Selected quad for the lemma: hand_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
hand_n	finger_n	right_a	thumb_n	5,966	5	13.7675	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

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

the child by his calcining heat what is bred by moisture and heat is fixed by cold and dryness Mars heats with a fiery calcination but Venus she tempers the heat of Mars by her moisture for she is a cold moist Planet and fitly added to abate the courage and violent heat of warlike Mars there is a great sympathy between Mars and Venus and therefore surely the Poets speak so much of their conjunction for they are eminent in this of mans generation You may by this find out the causes of sympathy and antipathy in natural things and seeing all things are made up of such contrary qualities what is generated must in time be corrupted nothing is eternal in this world but a perpetual motion breeds mutation and not man nor any thing else can continue in the same stay Mars and Venus do here play their parts in mans production for they are the nearest of the five Planets to the earth but next to them is Mercury of a changeable disposition and applieth himself to the rest of the Planets with several aspects and he causeth the desire of knowledge in man sense and reason also some maintain to be the work of Mercury by his influence upon the child in the womb It is not denied but a piercing acute humour proceeds from him which is most likely to effect not alone the sensible but the rational part in man CHAP. IX Of the Posture the child holdeth in the Womb and after what fashion it lieth there HEre Physicians are at a stand and are never like to agree about it not two in twenty that can set their horses together the speculation is very curious insomuch that the Prophet David ascribes this knowledge as more peculiar to God Psalm 139. My reins are thine thou hast covered me in my mothers womb I will give thanks unto thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made marvellous are thy works and that my soul knoweth right well my bones are not hid from thee though I be made secretly and fashioned beneath in the earth thine eyes did see my substance yet being unperfect and in thy Book were all my members written which day by day were fashioned whenas yet there was none of them Yet Anatomists have narrowly enquired into this secret Cabinet of nature and Hippocrates that great Physician tells us in his Book De natura Pueri that the infant lieth in the womb with his head his hands and his knees bending downward towards his feet so that he is bended round together his hands lying upon both his knees the thumbs of his hands his eyes meeting each with other so saith Bartholinus the younger of the two Likewise Columbus's opinion is that the child lieth round in the womb with the right arm bended and the fingers of the right hand lying under the ear of it above the neck the head bowed so low that the chin meets and toucheth the breast and the left arm bowed lying above the breast and the face and the right elbow bended serves to underprop the left arm lying upon it the legs are lying upwards and the right leg is lifted so high that the infants thigh toucheth its belly the knees touch the Navel and the heel toucheth the left buttock and the foot is turned backward and hides the privy members as for the left thigh that toucheth the belly and the left leg is lifted up to the breast the stomach lyeth inward But the expert Spigelius hath the fashion of a child near the birth whose figure I have here laid down and I believe it is very proper for as well as I am able to judge by the figure it is the very same with that of a child that I had once the chance to see when I was performing my office of Midwifry Here insert the Figure of the Child near its Birth The Figure Explained Being a Dissection of the WOMB with the usual manner how the CHILD lies therein near the time of its Birth BB. The inner parts of the Chorion extended and branched out C. The Amnios extended DD. The Membrane of the Womb extended and branched E. The Fleshy substance call'd the Cake or Placenta which nourishes the Infant it is full of Vessels F. The Vessels appoint●d for th● 〈…〉 This is a general observation that the Male Child most commonly lyeth on the right side in the womb and the Female on the left side but Hippocrates layeth it down as the most universal way to have his hands knees and head bending down toward the feet his nose betwixt his knees his hands upon both knees and his face between them each eye touching each thumb but he is wrapt as he lieth in two mantles or garments as I said for a boy hath no more that which immediately covers him and lieth next to his skin is called Amnios the skirt or Lamb-skin it is wonderful soft and thin and is loose on all sides only it grows so fast to the Cake that it can hardly be parted from it the use of it farther is to receive the Childs sweat and Urine which moisteneth the mouth of the Matrix also and makes the birth more easie but the outward coat called Chorion is very strong and sinewy and encloseth the child round about and like a soft pillow or bed bears up all the veins and Arteries of the Navel which would have been in danger to have been carried so far without some soft bolster to sustain them These coats growing fast together seem to be but one coat or one to be the beginning of the other and this altogether taken is called the after-burden or Secundine for when the Child is grown strong enough to come out of the womb and the time of his birth is at hand he breaks through these coverings and the coverings come forth after the child is born yet sometimes a piece of the Amnios covers the childs face and head when he is born and women call it the caule and hold it to be a Sign of some great happiness that will befall the child in the following part of his life but some think it is neither here nor there one born without this caule may be as happy as he that is born with it There belong to the child whilest it lieth in the womb some things that are proper for it some to cloath it and are only for that time that it lieth in that place and afterwards of no known use though some have tried to make use of them in Physick and Chirurgery but commonly they cast it away Some things again serve to nourish and feed it in the womb and those are the Navel-vessels which are four in number two arteries one vein and that vessel which is called Vrachos which carrieth away the childs water in the womb to that skin that is prepared to hold that water so long as the child staies in the womb and it is called Allantois The vein I speak of comes from the Infants Liver and

of the woman doth not rise higher in false conceptions but in true it doth Some women have their Terms well and their wombs well disposed yet their bellies have swoln and the cause not discerned till they were dead for being opened one or both corners of the womb have had little bags of water or else clusters of kernels and strange flesh growing in them Some women have also a piece of flesh hanging within the inward neck of the womb fastned about a finger broad at the root and growing dayly downward in form like a bell and sometimes fills all the privy members orifice and may be seen hanging forth all these make the belly swell round but are not properly Moles as they are before spoken of Amongst false conceptions all monstrous births may be reckoned for a monster saith Aristotle is an error of nature failing of the end she works for by some corrupted principle sometimes this happens when the sex is imperfect that you cannot know a boy from a girl they call these Hermaphrodites there is but one kind of Women Hermaphrodites when a thing like a Yard stands in the place of the Clitoris above the top of the genital and bears out in the bottom of the share-bone sometimes in boys there is seen a small privy part of the woman above the root of the Yard and in girls a Yard is seen at the Lesk or in the Peritoneum But three ways a boy may be of doubtful sex 1. When there is seen a womans member between the Cods and the Fundament 2. When it is seen in the Cod but no excrement coming forth by it 3. When they piss through it But Monsters most ordinarily falling out are when the child born is of some strange feature or like a dog or any other creature as the Tartar lately captivated by the Germans in their last war against the Turks if the relation be true he had a head and neck like a horse some think he was begotten of a beast a custom too frequent amongst those miscreants Some are monsters in magnitude when one part as the head is too great for the body or a Gyant or a Pigmy is brought forth Sometimes in place when the parts are displaced as when the eyes stand in the forehead or the ears behind in the poll many such strange births have been in the world and sometime children have been born with six fingers on a hand and six toes like those Gyants the Scripture speaks of and others there are born with but one eye or one hand one ear and the like CHAP. V. Of the causes of Monstrous Conceptions WHat should be the causes of Monstrous Conceptions hath troubled many great Learned men Alcabitius saith if the Moon be in some Degrees when the child is conceived it will be a Monster Astrologers they seek the cause in the stars but Ministers refer it to the just judgements of God they do not condemn the Parent or the Child in such cases but take our blessed Saviours answer to his Disciples who askt him who sinned the Parent or the Child that he was born blind our Saviour replyed neither he nor his Parents but that the Judgments of God might be made manifest in him In all such cases we must not exclude the Divine vengeance nor his Instruments the stars influence yet all these errors of Nature as to the Instrumental causes are either from the material or efficient cause of procreation The matter is the seed which may fail three several wayes either when it is too much and then the members are larger or more than they should be or too little and then there will be some part or the whole too little or else the seed of both sexes is ill mixed as of men or women with beasts certainly it is likely that no such creatures are born but by unnatural mixtures yet God can punish the world with such grievous punishments and that justly for our sins Aristotle tells us that in Africa so many monsters are bred amongst beasts because going far together to water they that are of different kinds ingender there and so dayly new Monsters are begotten But the efficient cause of Monsters is either from the forming faculty in the Seed or else the strength of imagination joyned with it add to these the menstruous blood and the disposition of the Matrix sometimes the mother is frighted or conceives wonders or longs strangely for things not to be had and the child is markt accordingly by it The unfitness of the matter hinders formation for an agent cannot produce the effect where the patient is not fit to receive it Imagination can do much as a woman that lookt on a Black-more brought forth a child like to a Black-more and one I knew that seeing a boy with two thumbs on one hand brought forth such another but ordinarily the spirits and humours are disturbed by the passions of the mind and so the forming faculty is hindered and overcome with too great plenty of humours that flow to the matrix or the spirits are called off and gone another way But the imagination is so strong in some persons with child that they produce such real effects that can proceed from nothing else as that woman who brought forth a child all hairy like a Camel because she usually said prayers kneeling before the image of St. John Baptist who was clothed with camels hair How the imagination can work such wonders is hard to say but there must be some strength of mind that can convey the species from the external senses to the formative faculty for by this means there is a consent between the faculties superior and inferior The Soul is all in all and all in every part of the body yet it works in several parts as occasions serves The child in the Mothers womb hath a soul of its own yet it is a part of the mother untill she be delivered as a branch is part of a Tree while it grows there and so the mothers imagination makes an impression upon the child but it must be a strong imagination at that very time when the forming faculty is at work or else it will not do but since the child takes part of the mothers life whilst he is in the womb as the fruit doth of the tree whatsoever moves the faculties of the mothers soul may do the like in the child So the parts of the infant will be hairy where no hair should grow or Strawberries or Mulberries or the like be fashioned upon them or have lips or parts divided or joined together according as the imagination transported by violent passions may sometimes be the cause of it The Arabians say a strange imagination can do as much as the Heavens can to make plants and mettals in the earth The second cause is the heat or place of conception which molds the matter quickly into sundry forms But imagination holds the first place and thence it is that

or ordinary Midwifry then we must come to chirurgery and the method how to perform it is thus 1. Lay the woman along upright the middle of her body lying highest and let sufficient help keep her down that when the Child is drawn forth she rise not with it 2. The midwife must first annoint her hands with Oyl of white Lillies Butter or Ducks grease then holding down her fingers let her shut her hand and thrust it up into the womb to feel how the Child lyeth for sometimes it may be drawn forth with the hand but if it cannot be done so then use Chirurgeons Instruments having first found with your hand the posture of the Child 1. If the head come forward fasten a hook to one eye of it or under the chin or to the roof of the mouth or upon one of the shoulders which of these you find best and then draw the Child out gently that you do the woman no hurt 2. If the feet come first fasten the hook upon the bone above the privy parts called os pubis or by some rib or back bones or breast bones then draw it not forth but hold the Instrument in your left hand and then fasten another hook upon some other part of the Child right against the first and draw gently both together that the Child may come equally moving it from one side to another until you have drawn it forth altogether but often guide it with your fore-finger well annointed if it stick or stop any where take higher hold still with your hooks upon the dead child 3. If but one arm come forth and you cannot well put it back again the passage being too narrow or for some other reason then tye it with a linnen cloth that it slip not up again and draw it down gently till the who●e arm come forth and then cut it off with a sharp knife from the body do so also if both hands appear together or one leg or both if you cannot easily put them back or take them forth with the body as you cut the arms from the shoulders so you must cut the legs from the thighs your instruments being very sharp for quick dispatch when some parts are cut off from the body then turn the rest to draw it out the better 4. If the childs head be swollen with watry humours that it be too great to come forth at so narrow a passage then put in your hand holding a sharp incision knife between your fingers and so cut open the head that the humours contained in it may come forth and the head abate but if it be too great of it self and not by disease you must divide the skull and take it out by pieces with instruments for that purpose if when the head is come out the breast be too large to follow then cut that asunder also and bring it forth in pieces and so must you do with the whole body or any parts that are swollen too great 5. If the child come sidelong then annoint your hand and her secrets and turn the child to the best posture you can the womb and all the Privities must also be perfumed with such things as may dilate the place and make it slippery there are many medicaments prescribed in this book will be very proper for it but when all fails you must cut the child asunder and draw it out by pieces 6. If the womb be diseased or hurt so that it be ulcerated ' whereby the parts are made dryer and narrower it must be dilated by oyls unguents baths and fumes such you will find set down to help delivery for a living child and you must use them for a child that is dead You must observe in this work that if by violent drawing forth the child the Privy parts and Genitals of the mother be so torn that her Urine and excrements come out against her will which often happens in such cases the cure will be the same as for the Palsie and wounds of these parts with a general evacuation of her body also make a Bath of all these herbs and roots following or as many as you can get viz. of the decoction of Bay-leaves Sage Betony Brank or some Hogs-Fennel Origanum Penni-Royal Tannicle Tormentil Plantane Rupture-wort Mugwort Mouseeare Lady-Mantle St. Johns-wort Cammomile flowers Oaken leaves Camphire-roots The woman must sit in this Bath and presently after her bathing she must annoint her Privities and Fundament with this following Unguent Take Oyl of worms of Foxes and of the Lillies of the Vallies each alike boyl a young blind Puppey in them so long that his flesh part from the bones then press forth all strongly and add to the straining Styrax Calamint Benzoin Opopanax Frankincense Mastick of each one dram a little Aqua Vitae a little wax mix them and make of them an Ointment then let her drink often of this Potion following Take Penniroyal Balm Motherwort Mousear Ladies Mantle of each one handful Mace one dram boyl all in a Pottle of the best wine strain it and drink a little draught morning and evening or boil nothing but Ladies Mantle in her broth drink a pint of it every morning fasting or if her stomach will not bear it take but four or five Ounces at a draught The Cesarian Birth is the drawing forth of the child either dead or alive by cutting open the Mothers womb it was so called because Julius Caesar the first Roman Emperor was so brought into the world Physicians and Chirurgeons say it may be safely done without killing the Mother by cutting in the Abdomen to take out the child but I shall wish no man to do it whilest the Mother is alive but if the Mother dye in child-bearing and the child be alive then you must keep the womans Mouth and Privities open that the child may receive air to breath or it will be presently stifled then turn the woman on her left side and there cut her open and take out the Infant This is also a Cesarian Birth but it is not like that which is used whilest the Mother is alive It is used three ways 1. The Mother living and the Child dead 2. The Child living and the Mother dead 3. When both are living Mathias Cornax relates of a woman that carried a dead Child in her womb four years it was cut out of the belly and womb and the Mother lived and conceived with child again she fainted not when her belly and womb were cut and they grew well again without stitching but she had hard labour the second child and the Chirurgeon offered to cut her again but the women would not suffer it so she fainted but the Chirurgeon delivered her of a second boy but this last was dead Roderigo de Carstro saith th 〈…〉 child cannot live in the womb when 〈◊〉 Mother is dead if it be not presently taken forth so soon as her breath is gone or vital spirits last because when the Mothers