amisse a little in this place to enlarge our selues in the disquisition of the causes thereof The Causes therefore of the birth are some of them vniuersall others particular The vniuersall causes are common not onely to man but also to al creatures and some of then The vniuersal causes of the birth are on the part of the birth others on the part of the Matrix or woombe because the byrth proceedeth from an equall contention of the birth and the bearer The Cause on the part of the birth Hippocrates in his Booke de Natura pueri elegantly expresseth to be the defect of both sorts of aliment Spirituous and Solid on this manner When the Infant becommeth larger and stronger the Mother cannot supply it with fit and sufficient Aliment which while it seeketh with often kicking it breaketh the Membranes and being vnloosed from those bandes yssueth foorth On the partof the infant The Mola or Moone calfe may be carried in the womb many yeares because it is neither nourished nor doth transpire wherefore desiring neither Aliment nor ayre it is stil retayned Why the Mola and many monsters lie long in the womb There are ingendred oftentimes in the wombes of women Monsters and Creatures of diuers kindes as Serpents and Mould-warps which because they haue little bloud haue also little heate and being contented with transpiration alone doe lurke many yeares in the corners of the wombe neither would euer issue of their owne accorde vnlesse they were driuen forth either by the contention of the wombe or by the helpe of the Physitian The want therefore of nourishment is the first cause of the birth There is also another vniuersall cause on the part of the wombe for the wombe hauing The vniuersal cause of the birth on the part of the wombe Hippocratci a determinate quantity magnitude beyond which it cannot be extended when once vpon the increase of the Infant it is come to that extent it laboureth to lay downe the burthen wherby it is oppressed and according hereto Hippocrates saith in his first book de morbis mulierum that abortments do happen when the wombe is too little that is when the Infant is so encreased that it can be no longer contayned in the wombe The
Right measureth both it selfe and that which is crooked so in our Art he that knowes what should bee the naturall disposition of euerie part will be best able to iudge when Nature declineth from that integrity and how far the declination is from the true and genuine constitution This part indeede is Philosophicall but I shall make it so plaine if God will that a very reasonable capacity shall be able to apprehend it After you haue knowledge of the healthfull and sound constitution which is the rule of the rest I teach the Natures Differences Signes and Prognosticks of diseases so farre as it necessarie a Chyrurgeon should know that is to say of Tumours or Apostemations of Woundes Vlcers Fractures and the like Then followeth the Method of Curing by Indications which are many and intricate but I haue referred them not without great labour to outward diseases and illustrated all by examples to make the better impression in your minds In the next place I handle the Operations of Chyrurgery in generall where you haue all the Instruments of your Art Engines Swathes Ties Bands and Ligatures described by Hippocrates Galen Oribasius and those also of the new Chyrurgeons inuentions with their Figures interpretations and manner of application Afterward I descend to the operations in particular as to Diuision Simple Compound Simple in Section Vstion Compound with Extraction and Extirpation To Iunction also Simple and Compound Simple in Adduction Adaptation and the way how to Conteine them so fitted together Compound with Addition of such decayed Naturall parts as may bee restored or imitated by Art Then I come to the cure of Tumors of all kindes both Simple and Compound of Wounds whether they bee made Caesim or punctim by Contusion by Arrowes Engines or Bullets with Laceration or with out of the bytings or stinging of venomous Creatures with their seuerall Antidotes of burnings scaldings and such like Next I proceed to Vlcers putride sordide sistulated cancerous gangrenated sphacelated and such as are virulent with the Accidents that vse to accompany them to Luxations also and Fractures with their kinds and accidents Afterward I handle those generall diseases which belong to the whole body as the Gowt the Leprosie the Meazels the Pox of both kindes the Plague and such like and then proceede to the particular diseases from the Head to the Foote wherein the Chirurgeons helpe is required Finally I intreat of the Matter of Chyrurgery that is of the Nature of those Drugs Hearbs and Minerals which he hath neede to vse of their correction and preparation of the manner of compounding his Medicines both for outward applications and such inward as may conduce thereuuto And so I thinke I shall haue finished the Art of Chyrurgery throughout I acknowledge that which I haue promised to be a great labor and more then any man whom I haue yet seene hath accomplished but the ground being long a goe laide in my priuate studies and reserences continually now for these sixteene yeares accommodated vnto those groundes haue brought it to such forwardnesse as I can be content to finish it with as much hast as my occasions will giue leaue if I see that this Anatomicall labour is acceptable and of vse vnto you I know well there are some who thinke and do not stitke to affirme euen before your publique Assemblies that you haue meanes enow already haply more then they would you had Their reason can be no other but because they would holde you alwayes abnoxious to themselues For my part I conceiue of the Art of Chyrurgery as of a part of Physick and therefore of Chyrurgeons as Citizens of the Physitians Commonwealth the difference is that wee hauing most-what better meanes by education to aduantage our wittes apply them vnto the more abstruse part of the Art separated from the sense and consisting in contemplation and collection the Chyrurgeon worketh by his eye and with his hand and dwelleth as it were in the Confines of that Countrey whose inner part we inhabit If therefore they warrant the frontiers and keepe their Stations well and duly therein may not we better attend to improoue the portion that is allotted vnto vs But wee are both like couetous Farmers who incroach vppon and get more grounds into their hands then they can well manage for getting that wholesome counsel of the wise Poet Laudato ingentia rura Exiguum colito Praise a great Farme but occupy a small For surely if we aduise well with our selues Physitians shall find work enough though they meddle not with the labour of the hand to minde the subiect of their Art I mean Anatomy wherein too many of vs are wanting to our selues and others the causes of diseases the signes of the part affected the skill of praediction the method of curing and the choise of Medicines with a world of intricate worke beside in apprehending occasions expecting and imitating the motions and endeauors of Nature remoouing her obstacles strengthning her operations the like And if we want imployment in these it seemeth to me more fit to fit our selues thereunto then casting behinde our backes the care of such needfull studies to take vp our precious time in dressing or attending broken heads strained or luxed ioynts new wounds or old Vlcers or in playing the Apothe caries as some do who vnder the name of Cordials of x. li. an ounce Potable Golde precious Quintessences and preparations of Minerals do obtrude vpon the worlde either notable impostures or dangerous poysons ayming indeede at nothing so much if at any thing else as at their priuate gaine and the concealing of their ignorance which would necessarily be detected if they should communicate their practise to Apothecaries as other ingenuous Physitians doe But of these I haue spoken more largely in an Animaduersion vpon Crolius his Admonitory preface in Latine and shall haue fitter occasion to speake more elswhere when I shall be very plaine against those that come in my way To returne whence I haue digressed Hippocrates the Father and Author of Physicke the true paterne of ingenuity put that for one clause in the Oath which himselfe solemnly tooke and which he would haue all Physitians take that they should not cut any man for the Stone but leaue that worke for them that accustome themselues to performe it by that one instance according to his custome interdicting a Physitian all manuary labour as knowing he should finde worke enough to fit his minde for greater difficulties On the other side the Chyrurgean should content himselfe with the limits of his profession and not vsurpe vppon the possession of the Physitian which he doth somtimes indeede for his profit but seldome without the detriment of the patient especially if there be any difficulty in the businesse I do not deny but that a Chyrurgeon yea a Diuine or Gentleman if he lay good foundations and build therafter vpon them may be a Physitian as well and as good as the
and being infused into the body from heauen whilst she is building of Of this vpright frame the efficient cause is two-fold Primary Secondary her selfe a mansion fit for such functions and offices as shee hath to performe as mindfull of her owne Originall lifteth her building vp on high The Secondary efficient of mans bodie is heate wherewith man aboue other creatures aboundeth especially the parts about his heart The Nature therefore of heate preuailing forceth the increment or growth vp from the middle part according to his impetuous strength and nimble agility that is it striueth and driueth toward that part of the world toward which heate is naturally mooued that is to say vpwards For the matter of mans body it is soft pliable and temperate readie to The material cause follow the Workeman in euery thing and to euery purpose for man is the moystest and most sanguine of all Creatures The finall cause of the frame of mans body is manifolde The finall cause three-fold First Anaxagoras Second First man had an vpright frame proportion that he might behold and meditate on heauenly things And for this cause Anaxagoras being asked wherefore he was born he made answere to behold the heauens and the Starres Secondly that the functions and offices of the outward sences which are all placed as it were a guard in pension in the pallace of the head and in the view and presence Chamber of Reason which is their soueraigne might in a more excellent manner be exercised and put in practise for they were not ordained onely to auoide that which is hurtfull and to followe and prosecute that which is profitable but moreouer also for contemplation and therefore they were to be placed in the highest contabulation or Story of the body And by this meanes speech which is the messenger of the minde is the better heard from on high the Smell doth more commodiously receyue and entertaine the vapor that ascendeth the Eyes being as it were spies or Centinels day and night to keepe warch for vs being beside giuen vs that we should take view of those infinite Distances and glorious bodies in them which are ouer our heads did therefore require an vpright frame and composition of the body Finally to conclude this point man onely had an vpright frame of bodie because hee Third alone amongst all Creatures had the Hand giuen him by God an Organ or Instrument before all organs and indeede in stead of all Now if the figure of man had been made with his face downward that Diuine Creature should haue gone groueling vpon his handes as well as vpon his feete and those worthy and noble actions of his Hand had been forfeited or at least disparaged For who can write ride liue in a ciuill and sociable life erect Altars vnto God builde shippes for warre or trafficke throwe all manner of Darts and practise other infinite sorts of excellent Artes eyther groueling with his face downward or sprawling on his backe with his face vpward Wherefore onely man had the frame of his body erected vpward towards heauen For this cause also onely man amongst all other creatures was framed according to the Man alone framed according to the fashion of the whole world fashion of the whole vniuerse because he hath his parts distinct the vpper the neather the fore the backe parts those on the right hand and those on the left hand the rest of the Creatures either haue them not at al or very confused The right parts and the left are altogether alike sauing that the left are the weaker but the fore parts are very vnlike the back parts the lower in some sort carrie a resemblance of the vpper And so much of the figure Man hath likewise a moderate temper and is indeed the most temperate of all bodies as being the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 measure and rule of all others The bodies of other Creatures are either The excellency of the body is likewise set forth in the temperature It is the middle of the whole kinde Man alone hath in himselfe the temperature of al liuing things too Earthy or too Watery but to Mans the temperature of all things liuing both plants and Creatures is referred as to the Medium generis as we vse to say that is to the middle of the vvhole kind so that they are sayde to bee hot colde moyst and drie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is according to reference their temperature being compared with Mans. Againe Man alone hath encluded in himselfe the temperature of all liuing things all other creatures are in their seuerall kindes for the most part of one and the same temper But if you looke vnto mankinde you shall finde manie that haue the stomacke of an Estrich Others that haue the heart of a Lyon Some are of the temper of a Dogge many of a Hog and an infinite number of as dull and blockish a temper as an Asse Moreouer this also declareth the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or absolute temper of mans bodie that it is subiect to many diseases and is equally endamaged as well by one extreme as by another because it is equally distant from both extreames There might indeede of the heauenly Why the body of Man was not made of an heauenly matter but of an elementary matter being the most noble haue beene made a body most noble also but it was of necessity it should be made of sublunarie and elementary matter that it might bee capeable and apprehensiue of the seuerall species and formes of things which mooue the sences because from them all our knowledge is deriued For man being borne to vnderstand hee that vnderstandeth must apprehend those visions and fantasies which are obiected eyther to the inward or outward sence and that there is no perception of any such vision or immagination but by the ministry of the outwarde sences which are the intelligencers betweene the body and the soule it was necessary that the body of man should be composed of such a matter as might bee capeable of these sences but of all sences the foundation is Touching which hath his essence and being in the temper and moderation of the four first qualities whence it is that the foure first substances wherein those qualities do reside were necessarily to be the matter of the body and those are the foure Elements And so much of the temperature of mans bodie Now the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or due proportion composition or correspondency of the parts of mans body with respect each to other and of them all to the whole is admirable This 3. the admirable proportiō of the parts alone for a patterne do all workemen and Arts-maisters set before them to this as to Polycletus rule do the Surueighers Maister Carpenters and Masons referre all their plottes and proiects they builde Temples Houses Engines shipping forts yea and the Arke of Noah as it is recorded was framed after
the question wherin Galen is interpreted of Galens Philosophy It is true that he acknowledgeth in euery perfect organ one similar particle which is the principall cause of the action but yet hee neuer meant to referre the cause of the perfect action onely to the temper of that particle so hee acknowledgeth the temper of the Christalline humor to be the efficient cause of vision or sight together with his purity smoothnesse and scituation which are all organicall For if the position of the Christalline humor be changed if it be drowned too deep in the glassy humour although What we must resolue vpon according to Galen the temper of it remaine neuerso exquisite yet the vision cannot bee perfect In a word therefore I answere that the originall of the action dependeth vpon the similar part and his temper but the perfection of the action followeth the frame of the whole organ And this Galen teacheth in the sixt chapter of his book de differentijs morborum and in his book de optima corpor is constitutione where he willeth and resolueth that the actions doe first of all and originally issue from the similar particles but their accomplishment and perfection dependeth vpon the frame of the whole organ Whether the Spermaticall parts be generated of seede QVEST. VII MAuing thus handled the distinction of the parts the natures of them all it remayneth that we entreat of those parts which are called Spermaticall Three questions concerning spermatical parts concerning which there are three questions among the rest most notable Whether they be immediately made of the seede whether they can grow together againe or bee restored and whether they bee hotter then the sanguine or bloudy parts or no all which we will dispute in order The first question is hard The first question to be determined and therefore we must be constrayned to take our rise a little higher for that the nature of seede which is intangled in many folds of difficulties must first be vnfolded notwithstanding because wee shall haue fitter oportunity in the booke of the generation of man to search more narrowly into the mysteries of this secret wee will content our selues in this place briefly to run ouer those things which shal most concerne the matter we haue in hand It is agreed vpon betweene the Physitians and the Peripatecians that seede is a Principle of generation But the Philosophers doe acknowledge it onely to be a formall and efficient Principle the Physitians both a formall and a materiall formall by reason of his spirits materiall by reason of his body The Physitians therefore doe determine that the The Peripateticks thinke that all the parts are generated of bloud The first reason spermaticall parts are generated out of the crassament or thicke substance of the seede the Peripateticks onely out of the bloud This latter opinion is not without his patrons and abettors and beside supporteth it selfe by these arguments If the Spermaticall parts were made of the seede as of a materiall principle then the actiue and the passiue the act and the power the mouer and that which is moued the matter and the forme the maker and the thing made should be the same which true and solid Philosophy will not admit Againe according to Aristotle in the second booke of his Physickes the Artizane is neuer a part of his owne workmanship the seede is the artizane Galen calleth it Phidias who was The second Aristotle Phidias the Statuary an excellent Statuarie and made among other peeces Mineruas statue of Iuory 26. cubits high c. And in the 20. chapter of the first book de generatione Animalium The seed is no part of the Infant that is made sayth the Philosopher no more then the Carpenter is a part of the woode which hee heweth neyther is there any part of the art of the artificer in that which is effected but onely by his labour through motion there ariseth in the matter a forme and a shape Moreouer it is an axiome of Physicke That wee are nourished by An axiome in Phisicke The third those things whereof we are formed framed and do consist but all the parts of man are nourished with blood and therefore they are all generated of blood also Furthermore if the principall parts the Heart and the Liuer bee made of blood for their substance is fleshy and Hippocrates calleth them both fleshy Entrals why is it not so The fourth Hippocrates with the other parts which al men admit and consent to be made and perfected after them Adde heereto that if the seede of the Male be both the efficient and the matter of the Infant The fift there is no reason but the male may alone beget an infant in himselfe shall the Nature of the seede be idle and at rest which all Philosophers with one consent doe agree is alwayes actiue and operatiue Finally is it possible that so small a moment of seede as ordinarily The sixt sufficeth for the generation of Man should bee sufficient for the delineation of so many hundreds nay thousands of Bones Gristles Ligaments Arteries Nerues Veynes Membranes c Wherefore the seede hath not the nature of a materiall but onely of an efficient cause of mans generation There are aâ—so two places in Galen which seeme to fauour the opinion of the Peripatetikes The first is in the second Booke De Naturalibus Facultatibus where hee sayth The Seede is an â—ffectiue Principle of the Creature for the materiall is the Menstruall Blood The other in the third Chapter of the same Booke where he speaketh verie plainly There is great difference saith he betweene the workemanship of Phydias and of Nature For Phydias of waxe can neuer make Iuory and Gold but Nature keepeth not the olde forme of any matter generating of bloud bloudlesse parts As for example Bones Gristles Nerues Veines Arteries all bloudlesse yet made of bloud But the trueth is that Galen was of another minde to wit that all the Spermaticall parts were made of seede as appeareth in his Bookes de Semine where hee inueyeth purposely The contrarie opinion of the Physitians Authorities of 〈◊〉 against Aristotle concerning this matter teaching that the seede is both the efficient and the materiall cause of their generation The efficient in respect of the Spirites the matter in respect of the Crassament of it And indeede that admirable and vnimitable ingenie or discourse of Hippocrates did first bring this light into the worlde as appeareth in his Bookes De Natura pueri de Principijs and the fourth De Morbis And Aristotle himselfe is constrained to confesse as much in the first Booke of his Physickes and in his Aristotle Bookes De gener Animalium where he sayth that some parts are made onely of an Alimentarie excrement some of an Alimentarie and a Seminall together Besides not to stand vpon authorities wee haue waight of Reason to prooue it The seede of
wyre receyueth that proportion whereof the hole is where through it is drawne The manner of the out-gate of this matter is thus When by the continuall appulsion or arriuall of such vapour to the skin the pores are plenarily obstructed then the next vapour A sâ—t Compaâ—â—on that striueth to be at liberty smiteth the former which by reason of the straitnesse of the passage is driuen out into the forme of a cord He that would see an expresse image of this manner of production let him resort to a Glasier when he extendeth his mettall into the guttered lead wherein he fastneth his glasse and he shall perceiue how the artist hath made an engine whereby an inch of lead is driuen out into a foote of length It was necessary therefore sayth Hippocrates in his booke de carnibus that this sooty excrement should haue Hippocrates a clammy or glewy substance yet without any fatnesse or greasinesse at all Wherefore wheresoeuer in the body especially in the outward parts there gathereth together any such glewy or clammy excrement there the naturall heat bringeth forth haires and this is the cause why in the arme-holes and about the priuy parts yea and in all the rest of the body haires growe plentifully Now that part of the haire that is impacted in the pores of the Comparison skinne may fittely bee resembled to the roote of an hearbe sticking in the ground and that which beareth out of the skin to the hearbe it selfe There is also required a conuenient place as a foundation wherein the rootes of the The conueniency of the place for hayres haires may be established and that is the skinne which of all other parts is fittest for their breading sayth Galen in his first chapter of the second booke de Temperamentis because it is neither too dry nor too moyst for as neither in Marrish and Fenny ground nor in one that is ouer dry and worne out of heart can any thing bee brought forth so in an ouer moyst or ouer dry skin no haire can grow For though the skin be accounted dry yet in a man it is not without some moysture as it is in those creatures which are couered ouer with a stony or crusty shell as Oysters Lobsters Crabs and such like and in such as lurke A dry skin admitteth not hayres Nor a sort in dennes as Snakes and those that haue scales as Fishes in all which haire cannot grow because their skinnes are truely and altogether dry Moreouer the skin ought not to be too soft and moyst like Cheese new curded for then it would not holde the rootes of the hayre because of his thinnes and beside after the pores were as it were bored by the excrement they would fall together again the parts being so fluid that they would run into one another and bee exquisitely reunited But moderately dry to hold the haire to his roote But moderatly dry thin and moderately hard not vnlike a cheese already well gathered and somewhat pressed for so it would bee better thrilled and perforated by the issuing humour which perforations also would remaine the dry body not suffering the parts to reunite but to consist and so by the continuall exiture of the matter the pores would bee more fistulated It must also be slack and thinne Wherefore considering the whole skin is full of pores whereout somthing is continually breathed by the naturall heate which disperseth attenuateth and carrieth away with it selfe no small part of the inward moysture it followeth that in all parts of the body the haires may issue forth euery pore hauing a haire in it to keepe it open for the better breathing or thrusting out of exhalations yet we must except the skin of the palms and soales of the hands feet because as some say in theÌ„ there is a large Tendon immediatly vnder the skin which being exceeding thicke and dry makes it vncapable of haires but I cannot admitte of that reason seeing a Hare hath also that broad tendon and yet Why there is no haue in the palmes soales Why haires grow not vppon scars 2. kinds of haires Arist 3. hist Animal 11. Congeniti hath not those parts voyde of haire Therefore wee say that nature hath made those partes hairelesse both for vse that they might be the more sensible as also for motion Now that the thinnes of the skin is required for the production of haires it appeareth by the example of scarres for if you raise a blister by scortching the vpper skin or cuticle after it is healed and the vpper skin is growne thicke no haire will rise out of the scarre because it hath no pores in it The haires be of two kinds some are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is congeniti bred with vs as the haire of the head of the eye-browes of the eye-lids These are bred in the child while it is yet in the wombe and are resembled not vnto hearbes that grow by sowing but vnto such plants as nature bringeth forth of her owne accord and such do not necessarily follow the temperature of the body Other haires are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is postgeniti bred after the skin is growne thin Postgeniti which hapneth in Boyes when they beginne to breed seede in Girles when their monthly courses begin to flow these come out in three places answerable to the three places where nature bringeth forth the former kinde First about the priuities secondly vnder the arme holes thirdly in the chin and cheekes Those that are gelded before the age of foureteen How the haires fall in such as are gelded yeares haue no haires growing on their chinne the reason is because the wayes of the seede are not opened and by castration are after intercepted and therefore the skinne doth not rarifie if after those haires be growne the Testicles be taken away those haires also fall excepting in the groyne Againe in women those hayres which wee called postgeniti doe arise later neuer in the chinne because there is not so great agitation of the humor in the act of generation in women as can rarifie the skin so farre from the place where the seed is engendred and yet wee see that in some women after their Courses are staide Why women haue no berds the haire begins to bud on their chins It may also fall out that both men and women may be without any of the postgeniti by some naturall desect contracted in their generation The forme of the haires is expressed by certaine accidents for they do vary in thickenesse and thinnesse hardnesse and softnesse length and shortnesse streightnesse and curlednesse The formes of the haires and the causes of them al. Their colours multitude or scarsity as also according to the quality of the skin and the naturall propriety or condition of the parts in which they are fixed Moreouer they differ in colours whitenesse and blacknesse and middle colours betweene
before mentioned are alike for they all sucke vp the superfluities of the whole body For the Solution of this Question we say there are two kindes of Glandules for which The solution of the questiō Galen we haue Galen our Author in his second Chapter of the sixteenth Book of the vse of parts There are some Glandules which are ordained onely to establish and vnder-prop the Vessels or to receiue superfluous humors or to water and moysten the parts There are others Two kindes which are prouided by Nature for the generation of certaine iuices or humors which are profitable for the creature The former haue neyther Veines nor Arteries nor sinnewes these latter haue very conspicuous vessels and are of exquisite sense The former are properly called Glandules the latter may better be stiled Glandulous bodies So the Testicles Galen Hippocrates and the Kidneyes by Galen are called Glandulous bodies and Hippocrates in his Booke de Glandulis saith that the braine it selfe in respect of his substance is glandulous The former are onely of some vse the latter affoord both vse and action amongst which wee conclude the dugs or breasts to be And whereas Hippocrates saide that these dugs doe receiue or sucke vp an excrementitious humor Hippocrates expounded we vnderstand that this is not there primary or chiefe and maine vse but onely secondary for Nature often abuseth one and the same part to diuers vses so the braine in The braine Glandulous manner of a Glasse-still or Cucurbita doth draw and sucke vp the expirations of the lovver parts and yet notwithstanding there is another and more diuine vse of the braine So nature often abuseth the guts for the expurgation and vnburdening of the whole body wheras they were Originally ordained for another purpose to wit for distribution of the Chylus The Breasts therefore or Paps haue a proper action and vse Their action is the generation The primarie vse of the breasts of Milke which is performed by a moderate and equall coction or boyling Their vses are either primary or secondary The primary vse Galen saith is for generation of milk but Aristotle would haue them ordained for the defence of the heart the most noble of all Galen Aristotle the bowels and I thinke he was mislled with this argument because men had breastes and yet did not ingender milke Wee with Galen do determine that these glandulous bodyes Galen compassed with fat and wouen with many thousand vessels were first and originally ordained for Milke and are not alike in men and women And yet I conceiue that they were scituated in the breast rather to add strength to the noble parts conteined vnder them then for the generation of Milke For in most creatures they make Milke not in the brests but in other parts You shall therefore reconcile Galen and Aristotle if you say that the Dugges were created originally for the generation of Milke and secondarily for the strengthning defence Galen and Aristotle reconciled of the heart And againe that the originall cause of their scituation in the breast was for the defence of the heart and the secondary for the generation of milke QVEST. XXIII Whether Milke can be generated before conception IT was disputed of old and is yet a question amongst the multitude whether Milke can be engendred in a womans breasts before she haue had the company of man and conceyued And this doubt is occasioned by some different places in Hippocrates and Aristotle Hippocrates in his first Booke de Morbis mulierum inquiring after the signes of the Mola or Moon-calfe reckoneth this as one of the principall When in the Brests there is no Milke Hippocrates Aristotle engendred And therefore the generation of Milke is according vnto Hippocrates a certaine signe of conception Aristotle in his Bookes de Historia Animal confirmeth the same where hee sayth That no Creature engendereth Milke before the womb be filled And reason seemeth to consent with their authority For if nature do neuer endeuour any thing rashly but all things for her proper end what neede is there of Milke before the infant be perfected it beeing onely ordained for the nourishment thereof Notstanding Hippocrates in his Aphorismes seemeth to be of a contrarie minde If a woman saith he which is neither big with childe nor hath yet conceyued haue milke in her brests it is Hippocrates Aristotle Albertus Auicen a signe that her courses are stopped And Aristotle in his Bookes de Historia Animal affirmeth that Milke may be bred in the brests or dugs of men which also Albertus and Auicen do witnesse Hieronimus Cardanus in his Bookes de subilitate saith that hee saw a man about thirtie A Storie out of Cardanus foure yeares old out of whose breastes so great a quantity of Milke did flow that it was almost The men of America haue milk in their breasts sufficient to nourish a childe They that haue trauailed into the new world do report that almost all the men haue great quantity of Milke in their breasts If therefore men doe breede Milke much more Virgins and Women before they doe conceiue For their Dugs are more rare and large and beside they haue a greater aboundance of superfluous bloud Reason also fauoureth this opinion for where the materiall Reasons cause of Milke is present and the strength of the efficient not wanting what should hinder the generation thereof Now in Virgines that bee of ripe yeares the veines of the Chest which water the Dugges haue great aboundance of bloud they haue also the strength of the glandules to alter and to boyle it for after the fourteenth yeare The Dugges sayth Hippocrates Hippocrates doe swell and the Nipples strut and young wenches are then sayd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is fratrare to grow together like twinnes Wherefore Milke may sometimes be bredde in such women especially whose courses be stopt as Hippocrates writeth But these disagreeing places A reconciliatiō out of Hip Two kinds of milke according to Hip. of Hippocrates it will not bee hard to reconcile out of Hippocrates himselfe There is a double generation of Milke according to Hippocrates and a double nature thereof One kinde of Milke is true and laudable another not true nor perfectly boyled The former is made by a great alteration and true concoction of the breastes and that not priuate but officiall the latter ariseth of a remainder of the proper nourishment of the breasts the first is perfectly white sweete and moderately thicke and fitte to suckle an Infant this other is white indeed because it beareth the colour and forme of the part from whence it floweth but it hath neither the true nature of a nourishing Chymus or humour nor the sweetnes nor the power or vigour of nourishment and therefore it deserueth the name of Milke not by his quality or specificiall forme but onely for his colour for it is thinne and waterish altogether
very notable which ascendeth vnder the share-bone through the middle bifurcation to the coate of the yarde and from thence runneth diuersly dispersed to his muscles and to his whole body togither with the arteries through his back as farre as to the Nut or glans to giue it a more exact sence especially the Nut where it is of most vse to stirre vp pleasure in the act of generation In Ganglia what they are these Nerues hapneth that tumor which we call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is a knotty tumor of a sinew resisting the finger that presseth it yet not dolorous which ganglia here are the cause that when the yarde is erected stiffe like a Rams horne a Falopius speaketh it is not distended beyond his ordinary magnitude but onely groweth full and turgid Finally the vpper part of the yarde is carnous or fleshy table 4. figure 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 7. 9. D The glans or nu of the yarde and looketh alwaies as if it were swollen and indeede it hath a greater compasse then any part of the whole trunke as Archangelus calleth it of his body that like the bottome of a glasse Still or cupping glasse it might gather more heate vnto it selfe then any other part It is equall smooth and turbinated that is broad at the basis or bottom and growing smaller His figure yet keeping his roundnes euen to the top much like a Turkes cap or turbant and it is called glans or the Nut of the yarde and it is girt with a circle like a crowne It is very soft that it might not offend the wombe somewhat acuminated or sharpned also at the top the better to fit it for the orifice of the matrixe of exquisite sence it is that in the attrition and Substance motion together with the intention of the imagination which is most powerfull in both sexes in the matter of procreation the seede might be more plentifully eiaculated It is couered with a fine membrane produced from that membrane which wee sayed before His mēbrane did encompasse the pipe or Canale and it groweth not vnlike to a mushrum vppon the heads of the two bodies of the yarde It is as we sayed of a spongy substance which yet is not hollow within but somewhat more solid and firme then other ordinary spongy bodies But that it might be kept smooth soft and glib it hath a couering which ariseth from The prepuce or fore-skin the skinne of the yarde brought forward and againe reflected or returned which the Grecians call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Galen in his 15. Booke of the vse of Parts calleth it Cutis epiphysin in Latin praeputium we cal it the fore-skin that part which hangeth ouer the end is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because in coition it is mooued vp and downe that in this attrition it might gather more heate and increase the pleasure of the other sexe Some say it was ordained for ornament also and not without good reason because vpon the more dishonest part God Nature or rather the God of Nature hath put the more honour that is the more couering This fore-skinne in the end of it is sometimes so contracted or drawne together that it cannot be drawne backe nor the Nut discouered without the helpe of a Chyrurgion But when the Nutte is vncouered that it may recouer his couer againe this prepuce is tyed in the lower part with a membranous band or tie which the greekes call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vinculum caninum the Latines frenum in English the bridle Archangelus calleth it a Ligament others will haue it to be made of the extremities or ends of the sinewes and this is it which bridleth or reyneth vp the fore-skinne on the lower side to the toppe of the Nut. It also furthereth the prosusion of seede communicating by the Canale motion and heate to the prostate glandules which conteine the seede ready for eiaculation For oftentimes in lustfull disports or imaginations if this bridle be but lightly moued the seede will incontinently issue foorth euen as after a full meale if a man but touch the end of his throate with his finger the stomacke by reason of the continuity of the parts contracteth it selfe and returneth the crapula or vndigested gobbets into the lap by vomit In the middest of this Nut is a passage or hole through which both the seede and the vrine is powred foorth for it compasseth the common Canale at which place it is larger but presently is contracted againe that the seede hauing there a kinde of momentanie stay or stop might procure more pleasure in this part Wherefore those that labour of the gonorrhaea caused by the acrimony of rotten seed heaped vp in this large place are here tortured with vlcers The vse of it The vse of the Yard is as hath beene saide in the particular parts thereof onely wee will add that the auoiding of vrine was not the cause of the making of this member For we see women make water without it but for procreation Euen as Nature hath ordayned the nose for smelling yet shee vseth it secondarily for purging the mucous excrements of the braine So vpon a second intention this member serueth to deriue away the vrine wherewith otherwise we should lightly defile our selues And thus much shall suffice for the parts of Generation in men wherein I haue bin indeed as particular as the Anatomicall History did require but yet withall hope I shall finde pardon because the Reader may perceiue at least if he haue any knowledge that I haue pretermitted many secrets of Nature which I could and would heere haue somewhat insisted vpon if I had imagined that all into whose hands this worke should come had bin competent and fit Auditors for such kinde of Philosophy CHAP. IX Of the proportion of these parts both in Men and Women IT was the opinion of Galen in his 14. Booke de vsu partium and the 11. Chapter that women had all those parts belonging to generation which men haue although in these they appeare outward at the Perinaeum or interfoeminium in those they are for want of heate reteined within for seeing The same parts of generation in men and women a woman is begotten of a man and perfect also in makind for Natures imperfections are not so ordinary it is reasonable that the substance yea and the shape of the parts in both fexes should bee alike as comming from one and the same set as it were of causes Neither is it so vncouth in Nature that those partes which in some creatures are prominent and apparent should in others be veyled and couered for Moles indeede are not without eyes but haue them lying deeper in their heads and ouercouered whence Virgil saith Aut oculis Captifodere cubilia talpae that is Virgil 1. Georg Or hood-winkt Moales haue dig'd their Bowers So we call
lasciuious as Galen saith is very familiar Wherefore in Maidens before they grow too long they cut them off and before they marry These Nymphae beside the great pleasure women haue by them in coition doe also defend the wombe from outward iniuries being of that vse to the orifice of the necke which the foreskin is to the yard for they do not onely shut the cleft as it were with lips but also Their vses immediately defend the orifice as well of the bladder as the wombe from colde aire and other hurtfull things Moreouer they leade the vrine through a long passage as it were betweene two walles receyuing it from the bottome of the cleft as out of a Tunnell from Why they are called Nymphae whence it is that it runneth foorth in a broad streame with a hissing noise not wetting the wings of the lap in the passage and from these vses they haue their name of Nymphes because they ioyne vnto the passage of the vrine and the necke of the wombe out of which as out offountaines and the Nymphes are sayed to bee presedents or dieties of the fountaines water and humours doe issue and beside because in them are the veneriall delicacies for the Poets say that the Nymphes lasciuiously seeke out the Satyres among the woods and forrests Clitoris in Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 commeth of an obscoene worde signifying contrectation but properly it is called the womans yard It is a small production in the vpper forward table 9. figure 4. m and middle fatty part of the share in the top of the greater cleft where the Nymphes doe meet and is answerable to the member of the man from which it differs How it differeth from a mans in the length the common passage and the want of one paire of muscles but agrees in scituation substance and composition For it consisteth of two neruous bodies which Laurentius cals ligaments round without hard and thick but within spongy and porous that The substāce vvhen the spirits come into it it may bee distended and grow loose when they are dissipated these bodies as those of the mans yarde are full of blacke thicke and sprightfull blood Their originall is from both the share-bones where they ioyne with the bone of the hip and are seuered at first but after they are gone a little foreward they are vnited about the The originall of it coniunction of the sharebones and so make the body of a yard harde and solide and haue a termination like the nut to which on either side is adioyned a small muscle The head is properly called Tentigo by Iuuenall which is couered with a fine skin made of the coniunction of the Nymphae as it were with a fore-skinne It hath an entrance but no through passage there are vesselles also running along the backe of it as in a mans yarde and although for the most part it hath but a small production hidden vnder the Nymphes and hard to be felt but with curiosity yet sometimes it groweth to such a length that it hangeth without the cleft like a mans member especially when it is fretted with the touch of the cloaths and so strutteth and groweth to a rigiditie as doth the yarde of a man And this part it is which those wicked women doe abuse called Tribades often mentioned Tribades odiosae feminae Leo Africanus Coelius Aurelianius by many authours and in some states worthily punished to their mutuall and vnnaturall lustes The vse of this part is the same with the bridle of the yard for because the Testicles of the The vse of it women are far distant from the yard of the man the imagination is carried to the spermaticall vessels by the motion and attrition of this Clitoris together with the lower ligatures of the wombe whose originall toucheth cleaueth and is tyed to the leading vesselles of the seede and so the profusion of their seede is stirred vp for generation for which businesse it was not necessary it should be large wherefore although by this passage their seede is not eiaculated yet by the attrition of it their imagination is wrought to call that out that lyeth deeply hidden in the body and hence it is called aestrum Veneris dulcedo amoris for in it with the ligaments inserted into it is the especiall seate of delight in their veneral imbracements as Columbus imagineth he first discouered For Nature who wisheth as Galen sayth in his 14. Booke de vsu partium and the second Chapter that if it might be her worke might be immortal and falling from that hope because The wise disposition of nature of the contrariety of the matter hath giuen to all creatures both the instruments of conception and hath also infused into them a straunge and violent kinde of delight that none of the kindes of the creatures should perish but remayne euer after a sort immortall And truely it was very necessary that there should be a kinde of pleasant force or violence in the Nature of mankinde to transport him out of himselfe or beside himselfe as it were in the act of generation to which otherwise being maister of himselfe he would hardly haue beene drawne which extasie for it is called a little Epilepsie or falling sicknes is caused by the touch of the seede vpon the neruous and quicke sensed parts as it passeth by them To draw to an end Those parts which appeare outwardly are the great slit the lips and the groyne or leske for as soon as the lippes are diuided there appeare three clefts or flits The outward parts of the lip one and the greatest which is the first and vtmost and two lesser and collaterall betweene the Nymphes the vse of which is to close vp the parts more safely But that cleft which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the great and long fissure is made by the lips and bendeth backward to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great fissure Fundament from the share-bones downward toward the cleft of the buttocks for it ought to bee longer then the orifice least the Infant should bee hindered in the birth because the skinne is much thicker and not so yeelding as are membranes and the more it tendeth backward the deeper and broader it is and so degenerateth into a trench or valley representing the figure of a boate and endeth in the welt of the orifice of the necke In the middle of this trench is placed the orifice of the necke and this is the fissure that admitteth the yard and is a part thought too obscoene to look vpon which is the reason sayth Pliny that The reasons why the carcasses of women floate with their faces downeward the carcasses of women doe floate in the water with their faces downeward contrary to mens which swimme vpward euen Nature itselfe yeelding to modesty although the cause also may bee referred to the largenes of a womans belly as also because the water
midriffe is pressed or borne vp which is the chiefe instrument Why such women do not breath of free respiration or breathing and the braine is also drawn into consent which is the chiefe seate or tribunall of the Animall faculty which faculty is the efficient cause of respiration Hence it is that in such suffocations or strangulations there is an interception All the causes of respiration in this suffocation are taken away of respiration for the instrumentall cause the midriffe is intercepted the efficient cause the Animal faculty also because the braine is drawn into consent The finall cause also is taken away for the heat of the heart at that time is very small and requireth therefore no other ventilation but by transpiration which is by the pores of the habit of the body But you must marke that I cal not this motion a convulsion but onely a convulsiue motion for convulsion properly is an vnbidden motion of those parts which we vse to moue What parts suffer convulsions at our commandement but the wombe is not mooued by our willes but by it owne will wherefore convulsions belong not to the wombe but to the muscles onely which are instruments of voluntary motion but abusiuely we may call this a convulsion as Hippocrates calleth the Hiccocke a convulsion The third motion of the wombe wee sayed was mixt proceeding from a morbous or The 3 mixt motion of the wombe vnhealthy cause and partly from the faculty as in a great exiccation it runneth vpward toward the Liuer which is the fountaine of sweete moysture for all dried partes doe as it were thirst after this moysture with a naturall appetite and this motion is indeede truely mixt being partly physicall or naturall the dry wombe drawing toward the seate of moysture or drawing the moysture vnto it selfe as Galen interpreteth it and partly mathematicall or locall it moouing as Hippocrates sayeth with a kinde of impetuous violence to the pracordia although I am not ignorant that Galen in this poynt reprooueth his maister and taketh this motion to be meerely Physicall or naturall and is called mathematicall by Hippocrates but abusiuely onely QVEST. X. How the Wombe is affected with smelles and sauours FVrthermore it is not only recorded by antient Authors but approued by daily experience that the wombe is much affected with sauours and smelles so that some haue beene knowne to miscarry vpon the stench of a candle put out How the wōb is affected with smels and sauours as Aristotle recordeth is his 8. Booke of the History of Creatures and the 24. chapter But how and by what passages this apprehension of odours is few haue sufficiently declared wherefore we will payne our selues a little and our readers also to lay open this difficulty because it may be of great vse for the preseruation of health and will not be altogether vnpleasant to them that desire to know themselues As therefore Colour is the onely obiect of the sight so is odour of the smelling and as the sight hath the eye as his peculiar proper instrument of seeing so is the nose I mean Not vnder the forme of smels principally the partes contayned within it that is the spongy bone and the two processes called mamillares the onely instrument of smelling it were therefore very absurde to imagine that the wombe did smell sauours or smelles because it is not the proper instrument of smelling howe then It is affected with sauours by reason of the subtile and thinne vapour or spirite which ariseth from any strong sented thing euen as our spirites But by vaporous spirits are refreshed and exhilerated with sweete sauours not by apprehending the sent of them but by receiuing a thinne ayrie vapour from them whereby the spirites are nourished enlightned and strengthned right so is the wombe affected with the vapors of things which yeelde a strong smell be it pleasant or vnpleasant and that very suddenly because it is a part of exquisite sence But if it bee so it may be demaunded why then the wombe is pleased with sweet smels and displeased with those that are vnpleasant for it seemeth hereby Obiection to make choyce of smelles euen for the very sauour and sent I answere that all thinges Solution which yeeld a noysome smell are vnconcocted and of a bad or imperfect mixture therfore they affect the sence with a kinde of inaequality or else the spirits or vapours that arise from these ranke bodies are impure whence come faintings and swoundings sometimes and so defile the spirits contayned in these generatiue parts One difficulty there yet remayneth If the wombe delight in sweete sauours why then Obiection Why muske and Ciuit cause fits of the mother and stinking things cure it Answere It is a signe of an ill disposed wombe to bee offended with sweet things doth the smell of Amber greece muske and such like bring suffocation of the mother and that of assa faetida and castoraeum such like extreme stinking things cure the same disease I answere that all women fall not into suffocation vpon the smelling of sweet perfumes or the like but onely those whose wombe is especially euilly affected For sweet smels hauing a quicke spirit arising from them doe instantly affect the Brayn and the membranes of the same the membranous wombe is presently drawne into consent with the Brayne and moued so as those bad vapours which before lay as it were a sleep in the ill affected womb are now stirred and wrought vp by the arteries or other blinde passages vnto the midriffe the heart and the braine it selfe and so comes the suffocation we spake off But those things that yeeld a noysome sauour because they are crude and ill mixt doe stoppe the passages How noysom smel cure the suffocation and pores of the braine and do not reach vnto the inner membranes to affect them they cure also the Hystericall paroxisme or fitte of the mother because our nature being offended with them as with enimies rowseth vp it selfe against them and together with the ill vaporsexcludeth also out of the wombe the euil humors from whence they arise euen as in acute diseases nature being prouoked by the ill quality of the humors moueth to criticall excretions Comparisons or in purgations when she is goaded with the aduerse quality of the medicine relieueth her selfe by euacuation But you will aske by what passages are these vapours and spirites carried I answere beside the open passages of the arteries by which such ayrie spirits doe continually passe and Obiection Answere The passiges of these spirits and vapors repasse in a mans body there are many secret and vnknowne waies which those subtile bodies may easily finde considering that euen crasse and thicke humours doe ordinarily follow medicines we know not by what passages as when a little Elaterium euen a graine or two will purge away three of foure pintes of water or more which lay
generation of the materiall in respect of his crassament or thicke body out of which as out of their proportionable matter the spermatical parts are generated of the efficient and of the forme in respect of the spirits wherewith it is fulfilled I sayed that the seed was called an efficient How seed is both an efficient and materiall cause and formall principle because the efficient and the forme are two actors in respect of their different operations though indeede and trueth they are but one and the same For the forme being diffused through the matter maketh it to be that which it is no other thing and it is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the species or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the act but considerit as it affecteth moueth disposeth and worketh the matter into a proper and conuenient habitation for it selfe and then it carrieth the nature of an efficient The seede in respect of his bodie yssueth onelie from the vessels but in respect of his spirits which wander vp and downe and through all it may be sayde to yssue from all the parts of the body This therefore is the double matter of the seede blood and spirits The Efficients and authors of the seede are onely the Testicles for the power called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The efficient cause of the seede that is of making seede we attribute first of all and originally to the testicles To the spermaticall vessels secondarily per 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is by influence and irradiation from the testicles The last part of the definition designeth the small cause of the seede to wit the generation of a liuing creature and the nourishment of the testicles And thus it appeareth how this definition of seede is accomplished euery way and compleate The finall cause Furthermore seede is of two sorts whatsoeuer the Peripateticks prattle to the contrary one of the male another of the female because in both sexes there are by Nature ordained Seede of two sorts Of the Male. Organs or instruments for the preparing boyling and leading thereof as also the same causes of pleasure and delight in the spending or euacuation But yet the seede of the male is the first principle of generation and more actiue or operatiue the Females the second The Female and lesse operatiue yet they are both fruitfull and powerfull for procreation but neyther of them auaileable without the helpe of the other Hippocrates in his first Booke de Diaeta maketh mention of a double kinde of seed in both Two kinds of seeds in both sexes sexes the one strong hot the other weaker and colder The first he calleth semen masculū or male seede the other semen foeminium or female and foeminine seede out of the diuers mixtion whereof and as they ouercome one another hee thinketh that a male or foemale creature is generated And thus much for the first principle of Generation vvhich is Seede CHAP. III. Of the Mothers Blood the other principle of Generation THE other principle of our Generation is the Mothers Blood to which we What partes are made of this blood ascribe the Faculty of suffering onely and not of dooing that is to say it is onely a principle which is wrought vpon by the seed but itselfe worketh not in the generation of man Of this blood are the Parenchymata of the bowels made as also the flesh of the Muscles with this as well the spermaticall as the fleshy parts are nourished doe encrease Menstruall putgations and attaine their seuerall perfections This bloude wee thinke is of the same nature with that which at certaine times euery moneth is purged out by the wombe in which respect Hippocrates first called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Menstruous or monthly bloode The Nature of this blood entangled in a thousand difficulties we will make plaine by this definition The Menstruous blood is the excrement of the last Aliment of the fleshy parts A definition of the courses which at certaine times and by standing periods is in a moderate quantity purged by the wombe but originally ordained for the Generation and Nourishment of the New creature This definition expresseth six heads concerning the menstruall blood the matter the Efficient cause the vniuersall time the particular time the quantity the wayes of euacuation and the vse which hath the nature of the finall cause The matter of the menstruous blood is the ouer plus of the last Aliment For in the nature of woman there is a superfluity more then she spendeth for many reasons First because her heate is but weake and cannot discusse or euaporate the reliques lifte after the parts are satisfied secondly because of the softnesse and loosenesse of their flesh whence it is that a womans body is scarsely perspirable that is in respect of men they sweate but little Thirdly by reason of their course of life and order of diet For they eate more moist meates they vse bathing oftner they sleepe more and in a word their life is more sedentar◠and idle at least they vse lesse exercise for these reasons a woman among all creatures is followed with these monthly euacuations We call the matter of this bloud an Excrement not that it cannot bee assimulated or is of a hurtfull or noxious quality like an vnprofitable excrement but because the quantitie thereof redoundeth after the flesh of the parts is satiated and filled and is returned into the veines and thence as an excrement vomited out by Nature offended with an vnprofitable burden for there is a satietie euen of that which is good And this is that affluence and refluence Hippocrates speaketh off that tide of the blood sometimes flowing again ebbing sometimes For when the veines strut with fulnesse the hot flesh draweth the bloud vnto it which when that attraction is satisfied and ceased ebbeth againe into the vernes This Hippocrates expounded blood therefore is laudable and Alimentary and as Hippocrates writeth in his first Booke de morbis mulierum floweth out red like the bloud of a sacrifice and soon caketh if the women be sound The veines being fulfilled with these remaynders of the Aliment and burdned with the The efficient cause of the courses wayght of the blood whose quantity onely is offensiue vnto them they solicite Nature to excretion Nature being alwayes vigilant for her own behoofe and a true louer and cherisher of herselfe by the expelling faculty which she hath alwayes at her command driueth out these reliques For as a man that hath lost one or both his legges if hee continue that fulnesse of dyet which hee vsed before is often solicited with a great issue of blood by the siedge because the liuer sanguifieth as much as it was wont which yet there wants one part or more to consume it euen so and after no other manner is this menstruall euacuation accomplished by Nature not being able to dispose of that plenty which by the
Liuer and this we haue from Galen in his Book The first de Temperamentis and de Arte parua where he sayeth Those whose heart is hot are also of a hot habite of body vnlesse there bee some obstacle in the Liuer and those that haue hot Liuers haue also hot habits vnlesse there be some repugnancie in the Heart But if both these bowels doe conspire in the same Temper then of necessity must the Temper of the whole body be like vnto them but the Heart and the Liuer of women are hotter then of men and therefore their whole bodies are also of a hotter temper then mens That the heart of a woman is hotter then the heart of a man may thus be demonstated the Temper of the particular parts is especially known by the strength of their action now A womans heart hotter then a mans the actions and faculties of the heart are two vitall as say the Physitians and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Irascibilis that is the passion of anger as say the Platonists Both these are more operatiue liuely in a woman then in a man The vitall faculty shyneth most euidently in the pulse Now the pulses of women are more quicke and frequent of men more rare and slow as Galen teacheth in the 9. Chapter of his Booke of pulses ad Tyrones and in the second chapter of his third Book de causis pulsuum That also Auerroes affirmeth in the fourth Colliget and the 19. Chapter But the frequency and swiftnesse of the pulse bewrayeth the strength of the heate for as it is the property of colde to make the partes sluggish and dull in their motion so heate moueth them continually and giueth them no rest at all The other faculty also of the heart which we called Irascibilis or the passion of Anger we many of vs know by woefull experience to bee quicker and more vigorous in woemen Women sooner angry then men then in men for they are easily heated and vpon very sleight causes but Anger with Galen in his Booke de Arte parua is a signe of a hot heart Hence it is that females are more bold and cruell then males For Hunters affirm that of Tygers Beares and Lyons the females are farre fiercer then the males That the Liuer of a woman is hotter then a man may bee prooued by the same demonstration The Liuer of a woman hotter then of a man The Naturall Faculty which hath his residence in the Liuer and is diuided into the encreasing nourishing and procreating vertues is stronger in a woman then in a man For we see that wenches grow faster then boyes become sooner ripe and yeeld seede the The procreating Facultie sooner which is the worke of the generatiue Faculty they are also more wanton and lasciuious as hauing the Testicles hid within their bodies by which they are heated For Galen saith that the Testicles after the heart are as it were another hearth of Naturall heate The Nourishing Faculty which is a certaine signe of the heat of the Liuer is more perfect in a woman then in a man for their liuer engendreth more blood now so much blood The Nourishing Facultie as we haue so much heate haue we also Neither is this blood of theirs of any hurtfull or ill quality but onely offensiue in quantity Beside the habit of women is more fat plumpe and delicate to see to and to feele and altogether without haires Finally in women all the Animall Faculties are most perfect their senses most sharpe their Muscles more nimble and deliuer to mooue their ioynts their memories more happy The Animall Faculties their inuention more subtile their words which expresse the conceit of the mind more plentifull and abundant and therefore Virgil expressing the communication of the Gods makes Iupiter begin and venus to answere but addeth Iupiter haec paucis at non Venus aurea contra Aenci. 10. Pauca refert Thus in few words did Iupiter his royal sentence end But Venus faire in many more did thus her cause commend If therefore all the Faculties Vitall Naturall and Animall are in women more perfect then in men who will deny but they are also hotter then men Neither will we passe ouer in silence that which Macrobius hath obserued in the 7 Book of his Saturnalia What time the Macrobius Saturnal bodies of men were burnt to euery ten men they put the body of a woman to make them the sooner take fire These things are indeede probable and couered ouer with a veile of trueth which notwithstanding if we weigh in the ballance of Philosophie and of Physicke they will appeare That men are hotter then women to be as light as vanity it selfe we will therefore maintaine the other opinion that men are generally hotter then women And this we will confirme by strong and substantial reasons as also by the authority of the best and most authenticke Authors There are very many things which will euince this truth but these among the rest The Principles of Generation the Place in which and out of which the Infant is generated the The places from which the argumēts are fetched Conformation the Motion the time of Birth the Purgation after Birth the Structure and Habit of all the parts the manner of Diet and course of life And finally the Finall cause All which we will briefly run through If we consider the Principles of Generation Men are generated of hotter seede then women This hath Hippocrates elegantly declared in his first Book de diaeta For acknowledging The principles of Generatiō a double or twofold kinde of seede in both Sexes a Male feede and a Female he concludeth that of the male seede that is the hotter and more vigorous a man is generated out of the weaker a Woman Moreouer men are generated in a hotter place Hippocrates in the 48. Aphorisme of the fift section saith Male infants are borne on the right side females on the left now we know that the right side is hotter then the left by reason of the Liuer The place of Conception For the heart is indifferent and in the very middest especially the Basis thereof which is the hottest part Neither are Males generated onely in the right side but also out of the right side For so saith Hippocrates in his Bookes Epidemiωn when a man begins to grow lustfull if his right The place out of which the Infant is conceyued Testicle swell he will beget a manchilde if his left a woman And thence also it is that he calleth the right Testicle Masculū the male and the left Foeminium the Female because the seede of the one is very hot and exquisiuly boyled and made of the purest blood that of the other colder thinner hauing much whey in it because of the originall of the left spermaticall veine out of the emulgent This the Countreymen know full well and therfore when they would haue
Cow-calues they tye the right Testicle of the Bull that the seed may only yssue from the left which they learned or might haue done from Hippocrates in his book De superfoetatione where he sayeth When you would engender a Female tye the right Testicle of the Male when a Male tye the left If wee respect the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or conformation of both the Sexes the Male is sooner perfected The conformation and articulated in the wombe for he is accomplished the thirtieth the Female not before the 40. day as wee haue before noted out of Hippocrates in his first Booke de diaeta de natura pueri and Epidemiωn but conformation is the woorke of heate So likewise the Male is moued sooner that is the third moneth the Female later that is the fourth beside the motions of the Male are more frequent and more violent all which are manifest signes of an aboundant heate Adde hereto that the Male borne the seuenth moneth commonly surviueth the Female seldome or neuer That also which is auoyded after the Infant is borne into the world called Lochia doeth The Lochia testifie the heate of a Male childe for the woman which is diliuered of a Female is longer in her purgations of a Male shorter because the Male being hotter spendeth more of the bloud gathered together in the wombe This Hippocrates teacheth in playne tearmes in his Booke de morbis mulierum After the birth of a mayde sayeth hee the longest purgation lasteth 42. dayes but after the birth of a knaue childe so our Fathers called a Male the purgation lasteth at the longest but 30. dayes If we consider the habite and structure of the parts of both Sexes you shall finde in men The habit and structure more signes of heate then in women The habit of a woman is fatter looser and softer but fat is not generated but by a weake heate woemen are smooth without hayre The flesh of men is more solide their vesselles larger their voyce baser now it is heate which amplifieth and enlargeth as cold straightneth and contracteth A woman sayth Hippocrates in the 43. Aphorisme of the seauenth Section is not Ambi-dextra that is cannot vse both hands as well as one because she wanteth heat to strengthen both sides alike In diet also that is in the custome and vsage of their liues in meat and drink and such like The dict men appeare to be hotter then women Hippocrates in his first Booke de diaeta Men doe liue a more laborious life and eat more solide meates then women that they may gather heate and become dryer woemens foode is more moyste and beside they liue an idle and sedentarie life pricking for the most part vppon a clout Finally to all these we may ad the necessity of the Finall cause which is in Natural things the chiefe of all causes It behoued therefore that man should be hotter because his body The finall cause was made to endure labour and trauell as also that his minde should bee stout and inuincible to vndergoe dangers the onely hearing whereof will driue a woman as wee say out of her little wits The woman was ordayned to receiue and conceiue the seede of the man to beare and nourish the Infant to gouerne and moderate the house at home to delight and refresh her husband foreswunke with labour and well-nigh exhausted and spent with care and trauell and therefore her body is soft smooth and delicate made especially for pleasure so that whosoeuer vseth them for other doth almost abuse them Wherfore we conclude that if you respect the principles of Generation the place conformation Conclusion motion birth purgations after birth the habit of the whole body the structure of the parts the manner and order of life and the finall cause of Creation you shall finde that in all these respects a man is hotter then a woman If our aduersaries will not yeelde to all these demonstratiue arguments let them at least Authorities to proue men hotter Hippocrates giue credance to the whole Family of the Grecians both Philosophers end Physitians This Hippocrates before the birth or incarnation as we may say of Philosophy with a diuine spirit declareth not darkely and obscurely but in playne tearmes in his first Booke de diaeta after this manner Generally and vniuersally men are hotter and dryer then women for we insist vpon mankind and women moyster and colder then men That Genius and interpreter of Nature Aristotle in his Booke of the length and shortnes of life sayth that men liue Aristotle longer then women because they are hotter In his third Booke de partibus Animalium men are stronger and more couragious In the first and eight Chapters of the first Booke of his Politicks men in all actions are more excellent then women surely because of their heate from whence commeth the strength of the faculties And in the 29. Probleme of the 4. Section he enquireth why men in winter are more apt for Venus and women in summer hee answereth because men who are hotter and dryer are in Summer spent as it were and broken and women in winter because they are cold and moyst haue little store of heat haue their humors as it were frozen or curdled not fluxible and moouing Galen in a thousand places establisheth this truth but especially in the sixt chap. of his 14. Booke de vsu partium where hee saith that women are more imperfect then men because they are colder For indeed of all qualities heate is the most operatiue Conclusion Hence therefore we conceiue that it is manifest to all men that list to vnderstande the truth that men are vniuersally hotter then women and that those that maintaine the contrary are Apostataes for the ancient and authenticke Philosophy But because wee may seeme not fully to satisfie men by our reasons and authorities vnlesse we answere the arguments brought and vrged on the contrary part we wil a little paine ourselues and the Reader to answere them in order To begin therefore with the authority of Hippocrates because it is a kind of wickednesse Answer to the authorities not to subscribe vnto this Father of Physicke we will thus interpret the force of his words Whereas therefore he saith that a woman hath a rarer kinde of flesh then a man we answere Hippocrate pounded that he vseth the word Rare abusiuely or at large for that which is laxe and soft not for that which is porous For if we so vnderstand it the body of a man is more rare that is more porous and open and therefore they sweate more freely and more easily And that this is Hippocrates meaning we appeale vnto himselfe in his Booke of Glandules where hee saith It is therefore manifest that the Chest and Paps and the whole body of a woman is laxe soft And a litle aboue A mans body is ful like a cloath thicke and thight both to see to
Peripateticks vvill ansvvere that sometimes the children are neither like father nor mother but like their grandfathers or great grandfathers vvho neither actiuely nor passiuely did contribute any thing to their generation But I cannot see what they can answere to that argument of hereditary diseases The woman that is troubled with the Gowt bringeth foorth a son subiect to the gowt if she be subiect to the Falling sicknesse she will bring foorth an Epilepticall infant or being troubled with the Stone a childe disposed to that disease these diseases I hope they wil not say come by reason of the fault of the blood For who euer was so mad to say that the Menstruall blood contained in it the Idea or forme of the particular parts The impurity of the blood wil indeede make the childe weake and sickly but to make a calculous impression in the Kidneyes or a gowty impression in the ioyntes is onely proper to the seede which conteyneth in it the fatall necessity of life and death Againe all formation and specification for you must giue vs leaue to vse our Schoole-tearmes in these matters of Art that is all power to set the seale or figure or difference vpon A third any thing proceedeth from the seede alone For the matter as it is a bare matter cannot chaunge the species or sorme of any thing but the species followeth rather the Dam then the Sire For if an Ewe be couered by a Goate she will not bring foorth a Kid but a Lamb with a hard and rugged wooll if a Tup couple with a she-Goat she will bring forth Note this Athenaeus not a Lambe but a Kid with a soft wooll as Athenaeus auoucheth There proceedeth therefore from the Dam a formatiue Faculty now all formatiue facultie as we said is from seed none at all from the blood But there is a place in Galen which seemeth to be against vs. For in the first chap. of his 14. Booke de vsu partium he denieth to the seede of the woman the power of procreation A hard place in Galen A woman saith he because she is colder then a man hath in her Parastatae a thin and vnconcocted humor which conferreth nothing to the procreation of the infant and therefore when it hath done his office it is cast foorth but another humour that is the seed of the man is drawne into the wombe Wee must thus vnderstand Galen that in women beside their seede there is another waterish moysture which delighteth tickleth and washeth Expounded their genitals and that indeede conferreth nothing to generation for so he saith a little after But in the time of coition that humor suddenly and together with the seede yssueth and therefore mooueth the sense at other times it yssueth also by little and litle and sometimes without any sense at all We conclude therefore that women do yeeld seede which hath in it some operatiue or actiue faculty The vse of this seede according to Galen in the eleuenth chapter of his fourteenth booke de vsu partium is manifold First for generation for by it as by a workman concurring together The vses of a womans seed with the seed of a man the parts are figurated and of it as of their matter the membranes are generated wherewith the infant is compassed The second vse is to be an Aliment for the hotter seede of the man For euery hot thing is norished by that which is moderately cold that is lesse hot as saith Hippocrates in his Booke De Alimento The thirde Hippocrates vse is to irrigate or moysten the sides of the wombe for all the parts of the womb could not be lined or moistened by the seede of the man The last vse Galen addeth which is to open the necke of the matrix Argenterius derideth these vses of the seede because nothing is nourished that doth not liue but the seede liueth not Againe the seede of the woman is not eiaculated into the Argenterius the Cauiller sides of the wombe because a womans wombe hath no hornes But he is indeed himselfe ridiculous endeuouring to correct Magnificat as we say when hee cannot sing Te Deum Neither shall you finde any man more forward to carpe at others then those who themselues lye most open to scorne and disgrace as that petulant Author doth in most passages of his workes But for your sakes who may haply learne something by it we will do him the Answered honesty to answer his cauils We say therefore that the seed is potentially Animated when it is cast into the womb that power by the heate of the womb is broght into an act and therefore presently it worketh the workes of the soule for it formeth and figurateth the parts If then it be animated Galen expounded it liueth but that life is the life of a plant Beside when Galen saith that the seed of a man is nourished by the seede of a woman we must not be so grosse as to vnderstand him as if he meant a perfect nourishment which is made by assimulation but because the seede of the man was hotter then the seede of the woman it is tempered and made more dilute or By Hippocrates fluxible by the cold and thin seede of the woman After the same manner we say that the spirits are nourished by the aer and so we must vnderstand Hippocrates where he saith That euery hot thing is nourished by that which is moderately cold That the seede is not eiaculated into the sides of the wombe because the womb hath no hornes sauoureth of Crasse and palpable ignorance of the insertion of the eiaculatory vessels into the sides of the bottome of the wombe and so we let it passe It remaineth now that we make aunswere to the arguments of the Peripatetickes First Answer to the Peripatetiks arguments therefore 1 That double secretion or profusion of blood and seede we do not thinke is made togither and at once but at diuers times that is of seed in the coition and conception of blood immediately after the first discretion or separation of the spermaticall parts 2 There is not the same reason of young boyes and of women For in Boyes there is no remainder of lawdable blood of which seede should bee made because one part of the blood is consumed in their nourishment and the rest in their growth but in women there is abundance of superfluous blood 3 Those women who do conceiue without pleasure haue ill affected wombes 4 Auerrhoes his History we take to be a right old wiues tale and no credit to be giuen thereto 5 That a woman is not an imperfect male but a perfection of mankinde wee haue abundantly prooued before 6 The last argument of Aristotle which carrieth most shew of truth we may thus answere Although a vvoman haue in her selfe the efficient and materiall causes of generation yet cannot she generate in her selfe without the helpe of the man I
speake of a lawfull generation because her seede is but weake and too cold We see that Henns wil lay Egges without the Cocke which we cal Addle egges because they will neuer proue Chickins yea neither Cockes egges which sometimes they lay will proue any thing Wherfore the concourse or confluence of the seedes of both sexes is of absolute necessity in generation Valesius answereth this Obiection thus that if a woman be of a cold constitution her Valesius his opinion seede is too weake to endeauour of it selfe the conformation of the parts If the woman be hotter then is her seede fruitfull enough and of sufficient power but then there is in such women want of the remainder of Aliment by which the seede conceiued and formed in the wombe might be nourished Wherefore a hot woman without a man may generate but cannot nourish and perfect that which she hath conceiued But if these things were so as Valesius woulde haue them then hot and mannish maydens without the embracements of men should suffer many abortments And sometimes it hath bin obserued that the geniture Disprooued yssuing from a woman the seuenth day after conception hath bin dearticulated so that in it hath appeared the rudiments of the three principall parts and the threds of al the spermaticall parts very conspicuous For these are the workes of seede onely and not of blood because the blood conferreth nothing to the conformation and discretion of the parts neither yet floweth vnto the Conception till the description of the spermaticall parts bee begun And thus much of the seede of women wherein I haue beene somewhat more large because the Aduersaries are in this point very violent and will hardly be gainsaide whatsoeuer euidence of reason is brought against them Now we proceed to the manner of the emission of seed QVEST. VI. Of the Excretion of the Seede by what power or Facultie it is accomplished COncerning the excretion or auoyding of seede there remaines two things to be Whether the excretion of seede be Naturall or Animall handled two doubts to be cleared First by what power or Faculty this excretion is made by the Naturall or by the Animall Secondly why there is so great pleasure in the emission of seede Both these doubts it shall not be hard to assoil yet because we would giue the Reader full satisfaction we wil insist somwhat the more particularly vpon them That the excretion of seede is altogether Naturall may thus bee demonstrated Because euery excrement is driuen foorth by the power of Nature and seede is an excrement So That it is naturall Reason 1. the menstrual blood which is a profitable excrement of the last Aliment of the fleshy parts is purged onely by the force of Nature at certaine times and determinate courses wherevpon we cal them Courses So the Chylus which is the excrement of the stomack although it be profitable is thrust downe into the guts by the ingenite faculty of the same stomacke onely So the excretion of the excrements of the belly and of the bladder is meerely Naturall Moreouer for the excretion of seed Nature hath ordained no Muscles at all for there appeare none in the spermaticall vesselles nor in the Testicles nor in the Prostate Glandules Happely you will say there are the muscles called Cremesteres which compresse the Leading Obiection vessels by which compression the seede is strayned forth but we do not acknowledge that vse of the Cremaster muscles because in the vesselles of seed which are in women there Answere are no such muscles found who notwithstanding auoyde seede as well as men as hath bin proued Hereto may be added the authority of Hippocrates at least of Polybius in his book Hippocrates authority de genitura who referreth the cause of excretion to the spumy or frothy nature of the seed which thence being turgid and not able to containe it selfe in his place maketh way for his owne euacuation On the contrary that the excretion of seede is Animal these arguments may perswade First because neither whilest we wake nor in our sleepe there is any such excretion vnlesse That it is animall Reason 1. the force of the imagination goe before it Secondly because in the auoyding of seed the legges and the armes are contracted and the whole body suffereth a kinde of convulsion whereupon as wee haue already sayed Democritus calleth coition a light Epilepsie or falling sicknes Thirdly because that excretion is made sometime slower sometimes sooner according to our arbitrary will and discretion Finally because it is alwayes ioyned with pleasure now pleasure is an affect of the sensatiue faculty which is meerly Animall We are of the same opinion concerning the eiaculation of Seede that wee were of concerning What we conclude of It is a mixt action the erection of the yarde to witte that it is a mixt action of a Naturall and an Animall It is Animall because it hath imagination going before and pleasure alwayes accompanying it It is Naturall because it is made when Nature is prouoked either by an itching or tickling quality or oppressed with a burden of aboundance and that without the help of muscles But it must be remembred that we here speake of that profusion of seede which is Naturall The causes of the running of the reynes not of that which is symptomaticall which they call the Gonorrhaea or running of the reynes which neither hath any imagination going before nor pleasure accompanying it neither yet is driuen out by the strength of Nature but falleth away by reason of the acrimony of the seede the weaknes of the vesselles their convulsion and the inflamation of the neighbour parts finally which bringeth vpon the Patient an extenuation and consumption A story of a Satyre of the whole body Witnes that Satyre in Thaso whose name was Grypalopex of whom Hippocrates maketh mention in the 7. Section of the 6. Booke Epidemiωn who at the age of 25. yeares poured out his seed in great aboundance night and day and in the 30. yeare was vtterly consumed and so dyed QVEST. VII Whence commeth the pleasure in the eiaculation of Seede THE wonderfull prouidence of Nature hath giuen to all Creatures certayne goades and prouocations of lust and an impotent desire of copulation for the preseruation of the seuerall kindes of Creatures because the Indiuiduum or particular is of it selfe and by an inbred necessity dissoluble and mortall And indeede this sting of pleasure was very necessary without which man especially the one sexe in scorne and detestation of so bruitish and base a worke the other for feare of payne and trouble would haue abhorred this woorke of Nature The Finall The finall cause of pleasure in coitiō cause therefore of this pleasure which is conceiued in the whole action of copulation but especially in the emission of the Seed is onely the conseruation or preseruation of mankinde The Efficient causes of this pleasure
we acknowledge to bee many and diuerse to omit the rest we will make mention onely of three which are the especiall and most immediate 3. Efficient causes The first is the tickling of the turgid and itching seed now the seed is turgid that is houen or frothy by reason of the impetuous motion of the spirites for seede without spirites such as is anoyded in the Gonorrhaea breedeth no pleasure at all after the same manner those that abuse the vse of woemen by frequent copulation haue lesse pleasure then other men because they haue fewer spirits Yet is not this cause of it selfe sufficient to procure pleasure such especially as is conceiued but another cause is required which is the celerity or svviftnesse of the motion and of the excretion For as paine is neuer caused vnlesse there bee a sudden and svvift alteration so vvhen the seed issueth by little and little or vveepingly there is no pleasure at all Finally to these tvvo is added the exquisite sence of the partes of generation and their narrownesse For so the parts being tickled and the vesselles which were distended returning into their naturall scituation and constitution there is stirred vp a wonderfull delight and pleasure But that these things may be made more euident we will handle heere two problemes The first why the spirits as they passe through the other parts Veines Arteries 2. Problemes The first Sinnewes Membranes these last especially being of exquisit sense together with the blood and the humors do not induce the same pleasure which they doe in the spermaticall Organs Haply it is because this kinde of sensation by the wonderful prouidence of Nature is bestowed onely vpon the genitals for the conseruation of the species or kinde like as she Solution hath giuen onely to the mouth of the stomacke the sense of divulsion and appetite Or we may say that in the other vesselles there is not so sudden and headstrong an effusion of humors and spirits together The other Probleme is why men and woemen that are asleepe haue great pleasure in The second Probleme their Nocturnall polutions seeing that in sleepe the sensatiue faculties are all at rest for the Philosopher calleth sleepe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the rest of the first sensator Wee answere The Solution first that the imagination in sleepe is stronger then when wee are awake as appeareth in those that walke and talke in their sleep Againe in sleep the senses are not so drowned in sencelesnesse but that they are rowzed vp by a violent obiect and therefore such awake if they be violently stirred and for the most part such nightly pollutions doe awaken those who are troubled with them If you prick a sleeping man with a Needle euen before he awake he gathereth vp his body and if you continue he will awake though hee sleepe neuer so soundly Now the excretion of seede in a dreame is indeede a very strong obiect to the spermaticall parts These therefore are the causes of pleasure in the excretion or auoyding Whether mē or woemen haue greater pleasure of seede But whether the pleasure of the man or of the woman be the greater it would be a vaine and fruitlesse disquisition to enquire Indeede the woman conceiueth pleasure more waies that is in the auoyding of her owne seede and also in the attraction of the mans for which cause the Tyresian Priest who had experience of both sexes preferred The answere the woman in this kinde but the pleasure of the man is more intense partly because his seede is more hot and spirituous partly also because it yssueth with greater violence and with a kinde of Almaine leape or subsultation And thus much concerning the first principle of generation that is the seed of both sexes Now we come to the second principle which is the Mothers blood QVEST. VIII Whether the Menstruall Blood haue any noxious or hurtfull qualitie therein COncerning the Nature of the Menstruall blood there hath been and yet is so hard hold and so many opinions euen among Physitians themselues that it were a shame to make mention of all their differences much more to insist vpon them But because we would pretermit nothing that were worthy of your knowledge wee will insist vppon the chiefe heads of the Controuersie The first of which shall bee concerning the matter of the Courses All men do agree that this blood is an excrement for like a superfluity it is euery month Of the matter of the courses driuen foorth of the wombe but because there are two kinds of excrements the one Naturall and profitable the other altogether vnprofitable and vnnaturall wee must enquire of which kinde this menstruall blood is That it is an vnprofitable excrement and of a noxious or hurtfull quality may bee proued by the authority of famous learned men as also by strong reasons Hippocrates in his That it is ill qualitied Hippocrates authority first Booke De morbis mulierum expresseth the malignant quality thereof in these words It fretteth the earth like Vineger and gnaweth the body of the woman wheresoeuer it lighteth and vlcerateth the parts of generation Aristotle in the 19. Chapter of his fourth Booke De Natura Aristotle Galen Animalium writeth that that kind of blood is diseased and vitiated Galen in the eight Chapter of his Booke de Atra bile saith that euery moneth a superfluous portion of blood vnprofitable not onely in quantity but also in quality is auoided Moses that great Law-giuer as we read in holy Scripture made an Edict that no Menstruous woman should come Moyses into the Sanctuary Let her touch no holy thing nor enter into the Sanctuary whilst the dayes of her purgation be fulfilled By the Lawes of the Zabri those women that had their courses The lawes of the Zabri were interdicted the company and society of men and the places where she did stand were cleansed by fire Hesiodus forbiddeth that any man should frequent those bathes vvhere menstruous women haue bathed themselues Pliny also in the 28. Chapter of his 7. booke Pliny Columella doe think that this bloud is not only vicious but poysonous For by the touch thereof the young vines do wither the buds of hearbes are burnt vp yea glasses are infected Columella with a kinde of tabes If a Dogge licke of it he will run mad and wanton women are wont Reason and experience to bewitch their Louers with this bloud whence Outd calleth it Lunare virus the Moone poyson wherefore it is not onely superfluous in quantity but in the whole quality a noysom excrement This poysonous quality thereof women haue dayly and lamentable experience of in their owne bodies for if it bee suppressed it is a wonder to see what horrible and how many symptomes doe arise there-from If sayeth Hippocrates in his first Booke de morbis mulierum it bee stabled without the wombe it ingendereth Inflamations Cancers
Many do wonder why seeing all Why it is not purged euerie day other excrements are euacuated euery day this blood which is the excrement of the last Aliment should be auoided but once in a month The thicke excrements of the first concoction as they are daily generated so they are dayly auoided The Choller is euery day thrust out of the Liuer into the bladder of the gall and thence into the Duodenum the vrine is daily transcolated from the Kidneyes vnto the bladder of vrine So likewise the excrements of the third concoction i those of the habit of the body are spent by sweating breathing insensible transpiration by the haire and the soile of the skin Those of the braine by the palate by the nosethrils the eares and the eyes those of the chest by coughing why therefore is not the Menstruall blood euery day euacuated seeing it hath a continuall generation This I thinke is to be attributed onely to the singular prouidence of Nature and to the Final cause the most excellent of all the rest For if the blood were euery day purged away The true reason by the wombe then could women neuer conceiue with childe neyther yet any man haue due and comfortable vse of a woman First conception would be hindred because the seed powred out into the cauity of the wombe would either fall backe or be extinguished the coates of the wombe being irrigated moistned and as it were inebriated or made drunke by the daily affluence of the blood So saith Hippocrates in the 62 Aphorisme of the first section Those women that haue moyst wombes do not conceiue because their geniture is extinguished Beside what pleasure or contentment could any man finde in a wife so lothsomly defiled and that perpetually It was not therefore fit for the accomplishment of the intention of Nature that a womans blood should issue euery day but onely at certaine and definite times and circuites to wit once euery moneth But why this excretion should be made euery moneth not oftner nor more seldome is Why it is purged euery moneth a great question and I assure you very full of difficulty Aristotle in the 2. and 4. de generatione Animalium referreth the reason of this periodicall or certaine euacuation to the motion of the Moone and saith that when the Moone is in the wane womens courses do especiall Aristo opinion flow because at that time the aer is colder and moister from whence comes the encrease and aboundance of that colde and crude humour but Aristotle is by some heerein reprehended because in the full of the Moone all things are most moiste as appeareth by Shel-fishes Oysters and such like The Peripatetikes answere that there is a double humiditie one viuisicall or liuely the other excrementitious The first is encreased in the full of the Moone because then there is more light the second is encreased in the wane because then the aer is colder now Menstruall blood is generated by a weake heate The Arabians thinke there are diuers times of this purgation according to the diuersitie The Arabians opinion of womens ages Young women say they are purged in the new Moone and olde women in the old moone whence commeth that common verse Luna vetus vetulas invenes noua Luna repurgat Young women in the New Moone purge Old women in the wane Some there are who referre the cause of this circuite and monthly euacuation to the propriety of the moneth as if the month had a peculiar power to purge the courses as the day hath to purge the ordinary excrements And for this we may alleadge a notable testimony of Hippocrates in his Booke de septimestri partu where he sayeth In the moneths the same A strāge place in Hippocrates things are done by certaine and right reason which are done in dayes for euery moneth hayle women haue their courses as if the moneth had a peculiar power and efficacy in their bodies Wee must needs acknowledge that the Moone hath great power ouer inferior bodies but that the sole cause of the Criticall daies and of this menstruall euacuation should be referred to the motion of the Moone I could neuer yet perswade my selfe That many things are dispensed by numbers and by moneths I doe not deny but to attribute any operatiue power to quantity and to number as it is number I thinke is vnworthy What wee resolue vpon of a Philosopher It is more wisedome to referre the cause of this periodicall euacuation to the determinate motions and established lawes of Nature to vs vnknowne which yet she neuer breaketh or abrogateth but keepes immutable and inuiolable vnlesse she be either prouoked or hindred for when she is prouoked she antiuerteth or hastneth the excretion auoyding the bloud before her owne time So whereas the seuenth dayes are only How Nature is prouoked truely criticall yet Nature indeuoureth vacuations sometimes in the dayes betweene yea accomplisheth them because of some prouocation comming from without that is beside her owne lawfull contention Againe being hindered either by the narrownesse of the passages or by the thicknes of the humours she oftentimes procrastinateth and delayeth How hindred their accustomed euacuation Hence it is that in some women the courses flow twice in a moneth in some scarce before euery fortieth day But why the blood should flow from the wombe rather once euery moneth then twice or why the seauenth dayes should rather bee criticall then the sixth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is aboue the capacity of humane wit Hippocrates verily promiseth in the end of his Booke de principiis to make manifest the necessity of Nature why she dispenseth all things in the seauenth dayes but I thinke he was diswaded Hippocrates promise by the difficulty of the buisinesse and therefore no where perfourmeth that promise Wherefore seeing he that best could durst not aduenture vpon it we will also ingenuously Not kept confesse our ignorance and ranke these secrets among those mysteries of Nature which she reserueth onely to her selfe to teach vs not onely in this but in other things to obserue her administrations the better and to suspect our owne weaknes For wee see that in the most abiect and base things of the world there are some secrets of Nature whereof either we are All secrets of nature not to be knowne not at all capable or not yet sufficiently instructed And thus much concerning that other principle of Generation the mothers blood now it followeth that we come vnto the Conception wherein also we shal finde some difficulties worthy the discussing QVEST. XI Whether it is necessary to Conception that the Seed of both Sexes should issue together and that with pleasure and be presently mingled WEe haue already proued that both the Seedes as well the fathers as the mothers are required in a perfect Generation but whether they ought both at Auerrhoes opinion of the eiaculation once to be
Male children of a noble and generous disposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nobly minded and strong of body If from the man there issue masculine seede from the woman feminine and the masculine preuaile a Hippocrates Male will be generated but lesse generous and strong then the former If from the woman there issue masculine seed from the man feminine and the masculine ouercome a Male wil be generated but womanish soft base and effeminate The very like may bee sayed of the Generation of Females For if from both the Parents doe issue feminine seede a Female will be procreated most weake and womanish VVhich Hippocrates in the first Section of his sixt Booke Epidemiωn calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aquescentes soft waterish and loose bodies If from the woman proceede a feminine seede and from the man a masculine and yet the feminine ouercome women are begotten bold and moderate If from the man proceede feminine seede and from the woman masculine and the womans A threefold generation of Females seede preuaile women are begotten 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is fierce and mannish The Temper therefore of the seede and the victory in the permixtion are the causes of the similitude of the sex that is of Males and Females which causes are also not a little assisted by the Temper of the wombe and the condition of the place for as I haue often said Male children are borne in the right side Females in the left The third similitude remayneth which consisteth altogether in the figure forme and accidents The similitude of the indiuiduum of the indiuiduum This Galen in his second Booke de semine will haue to consist in the differences of the partes and in the conformation of the members By this one is white another blacke one hawke nosed another flat or saddle nosed In this similitude of the Indiuiduum consisteth all the difficulty of this question which we will mince as small as we can that it may be disgested without labour from hence taking our beginning The Infant sometimes is altogether like the mother sometimes altogether like the Father other somtimes like them both that is in some parts resembling the mother in others the father Oftentimes he resembleth neither the father nor the mother but the grandfather or the great grandfather sometimes he will be like an vnknowne friend as for example an Aethiopian or such like who neuer had hand in his generation Of all these similitudes we haue many examples in authours of approued credit The people called Cammatae haue common wiues and euery man chuseth his childeren Diuers examples of this similitude or refuseth them as they are more or lesse like vnto himselfe Among the Chinians the children are like their fathers in their nose their eyes their forehead and their beard There haue beene in certaine stockes and Tribes signes which they called signa gentilitia that is Stocke-markes as to the Spartanes and Thebanes a Launce some had a Starre Thyestes a Crabbe which were imprinted in their bodies from their birth and these sometimes were extinguished in their children and grand children but after a long time appeared againe in their posterities Deleucus and his posterity had in their thighes the fashion and representation of an Anchor Iulia the daughter of Augustus Caesar although she playd false and had many copesmates yet all her children were like her husband Being asked what Art she had for that conuayance she answered wittily and in some sort honestly in respect of others of her profession That she neuer took in her passenger till her ship were fraughted I passe by what might be sayd of the Lentuli and the Macrocephali It will concerne vs more to spend our time in the search after the causes of these things The cause of this similitude or likenesse of the forme and feature is very obscure and The first opinion of them that refer this likenes to the imagination The Arabians opinion full of controuersie Empedocles the Pythagorean referreth the cause of this likenesse only to the Imagination whose force is so great that as it oftentimes changeth the body of the Imaginer so also it transferreth his efficacy into the seed conceiued The Arabians attributed so much to Imagination that they thought the Soule might so farre bee eleuated by imagination that it should not only worke vpon it own body but also vpon an others and that Soules so eleuated and enobled were able to change the Elements to heale diseases to weaken whom they listed to worke myracles and finally to exercise a kind of command ouer all kinds of matter Aristotle in the 12 Probleme of his tenth Section acknowledgeth this power of the Imagination in the Conception and Infant conceiued For he asketh Aristotles the question why the off-spring of men are so vnlike one to another and maketh aunswere because in man the swiftnesse of the cogitation and the variety of their wits did imprint many and diuers markes and seuerall impressions Galen in his Booke de Theriaca ad Pisonem I counselled saith hee an Aethyopian that hee A History out of Galen might beget a white and beautifull childe to set at his beds feete a faire picture vppon which his wife might wistly looke in the time of her conception He obeyed my counsell and obtained his desire And that was the reason why Hessodus forbad women to haue company vvith theyr husbands when they returned from a Funerall but when they came from bankets and disport For the illustration of this we haue a story of a Sabine wife of whome Sir Thomas More wrote an elegant verse And S. Hierom in his questions vpon Genesis maketh mention S. Ierom. of a woman who was suspected for an Adultresse because she brought foorth a childe no way like her husband but cleared her honesty because shee shewed a picture in her chamber like the childe she brought forth Thus Iacob in the 30. of Genesis cunningly made Iacob the greatest part of the flocke of a spotted fleece by laying before the Ewes spotted rodds Pliny in the 7. Booke of his Naturall History remembreth many examples to this purpose and Fernelius in the 7. Booke of his Physiologia conceiueth that the Imagination onelie is the cause of this similitude of the feature by which alone hee thinketh the Facultie vvhich Fernelius formeth the figure is led and gouerned But me thinkes it is very harde to make the Imagination the onely cause of this Similitude For neither the Imagination nor any other faculty which hath knowledge ioyned That it is not the imagination alone thereto is able to work vnlesse it haue his obiect present by which it may be mooued Now we know that a childe often resembleth one whom the mother neuer knew Adde heereto that in the coition all the Animall faculties are almost intercepted so as the forming faculty can scarse receiue or conceiue those Imaginations Againe if the Imagination alone
come into the world he presently perisheth as hauing his Vitall heate nipped by the cold of that churlish Planet Add heereto that the weake infant is not able to beare or endure so sudden an alteration from the Moone to Saturne as if it were from the lowest staffe to the top of the Ladder because all sudden mutations are enemies to Nature But if he ouercome the eight month then to Saturne succeedeth Iupiter that benefical Planet by whose prosperous and healthfull aspect all the ill disposition that came by Saturne is frustrated and auoyded wherefore the ninth moneth the infant is borne vitall and liuely as also the tenth and the eleauenth because of the familiarity of Mars and Sol with the Principles of our life And this is the opinion of the Astrologers concerning the Causes of our birth which is indeed elegant and maketh a faire shewe but is in the meane time full of Error as picus Mirandula hath prooued in a Booke which he hath written against Astrologers The opinion of the Astrologians confuted For how may it be that Saturne should alwayes beare sway the first and the 8. months when as a women may conceiue in anie months of the yeare any day in the month or any houre in the day Why do Hindes calue the eight month and their yong suruine as Aristotle writeth in his sixt Booke De Natura Animalium Pliny is of opinion in the fifte Pliny his idle opinion chapter of his seuenth Book De Naturali Historia That only those children are Vital if they be borne the seauenth month who were conceyued the day before or after the Full of the Moone or in the New Moone But all these are idle and addle immaginations of vvanton braines The Geometricians referre the Causes of the birth vnto the proportion of the Conformation and motion of the Infant For say they there is a double proportion of the conformation to the motion and a trebble proportion of the motion to the birth which proportion The Geometritians proportions if the Infant holde then shall hee arriue aliue and liuely into the worlde So the seauenth month birth is vitall because it is formed the fiue and thirtith mooued the seuentith and borne the two hundred and tenth day And this opinion may be confirmed by the authority of Hippocrates for in the third Section of his second Book Epidemiωn he saith whatsoeuer is mooued in the seuentith day is perfected Hip. authority Auicen in the triplicities But Auicen confuteth this opinion For if onely the proportion betwixt the conformation and the motion of the infant were the cause that he suruiued thē should he aswell suruiue the eight as the seuenth moneth because they keepe the same proportion For instance Say that an infant be formed the fortith day then shall hee mooue the eightith and be borne the two hundred and fortith And in this birth the proportion is exquisitly held because twice forty make eighty and thrice eighty two hundred and fortie dayes Now Hippocrates in his Booke De Alimento saith that an infant borne at 240. daies which all men vnderstand to be the eight-month birth is and is not But the authority of Hippocrates may well stand with this opinion for it is not his meaning that this proportion Hip. explained is the cause of the life of the infant but simply and absolutely hee sayth that there is a certaine proportion betwixt the conformation Motion and Birth of the infant which no man will deny It remaineth now that wee acquaint you with the Philosophers and Physitians reasons The 5. opiniō of the Phylosophers and Physitians why the seuenth-month birth is Vitall and not the eight Nature although she be illiterate and vntaught yet hath she constant Lawes which her selfe hath imposed vppon her selfe definite also and limited motions which she alwayes keepeth without inconstancy or mutability vnlesse she be hindred by some internall or externall principle As therefore shee The Lawes of of Nature are certaine neuer endeauoureth any perfect Criticall euacuation vnlesse the humor bee before boyled and prepared So she neuer vndertaketh a Legitimate birth till the infant bee perfected and absolued in all his numbers And as in crudity no good Crisis is to be hoped for according to Hippocrates so before the infant be perfected the birth cannot bee ligitimate or Vitall For the birth saith Galen is a kinde of Crisis Now before the seuenth moneth the infant is No vital birth before perfection not perfected and therefore before the seauenth month he cannot be borne aliue But the seauen-month if he be strong he breaketh the Membranes maketh way for himselfe and suruiueth because he is perfect especially if it be a male child The eight month birth why not vital 1. Reason The eight month although he be perfect hee cannot survive because hee is not able to beare two afflictions one immediately succeeding in the necke of another For in the seuenth moneth he laboreth sore and repeateth his contention the eight before his strength is refreshed And this is Hippocrates opinion in the very beginning of his Booke de octimestri partu Concerning the eight-moneth birth I am of this iudgement that it is impossible that the Infant Hippocrates authority should beare two succeeding afflictions and therefore those Infants doe not suruiue For they are twice afflicted because to the euils they suffered in the wombe are added also the payne in the birth Again the eight-month birth is not vital because it commeth after the birth day which The 2. reason should haue beene the seauenth moneth and before the birth day which is to bee the ninth moneth Whence we may gather that some ill accident hath betided the Infant or the mother which hindred the birth the 7. month and preuented the ninth And hitherto belongeth that golden sentence of our admired maister Hippocrates in the eight Section of his sixt Booke Epidemiωn If nothing happen within the prescript time of the birth whatsoeuer is borne shall suruiue But now why a woman doth not beare her burthen beyond the tenth and the eleauenth Why a womā goeth not aboue 11. moneths months Hippocrates in his Booke de Natura pueri referreth the cause to the want of Aliment Now the Aliment fayleth as well because a great part of the bloud flowes back vnto the Pappes for the generation of Milke as also because the Infant is nourished only with pure and sweete bloud which the mother can no longer in sufficient quantity supply vnto him Neither is that to bee passed ouer with silence which Hippocrates obserued in the Booke before named to wit that in some women the Aliment fayleth sooner in some later Those which are not accustomed to bring foorth haue lesse Aliment then others for What women destaud their Infants soonest their Infants because the bloud is not accustomed to turne his course toward the wombe Againe those women who haue lesse store of
it is whitened After it is so praepared it is conveighed to the Epididymis thorough whose insensible passages it sweateth into the spongie and friable substance of the Testicles themselues where hauing atteined the forme and perfection of seede it is deliuered ouer by the eiaculatory or rather the Leading-vessels to the Parastatae and from them transcolated to the Prostatae which reserue the seed being now turgid and full of spirits for the necessary vses of Nature Hence it followeth that that power which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the seede-making Faculty or the Faculty of generation is from the Testicles immediately by which Faculty the parts being stirred vp do poure out of themselues the matter of the seede when Venus dooth so require This Faculty is the authour in men of Virility and in women of Muliebrity and breedeth in all creatures that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which the heate being blowne vp is the cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so that the bloode being heated and attenuated distendeth the Veines and the bodie or bulke of that part groweth turgid and impatient of his place which the Grecians call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And thus much of the Lower Region In the Middle Region there are many parts of great woorth but the excellencie of the The Middle Region Heart dimmeth the light of the rest which all are to it but seruants and attendants The Heart therefore is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth to beate because The Heart it is perpetually mooued from the ingate to the outgate of life This is a Pyramidal Bowell whose Basis is in the middle of the Chest the mucro or point reacheth toward the left side The magnitude but small that the motion might be more free and nimble the flesh very fast and exceeding hot intertexed or wouen with all three kinds of Fibres and nourished with bloode which it receiueth from two branches of the Coronary Veine On the out-side it hath a great quantity of fat and swimmeth in a waterish Lye which is conteyned in the Pericardium wherewith as with a purse the Heart is encompassed On the inside it is distinguished by an intermediate partition into two Ventricles The right is lesse noble then the left and framed most what for the vse of the Lungs It receiueth a great quantity of blood from the yawning mouth of the Hollow-vein and after it is prepared returneth the same blood againe through the Arteriall veine into all the corners of the Lunges This right ventricle hath annexed to it the greater care and sixe Values are inserted into the Orifices of his vessels The left Ventricle which is also the most noble hath a thicker wall then the right because it is the shop of thin blood and vitall spirites Out of this Ventricle do two vessels issue the first called the Venall artery which receyueth the ayer prepared by the Lungs and for retribution returneth vnto them vitall blood and spirits at which artery the left deafe care is scituated and in whose orifice there slande two Values bending from without inward The other vessell of the left Ventricle is the Aorta or great Artery which distributeth vnto the whole body vitall blood and spirits For according as the opinion of some is it draweth the better part of the Chylus by the Meseraicke Arteries into the bosome of the left ventricle for the generation of arteriall blood and at his mouth do grow three Values opening inward We say further that the Heart is the The Vitall faculty habitation of the vitall Faculty which by the helpe of Pulsation and Respiration begetteth Vital spirits of Ayer and Blood mixed in the left ventricle And this Faculty although it be vitall yet is it not the life it selfe and differeth from the Faculty of Pulsation both in the functions and in the extent and latitude of the subiect The Faculty of Pulsation is Naturall to the heart as proceeding and depending vpon the Vitall Faculty For it is not mooued 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or voluntarily as is the Animall Faculty but onely obeyeth the command of the necessity of Nature From the foresaide Faculty of Pulsation do proceede two motions the Diastole the Systole betweene which there is a double Rest These motions in the Heart and Arteries are the same and at the same time but so that the cause of the motion is supplied from the Heart vnto the Artrries as from a principle both mooued and moouing Finally to come vnto that which we are now in hand withall In the vpper Region wee meete with the Braine compassed with the strong battlements of the scull adorned with The vpper Region the Face as with a beautifull Frontispice wherein the Soule inhabiteth not onely in essence and power as it is in the rest of the body but in her magnificense and throne of state This Braine is the most noble part of the whole body and framed with such curiositie so many Labyrinthes and Meanders are therein that euen a good wit may easily bee at losse when it is trained away with so diuers sents in an argument so boundlesse and vaste Notwithstanding we will as briefely and succinctly as we can giue you a viewe of the Fabricke and Nature thereof referring the Reader for better satisfaction to the ensuing discourse wherein we hope to giue euen him that is curious some contentment The substance therefore of the Braine is medullous or marrowy but a proper marrow not like that of other parts framed out of the purest part of the seed and the spirites It is The Braine moouable and that with a naturall motion which is double one proper to it self another comming from without It is full of sence but that sence is operatiue or actiue not passiue For the behoofe of this braine was the head framed nor the head alone but also the whole body it selfe being ordained for the generation of animall spirits and for the exhibiting of the functions of the inward senses and the principall faculties in this brain we are to consider first his parts then his faculties The Braine therefore occupieth the whole cauity of the skull and by the dura mater or hard membrane is diuided into a forepart and a backpart The forepart which by reason of the magnitude retaineth the name of the whole and is properly called the Braine is againe deuided by a body or duplicated membrane resembling a mowerssy the into a right side a left both which sides are againe continued by the interposition or mediation of a callous body This callous body descending a litle downward appeareth to be excauated or hollowd into two large ventricles much resembling the forme of a mans eare through which cauities a thrumbe of crisped vessels called Plexus Choroides doth run wherein the Animal spirits receiue their preparation and out of these Ventricles doe yssue two swelling Pappes which are commonly called the Organes of smelling and do determine at the