presaging the approaching delivery are in part the preparation and disposition of the Childing Woman whereby she may bring forth and in part the scite or proper position of the Infant in order to the Birth As concerning the Position Fabricius saith that it is of a conglobated and inflex figure left the Foetus by his extream and eminent parts might injure the Womb or the conteining membranes and likewise that so he may be comprehended in the lesser roome But I am not of opinion that the foetus doth still observe the same scite or positure of his members in the Womb for the fore-scited causes For he swimmeth in a water and moveth himself to and fro he stretcheth himself now this way and anon that and so is variously inflected and tumbled up and down in so much that sometimes being entangled in his own Navel-string he is strangely insnared True it is that all Animals while they lye still and sleep do for the most part draw in and contract themselves and direct themselves toward an Oval or Conglobated figure So likewise Embryo's which pass their time most in slumbers do compose their bodies in that posture wherein they are formed as being the most natural most easie and most advantagious for their sleep And therefore the Infant in the Womb is commonly found with his Knees drawn up to his Belly his Thighs bent backwards his Feet hanging down and his Hands elevated to his Head whereof the one is placed about his Temples or Ears and the other at his Cheek in which parts there are white spots discovered in the skin as being the signes of his confrication His Spine is bent round and his Neck being inflected his Head hangs neer his Knees The Embryo is scituated with that position of parts wherewith we commonly apply our selves to rest with his Head uppermost and his Face directed towards his mothers Spine But a litle before his Birth his head being bent downwards he dives towards the bottom and the Orifice of the Matrix as if he were seeking his way out So Aristotle All Animals do naturally come into the world with their head formost but those that lye cross or come with their heels formost are unnatural births But yet this is not constant in all Animals but according to their several site or position in the Womb so is their Birth various as in Bitches Sows and other Multiparous Animals And the Great-bellied Women know full well that even the humane Embryo doth sometimes acquire a different scituation when they find the Child kick sometimes above sometimes below and now on this side and at other times on that So also the Matrix being neer delivery doth bear down groweth soft and openeth its Orifice The Waters also as they commonly call them are Gathered that is a certain part of the Chorion in which the fore-said humour is conteined doth usher in the Foetus and slide down from the Matrix into the Vagina or Sheath of the Womb and the neighbouring parts also are loosened and ready to distend also the Articubation of the Holy bone and the Share-bone to the Hanch-bone which Copulation or Articulation is by Synchondrosis or a gristly ligament is so softened and losened that the fore-said bones do easily give way to the parting Infant and by gaping open do amplifie the whole region of the Hypogastrium or Lower belly And when these things are in this condition it is certain that the Birth is at hand And that so the Foetus like a ripe fruit may come forth into the World Nature makes this provision of dilating the parts as she likewise concocteth the Milk which is sent before into the Breasts that the Infant now ready to be born may have his entertainment ready to wellcome him being now to be susteined from without And these are the fore-runners of the Birth Wherefore the Milk is counted amongst the chiefest signes of an imminent birth I mean such Milk which both for store plenty and consistence is convenient to feed the Child which according to Aristotle is never so qualified but neer the time of the Birth and therefore is never found before the seventh moneth Fabricius concludeth upon two queries chiefly in order to the Foetus namely how the birth is and when the last whereof relates to the time of Bearing the first to the manner of the Birth it self The times of bearing are by Aristotle conceived to be various There are saith he peculiar times of bearing to all kind of Animals for the greatest part as long as they live for the race of Animals which is longer liv'd then others must of necessity be more durable But the magnitude of the Animals is by him assigned as the chiefest cause of the variety of the times of bearing For saith he the great fabrick either of Animals or any thing else cannot be easily absolved in a short space Wherefore Mares and those Animals that are of kin to them though they live but a shorter time yet they are longer in bringing forth And therefore the Elephant as they say is two years in her production because of its excessive magnitude But every Animal hath certain bounds of magnitude which it cannot exceed and therefore they have a definit matter out of which they are made he addeth moreover But there is exceeding good reason why Animals do receive the dimension or measure of their times of ingravidation generation and their lives also by certain Circulations Now I call a Circulation a day a night a moneth a year and all those times which are described by them as also the motions of the Moon for these are the common beginnings of Generation to all Animals For it stands to good reason that the Circulations of less principal things should follow the Circulations of more principal And therefore Nature hath defined or limited the generation and decease of Animals by their motions And as the Births of Animals do depend upon the Revolutions or Circuits of the Sun and Moon so do their times of Coition and bearing their young vary and are either more prolixe or breifer The time of going with young saith Aristotle in the same place is enormous onely in Women For all other creatures have some one time but a Woman hath several for a Child may be borne either the Seventh or the Tenth moneth and likewise in the moneths intervening between the Seventh and the Tenth For they that are borne in the Eighth moneth though they do seldom live yet they may live Diverse Animals have indeed a set time of bringing forth and specially in the Spring when the Sun returnes diverse in the Summer and some in the Autumne as the Gristley Fishes And hence it happens that when the time of bringing forth approacheth they direct themselves to their wonted places where they may safely build their Stalls or Nests where they may bring forth cherish and sustaine their young Hence it is that those Winds which
in that the whole Worm grows and so becomes a dearticulate animal namely in growing it becomes to be jointed or distinguished We have indeed cause to wonder that the Rudiments of all Creatures whatsoever especially of Creatures that have blood viz. of a Dog a Horse a Deere an Oxe a Henne a Viper nay of Man himselfe should so exactly resemble the shape and consistence of a Magot that you can perceive no difference at all Towards the end of the Fifth day or the beginning of the Sixth the Head is distinguished into three vesicles or litle bladders whereof the first and greatest which is round and blackish is that of the Eye in whose center the Pupilla is discovered like a crystalline Point Under this a lesser vesicle whereof part is hidden represents the Brain â—â— which the third like a crest adjoyned or a smal â—â—nd knobb appears uppermost of which at last â—he Cerebellum or After-brain is made yet in all â—â—ese you shall finde nothing besides a cleare water And now the Rudiment of the Body which we all the Keel doth more distinctly represent the â—pina dorsi or Chine of the Back to which sides begin to be built and appear for the Wings and legs do now jut out from the Magot And the vessels do now plainly express the Navel The fifth Inspection of the Egge EXER XIX THe sixth day the three Bullae of the Head doe more plainly appear and the coats of the eyes are now distinct also the Legs and Wings do bud forth as at the end of June the Gyrini which the Italians call Ravabottoli and we Tadpoles begin to have leggs when now they forsake the waâ—ers loose their tayl and put on the shape of Frogs The form of the Chickens Rump is yet no other then that which is seen in all other animals may in very vipers namely a round slender tail The Parenchyma of the heart now groweth to the vesicula pulsans and a litle after the Rudiments of the Liver and Lungs are discovered and also the Bill all appearing exceeding white especially the Bill And about this time all the Viscera and the Guts may be seen But the heart exposeth it â—â— first to sight and the Lungs before the Liver or the brain But before all are the eyes visible because oâ— their largeness and blackness of their colour And now the foetus moves and gently tumbles and stretcheth out the neck though nothing of a brain be yet to be seen but meerly a bright water shut up in a small bladder And now it is a perfect Magot differing onely from those kinde of wormâ— in this that those when they have their freedome crawle up and down and search for their living abroad but this worm constant to his station and swimming in his own provision draws it in by his Umbilical Vessels The Viscera and the Guts being now erected and the foetus being furnished with motion too yet the fore-part of the Body still lyes wide open being deprived of the Thorax and Abdomen and the Heart it selfe the Liver and the Guts hanging out About the end of this day and the beginning of the seventh the claws are distinguished and the foetus begins to have the Effigies of a Chicken it opens the bill and kicks lastly all the parts are delineated especially the Eyes But the Viscera or bowels are yet so obscure that Coiterus truly affirmeâ— That he saw indeed the Eyes and the Bill but could discover no Viscus at all though never so concealed or confused That which followeth from the beginning of the sixth day to the end of the seventh cometh â—â— pass sooner in some and in some eggs later Noâ— are the coats of the Eyes seen though they have nothing in them but a liquid clear humor the Eyâ— themselves are something prominent or hanging out of their seats and each of them doth no leâ— exceed the brain in magnitude then the head the rest of the body that is fastned to it A litle bubble like a crest placed out of the circuit of the brain supplied the place of the cerebellum and that is also full of a clear water The brain seemeth obscurely divided and shines not so much as the cerebellum doth though it look whiter And as the Heart is now to be seen without the inclosure of the chest so is the cerebellum out of the Confines of the cerebrum In cutting off the Head I saw by the benefit of â—â—y Perspective in the Necke a bloody speck of â—â—e veine which ascends to the braine And by â—his means onely could I distinguish the rudiment of the Spine from the other Pulpe it was of a milkey complexion but firmer consistence then milk And so also like slender cobwebs narrow white lines wanâ—ing through the pulp of the body to give some â—â—imen of the Ribbs and other bones and this is much more discernable in the formation of other Viviparous Animals The Heart the Lungs the Liver and instead of Guts the most slender threds â—re all white The Parenchyma of the Liver â—ows to the Umbilical vein there where it enters â—o the Liver upon thin fibrous strings in like manner as the Rudiment of the Body grows to the â—â— passing from the Heart or to the Vesicula pulâ—â—s For as Grapes grow to the cluster buds to â—â—eir stalks and the eares of corn to the straw So â—â—th the Liver to the Umbilical vessels like mushâ—â— out of Trees or proud flesh in Ulcers or fleshy â—â—â—rs which border upon the branches of the Arâ—â—â—â—es by which they are fed and spread sometimes â—â—â— vast tumor Having had an Eye upon this emploiment of Arteries or circulation of the blood I have sometimes perfectly cured exceeding great Herniae carnosae beyond all expectation providing onely that the litle artery being tyed or cut off no nutriment or spirit might have accession to the part affected by which it fell out that the fatal tumor was afterwards easily extirpated either by incision or adustion A certain man besides other infirmities and of this story I can produce many testimonies had a Sarcosis or fleshy tumor in his Scrotum or God bigger then a mans head hanging down to his Knees and from it another Hernia carnosa as thick as ones wrist or a cable passed into his Abdomen so that the disease growing to so great a height no man would undertake the Cure by incision or otherwise Yet I perfectly cured this so vast excrescence which so much distended the Scrotum and encompassed the Testicle by the means aforesaid and yet left the leading and preparing vessel to the use of the Testicle without any prejudice or touch upon the other vessels descending into the Sâ—â—tum by the Tunica vaginalis or coat of the Testicles so called But these and other Cures accomplished clean beside the common opinion I shall in my Physical Observations if God grant me life discover at large I mention these things with this intent that men may
like to those but the spirit which is inclosed in the seed and spumous body and the nature which is in that spirit being answerable and like in proportion to the Element or substance of the Stars Wherefore though wee should indulge Fabricius in his opinion that the Seed is reserved in that pouch yet notwithstanding after the prolifical effervency or the spirit is resolved it would grow useless and improlifical And from hence may Physitians take notice that the geniture of the male is not therefore the architect of the foetus because the first cenception assumes its body from it but because it is spirituous and boyling as being inspired with a fertile spirit and turgent like a thing possessed For otherwise Averrhoes his fable of the woman that conceived in a Bath might have some title to true story But of these things more in their proper place As therefore the Egg is made by the Hen so iâ— it also very likely that all the first conceptions aâ— shall be shown hereafter doe assume both their Matter and Form from the female and that also after the males geniture is immitted and now for some time quite departed and vanished away For the Cock doth not conferre any fertility to the Hen or Eggs by the bare emission of his geniture but onely so farre forth as that geniture is prolifical and impowered with a plastical virtue that is to say spiritous operative and proportionable to the subtence of the Stars The male therefore is no more to be prized as the chief principle of the conception and foetus by reason he can concoct and emit seed then a female which can produce an egg without his help But he therefore rather claims prerogative in that he impowers his seed with spirit and divine efficacy and so that in a moment it can perform its affaires and conveigh fertility For as we see things immediately set on fire and infamed by a spark struck from a flint or by a flash of Lightning from a cloud so the geniture of the male doth immediately affect the female with the touch and transferres fruitfulness unto her which doth not onely virtuate the eggs but the womb also and the Hen herself and all in an instant for to combustible substance is sooner set on fire by the approach of the flames then the Hen is made pregnant by the coition of the Cock. But what it is that is transferred from him to her we shall have occasion to discover in its order then we shall determine the matter more perspicuously and in general In the mean time we must take notice that if it be derived from the soul for it is most likely that whatsoever is fruitfull the same is also animate and we have said before that an Egg in Aristoiles opinion is indowed with a vegetative soul as also all the seed of Plants that soul at least the vegetative must of necessity be ex traduce and derived in a Prolificall Conception as after it as it is in the Generation of the Chicken out of the Egge and just in that manner as Plants do spring from seeds of their own kind For it doth not appear that the Male is required to the intent that hee should be as an Agent Operatour or Efficient per se nor that the Female is required that she should contribute the matter but both Male and Female are to be esteemed in some sort the Operatour and Parent and the foetus is procreated a mixt similitude and resemblance as if it proceeded from both mixt together Nor is it true which Aristotle often affirms and Physitians take for granted namely that presently after Coition there is something to be found of the foetus or conception as the Heart or the Tres Bullae or some other Principle part or something at least in the cavity of the Womb as some Coagulum or Spermatical mixt substance or the like But on the contrary in case the Female prove fertile and pregnant it happens that the eggs and conception in the most and most perfect creatures is first begun long after coition And that the Female also is prolifical before any thing of the conception be at all contained in the Womb many indications do conspire to ascertain as shall be afterwards discovered in the History of Viviparous Animals as the enlargement of the Breasts and the turgid swelling of the Womb by which and other Symptomes we may perceive an Alteration in the whole Body But as for the Hen though she have for the most part the Rudiments of eggs in her before coition which are afterwards by the Tread made prolificall and therefore she then hath something in her presenly upon coition or treading yet when it falls out so with her that like other creatures she hath nothing at hand ready in her Ovary or hath already layd all the egges she formerly had there she being afterwards trod though some time pass between and intervene as if she were then both Principles her self alone or did possess the power of both Sexes doth after the manner of Plants generate egges by her self and those too I speak it knowingly not subventaneous but prolifical For if you take all the eggs from under a Hen that is now sitting in case that very Hen was a fruitful Hen in former time though she have now already layd all the eggs she hath and have not so much as one remaining in her Ovary she wil lay again and those eggs shal be fructifying prolifical eggs having the principles of both Sexes in them In what respect the Henne may be called the Primum Efficiens the first or Chiefe Efficient And also of her issue EXERCIT. XLI WE have already pronounced the Hen to be an Efficient Cause of Generation or natures Instrument in that employment but she is not absolutely and per se but by commission and by vertue of the Male rendered prolifical But as the Male is by Aristotle counted the first principle of Generation suo merito upon his own score because the first Motus or progress towards Generation proceeds from him so the Hen also may in some respect be esteemed the first cause of Generation insomuch as the male by the approach and presence of the female like one possessed is inflamed to Venery The female-Fish saith Pliny at the time of coition will pursue and follow the Male punching his belly with her head And again about the time of bringing forth the Male will do the like to the Female I my self have sometimes seen the male Fishes follow the female that was ready to spawn just as Doggs doe a salt-Bitch all in troops that they might sprinckle her eggs so soon as she had laid them lacte suo with their milkey substance or seed But that is most sensible in wanton and lascivious females which will stirre up Cupids slow and drowsie fires in their tame males and instill a silent love into them And hence it is that the Dunghill-cock so soon
For after the chicken is well nigh compleated when his Head and Eyes are distinctly to be seen the Chalazae are still found in the Egg far remote from the Chicken and still entire being then depressed from the two ends of the egg to the sides and do execute as he also confesses the office of Ligaments to keep the Yolk in its true position within the White Nor is that true neither which Fabricius addes to justifie his perswasion namely that the Chalazae are seated directly under the Obtuse Angle of the Egge For after the first days Incubation the Liquors shift their stations the Yolk is exalted and the chalazae are depressed from both ends as hath been said He is also deceived when he saith that the chalazae are parts of the Egge for in truth the egge is constituted onely by the Yolk and the White but the chalazae as also the membranes are onely certain litle Appendixes of the White and nothing else but meerly the extremities of the membranes contorted and twisted as filaments or strings are twisted into a Rope that so they may the better preserve the Liquors in their proper places by a firmer tye And therefore his Inference is infirme when he saith The chalazae are found to be in that part of the egg where the chicken is made and therefore the chicken is made out of them For even according to Fabricius himself that can no wayes be who confesses that the chalazae are to be found in the two extremities of the egg and yet denies that the chicken is any where made but onely in the Obtuse end of it in which end truly from the very first setting out towards the Generation of the Chicken there is no chalazae to be found at all Nay if you make tryal in a New-layd Egge you shall find that the superiour chalaza is not directly seated under the Obtuse end or the cavity thereof but inclining something to the side nor on that side neither where the cavity doth tend but rather on the contrary side Moreover it hath been shewed before that the scituation of the Liquors immediately upon Incubation is shifted because the Oculus or Eye of the egge being enlarged by the colliquamentum is exalted to the cavity in the Obtuse Angle upon which the liquors and chalazae at each end do remove to the sides For the Macula or Speck which before Incubation was seated in the middest between both the extremities of the egge now being inlarged into an Oculus or Eye is adjoyned to the cavity in the Obtuse end and one of the chalazae is deposed from the Obtuse Angle and the other is exalted so much as the other is deposed from the Acute Angle just as the Poles of the World are seated in an Oblique Hemisphere and at the same time the greatest part of the White especially of the grosser part of it doth sinck down to the Acute Angle Nor is that true neither where he endeavors to infer a probable argument to prove the chalazae to be the Matter of the Pullus from the likeness similitude of their consistence alleadging that the chalazae do represent the first formation of the Chicken by their figure and longitude and have also as many twists or knots as there are principle parts in the Chicken Nor is that corpus Rubrum which he also took for the Liver or red substance in the chalazae or any thing neer them but in the middle of the colliquamentum candidum and it is the rudiment of the Heart onely Nor doth the example of the Tadpoles alleadged by him square to his purpose of which saith he you can onely discern their Head and Taile that is their Head and spine of the Back having neither fore-legs nor hinder-legs And he proceeds that whosoever seeth a Chalaza and one of these conceptions will think he sees one and the same body Now I have made many dissections of these Tadpoles and have seen a pretty large Belly in them and in that Belly Guts and a Liver and a Heart panting and also I have discovered their Head and Eyes too But that which Fabricius takes for their Head is their round figure from which they are called Gyrini because their form or figure in gyrum vertitur curles into a round They have also a Taile by which they swim but legs indeed they want Yet about the Solstice they lose or cast their Taile having then hinder-legs and fore-legs beginning to strut out Now there is nothing in the first division of a Chicken into his Head and Spine that any way resembles this which should any way induce us to believe that the Chicken is made out of the Chalazae in manner of a Tadpole To proceed farther in the confutation of this matter the worth of Fabricius a man so exceedingly well skilled in Anatomy forbids nor indeed is there any great need since the thing is so evident in our History He at last concludes that this his opinion is wondrous old and was on foot in Aristotles dayes But I rather think the opinion of Ulysses Aldrovandus to be old by which it is thought that the Chalazae are the Cocks Treddle out of which and by which the chicken is procreated But neither of these opinions is true for that the Grandines or Chalazae the Italians call them Galladura and our Country-men the Treddle do either proceed from the Cock or are his seed is a vulgar error and an old Wifes tale both heretofore and in our times The Grandines saith Aldrovandus are the Cocks sperme because no fertile Egge is without them No nor infertile Egge neither which he or knew not or did not declare And this Fabricius indeed acknowledgeth but while he denyeth the Cocks seed to enter into the womb or to be any where found in the Egge yet he still contends that the Chalazae before any other parts of the Egg are chiefly stocked with fecundity from the power of the Males seed and do contain a prolifical virtue though he could not observe that there is no difference or distinction at all between the Chalazae of the barren the fruitful egge But seeing he hath granted that the very rudiments of Egges in the Vitellary are as well fructified by the Cocks treading as those Eggs which are encompassed with the white I suppose the occasion of his so able a mans error was this It was hitherto as we have often said the received opinion of all Philosophers and Physitians that the Geniture of the Male or Female or of both together was the subject matter in the generation of Animals out of which residing in the Uterus after coition the Animals are generated in like manner as Plants are made and spring out of the seeds sowen in the ground nor was Aristotle much distant from this opinion who would needs have the menstruous blood to be the womans which the Males geniture doth coagulate and so constitute the conception Now the fore-said Error being granted by all for
nor move yet it is sufficient for them if they are made together with those parts which do rely upon them For where the things which are to be upheld are not in being the Props are provided to no purpose But nature doth nothing rashly nor constitutes parts before there is use of them But all Animals attaine their parts so soon as action and usefulness is required of them And therefore this first foundation of Fabricius his laying countenanced by his own observations in the Egge and Galens simile is clean demolished He seems to come neerer the Mark when hee saith The other foundation of producing the parts in order is desumed from Nature that is the soul which is Queen Regent of the animal body For since there are two degrees of the soul the Vegetal and Sensative and the Vegetal is tempore naturâ prior first both in time and nature because it is common to the very Plants doubtless the Instruments subservient to the Vegetal are first to be made and fitted before those that attend the sensitive and motive faculties especially the more principal ones and where the Queen keeps Court Now these are chiefly two the Liver and the Heart the Liver as the throne of the Vegetal or Nutritive and the Heart as that Minister of State who by his heat and warmth doth enliven and compleat both the Vegetal and other Faculties and therefore holds a strong league and confederacy with the Vegetal Wherefore if after three dayes Incubation you discern in that part of the egge where the Chicken is bred the heart panting as Aristotle also testifieth muse not at it but conclude that the heart relates to the vegetal Faculty and is therefore the first begotten Now it is also consonant to Reason that the Liver also should be Twinne to the Heart and born with it but doth not appear because he wants a palpitation which the Heart hath For even Aristotle himself saith That the Liver and the Heart are constituted in the body upon like grounds so that if there be a Heart there must be a Liver too If therefore the Liver and Heart are first begotten it also followes that the other Organs that are menial servants relating to these two should be begotten together with them as the Lungs for the Heart and for the Liver almost all the parts which are contained in the Lower Belly But all this is very wide from that order and progress which we see in the Egge Nor is it true that the Liver is born together with the Heart nor will that shift serve his turn where he pretends Latere Jecur quia non palpitat that the Liver lyeth concealed because it is not exposed by palpitation For the Eyes the Vena Cava and the Carina the Keel are discerned even from the very first yet have they no palpitation What impediment then to barre the Liver and Lungs if they are then in being from being seen Nay he himself in his Figure or Table representing the fourth day hath described a small Point in the midst and yet he hath not signified any palpitation belonging to it nor did he own it for the Heart but supposed it to be the first rudiment of the body wherefore he speaks onely out of conjecture and preentertained opinion when he proclaims the Principality of the Liver as other men have also done namely Aldrovandus and Parisanus who casually lighting upon two Points and could not discover a Pulse in both at one and the same time conceived the one to be the Heart and the other the Liver As if the Liver had any pulse at all but those two Points are the two Vesiculae Pulsantes returning answer to each other in alternate contractions as hath been noted in our History Wherefore either Fabricius is deceived or doth deceive where he saith Presently in the first progress of generation the Liver Heart Veines Arteries Lungs and all the parts contained in the lower belly likewise the Keel that is the Head with the Eyes and the whole Spine and Chest are born and framed For the Heart Veins and Arteries are perfectly distinguished for some time before the Keel and the Carina or Keel before the Eyes and the Eyes the Bill and Sides before the Members contained in the lower belly and also the Stomack and Guts before the Liver or Lungs are discerned And that order is observed in generation which we shall presently describe He is likewise deceived when he decrees the Vegetal part to have a being both in time and nature before the sensitive and the motive For that which is first in Nature is for the most part after in the order of Generation In time indeed the Vegetal part is before because the sensitive soule cannot be without it For it cannot actually exist in the body without Organs it being Actus corporis Organici the Act of the Organical body but the sensitive and motive Organs are the workmanship of the vegetative and the sensitive soul before it actually exist is tanquam Trigonus in Tetragono like a Triangle in a Quadrangle But Nature first intends that which is most principal and noble and therefore the Vegetal faculty is after in the order of Nature as being subservient to the sensitive and motive Faculty Of the Order of Parts in Generation according to Aristotle EXER LV. THat which relates to the order of Generation according to Aristotle is thus When the Conception is ordained it proceeds as Seeds do For Seeds also have a first Principle in themselves which being first contained in potentiâ when by and by it is severed it sends forth a bud and a root whereby it attracts aliment for it requires growth So in some sort in a conception where the parts are all in potentiâ the Principle is chiefly active This Principle in an Egge analogous to the blossom of Plants we with Fabricius call Macula a Speck or Cicatricula a small Cicatrice which we have avouched to be the principal particle in which all the other parts are in potentiâ whence afterwards they arise in their order For in it is contained that thing be it what it will which renders the Egge prolifical and there is the first effect of the vegetal heat and operation of the Forming faculty first discovered Macula isthaec that Speck as hath been shewed is presently dilated after incubation and divided into Circles in whose Center a small white Point like the Cicatricula in the ball of the Eye doth display it self where by and by the Punctum rubrum the Red point is discovered panting with the capillary branches of Veines containing blood and that presently so soon as ever the Colliquamentum by us mentioned is framed of that Macula Wherefore Aristotle proceeds The Heart is first actually discerned and that not onely discoverable to sense but according to reason For since that which is begotten is now disjoyned from both parents it ought to demean govern and dispose of it self as
When I came to heare thereof I went presently to the Stables and saw both the labia of the lap which were locked up with rings and all the privity towards the left side so torne and dilacerated from the right haunch-bone that the unity of that most tight part being dissolved by the incredible force of the young Foale hee might easily finde a passage through that wide gap So forcible is the vigour and efficacy of a mature and liuely Foetus But on the contrary in case the Foetus be sickly and languishing or borne before its time it is not properly a birth but an abortment and the Foetus is rather ejected then borne and therefore though he be now some dayes old he will neither take the breast kindly nor deposite his excrements as he ought to doe And yet the Uterus hath its share in this business of Delivery as shall appear in the following example A poor woman who was a Laundress did for a long time labour under the Bearing down or precipitation of her wombe and the sheath thereof did hang down to the bigness of ones fist and at length using no applications to it her grief grew so forcible upon her that it now begun to resemble a Scrotum the skin being rugged and squalid and yet found now less paine or trouble in it then she was formerly used to find when it newly bore down But she asking my advice I counselled her to keep her Bed for some certain dayes and to mollifie the dryer parts thereof with fomentations and oyntments and so when her wombe was reduced into her body to keep it still up with pessaries and swathes till by the use of drying and strengthening remedies it was confirmed and setled in its proper place The cure did for some time succeed to our wish but she being poor was fain to fall to her calling again to get money and so intermitting her appointed applications she fell into a relapse and endured it pretty well her womb sometimes retiring back again and sometimes continuing quite out but for the most part at night she did reduce it and there it remained for some time But after many dayes she addressed her self to me again complaining that her wombe being swelled by the use of her remedies and especially of her fomentations as she conceived would now no longer abide in her body And yet applying some oyntments which I had prescribed she had forced it in againe but her cure did not continue long for no sooner did she rise and stand upon her leggs and so goe about her work but her wombe did presently by reason of its bulke and weight disturbe her againe and would easily beare downe upon any occasion And now at this time it was as large as a Bulls Cod dangling between her leggs so that I suspected that not onely the sheath but that the womb it selfe was now inverted or else that shee was diseased with a Uterine Hernia or rupture It grew at last bigger then a mans head being then a hard tumour and hanging downe to her knees did much pain her so that she could not goe but upon all foure and breaking just in the bottom of it it did effund a moisture as if it had been an Ulcer and blood with it Looking upon it for I did not explore it by touch I did suspect it to be a Cancer of the wombe and therefore did bethink my selfe of a Ligature and cutting it off and in the interim I advised her to apply gentle fomentations to it to asswage the paine But the following night an Infant perfectly shaped of a span long was cast out of that Tumour but it was dead and the next morning they brought it to me which having embowelled I kept swimming in cold water without corrupting for some moneths time shewing it to many of my friends as a miraculous spectacle The skin in this Foetus was not yet formed but only a thin paring appeared such as lieth about a Codlin which I easily drew away whole and entire whereupon all the muscles disclosed themselves very distinctly for the Foetus was leane What other matters I observed in the dissection of this Foetus shall be related elsewhere in this place I thought it onely convenient to signifie how the Matrix it self alone did promote this Abortive and did eject this Foetus by its owne industry Fabricius doth propose two things worthy admiration as he saith in the birth and after it the first is concerning the dilatation of the Uterus in the Birth and the other is of the reduction of the Uterus after the Birth into its former compass and narrowness Wondering that the womb should be so much distended to make way for the foetus and that in a short time after delivery it should retire into its pristine dimension How the Neck of the Womb which is thick hard and so shut up that it will not admit a slender probe should subscribe to so vast a distention in the time of Delivery We may with Galen admire saith he but we shall never comprehend it Yet he gives this Reason for it namely That the Uterus while it is not pregnant is a thick and hard body so likewise is its orifice but being impregnated it becomes soft and thin and the nearer it drawes to delivery so much the more is the substance and by consequence its orifice too made thinner and softer And this he conceiveth to be effected by its distention which being distended its compact and complicated body if he may so speak is expanded and smoothed and so though it was thick and hard before yet now it is rendred thin and soft and so consequently fit to afford an exit to the foetus And afterwards he saith There was one who once enquired of me how if it be so indeed it can be true that in women with childe the orifice of the womb is so occluded that not so much as a small probe can get into it I make answer that it came to be so in that the womb while it is distended and is unfolded like a linnen cloth that is compacted and folded up together doth begin to be raised up first in its upper part and there to be unfolded and after it the lower parts do by degrees begin to distend till at the last that distending faculty doth arrive at the very orifice of the womb it self which is convenient to be so then when the Uterus is inclining towards delivery Wherefore the Orifice of the womb is deservedly shut for the first months whilest it is crass and obdurate but in the last dilated And thus much touching Galens unknown cause we might also adde other Reasons whereby the dilatation of the womb becometh more easie as suppose the Excrements of the Foetus namely the Sweat and the Urine which though they are contained in their own proper membranes and receptacles yet may the power of Humectation arrive even unto this Orifice especially since it