of the Womb but because this misery and pain in travel was brought in by God Gen. 3. by reason of the fall of Adam and Eve and this punishment was laid upon her the man also being cast into a condition of misery not inferiour to it For the most part in the ninth Moneth the Matrix parts and the os pubis being loosned the Woman striving what she can and desiting to thrush forth what is a burden to her and the child breaking forth by an imbred strength and by the conduct of nature which help the Woman lacks when the child is born dead For a child that is quick and lively labours no lesse in this work than the woman and strives to come forth to draw in the outward Ayre Yet there are many that when 9 Months are compleatly ended Tenth Months births are not delivered till the tenth such births Hippocrates calls births of the tenth month namely the tenth Lunar Month being begun that is perfected in 28. dayes to a month and not fully ended Wisd 7. So the Wiseman saith he was ten months formed in the Womb and coagulated of the seed of the man and woman from pleasure that comes by copulation By like reason they that have now passed the sixth Month in which no child born can live because the parts want strength and are entred upon the seventh and are gon two or three weeks in it are said to be born in the 7th month The same reason serves to reckon weeks and months by which are terminated in a certain number of dayes for the former week or month being past and the following begun from this is the reason of the time deducted and the course that the woman went with Child is ascribed to that from that month the great bellyed woman is in or the Child is born is the Account made as it useth to fall our in 7 or 9 turns of the Moon The like reason serves in reckoning of years either from Christs incarnation or passion so that the inscription is dated from the following yeare as for the beginning of the first month Why a child is vitall born at seven months the precedent month being neglected and defaced It is not besides reason that a Child should be vitall at seven months but there is a certaine cause for it For the Child by an imbred force and order of Nature doth then turn it selfe about and changeth its place for larger room A simile from a Captain in War And as a Captain in Warr marcheth to some other place when the place he is in is too narrow or difficult or he want necessaries for food yet so that in pitching his Tents and quarters the Souldiery allwaies keeps watch and is ever ready for all events of warr and sudden force that might fall on and is prepared against the assaults of the enemy so if in that moment of time whereby in the seventh month that motion of nature useth to be stirred the time of Child-birth chance to happen and the Infant come forth with joynt forces of the Mother assisting him without doubt it will be vitall A simile from such as cannot sleep in the night But the like hapeneth to this Infant as it doth to those that watch in the night and turn themselves to the other side and seek to lye on the softer part of the bed that is not so much pressed down and if any thing unlooked for befall them or any sudden occasion hinder them that they cannot turn themselves againe in their beds they presently leave their beds and shaking off sleep though the night be not quite spent they hasten to do what they are urged unto But if any accident unlookt for befalls them that are fast asleep they quake and tremble and if they goe about any thing it is confusedly and without all order that the businesse can have no good or succesfull end as it useth to fall out in the eighth month wherein the Infant being come to rest begins to be refreshed again and to enjoy its lodging in the womb and nutriment from the Mother Some are born in the 7th month whose bodies are loose and not not firme and that have but weak naturall heat A simile from ripning of fruits but being helped by the care and industry of Nurses they will last long and live many yeares For it happens to them as it doth to apples and other fruits of Trees that fall or are pulled off too soon which fruiterers and haglers hide in straw and bury in chafe that they may grow ripe in time and fit to be eate For such Infants by the labour and care of their Mothers or Nurses gain strength and by fostering grow strong and by this help they prolong their dayes for many yeares which can be obtain'd by no means in a Child born the eighth month for such a one seldome lives because that motion of Nature is quiet and asleep which agitation is wont to proceed from a certain cause both from the Mother and the Child Wherefore being tyred by that strugling in the 7th month it begins to regain strength and to be fostered untill the set time it ought to remain in the Mothers Womb. A Child in the eight month seldome lives Hence if any distemper or perturbation arise and the Child be driven forth of its place and habitation it is deadly by reason of an externall cause and that is against natures order Saturn an enemy to Children which is also exasperated by Saturn a cruel and hurtfull Planet to Children that by the coldnesse of it dejects their strength wherefore it is safe to stay in the womb till the 9th month that they may recollect their forces and just firmnesse For when the ninth month begins to come the Child sinks down for want of nutriment and falls low to the neck of the Matrix seeking to come forth to the light and is desirous to be released Sometimes in the very heat of birth and hastening it slips through the slippery parts the Womb giving way without the help of any Midwife suddenly as a ripe apple falls with the least touch of it which is most common to them whose Matrix is wide and the Infant hath all helps together being sufficiently enabled to come forth For such as have narrow month'd wombs bring forth with difficulty and painful labour with all the force they have From this pressure and hard travel A morall from hard labour John 16. our Saviour draws a most fit comparison and comforts and encourageth mightily his followers that they should not faint nor be discouraged by reason of calamities and persecutions which they suffer for the Gospell since by the example of a woman in Labour all their sorrow shall be turned to sudden joy and solid consolation Wherefore he shews that danger is at hand anxiety sadnesse and trembling but all these things by joy unexpected arising and by the
in Physical businesse is bound to stretch his wits soundly to understand it The consent of Soul and Body For it concerns every man to know and search out these things because a man is conversant in himself and may rest in the contemplation of himself For since a man consists of Soul and Body and the body is the Instrument of the soul whereby she doth her actions who ought not to have care and to observe both these parts who would not wish that both might be preserved the best he could since one cannot subsist without the other and perform its office and functions without offence For both do ask each others help we see Horat. in Art Poet. And by this means most friendly they agree The body for a time is transitory and mortal but since it is the vessel and receptacle of the Soul and useth its Ministery God hath also design'd that for eternity and by the mystery of the resurrection it shall be made partaker of the same gift that is of immortality as it is the will of God CHAP. III. It is most natural to procreate one like himself and men ought to use it reverently as a divine gift and Ordinance of God WHen God had made the Heavens and this sublunary world and framed them with so admirable wisdom and skill that there was nothing wanting for necessary uses commodity and pleasure it seemed good to him to make One that might have the use of them and that might delight in these things and enjoy them Wherefore when all the ornaments of nature were compleat and perfected he brought man into the world as into his own possession and that he might not lead a disconsolate life he gave a woman for an helper and companion Marriage Gods Ordinance and he put into them both force to love and a greedy desire of procreating their like having prepared for that purpose a swelling humour and spirit and organical parts and that the one should not be afraid or decline the society of the other he added allurements and a desire of mutual Embracing that when they did use procreation they should be sweetly affected and pacified wonderfull wayes For unlesse this were natural to all kind of Creatures that they should care for posterity and propagate their like mankind would quickly be lost nor could the affairs of mortalls long endure All men on earth and Beasts and Birds above Georg. 3. And Fishes of the Sea are mad with love What will a young man do whom Cupid burns He swims it 'h dark and tempestous night Ore the rough boyling Seas and nere returns Though Parents cry and billous would one fright Divers spurs to Venery Since this Passion is so forcible and so unruly that it can hardly be subdued and but a few can bridle their passions God granted unto man the use of the matrimonial bed that he might be bounded thereby and not defile themselves with wandring lust Wherefore God appointed Marriage who want the gift of Continency wherefore so soon as copulation is done and the Woman happens to prove with child great is natures cunning in fostering coagulating and framing the seed of both sexes that at the set time when nine moneths are run over Man that Ruler and Ornament of the whole world may come forth Job expressed this doubtful hope and first beginning of Nature Chap. 10. now going about to form a man by a most apposite similitude Hast thou not poured me forth as Milk and Crudled me as Cheese Thou hast compassed me about with skin and flesh thou hast made me with bones and sinews and my life is from thee and thy force hath upheld my breath Like to this is that saying of the wise Hebrew who describes the beginnings of his birth thus Wisd 7. I am also a mortal man like to other men the off spring of the first man on earth and I was made flesh in my mothers womb that came from coagulated blood in ten Moneths from the seed of man and the pleasure that comes with sleep And when I was born I drew in the common Ayre What are Mans beginnings and fell upon the earth which is of like nature and the first voice I uttered was crying as all others do By which we understand that in all other things as also in propagation of Children that all things must be done according to Natures order moderately All things must be done moderately As by the opinion of Hippocrates and Galen let motion or exercise precede meat after meat use venery after Venus sleep which being done the natural faculties do their parts in forming the child and the wearinesse that came by venery is abated by sleep which also helps concoction for sleep is a great help to facilitate concoction But as for that concerns the principles of Generation there is a great question controverted whether a woman afford seed to the generation of the child or whether manly force make any thing to the similitude of the form or difference of the fâ—x I shall first handle that concerning the form and similitude of it and afterwards of the female seed and what help it affords for procreation of the child And I shall do this the more accurately because there are some Bawds in our Countrey that would perswade women that Mothers afford very little to the generation of the child but onely are at the trouble to carry it and must endure the tedious time of nine Moneths Women do much in procteation of Children as if the womb were hired by men as Merchants ships are to be fraited by them and to discharge their burden By this perswasion women grow luke-warm and lose all humane affections toward their children and Love that was wont to be almost peculiar to this sex is quite banished But I think that such deserved to be held infamous and are not fit for honest womens company And would we punish them it should be done openly with all scorn and contempt For these are the cause that some are so cruel and barbarous to their children as to cast them forth and forsake them These are more cruel and savage than Tigers Lions Bears Panthers and other bruit beasts who bestow much labour to feed and bring up their young ones Math. 19. Force of Nature seen by Animals which our Saviour shewed by a Hen a domestick bird for all creatures will fight for their young ones and will venter their lives boldly for them I saw in these spring Moneths a Flock of 300. sheep which followed their bleating young ones that were carried away in a Ship from Land and were pulled from their Dams Udders Their Dams were not frighted with the Seas violence but with incredible desire followed till the Sea flowing up drownd them all An exhortation to humanity from the love of dumb beasts By this example I would have wicked unnatural Parents take heed and be admonished who
in the middle and pressed down they have a crestiâ—urining upward their tail doth not turn under their belly as we see it doth in mungrels but it stands upright and bends like a sickle he hath very great eyes and that stick forth and they are both blear eyes weak legs and that are crooked about the joynts but the hinder part of his body is smooth without any hair and their tail is seen very uncomely by those that are present and they will turn their tails on purpose for people to look on This small creature because it is ridiculous for its parts and manners and hath many things that may hurt a woman when she is with child and cause the child within her to be ill formed I think not fit to keep least Women with child should be wronged thereby But this monstrous form and limbs so crooked are not naturall but artificiall Women love dogâ— too well For men shut them up in small Cages and taking their food away they make them grow small as in Terence they took away meat from maids to make them grow small as bulrushes least if any of them should grow corpulent she should seem to be a Champion See your Juglers that passe the Countries use to wrest the limbs of young boyes that they may leap and dance the better Lately A History there was a notable Knave who carried a child to be seen from Town to Town which had a very great head all the other limbs bore no proportion with it This deformity when it is naturall and not by art Physitians call Hydrocephalon Very great heed what disease by reason of the head swoln with a watry humour When a woman great with child had looked on this picture she was so frighted with this unusual sight that when her â—â—â—e came to be delivered she brought forth a child with a spongy vast bead and it had like to have cost her her life And this mischief followed it that it grew greater in the Nurses arms till it became monstrous great The woman a â—e to me and made this complaint bringing the child with hot and when I pressed the head of it with my fingers it would sink down like to a cushions and come forth again These spectacles are not onely to be a â—oided by Women with child but also by all those that may beâ—â—roubled and frighted in their sleep by such frights as it commonly happens to children sick weak old melancholique people Whence Children have ill marks yet monstrous sights will hurt them lesse that they will women with child For they by the sights of such things will frame 〈◊〉 like in their Children For since all their forces and natural faculties are wholly employed to form the child it happens that when the woman is any way offended all the humours and spirits run downwards to the womb And when the imagination of a thing that sticks fast in the mind joyns with these it frames the like fashion on the child that the mind conceives A Proverb from Imagination For it is not said in vain Imagination makes fashion For by the same reason if a Mouse a Cat a Weasel leap suddenly on a Woman or Strawberries Cornel-berries Cherries Grape-stones fall on any part of the body When a Woman doth remove marks from the Face to the Thighs or hinder parts they presently leave their mark and the print of this thing will be printed on that limb unlesse the woman at the same time that these things happen to her body do presently wipe the part and put her hand behind her back or on some remoter part of her body For so the mischief is suddenly cured or the mark is made on that part she touched all her Imagination and natural faculty being turn'd thither CHAP. V. Of the strange longing of Women with child and their insatiable desire of things And if they cannot get them they are in danger of life THe order of the former narration seems to require me to speak something concerning the longing of Women Longing a Disease For they are both all most from the same cause About three Moneths after conception a disease troubles Women which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Latines Pica when by reason of cold vitious humours and sharp â—â—â—gm that lyes in their stomachs they earnestly desire coles parings chalk shels and other things unfit to eat this mischief prevails most when the childs hair first begins to grow and they are with child of a Girle For by reason of want of heat flegmatique humours are lesse concocted Hence it is that winds and often belchings frequently trouble Women Of kin to this is the daintinesse of Women wherewith men and Feavourish people are oft troubled But child-bearing Women that are tempted with this disease are so insatiable in their desire that if they cannot obtain what they long for they bring both themselves and their Child in danger of death Mayst Women long for strong things This disease for the most part troubles the Low Country Women because they are of moyst cold constitutions and feed on ill Nourishment There have been some in our dayes that when they saw a corpulent well â—â—d man they desired to bite at this shoulders A History and there was a man who that he might satisfie a womans longing granted her leave to bite least she might take any hurt whereupon she bâ—t out a part with her teeth and chewd it a little and then she swallowed it raw When she was not yet satisfied she desired to bite again but the man would not endure her But she presently began to languish and to be delivered She brought forth Twins the one living and the other dead for want of a second bite I can see no other reason for it than that the woman grieving in her mind the vitall spirits are lessned A Woman with child suffers if her longing be demed her and the humours appointed to nourish the child turn another way and are not carried to the womb so the child wanting the food which the mother longed for grows feeble and dies For when the passages and receptacles whereby food useth to be derived to the Matrix are stopped it must needs follow that the child will want nutriment and die But if the teeming woman be strong of nature and knows how to moderate her passions the child doth not die but grows sickly By these you may see abundantly what a womans Imagination can do and what outward objects conceived in the mind can print upon the child that is then to be formed When we must please sick people with diet Wherefore I suppose they do not much transgresse the bounds of Art that are not so rigid but do sometimes indulge to sick people such meat as they long for though they are not so proper for them in case they are such as will bring no great hurt to their bodies
of the Husbandman so the Infant receives all things more plentifully from the Mother For first the seed of them both is foster'd and heaped together in the womb then it growes up with the Mothers blood and increaseth by degrees secretly Hence it is that by sympathy Children love their Mothers most Why Children love their Mothers best for it proceeds from heaâ—nesse of Nature and because the Mothers forces were most employed about them Also Mothers are full of love to their Câ—ildren and more indulgent to their young ones than the Farâ—ers be who are oft-times more rigid I think the Evangelist meant so Math. 2. when he brings in Rachel lamenting for her Children who was so wounded in her mind with grief for being deprived of them Jer. 32. that she would by no means be comforted For there is nothing â—yâ— the opinion of Esaias more repugnant to Natures Laws than for a woman to forget her child Ch. 49. and to be cruel against the fruit of her womb laying aside natural affection We see that Fathers have their natural propension to their Children also but it is laâ—er before it appears For Fathers love them best when they are grown up and then they take most care for them when they begin to see some hopes of them But Mothers take more care of them in their Iâ—fancy and because that age stands in need of other's help most they are then the most loving and careful over them and not so curst as the Fathers be Math. 23. Stoâ—ks love their dâ—ms For this cause the Scriptures do so oft inviâ—er us to gratitude which by the example of Storks children do lowe to their Patents and we are commanded to requite them The like love we see in a Hen which loves the chickens A Hens siting she hate bed more dearly and though the Cock was the cause that the Eggs breed chickens yet he takes no care for them when they are hatched But that both yield seed we may prove in hen-eggs A Hen lays egs without a Cock. for a Hen will lay eggs without the Cock but if she sit on them they will sooner corrupt than hatch but the eggs the Hen laid when a Cock â—od her will after 19 dayes be hatched put under a Hen so that the Chickens will peep before the shell break This tedious Câ—ild-bearing time of the Mother in which for 9. moneths she feeds the Child with her purest blood and then her love toward her Child newly born and the usual likenesse of the Child to the Mother do clearly prove Women are not idle in making the child that women afford seed and that women do more toward making the Child than men do who onely injecting their seed are gone and neither further the woman nor help the child any more Yet in so many moneths the woman must do much to frame the child and nourish it Aeneid 6. For it cannot be that it should grow up from that congealed lump but by a wonderfull way CHAP. VII Whence growes the Sex and Kind that is whether of the two Man or Woman is the cause of a male or female Child God the chief cause of fruitfulnesse THough all things are justly ascribed to God that made all yet many things go in order by Natures rules and are carried by their imbred motion God being the Author of all these things he useth to alter many of them and to change the order of things and to bring forth some things in other forms and orders contrary to Natures Lawes For example a woman desiring a Man-child prayes unto God earnestly for it and God hears her prayers For example Sarah being past children Gen. 27. and her courses long since stayd yet she conceived Isaac by Abraham that was a very old man in which child God would have to be placed all hopes of his posterity and that hence all Nations should take the beginning of their happinesse Also Aâ—na being much afflicted with her long barrennesse 1 Reg. 1. by earnest and constant prayer she obtained Samuel from God Also Elisha's officious Landlady 4 Kings 4. by the prayers of the Prophet had a Child given her from God and afterwards he raised this Child that was dead to life again Luc. 1. So Zacharias being old by Gods dispensation had a Child by Elizabeth that was stricken in years and uncurably barren which was John the fore-runner of Christ So many others have pray'd to God for a Child to be their Heir in their Estates and God hath granted them their request None can doubt but this is Gods work and these things have a peculiar effect from the divine Will But we shall speak of things that proceed from natural causes and that nature useth to work by her imbred force For she prepares a body fit for the Souls condition and gives every thing its temper But since there are two principles out of which the body of man is made and which make the Child like the progenitors The force of seed and to be of this or that Sex Seed common to both sexes and Menstrual blood proper to the woman The similitude consists in the force of the male or female feed so that it proves like to the one or the other as the seed is more plentifully afforded by one or the other The force of the menstruall blood which belongs onely to the woman For were that force in the seed since the mans seed is alwaies stronger and hotter than the womans children would be all boyes Wherefore the kind of the creature is attributed to the Temperament of the active qualities which consist in heat and cold and to the substance or nature of the matter under them that is to the flowing of the menstrual blood Now the seed affords both force to beget and form the child and matter for its generation also in the menstrual blood there is both matter and force For as the seed most helps to the material principle so doth the menstrual blood to the potential Seed is saith Galen L. 2. de sem blood well concocted by the vessels that contain it so that blood is not onely the matter of generating the child but it is also seed in possiâ—ility Now that menstrual blood hath both principles that is both matter and faculty of effecting any thing is confessed by all But seed is the strongest efficient the matter of it being very small in quantity but the menstrual blood is much in quantity Menstrual blood affords matter to feed the child but the potential or efficient faculty of it is very feeble Now if the material principle of generation according to which the sex is made were onely in the menstrual blood then should all children be girles as if all the efficient force were in the seed they would all be boys But since both have both principles and in menstrual blood matter predominates in quantity and
in the seed force and vertue deservedly saith Galen the child receives its sex rather from the Mother than from the Father though his seed do afford something to the material principles but more weakly But similitude though Imagination be of great force therein is referred rather to the Father than the Mother for there is more force in the mans seed But the womans seed receiving faculty from the menstruall blood for 9. moneths doth as much exceed the man's as the man 's did the woman at first copulation For it is proper to the womans seed to strengthen and increase her own substance more than the mans So the woman not onely affords matter to make the Child but force and vertue to perfect the conception though the womans seed be fit nutriment for the mans feed by reason of the moysture and thinnesse of it and is more fit to frame and make up the conception thereby For as of soft running wax and moyst clay A Similitude from wax and moyst clay the workman can work what he will with his hand so the man's feed mixed with the womans seed and the menstruall blood helps effectually to make the form and perfects the parts of a man Or if you would have a comparison of these things from Natural things as the Earth is to plants so is the womb for conception A comparison of the Earth and the Womb. For as the seeds of Plants need the Earth to nourish and increase them so the seed of man requires the womb which is affected with a desire of an off spring For by the moysture thereof and by blood running forth at the veins to water the child it doth grow and increase Hence you may conjecture what art nature useth in conceiving and framing a child which by an innate force growes up by degrees and secretly increasing comes to its full strength wherein I think that worth the Enquiry by what force the nature of the woman makes a man or a woman what faculty seems to be ascribed rather to the woman than to the man by reason of more matter coming from her which consists in the blood and seed of the woman whereby the Child all the time it is in the womb is nourished and increased For as mans seed is the chief cause of motion and the Instrument and Artificer whereby Man is made yet the womans seed with the plenty of her menstrual blood affords more matter than the man doth and by help thereof the child is perfected and is distinguished for its sex for that is it makes a child a male or a female CHAP. VIII Of prodigious and Monstrous Births and by the way what is the meaning of the Proverb Those that are born in the fourth Moon THe Nature of Man and his parts destinated to the Generation of man if they be rightly disposed and there be no defect in them will beget a perfect man But if they be defective or faulty or the feed be confusedly mixed Whence come Monsters or the principles of Generation be otherwise involved than they should be it falls out that prodigious and monstrous births are made Some fay that these things happen from the influence and aspects of the Stars and as just judgments for sins And I think it very consonant to truth For they commonly happen from a faulty constitution of the Womb from filthy corrupt seed A simile from Founders and disorderly copulation For as in the art of melting meâ—â—als if the matter be not pure and well cleansed if the vessel or receiver be oblique full of windings ill joynted hath conners is set awry or is full of chinks or plains is unloosed or holds ill together we see that men cast ridiculous and improper figures so if the places be ill appointed if the womb inclines to one side or the matter be unfit or ill tempered nature shall never make a fit and decent form So the Low Countrey Women chiefly those that live near the Sea-side being restlesse and troubled in copulation A Mola of the Matrix they have strange mishapen Embrio's and do not onely bring forth rude and deformed burdens not made up that no sword will cut but also something deformed that pants and is alive and is like the imperfect draught of a figure that Artists use to draw with a rude Pensil For Marriners which they commonly marry when they come from long voyages run mad upon their wives with full sail Intemperance of Venery burts the child never regarding their menstrual courses nor the Conjunction or new Moon at which time by reason of their terms copulation useth to be hurtfull for the seed cannot stick together nor be fitly united with the womans blond whence it comes to passe that the seed either runs forth or if it chance to stick together nature cannot make up any thing rightly of a confused matter that sticks not so as it should do And not onely the mens incontinence is to be found fault with but also of the women who having waited so long in their absence do voluntarily put themselves upon their husbands and snatch the seed from them as hungry dogs do a bone or Cerberus his bait Whence it comes that the faculty of the Womb loseth its force to generation and successe of breeding a child Or if it try to do any thing it makes some monstrous form that is nothing like to the shape of a man sometimes after three Moneths space that filthy matter runs forth and an undigested heap comes out by pieces as filthy water out of a Ship by the Pump Not unlike to this is an efflux that troubles women with many heavy torments our women because this conception begins in the fourth Moon when she is in Conjunction by whose force the terms flow down call it a Moon birth or Manekinds A birth not natural is cast forth Sometimes this false conception is made without the help of man by Imagination onely in those that are very lascivious so as by often seeing their Husbands and but touching them the womans seed will mix together with the blood and the neat of the Womb will begin to frame something like to a living Creature But the formal cause the mans seed being wanting that is like the Work-master the matter the woman affords Mans seed is the former of the child obtains a strange deformed shape sometimes the like is made by the help of the man when in the sourth and silent Moon he copulates with his wife and on the fourth day after the Moons Conjunction when her courses run not observing natures rules for he strives against the flux and sails against the stream A common proverb to pisse against the Moon Our people by a Proverb call it pissing against the Moon the Latines call them Born in the fourth Moon Because they have unhappy beginnings of their life and had their first entrance by generation contrary to natures order whence it happens
forth so by the superfluity of a cold humour the seeds of men are choked that the force and faculty of the womb can make no sex nor form of them Seseli of Marsilea is of the like effect Sage Nutmegs Cinamon Cassia Lignea Zedoary Lignum Aloes Masterwort Calamint Clary Dittany Elecampane Orris root juice of Motherwort and innumerable things of this kind that discuss winds What things purge the watrinesse of the womb and wipe away superfluous moysture and prepare the womb as till'd grounds for to sow the seeds on So other things by other forces cause that the matrix be not so slippery that the seed may stick the faster Of this kind are Amber shavings of Ivory Storax Calamita Harts-horn Sumach Blatta Byzantina Myrtil seed Witwalls Cypresse Nuts Frankincense with the bark Mastick Spoonwort Avens Cinquefoil red Roses whereof some applyed outwardly others taken inwardly strengthen the womb and consume superfluous moysture bind close the gaping of the matrix and make it hold the Seed and because the women on this side the Alps for the most part are subject to fits of the mother and such diseases of the womb they had need use these things before others But if the parts be overdryed and burnt they must use moderately moystning means both Meats and Physick A dry matrix what is good for it But they that would be commended for their wedlock actions and not be without Children they must observe this rule to lie with their Wives at distance of time not too often nor yet too seldome for both these hurt fruitfulnesse alike For to eject immoderately weakens a man and spends his spirits and to forbear longer than it is convenient makes the seed ineffectuall and not manly enough Also we must consider the opportunity of this matter when it is best to copulate and what sex you conceive in your mind to beget Avicenna his Counsel for Copulation Avicenna no base fellow nor an Authour of the lowest rank describes the time and manner of procreating a sex When saith he the terms are spent and the womb is cleansed which is commonly in five dayes or 7. at most if a man lye with his Wife from the first day she is purged to the fifth she will conceive a Male but from the fifth to the eighth day a female Again from the eighth day to the twelfth a male again but after that number of dayes an Hermaphrodite Though he brings no probable cause of these effects yet methinks it seems to be very probable Avicenna his opinion explan'd For the first dayes the womb being cleansed and the fordid humour perfectly purged forth the matrix hath more heat whereby the man and the womans seed stick faster together and is directed to the right side of the womb by the attractive force of the Liver and the right Kidney from which also in those dayes hot blood is derived for nutriment of the Child that shall be For the left parts as being cold and benummed and void of blood cannot contribute any thing so soon as the terms are purged but blood is drawn later and more sparingly from the veins of the left side which are called the Emulgent veins Emulgent veins that creep about the Milt and the left Kidney so that at length after the first day untill the eighth day some blood comes forth of them whereby the Child is to be nourished So that when those parts perform their office and the right side parts do cease by reason of the scituation and cold nutriment a female is begot After the eighth day the parts on the right side do their office again and blood comes from them to nourish a male After this circuit of dayes because the menstrual blood flowes without distinction from all parts and the matrix is made too moyst with cold humours flowing unto it and the seed joyns to neither side but flotes in the midst of the womb betwixt both What begus Hermaphrodites The seed of both Sexes confounded make an Hermaphrodite which conception takes its form and forces sometimes from the left sometimes from the right side and useth the help of them both Hence Hermaphrodites are begot which name is so call'd from Mercury and Venus Irregular copulation is detestable Sometimes this vicious and infamous conception is begot by undecent copulation when the woman besides Natures custome lyes uppermost and the man under her sometimes times to the great hurt of their health for by that copulation turn'd the wrong way they become subject to Ruptures and Herniaes especially if they be full with meats CHAP. X. Whether the Child be nourished with the menstrual excrement and whether Maids may conceive before they have their Terms DAily Experience proves that some have been married at 12. years old and some to their great hurt and damage of their health have had no terms at 19. years old The Courses is an argument of conception Whence many ask Whether when a Maid is fit for a Man and she never had her courses she can conceive some are of opinion it cannot be that one can conceive but after her terms are over and this seems to me to be the truth For when the helps be wanting that further conception and the matrix wants the humour should feed the Child how can a woman conceive A Similitude from flourishishing shrubs But our Matrons especially Midwives reason thus from Trees as no Plant wants fruit that bears flowers and no Tree is barren that yields blossoms but every Tree is unfruitfull that wants flowers so young Maids that have no courses conceive not nor do their wombs swell though they receive the seed When the courses stay then stayes fruitfulnesse But women in years bear Children no longer after their terms are stopt For since the flux of this excrement affords matter to generation of Mankind the seed of man like runnet and leaven heaping this up within it self it follows that a woman cannot conceive either before that humour begins to run nor after that it leaves off to run any longer because the nutriment for the Child is wanting What use of the terms But here ariseth another question whether the menstrual bloud be a profitable Excrement and fit to seed the child or onely a filthy matter which at set times is voided as a sink I know that Pliny and many more think so who suppose that the menstruall bloud is venemous and monstrous and they do wonderfully rayse this opinion So Juvenal taking an argument from hence to speak against women stirs up men to hate them Sat 6. and doth purposely write a whole Satyr against them that despising them they should never marry I know indeed that the flux of the Terms is a fowl thing and what harm may come by it if this sink be stopt longer then it should be and that Moses did well Levit. 18.20 Deut. 29. as God commanded him to forbid all
men to lie with women that time that they were defiled with this Excrement So he drives from the company of men those that have Gonorrheas that is fluxes of bloud and commands them to be purified And Esaias to expresse extream foulnesse to be abhorred All our righteousnesse saith he is as a menstruous rag c. Which though it be true We must abstain from menstruous Women and and the great Law-giver by Gods order did most justly forbid it that no man should defile himself with fowl copulation or be polluted thereby yet this proves not that this flux is superfluous and doth not serve for the childs nutriment For Hippocrates the Authour of Physick and Galen a great lover of it do rightly professe in many places that the menstrual bloud feeds the child and that the child grows by receiving that flowing out of the veins De tuenda valetudine So Galen Blood saith he and genital seed are the beginnings of our Generation which arise from the very principles as from a root The blood is as fit matter that obeys the Artificer the seed is as the Workmaster Again in comment Aphoris The menstruall blood is one principle of our Generation and is by nature moist L. 1. Aph. 14. Hitherto belongs that Aphorism of Hippocrates If a Woman with child have her courses the child cannot be well For the blood is taken thus from her that is directed to the womb from all the body to feed the child If therefore the courses running away weaken the child and defraud him of his nourishment it must needs be that they do good when they are stopt and serve to feed the child all the while it is in the womb The Breasts fill with milk when the terms stop If they do no good and the child hath no nutriment from them I pray what is the cause that the courses are stopt in women with child and such as give suck and that without any hurt to them There can be no other cause given but that they are consumed to make plenty of milk or to feed the child But to explain this question the more fully I shall set down this dilemma If the courses confer nothing to feed the child The Authours dilemma of the monethly terms then women may conceive though they want their courses for nature can draw blood from the veins to feed the child But if they do help to feed and increase the child they cannot conceive unlesse they do run Aristotle excellently unties this knot Hist Animal Women saith he conceive naturally after their terms are over and they that want their terms are commonly barren Yet it may be that some may conceive that have them not namely as many as have so much humour collected in their wombs as useth to remain with those that are purged For some have the humour remaining in the womb but not so much as to break forth and run out yet enough to feed the child For many when the courses run do conceive but they cannot conceive afterwards for their Matrix presently after purgation closeth and the places are no longer open De vul se Galen clearly explains the same in these words The vessels of the Matrix that penetrate into the inmost part from whence flow the terms when the woman is about to conceive open their orifices But the time of conception is when the terms begin or at least end For though the rest of the time of purging these orifices are open yet the woman can by no means conceive because the seed cannot stay in the womb but is washt away by the blood that runs in so plentifully But when the terms end or begin the orifices are open and the menstrual blood runs not by streams but gently forth by little and little as by a dewy humour sweating in whereby the Matrix is moistned whence it is that the seed sticks to the roughnesse of the womb and nourishment enough follows by the dropping of bloud that flowes thither For before the Terms flow conception cannot be made because the nourishment is wanting nor doth the seed stick fast for at that time the vessels being shut the matrix is smooth and the seed by reason of smoothnesse like glasse polished runs away and cannot stick and unite for roughed things are fitter than smooth things to sodder together Why Whores conceive not Hence it is that whores by frequent lying with men do not conceive To which appertains that sentence of Hippocrates Those that have moyst wombs do not conceive L. 5. Aphor. 62. for the seed is drown'd in these as corn is in wet grounds Likewise they that have over-dry matrixes are unfit to bear children for it is necessary that the parts should be wet with the dropping of the menstrua I do not now discusse the matter what strong arguments they insist upon who think the terms not needfull to nourish the Child Let them hold their opinion but I can never believe that this humour is unprofitable and doth not serve toward the Childs generation For since all women that are in perfect health have their courses at set times what can we think but that this humour runs forth for some end and is not venomous unlesse it stay beyond Natures time in the body or it be restrain'd by some disease or accident So in plethorick bodies that is Continual Feavers such as are full of humours pure blood if it be not ventilated corrupts and causes a putrid feaver and other next to contagious diseases as the small Pox and Measels A Simile from houses shut up so we see houses long shut and not cleansed by the wind to grow musty and smell filthily Since therefore the terms are an excretion of superfluous blood which the weaknesse of that sex can neither concoct by heat nor discusse by exercise it must needs break forth by the Moons urging of it at a set time and by the running out thereof the body is cleansed and if it chance to be stopped longer it growes venomous by corrupting But it is not so in Nurses or women with child What menstrua are venemous for it is a strong argument because that humour is usefull in its time and fit to nourish the Child but that is not so that by long stay corrupts in the body But because after conception it drops from the veins into the womb and feeds the Child all the time the Woman is great with child if the womb should lye open or the terms any way run from it the Child cannot live or would grow very weak CHAP. XI The Soul comes not from the Parents Seed but is infused by God and can neither dye nor corrupt what day of Child-bearing it is infused How the mind raiseth it self toward God THe Soul of Man is by no means more invited to love God nor can know it self better than by searching into it self and when it doth
is because a woman hath a great belly sticking forth and larger receptacles and her belly intestines urinary passages are more open and her breasts more spungy and swoln which because they are fill'd with abundance of humours the belly is made heavy and being thus stretched with the water inclines downwards A Simile from floting bladders Which thing we see in bladders and vessels that are stopped that part of them which contains the Ayr flotes upward but where the water is contain'd that part is downwards The same you may see in an Egg An Egg and Ambergreece put into brine will swim that cast upon salt brine will flote but that part where the weight is will sink but the part filled with Ayr namely that which when the shell is broken is empty when they grow old and rotten it will swim a top But unlesse nature had given larger passages and receptacles to this fex A woman hath larger passages than a man I pray how could copulation be done what could help conception and carrying the child in the womb for secretly by reason of this the matrix swells and the child growes what remedy were there for painful labour in child-birth where the parts must be stretched forth and dilated that the child may come forth with more ease what lastly would serve for the childs nourishment unlesse the womb and entrance of it were so made unlesse the curious and so handsomely swelling forth breasts that are so full of millk were made for that use Since therefore a woman hath all her passages and cavities larger and drinks in much moysture it must be that that part should sink downward that is most loaded with water But a man hath narrow guts streight urinary passages and is more endanger'd by the stone than a woman is hath his abdomen not so much stretched out his hip bones are strong and weighty his arms are strong and his shoulders large his back bone is fast with the spondils joyn'd together his Lungs are hollow and large whence it is that men have a loud and deep voice Why men have a strong voice and women a shrill voice but women have a small shrill voice because their breast is narrow All these things undoubtedly cause a man to swim on his back and a woman on her belly For by nature all heavy things fall downwards and light things upwards And I think that is the cause that men that are drown'd cannot come above water presently For when their bodies are full of water and kept down by the weight of the water they cannot come up because there is no ayr in them Why men drowned do not rise presently and all the spirit is driven forth by the abundance of water But in 7. or 9. dayes the body will flote for it is dissolved and corrupts and the lungs gather much Ayr. Hence it is What day men drown'd will swim that our common people use to say that on the 9th day when a man's gall is broken he will rise above water not that his gall bladder is broken but because the humours run forth of that and other moyst parts that are flagging whence the body when the flesh is rarified flotes and the lungs that are hollow like a spunge taking in a great deal of Ayr raise the body above the water For this part ballances and sustains bodies floting on the water and the larger lungs a man hath and the more holes are in them the longer a man can hold his breath and stay at the bottom of the water a longer time I heard Dr. Vesalius a man of excellent wit and learning relate A memorable thing of a Moor. that a Moor that was a urinator was brought to Ferrat out of a galley that could alone continue his voyce longer and hollow without taking breath than any four of the strongest Men Again he would stop his breath and his nostrils and hold his mouth close and not breathe at all longer than all they could By which gift of nature he won thus much that being oft times taken he still escaped and like a Dydapper he would for half an hour lye at the bottom of the Sea and shake off his yoke of captivity that was more bitter than death Large capacious Lungs will do thus much for a man that he shall soon run a Journey What good comes from large Lungs that if he can swim he can lye longer upon the waters and if he fall into any deep River he will not be so soon drown'd and when he is drown'd he will flote in a few daies And if these bellows of breath be taken out when a man is dead as I hear some Pyrats have done he will stay at bottom and never swim up again because he wants the benefit of the Ayr. CHAP. VII The bodies of those that are drown'd when they swim up and come to be seen as of those that are murdered when their friends are present or the murderers they bleed at the nose and other parts of their body The dead will bleed SInce there are many things in Nature that will make us to wonder I think this is one of the chief that blood will run out of the wounds of one that is slain if he be present that gave the wound and is guilty of the murder and that drowned bodies taken out of the waters will bleed at some parts if any of their friends be nigh and the blood is commonly so red and lively as though the faculties and vital spirits that agitate the humours were not yet defunct For that is observed by the Magistrates and the Rulers of all the Low-Countries who are wont to be present to take notice of dead bodies however they came to die before they be buried But how this should be it is no easie matter for any man to resolve I know that in dead people for a time there remains a vegetable force whereby their hair and nails increase imbred moysture affording nutriment to outward heat So Plants and shrubs cut off will grow green for some dayes and bear flowers if they chance to be moystned with water Plants cut up growing for a time For there is an imbred force in stalks which they have from the root and when that is gone the leafs wither and grow dry and fall off So it may be that the blood lying hid in the veins may break forth when the body is stirred For we see such men carryed up and down by Porters and to be set with their faces sometimes upwards sometimes downwards and tossed to and fro Whence it may be the veins mouths are opened and the blood that hath not yet put off its natural colour may run out But from those that are long dead and late found not red blood but bloody corrupt matter runs forth of the wound of him that is slain But if they dyed by a fall or were lilled by something falling on them
most part when nine Moneths are past produceth Mankind either Male or Female of the same shape and form with the progenitors But to proceed in relating the other parts of what I have undertaken The third time to make up this fabrick is set when those three principal parts shew themselves evidently and perspicuously namely the Heart from whence spring the Arteries the Brain from whence as some threads from a distaff the Nerves proceed and the Liver from whence the Veins are propagated To frame these the faculty of the Womb is busied from the time of conception unto the 18. day of the first Moneth But lastly which time reacheth to the 28. or 30. day the outward parts are seen exquisitely elaborated and distinguished by their joynts and then the child begins to grow and to pant from which progresse of dayes because all the Limbs are parted and the whole artifice is perfect it is no longer seen as an imperfect child or Embryo that is a concretion that springs forth but is held to be a perfect and absolute child Males for the most part are perfect by the 30. day but Females on the 42. or 45. day It is by reason of heat that Males are sooner perfected than Females for heat extends the humour like to soft Wax Why Males are soâ—ner perfected than Females diffuseth and dilates it and by its force frames and fashions it So heat and vigour of the body and the alacrity of nature in Men makes them to move in three Moneths When the child stirs but Women in four Moneths At which time also his hair and nails come forth and the child begins to stir and kick in the Womb so that great bellied Women can plainly perceive the motion of them and are troubled with nauseating and loathing of their meat and farther they desire to feed on some absurd meats and such as are strange to nature as Rubbish Coles Pots shels some have longed for raw fish and mens Limbs I knew some that longed for live Eels and Congers and rent them with their teeth in pieces and swallowed them down Yet there are many Noble women that are not subject to this enormous appetite and desire for that they have not much excrementitions or faulty humours heaped up in their bodies but it is otherwise with the common people for those women are ravenous and have heaped up much filthy and feculent humours and blood in their containing vessels within from whence about the third Moneth after conception proceed nauseating loathing sowre belchings and the preternatural desire and coveting of many things is stirred up in them I saw at Bridges a City in Flanders An example of two twins that suffered abortion an abortion of Twins that hapned in three Moneths they were both boyes and from this longing desire the woman miscarried because she could not have what she eagerly longed for The child was a finger long or something more and of the same thicknesse all the Limbs of it were perfect and no want in any part so that you might plainly see the eyes with a black pupill the Nostrills Ears Fingers Navell Privy Member Thighs Shanks Calfs Ankles Feet and Toes When both these children panted and appeared to be alive they were brought to the font to be Baptized when that was ended they appeared no longer to be alive The scituation of the child in the Womb. Moreover I shall shew by the way how the child lyeth scituate in the Womb. It is carried in the Mothers Womb fastned with a long string to her Naver as the Apple is fast to the Tree by its stalk by which by the help of the umoilical Vein it is nourished and drinks at a fountain of pure bloud not by the mouth and lips which are of no use yet for to eat by as the Arse and Bladder serve not yet to cast forth the excrements by For the umbilical vein springing from the Matrix enters the Liver in two parts and is terminated in vena porta from which the most pure bloud by the seminary vessels is derived to the Matrix Hence it is that the bloud and spirits like auxiliaries and a supply of more forces are alwaies carried downwards that none of these may be wanting Wherefore by these channells and rivers of Veins and Arteries that proceeding from the Mothers body are carried to the Womb and then are presently fastned in the Navel is the child fed and by the faculty of the seed that is fostered by the heat of the Womb and is moistned with bloud is it perfected in such a time in all its parts But the Infant is equally ballanced in the middle of the Womb as it were in the Center of it lying all of an heap and being something long is turned round so that the head a little inclines and he layes his chin on his brest his heels and ankles upon his buttocks his hands on his cheeks and eyes but his legs and Thighs are carryed upwards with his hams bending and they touch the bottom of his belly the former and that part of the body that is over-against us as the Fore-head Nose Face is turned toward the Mothers back and the head inclining downwards it hath its eyes and face toward the Coccyx that is the rump bone that is fast to os sacrum the Dutch call it destier this in the birth parts together with the os pubis and is loosned whence it is that commonly males come with their faces downwards or with their head turned somewhat obliquely that their faces may be seen but Females are commonly scituate the contrary way so that they come forth with their faces upwards and look up toward heaven and cry Births contrary to Nature But these things do not alwaies proceed according to natures order for many births are contrary to nature and many children there are not born with their heads foremost and their bodies longwayes and with their hands lying on their hips but some come to the door with their feet crooked and wide some with their necks bowed and their heads lying obliquely with their hands stretched out as they have that swim and with their shoulders downwards with great danger to themselves and their mothers and no lesse trouble to the Midwives But when all things proceed orderly and naturally the child when the time is accomplished in the Womb endeavours to come forth and inclining himself roles downwards For he can no longer lye hid in these hiding places than he can find nutriment by the Navel and the heat of the heart can subsist without external respiration Wherefore being grown great he is desirous of nutriment and of light and he so desires to take Ayre Whence comes pain in Child-birth that he breaks the Membranes and coverings wherewith he was covered and fenced against any attrition and with bitter pangs of his mother he comes forth to the light and that not onely from the narrow and straight passages
as we see the flowing and ebbing of the Ocean to break forth and dilate it self all abroad which although it be not plainly perceived in Summer daies and is less presented to the eyes yet thou dost perceive it either by smell or dost apprehend the hidden poyson in thy inmost bowells And as these very things work destruction to the body and bring in deadly poyson so sweet smells and fragrant hearbs do stir up the spirits and do cherish and recreate the heart it self the fountain of life Which even any one of a dull Judgment can perceive when he seeth the strength weakened by swounding and fast a sleep by the defect of the mind to be restored and stirred up by sweet smells But these mean things being let alone afterwards by the assistance of the most high God I will relate more secret things For which if I shall seem to any one to have wholly searched out the secrets of nature and the uses under weak and very unconstant reasons and a very small proportion of judgment and with no trimmed sentences to have furnished nature with no store I would desire him to be perswaded that I rather afford and demonstrate matter of writing to the learned then take it up before hand But I have attempted and undertaken to handle those things not with so great hope and confidence of accomplishing it as desire and will to try it and also that I might the better deserve of my Advocate and that I might more oblige my Citizens by this service But after Plato Persius doth stir up to attempt things of this kind and doth desire that this should be paid to our Countrey and Citizens as a due benevolence For so he doth prick us up to the consideration of things to the study of vertue to searth out those things which are profitable to men O wretched men ye ought to learn and show The cause of things and what we are to known Or to what end we 're made on earth to live What order or what bounds doth nature give To gentle-sliding Rivers and what measure Of silver or what 's lawfull to wish for pleasure What good doth money afford how much we owe Unto our Country and what we should bestow On neighbours what direction God doth give To thee how thou in humane things dost live Therefore I will try what I can perform or wherein I can go forward if I do not proceed in every thing exactly I may beg pardon for my fault and so much the more justly because the argument of the appointed Work is so great and doth stretch it self forth so unmeasurably so that it requires infinite labour and no mean Witt to accomplish every thing exactly The chief City of Laconia in Peloponnesus and adorn that * Sparta for its honour and amplitude Which if Horace in a homely and very easie argument Doth pardon faults which want of care doth cause Or are neglected by humane Nature's Laws By how much the more is it convenient to wink at and keep silent most things in so great difficulties and not to cut every thing as 't is said to the quick For it can scarcely be expressed how great wearinesse is to be born patiently by Physitians what labours are to be undergone what troubles complaints and bewailing speeches are to be endured at home and abroad when they follow their own affairs and diligently employ their assistance to their Citizens when all their study and industry doth consist in action their no lesse troublesome then gainful practice doth suffer no liberty no time to take breathe so that when they meditate on those things that were dispatched in borrowed hours that is in convenient service they are scarce at leisure to write them much lesse to make them perfect Which when it daily happeneth true and these kind of occupations do continually environ me at home and abroad all things scarcely and very hardly could be perfected according to my mind but when the consideration of Nature did onely delight me neither a more acceptable Argument could be thought upon it seemed good to me to write of its Miracles more at large and make all the Works of Nature more known Wherefore after I had dedicated these four Books of the Miracles of Nature to ERICUS King of Swedland the most invincible token of this New Year I do purpose to adde Two of the same Argument in short whereby the most Serene King having brought to an end and quieted the War which he undertook by Sea and Land against some conspiring Enemies by most excellent vertue and the greatnesse and courage of an high and invincible Mind might be refreshed more abundantly by the Contemplation of Nature and Things Having required this of William Simonds a Printer of Antwerp that he would bring these honourable and notable examples into the favour of the King's Court and of the desirous Reader which when he promised to accomplish and very truly performed by the industry of Christopher Plantin I think to finish the rest suddenly if it be so that no hindrance happen and our Heavenly Father grant constant and durable health For I hope it will be so that some new thing will come forth at the next Franckford Mart whereby at length the studious Reader may delight himself For Newes and Delight is the encouragement and allurement of Reading and Learning especially where the thing is declared very evidently and with convenient words and serious things are mixt with merry and profitable with sweet and pleasant which very thing I have studied to perform according to my power by that moderation of practice that I may no where digresse from comelinesse no where passe beyond the limits of honesty An Index of all the Chapters contained in this BOOK The Contents of the Chapters contained in the First Book Chap. 1. OF Nature Gods Instrument Page 1 Chap. 2. Man's Worth and Excellen Page 6 Chap. 3. It is most natural to procreate one like himself and men ought to use it reverently as a divine gift and Ordinance of God Page 8 Chap. 4. Of the likeness of Parents and Children whence it is that outward accidents are communicated to the Children and the Mothers Imagination is the cause of the production of many Forms Page 10 Chap. 5. Of the strange longing of Women with child and their insatiable desire of things And if they cannot get them they are in danger of life Page 16 Chap. 6. That a Woman doth afford seed and is a Companion in the whole Generation Page 18 Chap. 7. Whence growes the Sex and Kind that is whether of the two Man or Woman is the cause of a male or female Child Page 20 Chap. 8. Of Prodigious and Monstrous Births and by the way what is the meaning of the Proverb Those that are born in the fourth Moon Page 22 Chap. 9. By what means he that will may get a Boy or a Girle and by the by whence Hermaphrodites are bred and people
into the Nature and manners of men and with which by the marks and signs of the body we may judge of the motion and propension of the mind is not to be disliked Moreover I shall prove by Testimony of Scripture what is most convenient to be observed hereby Page 130 Chap. 27. Whether it be more wholesome to sleep with open mouth or with the mouth and lips shut close Page 132 Chap. 28. That the curses of Parents and the ill wishes that they wish against their Children and ban them withall do sometimes take effect and fall out so and their good wishes whereby they desire all good to happen to them are a means to make them prosper and to obtain what their Parents desired might happen to them Page 133 Chap. 29. How comes it that according to the common Proverb scarce any man returns better from his long travels or from a long disease and to lead a better life afterwards Page 134 Chap. 30. Stones or Jewels dug forth of the Earth or taken out of the Sea or out of the bodies of living Creatures what vertue they have and by what means they perform their operations Page 138 Chap. 31. Of the events of dreams and how far they ought to be observed and believed Page 140 Chap. 32. Of the Climacterick or graduall year namely the 7. and 9. in which years the bodies of men suffer manifest changes and of old Men especially 63. is the most dangerous Likewise of the reason of Criticall dayes that is of the judgments of diseases whereby Physitians undoubtedly foreshew whether the sick will live or dy Page 142 Chap. 33. How a Looking-glasse represents objects and what good the polished smoothnesse of a Looking-glasse can do to Students and such tire their eyes in reading and how it may restore a dull sight Page 144 Chap. 34. What force and vertue Aqua-vitae hath or the spirit of Wine distill'd and who may safely drink it by the way some admirable effects of this made-wine are set down Page 146 Chap. 35. The prodigious force of Quicksilver and the nature of it the Dutchmen call it so from its quick motion Page 148 Chap. 36. How when we want Salt may flesh and other meats be preserved from corruption By the way Of the wonderful force of Salt and Vineger Page 150 Chap. 27. Pale Women are more lascivious than such as are of a ruddy complexion and lean Women than fat and do more lust after men Page 152 Chap. 38. Whether a man should drink greedily and plentifully or by little and little and sparingly at severall times when he is thirsty or is sat at Table Page 153 Chap. 39. All such things as hastily come to maturity or rise to their full length do the sooner fail and cannot last long as we see it in children and some kind of plants Page 155 Chap. 40. Sometimes our meats are hurt and contract a venemous quality by the siting of some venemous creatures upon them Likewise in mens bodies from filth abounding in them some things are bred as Frogs Toads Mice Rats Bats and an example of this is set down Page 156 Chap. 41. The force and Nature of the Sun and Moon in causing and raising tempests And next to that what change may be made in the Bodies Minds and Spirits of men by the outward Ayre By the way whence proceeds the ebbing and flowing of the Sea that is interchangeably twice in the space of a naturall day Page 158 Chap. 42. Of the force and nature of Lettice and whom it is good or ill for Page 163 Chap. 43. Of Patience commonly call'd or the great Dock Page 164 Chap. 44. Of the operation of Mans spittle Page 164 Chap. 45. Of the use of Milk Beestings Cream The dutch call the first Beest the latter Room also what will keep these from cloddering in the Stomach Page 166 Chap. 46. Why Gouty people are Lascivious and Prone to venery and as many as lye on their backs and on hard beds Page 166 Chap. 47. Whether the Small-Pox and Measils may be cured with red Wine or with Milk that women use to administer when such Pushes shew themselves Page 168 Chap. 48. Wine is spoil'd by Thunder and Lightning and so is Ale and Beer and how this may be hindred and the force of them restored Page 168 Chap. 49. Predictions of Tempests by the touch of Sea-water and what Winter Thunders fore-shew Page 170 Chap. 50. Children are delighted with beautifull things and cannot away with the sight of old wrinkled women and therefore they are not to be put to lye with old women in their beds and much lesse to lye at their feet in the bed Page 171 Chap. 51. How it comes to passe that children women with child Priests and such as lead a solitary and sedentary life are of all people first infected with popular diseases and with the Plague Page 171 Chap. 52 Divers documents of Nature and a fit conjunction of several matters which because I purposed to handle them with a convenient brevity I have bound them up together in one bundle Page 172 The Contents of the Chapters contained in the Third Book Chap. 1. HOw children are forced to endure the reproaches and disgraces of their Parents and the faults and wicked actions of their Progenitors are so far imputed unto these that by reason of them they lose their reputation or substance and goods of fortune or sustain some dammages in their bodies or minds Page 180 Chap. 2. Wherefore when men grow well after a disease do their genitall parts swell and they naturally desire copulation and of this matter here is a safe admonition and wholesome counsel set down Page 184 Chap. 3. Of the effect of the Ayr and gentle blasts and of the names of the winds with their forces and natures to cause diseases and to stir the humours which being agitated sometimes move the mind and molest it Page 187 Chap. 4. Of the Marriners Compasse which Plautus calls Versoria by observation whereof Marriners sail to Sea and by what vertue and for what reason it alwaies points to the North. Page 198 Chap. 5. What it is makes Dogs mad and at what time of the year chiefly and what are the best remedies to cure them Page 201 Chap. 6. Of the Nature and force of Gold and what effect it hath if it be at any time used for the health and defence of Mans Body Page 205 Chap. 7. Of the Meazels of Hogs and other diseases of this Creature that are next kin to the Leprosie and are commonly called Orighans or contagions from the unwholesome and sickly habit of the body And how this disease may be cured in Men. Page 207 Chap. 8. Wherefore do the Low-Dutch when they have had a tumbling and unquiet night that likes them not say they have had Saint John Baptist's night Page 211 Chap. 9. Of a singular new way how to make Salt and of the Nature Effects Force Use and
love their children very little or but from the lips outward when as poor dumb creatures ordained for the slaughter shew such great love toward their young CHAP. IV. Of the likenesse of Parents and Children whence it is that outward accidents are communicated to the Children and the Mothers Imagination is the cause of the production of many Forms The force of the Seed is a reason of similitude IT is a constant opinion amongst Physitians and confirmed by many reasons that if the Woman afford most seed the child will be like the Mother but if the man afford most then it will be like the Father but if they both afford alike for quantity and force then will the child be like to them both or one part will resemble the Father another part the Mother Lastly if it fall on the right side of the Womb and proceed from the right Testicle by reason of heat it will be a Manchild but if it proceed from the left and incline to the left side by reason of cold and moisture it will be a Girle Libro de opifice Lactantius his mind of the likenesse of the seed Lactantius saith that sometime when the mans seed falls on the left side of the womb a male child is begotten But because the conception is perfected in that part of the womb that is ordain'd for the procreation of females there will be something in it that is but half man and will be fairer and whiter or smoother and lesse hairy than is convenient for a man to be or the voice will be small and sharp or the chin will be bare and bald and the courage will be lesse Whence is the name Virago Again if the seed be cast into the right side of the womb it may be a girle may be begotten but because she is conceived in the place ordained for the male she will be more viraginous than ordinary women as having strong limbs very tall a swart countenance What woman is most imperious a hairy chin a ruder face a strong voyce and a bold and man-like courage whence it falls out that such women will cast off the yoke and rule over men and will take so much power to themselves in governing that men dare not speak or stir for them Though these things and many more might be alledged for the similitude of the form which are very probable and for the most part they so fall out yet the principal cause of this effect seems to me to consist in the tacite Imagination of the woman For if she conceive in her mind or do by chance fasten her eyes upon any object and imprint that in her Mind the child commonly doth represent that in the outward parts The womans Imagination what it doth So whilest the Man and Woman Embrace if the woman think of the mans countenance and look upon him or thinks of any one else that likenesse will the child represent For such is the power of Imagination that when the woman doth intentively behold any thing she will produce something like that she beheld so it falls out that children have the forms of divers things upon them as Warts Spots Moles Dashes which cannot easily be wiped off or taken away So some of our women seeing a Hare bring forth a child with a Hare-lip Hare-lip so some children are born with flat Noses wry mouths great bubber lips and ill shaped of all the body because the woman when she conceived the child and in the time she was big of it had her eyes and mind busied upon some monstrous creature Art can change the shape and colour of Animals Men use to effect the like by art in other creatures setting before them when they are to conceive the colours of divers things Jacob used that stratagem who was afterwards called Israel laying rods he had pilled off the rinds from before them every where Gen. 30. and so he made the greatest part of the flock spotted and party-coloured So we make painted birds dogs and horses dapled and with divers spots Which Artifice of Nature and all the reasons and causes of similitude Pliny exactly comprehended almost in these words Similitude in the mind is a diligent thinking of a thing L. 7. c. 12. Pliny his opinion of the cause of similitude wherein many accidents have great force as sight hearing memory forms taken up at the very instant of conception and a sudden thought rising of any thing is supposed to give the form and similitude hence some are like their Grandfathers others like their Fathers or some other kindred Hence there are more differences in Man than in other Creatures because the quicknesse of his thought and nimblenesse of his mind and variety of his wit imprint divers marks because other creatures have their minds fixed almost and unmoved and all of the same kind are alike Hence it is that a woman may cause her Child to have a strange form and nothing like to the father So a woman that had layn with another besides her husband fearing lest her husband should come in the mean time after 9. moneths she brought forth a Child not like the party that she lay with but like her husband that was absent There is a very witty Epigram written of this Sir Tho More 's witty Epigram by that most ingenious Man Sir Thomas More Those four boys Sabine Which thy Wife brought forth Thou think'st are not thine Unlike thee naught-worth But that Boy alone That she lately bore Like thee for thine own Thou tak'st and no more Four as bastards born Rejected are in scorn Yet wise men suppose That the Mothers mind Doth the Child dispose For likenesse in 's kind Four were begot When that many miles From home thou wert not Feared nor thy wiles This last like to thee Was begot in fear Thy Wife was not free Thou wert then too near This I think was it That thy likenesse hit Hence it followes that the argument is vain to assign the Father from the likenesse of the Child Likenesse can confiâ—m no child to be the Fathers own For neither the Law of Nature nor the publick consent of Mankind will suffer a child to be laid to any man because it is like him But what concerns Wit and Manners and propensions of the mind daily examples teach us that Children which have all force and vital spirits from the faculty of the Seed are commonly of the same condition with their progenitors and of the same nature But there is much in this whether Venery be used with great or weak desire For many are lesse venereous and not so hot and do not with any great desire use copulation but rather decline from it and that they may pacifie their wives they pay their due benevolence as St. Paul calls it very faintly and drowsily 3 Cor. 7. whence it happens that the Child falls short of the Parents nature manners and
imbred generosity and hence it is that wise men sometimes beget stupid slothful Children Why wise men sometimes beget fools and that are of a feeble mind because they are not much given to these delights But when the Progenitors are hot in venereous actions and do liberally and abundantly employ themselves therein it oft-times happens that the children are of the same manners desires and actions of mind that their Parents are A Simile from Birds For as Birds are of the same Nature with those they are bred from and are of the same colour'd Feathers so Children exactly imitate the manners of their Progenitors and are essentially the same in nature with them And the same native signs that are printed on the Parents are found also commonly upon the Children For Horace Carmin l. 4. od 4. speaks thus Good and strong beget the same Calves and Colts their Sires ' present From stout Eagles never came Birds like Pigeons impotent And because Education perfects the gifts of nature corrects errours and frees from vice he added very fitly Art amends what Nature is Good Manners mend what 's amisse Chremes in Terence concludes from the Mothers Manners what the son is for thus he brawls with Sostrata Heauton-timerum Act. 4. Scen. 3. His manners shew him born of thee In that in all he doth agree He hath thy vices to a hair None but thee then could him bear Ill Crows ill Egs. And truly it is so by nature and we see it fall out most commonly that Children will imitate their Parents conditions and tread upon their heels following dicing whoring tipling yet some by their Parents care and benefit of education come to good manners wherefore every man ought to strive so to moderate his passions and so order his course of life and dyet that he may not hurt himself or infect his posterity For from the fathers seed and the mothers blood many things use to descend to posterity for the same force and vertue that is in the Parents sperm is poured forth into the children as from one vessel into another So saith Catullus Cat will ever follow kind And Children are of Parents mind Parents diseases faults descend to their children Seeing that the seed flowes from the principall parts and contains in it the force and nature of all the members it comes to passe that what disease is in any part descends by right of succession to the Children So the Leprosie Epilepsie feet-gowt hand-gowt and other diseases and defects are hereditary And because the Mothers blood is the chief nutriment for the Child Women derive most part of mischief to the children and the secondary beginning of procreation it oft-times happens that Children take more mischief from the Mother whether you consider their bodies or minds So wicked drunken foolish women commonly with us bring forth just such Children and that are subject to the same vices The Mothers fault doth more wrong to Children if she be unchaste and play the whore than the Fathers fault doth so likewise if she be given to drunkennesse or any other vice For if a man of ripe years or when he is young and unmarried should get a Maid ☞ with child he deserves almost to be commended for it and not to be disgraced For it is commonly said that one may safely marry his daughter to such a man who is not unfruitful and barren but hath proof of his Manhood already in getting of a child But if a woman or a maid that is marriageable should do the like or suffer any such matter to be done when she begins to fall in love she would so lose her reputation and honour that no Cobler nor any mean fellow whatsoever but would scorn to marry her and if one should marry her he would quickly hit her in the teeth with her whoredome So as soon as any maid is overcome and hath lost her maidenhead and those cloysters of Virginity are entred that fault can never be washt away nor can those closets be ever lockt again For so the Poet describes it Virginity once stain'd Can never be regain'd So Plautus in Amphitruo I do not think that to be the dowry which people call so but chastity and bashfulnesse and a moderate desire a fear of the Gods love of Parents and concord with kindred Wherefore besides others Ecclus. that wise Hebrew doth earnestly warn Parents that they should be very careful to look to their daughters chastity and honesty that they may not be polluted with wicked company or be stained by them For women-kind are naturally frail and more subject to be abused Since therefore there are many things that hinder manners and good life as also there are many things that defile the body and the decent frame thereof care must be had that nothing may pollute the mind with ill manners or disgrace the body by any monstrous deformity And because the beauty and decent form of the body is very acceptacle to all Men we should observe exactly by the progresse of natural causes what things will make one beautiful or deformed and ugly since these things principally consist in womens Imagination and in such things as proceed from without care must be had that that Sex may see nothing A woman with child is subject to passions that may move their mind to think absurdly which in framing the child may bring any hurt For if any mischief happen from without if any fear or trembling fall on them when they meet any terrible thing presently all this fright falls upon the child the natural spirits and humours being turn'd thither and all the faculties of the woman are busied in framing such a thing For a vehement and fixed cogitation whilest it doth tosse the vehement species of things and turns them often over it doth imprint that form and figure which it so often thinks on upon the Child For the confluence of the internal spirit and humours paints out the Image of the thing thought on Whence comes deformity of body It is not for nothing and for no cause that some have such ill shapen bodies ill and uncomely cruel countenances swoln blabber'd cheeks wry mouthes wide chaps for these things come to passe because their mothers being great with them thought on such deformed shapes and representations or fastned their eyes too much upon them So I dislike nothing more than lascivious women that use to delight themselves beyond measure with Whelps and Apes and to carry them in their bosoms to foster them to kisse and hug them For by the company and sight of these creatures the imperfect Nature of women may take some strange impressions and they may frame in their minds such forms as may make their children deformed Maka Dogs So the great women of the Low-Countroys love Malta dogs they are commonly called Camusii from their crooked nostrils their bodies are but small they are white as snow their noses are flat
for sometimes by such manner of diet we dispell Chronical and long diseases So when sick people are vexed with lasting diseases I do not use to be very obstinate or refractory against them in granting to them such meats as they greedily desire and earnestly intreat for when they earnestly ask for them and eat them with a great Appetite For by this means it comes to passe that natural heat is stirred up and the imbred faculties are moved humours that stick in the body are concocted and dissipated the passages being opened And by Hippocrates example sometimes I study to gratify my Patients and to be silent and wink at them if they take what may not greatly hurt their bodies For as he saith Something worse meat and drink so it please L. 2. Aph. 38. is better than that which is better and pleaseth not so well For all those things that relish best in the Palate and are most pleasing to the taste are more easily concocted and nourish more because the stomach takes them in greedily and likes them best Desire makes all sweet So I know some that have cured Quartans and wandring Agues by eating raw Herrings new taken out of the Sea So in desperate diseases that are come to the height of their danger I do not much fear that greedy appetite nor do I contend with or deny to them that desire such things what they would have but using choice and prescribing them the way and manner how to dresse them I let them use their own desire so far as I am confident it will not hurt them and I conjecture the disease may be batter'd by it For by this acrimony and greedinesse of eating them the force of nature is sharpned and set forward that was before asleep and so regaining strength it sets upon the disease afresh So we drive forth one disease with another as one nail with another and for an ill knot we apply an ill wedge Diseases are driven out with desire of some meats which no man may think to be absurd since in some diseases we willingly raise a Feaver for otherwise there were no cure for them So I know some that by the sudden coming on of the enemy and by a great fright have been cured of a quartan Ague So there was an Epidemicall disease amongst us that had destroyed some thousands that by a suddain inundation of the Sea presently ceased for by some outward trouble arising the collections of humours are dissipated and diseases abate and cease by critical evacuation One disease is sometimes cured by another Hence it is that such as are bit by mad-dogs and fear the water we cast them unawares into the deep water and drive away fear by fear When some are troubled with cold diseases we put them into hot Feavers for so naturall heat being raised cold raw humours are concocted and nature is excited to cast out the disease CHAP. VI. That a Woman doth afford seed and is a Companion in the whole Generation It is proved by reason that a woman wants not Seed THough the Seed of Man be the chief efficient and the begining of action motion and generation yet that a woman affords seed and doth effectually lend help to the procreation of the Child is evinced by strong reasons First seminary vessels had been given them in vain and genital testicles if a woman wanted seminal excrement she should afford very little to the child and should have no part in it But since that nature doth nothing in vain it must needs be that they were made for use of seed and for procreation and placed in their proper places both the Testicles and the receptacles of seed whose nature force is to afford fruitfull vertue to the seed And to prove this there needs no stronger Argument than this that if women do not use copulation to cast out their seed they oft-times fall into great diseases and cruel symptoms The danger of seed retain'd For you shall see many Widows for want of husbands and Virgins ready for Marriage when they do not marry in time though their terms keep their orderly seasons yet are they cruelly tormented with fainting fits and strangling of the Mother For all are of opinion that more harm comes to them by the seed being corrupted than by their courses being stopt For the seed growes to be of a venomous quality hence ariseth that swarth weasil colour in Maids when they begin to be in love hence comes their short breathings tremblings and pantings of the heart the expulsive faculty being moved to cast out the swelling humour Maids to be married in time If such lusty Widows or Maids in years happen to be married that their seed by the use of man may be ejected you shall presently see them look fresh as a Rose and to be very amiable and pleasant and not so crabbid and testy especially if their husbands be men for their turn and can give them their due Maids by Marriage grâ—w fresh And though the Society of the lawful bed consists not in these things yet you shall find that this Sex is by no means better won than when the husband often satisfieth them this way Woman is greedy of copulation For so are all things more peaceable in the House and there fall out no wranglings or janglings between them But if the man lye but seldom with his wife or the man be slow in doing his office you shall see the house turn'd upside down for some of this Sex are so greedy of copulation that you may weary them but never satisfie them which seems to me the chief cause why a woman in copulation doth afford seed and hath more pleasure than a man hath For since by nature infinite delight accompanies the ejecting of the seed by the breaking forth of the swelling spirits and the stiffnesse of the nerves and the woman performs a double office The woman desires man as the matter doth the form Why children are most like the Mother and suffers both wayes for she drawes forth the mans seed and casts her own in with it It is very likely that she takes more delight and is more recreated by it Hence it is that the Child is commonly more like the mother than the Father because the Mothers confer most in generation and it is proved because women love the Children best For besides their ejecting of seed all the time they are great with child they nourish the Child with their purest blood I find Galen to be of that mind for he thinks that the child receives something more from the Mother than from the Father Lib. 2. de sem and he refers the difference of Sex to the affluence of menstruall blood but the reason of likenesse to the force of the seed A Simile from Plants and the industrious husbandman For as plants receive more from fruitfull ground than they do from the Industry
that they are very unlucky in businesse they undertake For when a man lyeth with his wife that hath her courses he stops her flux and the blood is forced back again you may see the same in vessels and Cask of Wine and by blood running from your nose in which we stop the liquor running forth by thrusting in a stople or some rag that is wound together Yet it is not necessary nor fit to stop the blood running forth when as the mans seed mingled with such filthy moisture cannot make a perfect man For the matter is naught and unfit to receive a decent and proper figure And therefore Moses had good reason by Gods command to forbid men to lie with women during their uncleannesse Touch not a woman that is unclean of her blood For it can hardly be expressed what contagion and mischief comes thereupon when men do not refrain from women that are impure For this contagion will by degrees seize upon the whole habit of the body and secretly breeds the Leprosie and the Pox. And it doth this the sooner if the woman be diseased of some contagious disease as whores commonly are For then she will presently communicate her infection Whence are monstrous shapes in the body and mind Wherefore no man need much admire that there are so many monstrous births or from whence come so many strange shapes that there are so many scald heads maimed and crooked people with bow'd and bent legs that there are so many swellings about the fundament and the groins so many Bube's so many swoln Emrods and as for the mind Bube's in the groins that there are so many dull stupid forgetful foolish mad and unreasonable people for all proceeds from disorderly and unseasonable venery or from the corrupt faulty seed of the Parents are derived on their posterity Therefore let every man Consider how Cruel they are to their children that bring such mischiefs upon them and chiefly they are here understood that are conceived in the fourth Moon Born in the fourth Moon cal'd commonly Pist against the Moon that is when womens courses are upon them at what time they should not dare to copulate with men For the children they then conceive want all those gifts and properties that children begot at seasonable times are endowed with They are fit for nothing that is good and vertuous or to perform any noble actions And if they do any thing well they have no successe in what they undertake and never see any prosperous end For they are by Nature imperfect and their natural faculties are short which help men in their businesse not by their own but their Parents faults who undecently in procreation violated natures laws Whence it is that many things are wanting in them or else given them sparingly and with some ill qualities that others obtain bountifully and they suffer no lesse losse in their minds For they want almost their common senses and are extream dull without that sharpnesse of wit quicknesse of Invention counsell and prudence that others have Informer years a woman that was an Islander took Physick of me she married a Sea-man A history of a thing done and conceived by him her belly began to swell to such a vast magnitude that one would think it would never hold to carry the burthen When nine Moneths were past that makes three quarters of a year the Midwife was cal'd first with much a do she was delivered of a rude lump which I conceive was a superfaetation after a lawfull conception there were fastned to it on both sides two handles like to arms for the length and the fashion of them It panted and seem'd to be alive as sponges and Sea-fish cal'd Viticae in Dutch Elschowe Sea sponges which flote in the Sea in Summer in infinite numbers and being taken out of the Sea they run abroad and being long handled they melt with a burning and pricking left behind them whence they had their name After this a Monster came forth of the Womb with a crooked beck and a long round neck with brandishing eyes and a pointed tail and it was very nimble footed So soon as it came to the light it made a fearful noyse in the room and ran here and there to find some secret place to hide it self at last the women with cushions fell upon it and strangled it Leeches in a Womans body This kind of Monster because like a Leech it sucks the blood from the child they call it a Leech commonly a Sucker At last this woman extreamly tired and almost ready to die brought forth a Man-child of which the Monster had so eaten up the flesh that so soon as it was christned it had very little life remaining in it But the woman hardly restored to her strength reported the whole truth to me of all the pains she endured and I prescribed unto her a wholesome course of life and to restore her forces for she was grown very feeble and lean These and many such like things should teach all men and women to use all decency and orderly proceedings in their mutual embracings Lecherous people are marked lest Nature should be wronged thereby In which respect some lascivious people are much to be condemned who think they may do what they list when they use copulation and will no wayes have their pleasure bounded For taking no care whether their stomachs be full or empty or the meat be raw or digested whether it be day or night regarding no opportunity of time obey nothing but their own lusts and boast themselves to be so lusty that they will never be weary with copulation but these insatiable Lechers seem to me to be ignorant for what end the genital parts were given to man since they use them not to get children and propagate their kind but for obscene purposes for barren pleasure but at last they pay for their unruly lust when their parts and joynts are tormented with Gowts and Aches CHAP. IX By what means he that will may get a Boy or a Girle and by the by whence Hermaphrodites are bred and people of both Sexes God is the first cause of conception IF any one would have a Boy or a Girle he must first know for certain that the successe and happy beginnings of those things are to be obtain'd by Prayer from God who is the principal cause of every effect For sometimes though the naturall faculties of Man be as they should be yet are men and women barren and want Children which God threateneth by Hosea Ch. 9. barrennesse from God to those that defile themselves with unlawfull copulation or seek for to be fruitfull from any other but from God Because saith he they went to Beelphegor that is the Idol of Priapus and were addicted to filthinesse they shall not conceive their glory shall flye away as a bird from the womb from the birth and from the conception I will give
them a barren womb and dry breasts their root shall wither and they shall bring forth no fruit and if they do bring forth I will destroy the most dear of their Children Which must teach us all that if God be offended all means are vain and the successe will be unprofitable Ch. 8. Idolatry and super stition causes of barrenness God threatens the like in Ezekiel to superstitious women because they wept for Adonis Venus's Lover who was rent by a Boar about the privities and his Statue was set up and they adored him But if God be not angry with men and lets Nature have her ordinary course we may use outward means and help Natures weaknesse if from any secret cause one be hindred from Children What perfects genetion Wherefore there are two things especially that perfect copulation and that help to beget Children First the genital humour which proceeds partly from the brain and the whole body and partly from the Liver the fountain of blood Then the spirit that comes by the Arteries from the Heart by force whereof the yard is erected and growes stiff and by the force whereof the seed is ejected To this may be added the appetite and desire of copulation which is excited either by Imagination or by sight and feeling of handsome women Whosoever wants these helps or hath them feeble must so soon as may be use means to restore nature and to correct this errour and repair the forces as when there is a luxation or disjoynting in any part A Similitude from Husbandry For as we see barren fields grow fruitfull by tilling and mans industry and unfruitfull Trees and Plants by pruning and dunging grow very plentifull in fruit So in dressing this ground the Physical art is much to be observed that with great skill cures the defects of Nature and restores this barren field to bring forth fruit again as it were by dunging it when the heart of it was almost quite worn out So it restores the faint heat and the weak spirits coldnesse and drinesse of the genital parts and reduceth the weaknesse of the nerves to their temperament and it doth farther do all things that may serve to remove all impediments of procreation of Children But since that dyet may change the Elementary qualities and may alter the unhappy state of the body to a better it is necessary that such people should eat onely such meat as will make them fruitful for propagation What meats cause seed and stir up venery Amongst such things as stir up venery and breed seed for generation are all meats of good juice that nourish well and make the body lively and full of sap of which faculty are all hot and moist meats For the substance of seed as Galen saith is made of the pure concocted and windy superfluity of blood Matter of heaping up seed There is in many things a power to heap up seed and augment it other things are of force to cause erection and drive forth the humour Meats that afford matter are Hen-eggs Pheasants Thrushes Blackbirds Gnat-sappers Wood-cocks young Pigeons Sparrows Partridges Capons Pullets Almonds Pine-Nuts Raisins Currans all strong Wines that are sweet and pleasant especially made of grapes of Italy which they call Muscadel But the genitals are erected and provoked by Satyrium Eryngo's Cresses Erysimum Parsnips Hartichokes Onions Turneps Rapes Asparagus candid Ginger Galanga Acorns Scallions Sea shel-fish And Rocket that is next Priapus set Colum. l. 10. That makes the man his Wife with Child beget A sit Similitude from Guns These as many more will make men lusty For as we see Guns first charged with powder and then with bullets and lastly some fine powder is put in the pan and fire is given with a Linstock and the bullet is forced out with a violent noise so in this work two things must needs concur that our labour be not lost namely that there be plenty of seed and a force of a flatulent spirit whereby the seed may be driven forth into the Matrix But if these Engines be broken or nothing worth or the Gun-powder be adulterated and naught they can have no force to break down walls and Trenches and Ramparts not do they roar horribly but make a small hissing and empty noise as bladders of boys at play do when they are blown up Hence some of our lascivious women will say that such men that trouble their wives to no purpose do thunder The Womans Proverb but there follows no rain they do not water the inward ground of the matrix They have their veins puffed up with wind but there wants seed Wherefore if husbands will win their wives love by especiall service they must be well prepared to enter this conflict for if they fall short How Wives are pleased they shall find their wives so crabbed and touchy that there will be no quiet But when they are well provided they must take the opportunity of doing their businesse well And that is when the monethly terms are over For that sink hinders their seed from coagulating and fermenting and makes the womb unfit to conceive When therefore the Terms are over and the womb is well cleansed they must use no unlawful copulation or violent concussions in begetting children and when the work is over the woman must gently and softly lye down on her right side with her head lying low her body sinking down and so fall to sleep When a Boy is begot For by this means the seed will fall to the right side and a boy will be made Yet the time of the year the Climate the age of both parties the heating dyet are of great concernment here For the Summer if it be not too hot is fittest for the conceiving of boys because the seed and menstruall blood receive more heat from the Ayr about them Also a hot Countrey ripe years and lusty and hairy bodies are fittest to beget boys Also there are many things that by a speciall and hidden quality are fit for this purpose So Mercury What herb Mercury can do that is divided into male and female is held to be most effectuall in producing Children of the same kind with it so that the decoction of juice of the Male drank four dayes from the first day of purgation will give force to the womb to procreate a male Child but the juice of the Female drank for so many dayes and in the same manner will cause a female to be born especially if the man lye with his wife when the Terms are newly over I think it is because the one purgeth the right side of the matrix and the other the left and fosters it with heat So it comes to passe that the cold humour being taken away the woman is made fit for conception A Similitude from the Earth For as in boggy and watry grounds the seeds of Plants are drown'd nor do they easily grow
these and many more wherewith the Art of Physick abounds being rightly administred we see such persons restored and to be the same they formerly were When therefore the humours very frequently boil and the spirits are much troubled thereby and the exceeding swift motion of the mind brings forth some language not known before as we see sparks fall from striking of a flint A simile from striking sire with a flint Now it is natural to mans mind to be fit and ready to learn and it is endowed with Arts before it hath the use of them so that Plato's saying is not unlikely that all our knowledge is but remembrance The mind is endowed with Arts before we learn them In Phaed. For the mind of man contains in it self the knowledge of all things but it being oppressed with the weight of the body and thick humours cannot easily illustrate it self and as fire raked up in ashes it must be stirred and fostered A simile from fire racked up in ashes though imbred sparks and light of nature may shine forth When therefore this diviner part of man the Soul is shaken with diseases she brings forth such things as lay hid within her and useth her imbred forces An excellent simile from the sweetnesse of plants For as some plants smell not at all till you crush them in your hand so the imbred faculties will not shew themselves unlesse they be tried like Gold on a Touchstone By the same reason Jet Amber will not alwaies draw chaff and straws and such other things as are driven with the wind A simile from the effect of stones and plants but onely when they are rubbed and heated So when you whet daggers often and swiftly you make sparks fly forth Also the force of nature may be known in plants and Jewels For Piony Misseltoe Fruticulus Vervain Corall bloudstone Pearls Emrods Whence there is force in raysing spirits and other Amulets that is such things as drive away things hurtfull applied to the body or hanged about the neck by a present force either discusse diseases or stop bloud and do other things according as their natural quality is But all these are of more force taken inwardly A simile from the efficacy of wine You may make experience by strong wine that if you smell to it it refresheth the mind and spirits and heart but when you drink it down into the body for it doth nothing in the vessel but when it comes into the veins then it shewes its force and will make dull fellows very eloquent in speech For the heat of the wine sharpens the mind and brings forth what lyes hid in the brain Just so do the humours affect men when the whole force of the disease hath filled the cranies of the brain and the mind and spirits both vital and animal begin to be stirred We see some in burning Feavers that are most vigorous commonly in Summer who will discourse very well and speak very eloquently and in that dialect which when they are recovered they cannot perform which I said were not troubled with the devil and that they did not this by the devils instigation but from the force of the disease and violence of the humours whereby the mind of man is inflamed as if a firebrand were put under it I have recovered some of these by Opiates in potion and fomentations applyed to their heads and so brought them to their right minds when the disease was gone they forgot all they spake or did and when I told them of some things they were ashamed of them and wondred they had so much forgot themselves So those that are dying because there is an ardent force of the mind rais'd in them and some divine Inspiration comes into them before their Souls depart use to prophesie and to foretell certainly what shall follow hereafter and that so considerately and handsomely that the standers by admire at it Why a Soul departing will foretell things to come But that the Soul as it partakes of a heavenly original can foreknow things to come especially when death is near shall be shewed by me in its proper place CHAP. III. Of the Epilepsie's violence which disease the common people both now and formerly ascribe to certain Saints lastly how it may be cured And by the way that such are not to be buried presently that die of the Falling-sicknesse Lethargy or Apoplex WE have shewed elsewhere what effects the humours work in the bodies of men but since they do diversly affect us according to the diversity of places I thought good to speak of those also that are inherent in the brain For those diseases that are in the highest part of the body do not onely afflict us with pain but also take away sense and motion and hurt the mind as we may see in the Apoplex Lethargy and the Epilepsie that is weaker in children and women To whom the Epilepsie must be ascribed The Falling-sicknesse against Hippocrates mind was ascribed by the Antients to some special Saints for when those that stood next saw the diseased so suddenly tortur'd and pull'd We must not ascribe to Saints the torments of diseases they thought some Saints that were their Enemies or some ill spirits must be the cause thereof and sent such mischief wherefore they made vowes to them and set up Tables for their deliverance Hence our Age hath distinguished the Epilepsie into many sorts and one they ascribe to St. John the Baptist another to Cornelius and Hubert but as no man should deride the folly of these men so I think by degrees we should perswade them better to understand that these things should be referred to natural causes For they are of divers sorts in respect of the habit of the body or largenesse of the passages or abundance of clammy humours hence some howl and bark like dogs some hiss and gnash their teeth some cry loud and terribly Differences of Falling-sicknesses some are wholly mute especially their brain being stuffed with grosse humours and their midriff oppressed and the conduits of breathing stopped Whence it comes that they cannot freely draw their breath and these are most tormented of all men in my opinion But the symptoms increase most at the full and new Moon or when she is in those signs that respect the brain or heart For then the humours abound most especially when after North winds the South winds begin to blow for as these winds are turbulent and unwholesome so are they cold and moyst The Moon exasperates moyst diseases For moyst bodies that use moyst meats and are in a moyst climate are more fit and subject to this disease which is evident because children and women are most subject unto this and if it cease not about the 25th year when the natural heat is augmented Aphor. 7. Com. 5. and causeth a dryer temper and if it continue beyond that age it useth to
at that part where the passages of the body are open a bloody liquor will run out namely by the eyes nostrils ears or nether parts So commonly we see in a fluxible and loose body when it hath layn unburied two or three dayes that a liquor will run forth mingled with blood when the bearers with much motion carry the bier on their shoulders Also Oxen Bulls when they are slain and hang'd up to the beams in houses make the pavement bloody with drops of blood wherefore I conjecture it comes from some such cause But this seems to be most likely A man will bleed suddenly from a fright that the friends of the party slain or he that killed him will bleed at the nose by a sudden fright when they behold the dead carkasse because the natural faculties and mind happen to be vehemently moved and shaken and the humours do not stand still but flote here and there For we see them strangely affected and troubled both in their speech and thoughts and sometimes they blush sometimes look pale and tremble for fear whence it comes to passe that by long looking on and being troubled the blood will break out of their nostrils whether they will or no. As we see the same will happen to those who suddenly chance to see and think on some sad objects or lamentable things If any man say that sympathy that is mutual consent of Nature drawes blood from kindred and Antipathy and secret disagreement makes the murderers bleed I am not against that Blood will wax hot again in dead bodies But I shall more easily grant this that blood will run forth of the wound though it be bound over with swathbands if he that did the murder stand by For so great is the force of secret Nature and so powerful is Imagination that if there be any life left or the dead body be warm the blood will boyl and wax hot by choler kindled in the dead body CHAP. VIII Of the Helmets of Children newly born or of the thin and soft caul wherewith the face is covered as with a vizard or covering when they come first into the world An old Wives opinion of the caul of children THere is an old opinion not onely prevalent amongst the common and ignorant people but also amongst men of great note and Physitians also how that children born with a caul over their faces are born with an omen or sign of good or bad luck when as they know not that this is common to all and that the child in the womb was defended by these membranes Three Membranes defend the child For there are three coverings or membranes that involve the Infant in the Mothers womb The outmost is called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or in Latine the Secondine because it comes forth presently after the birth there are two other membranes under this the first whereof from the figure of a pudding-gut is called Alantorides and it is bred of the womans seed that is put upon the head buttocks and feet and lyes upon the eminent parts and the use of it is to receive the urine of the child formed The last is a very thin skin or membrane that drinks up the sweet and vapours that come forth of the child when it growes up and compasseth the child round about it is called Amnios from its thin lamb-like tendernesse Which fences and helps in child-bearing provident nature hath provided lest the Infant should suffer any inconvenience by bruising or be hurt outwardly The last of these sometimes come forth with the child being fastned to the parts they are appointed for especially when the passages are open and the secrets of the woman and genital parts are loose and open wide in bearing But if the child can hardly with great strugling get forth of these streights and the woman be of a narrow passage When the child comes with a helmet those membranes stick by the way and those kins are wiped off as any small skin is wiped from the face or other parts of the body when we creep through some cranny or narrow hole What signifieth a black covering of the child Wherefore old Wives say this skin when it covers the face is a helmet of which they speak many fabulous things and frigâ—t or cheer the child-bearing woman If this cover be black they speak as from an Oracle when as they do but dote and know not what they say that such children shall suffer many sad accidents and that many misfortunes hang over their heads and that ill spirits will haunt them and shall be vexed with dreams and night visions unlesse this be broken and given in drink which against my will many have done to the great hurt of the child The red helmet what that signifies But if this cover be red or the skin that is fast to the crown of the head they prophesie that he will be a notable child and shall have great successe in all his affairs And this superstitious old opinion was held also by the Antients Antoninus had a Diadem on his head For Aelius Lampridius in the life of Antoninus Diadumenus whose head was crown'd with a Diadem and a Garland that children were wont when they were born as a sign of good fortune to have a cap on their heads by nature which the midwives catch away and sell to their credulous Advocates For Lawyers think they shall find great help from them The superstition of Lawyers in keeping childrens Helmets But since those membranes are seen of divers colours I think that onely comes from the humours that flote about in the matrix for those vary the colour of them When therefore the Womb is wet with a fowl and vitious moisture which grows together with the seed of both Parents the membrane is of a dark brown colour and the childs skin of a smoky dark colour also But if the seed and bloud be pure clean and subject to no fault the cover is red and the child is of a pleasant and lively colour And these membranes are not onely different in colour but in shape also either by reason of some internal or external effect or from some object of the eyes or mind For when some men are so lascivious and given to pleasure that without choice taking no heed of the flowing of the terms they will use copulation with women it falls out sometimes that when the terms have run three dayes or thereabout and there is not much behind onely a day or two that they have to run more the natural time is hindred and some part of the excremental flux is kept back by unseasonable copulation but yet sometimes this perfects the conception When therefore a woman is in the act of generation and knows that her terms are not yet quite staid and that she should not yet copulate the parts being still wet she secretly blusheth at it and her eyes are
covered with blood which affect when it passeth to the child that membrane becomes of divers colours and fashions Whence comes beauty or foulnesse This also makes children to have chins and cheeks red as a rose Which then useth to happen when the great bellied women blush or are angry their blood being raised by natural heat and carried aloft For such as are frighted or suddenly put into fear they are the cause of a pale colour and frame the child with an austere and sad countenance CHAP. IX Why in Holland they say that such as have unconstant and weak brains have been conversant amongst beans IF at any time the Low-Countrey people will set forth a man of an unconstant brain The Proverb to wander amongst beans and unsetled mind who in his manners gestures words and deeds and all his actions is like a mad-man they will say he hath been amongst the beans and it is their common Proverb the beans flourish he wandreth amongst beans and this is applied to weak brain'd men that want judgment and reason For we see in the spring-months when bean-stalks begin to flowre that some men will grow mad and speak many ridiculous and absurd things and sometimes they grow so mad that they must be bound in chains For at the begining of the spring the humours begin to overflow and to choke the brain with grosse fumes and vapours which when bean flowrs do exasperate if they smell to them the mind begins to rave and to be troubled with furies For though bean flowrs smell sweet and pleasant Why bean flowers hurt the brain yet they offend the head and will at great distance send forth an offensive smell especially to those that have weak brains and are filled with a cholerick and melancholiqve humour Whereupon some of these are disquieted and wander then they grow clamorous and full of words and others again are pensive and alwaies musing Their head stands stiff Pers sat 3. their eyes sixt on the ground They mumble silently and eat the sound Their lips thrust forth their words they do confound And as some things dissipate fumes and discusse what is hurtfull to the brain and raise the fainting soul and spirits that are sleepy as Vinegar Rose-water wherein Cloves are steeped new bread wet in well sented wine for these breath forth a thin and pleasant ayre so other things cause pain and make the head heavy as Garlick Onions Leeks Elder Worm-wood Rue Southern wood What things cause the headacâ—â—e and many spices that send forth strong heavy fumes and offend the brain violently affecting the Nostrils Which Hippocrates shewd in this Aphorism The smell of spices draws the secrets of women L. 5. Aph. 28. and it is good for many other things but that it offends the head and makes it heavy For all things very odoriferous hurt the head and draw the heat and moysture to the upper parts even the very smels that evaporate from cold plants especially in those that are lean and decayed in their flesh For they cannot endure the smells of their meats and of boil'd flesh and when they faint and swound they will suffer nothing to be put to their nostrils that is of a sharp and piercing nature so that they seem to be suffocated by a grosse thick vapour as those that sit down in a dinining room that is filled with smoak whose breath is stopped and intercepted An example from smoaky houses unlesse the dores be set open and fresh Aire be let in the windows that the house may be Ayr'd and the wind may passe in and our Those that dwell near lakes are of another temper than these tender bodies and such as are made to empty Jakes and make clean sinks For these men reject all sweet smels as offensive unto them So Strabo writes that amongst the Sabaeans L. 6. those that are offended with sweet odours are refreshed with bitumen and the smell of Goats hair on their beards when it is burnt Aridiculous thing of a Countryman A certain Country-man at Antwerp was an example of this who when he came into a shop of sweet smells be began to faint but one presently clapt some fresh smoking warm hors-dung to his nose and fetched him again CHAP. X. Every strong filthy smell is not hurtfull to man For some of these will discusse contagions and resist corrupt diseases By the way whence came the Proverb that horns are burnt there MAny things are of a most filthy smell which yet do no ways hurt the body nor cause any corruption in it and they will resist some diseases and discusse the faulty troublesome Ayre and vapours as Castoreum Galbanum Sagapenum the dregs of Masterwort called Asafaetida Bean Trifoly Brimstone Gunpowder the fumes of burnt horns and skins Ill smells sometimes usefull For these are of a strong filthy sent but they cause no contagion but they represse and strike back the filthy sents and pestilent vapours which lakes and standing waters and the hearb Camarina and stinking earth send forth Also by the smell of these they raise young maids that are in a swound when they are troubled with the strangling of the mother when being fit for marriage they are forced to stay for Husbands But filthy smels that rise from dead carcases and muddy waters cause corrupt diseases and infect the Ayre by reason of heat and moisture but not the vapours of those that tend to drinesse Hence our Country people cast snips of leather horns and wet bones into the fire Ill smells sometime resist the Plague and with those sents they Ayre their houses to dispell the contagion of diseases and keep themselves and their cottages free from pestilent Ayres Hence came the Proverb that Horns are burnt there A Proverb that horns are burnt Whereby they signifie that places infected with contagious diseases must be avoided Such a kind of remedy in former times was used about Tourney when the Plague cruelly raged all the Town over A history that is true done about Tournay For the Souldiers of the Garrison in the Fort fill'd their Guns with Gunpowder without bullets and shot against the Town and they shot them off with a lighted match about the evening and morning whence it hapned that by the great noise and strong smell the contagion of the Ayre was removed Fire dispells contagions of the Ayre and the City delivered from the Plague For this is as powerfull to dispell contagions of the Ayre as Hippocrates remedy by making bon-fires and burning many fagots in the streets could be CHAP. XI The excellency of the finger of the Left hand that is next the little finger which is last of all troubled with the Gout and when that comes to be affected with it death is not far off By the way wherefore it deserves to wear a Gold Ring better than the rest PHysitians grant that all parts of the body that are affected
which is but the third part of a dram would sink to the bottom But of all mettals it is worst to stick to Silver bad to lead very hardly to Iron and somewhat difficult to stick to Brasse Melted lead in some respects is like to this Silver colour'd liquid substance For all things will swim on the top thereof Iron flints Potsheards and many other things that will not melt in the fire and will naturally run for since nothing is more hot than melted Lead Gold Silver Tin will swim on the top thereof but they presently melt and run like wax Also it is like Quicksilver for this that being powred forth on a plain table and the drops of it sprinkled here and there it doth not make it moyst and slippery nor doth it stick to the Tables but with increadible swiftnesse and unstable motion it comes together again and the drops run upon heaps with themselves because they are of a condensed matter compact and solid and continued and so condensed that it will admit of no Ayre Whence it hapneth that not onely by reason of its weight it descends to the bottom but because it contains no aereal substance in it So Agallocha or Lignum Aloes Lignum Aloes though light sinks to the bottom of the water though it be light and of no weight almost sinks down to the bottom if you put it into water because it is compacted and there are no pores in it CHAP. XXXVI How when we want Salt may flesh and other meats be preserved from corruption By the way Of the wonderfull force of Salt and Vineger Lignum Aloes though light sinks to the bottom of the water What kind of Salt is the best NO man but knows the great use and necessity we have of Salt For besides that that Salt makes all meats savoury and most pleasant to our tast and Pallats and procures an appetite to our meat it preserves all things from corruption especially that which is boyld till all the muddy dreggs be taken from it for it will shine of a bright colour and all things may be safely seasoned therewith and kept all the Summer for it will drink up and consume all excrementitious humours and thickneth and condenseth all flesh and fish that the ambient aire cannot make them putrify Salt makes fruitfull Yet all men must needs wonder that Salt should cause fruitfullnesse and cure barrennes and that some fields have been made fruitfull by Salt strewed upon them which experience hath proved to be true For far women that are commonly barren become fruitfull and fit to conceive by eating Salt moderately with their meats for it wipes away all foule moysture and dries the overwet matrix and causeth the genitall seed to stick more easily to the womb that is not so slippery as before But to dry women whose matrix is scorched like to ground that is thirsty moystning things must be given for Salt and sharp things are naught for them Also the Low-Countries shew that it will provoke the reines and cause erection who using Salt meats much are exceeding salacious So the frequent eating of Sea fish and all shell fish as Oysters Crabs Lobsters Cockels Periwinkles make people lustfull and are of a hot biting nature For which cause the Aegptians Sin sympos as Plutarch says abstained from Salt and all Salt meats because they were perswaded that Salt caused venery Wherefore they though fit rather to eate unsavoury meats than to use the most savoury sawce but I think they were too superstitious in observing that nor did they sufficiently take care of their health for Salt drives away corruption from mans body and consumes all strange and accidentall humours Add to this that it hath an imbred force for generation of Children whereby the conjugall covenant is confirmed For the moderate use of it raiseth the vigour of the mind and not only for embracing and kissing but for all actions we take in hand it will make us more cheerfull and ready But that it helps fruitfullnesse it is proved because a wonderfull number of Rats and Mice are bred in Ships at Sea and that women that deal in Salt are alwaies itching and have many Children who are commonly helped by Sea-men and Fisher-men that come into the Havens Salt makes field and Mares fruitfull and these are lusty fellows to do their businesse For this reason in some Countries Husbandmen use to strew some Salt amongst the Mares Fodder that they may eat their meat the more greedily and endure their Labour and be more ready and fit to bring Colts Also it makes grounds fruitfull where they are too moist and wet But if Towns and Forts besieged straightly should stand in need of this they must make Salt of Sea-water Salt-water which you shall find then to be effectuall when the Salt liquor will bear an Egg or Ambergreece Next to this to preserve meats is Vineger but it will not last so long for unlesse after some months you poure off the former and poure on fresh Vineger on the season'd meats The force of Vineger they will be mouldy and finnoed But what force and faculty it hath as by many things so also it may be tried by this that an egge steeped three dayes in Vinegar that is very sharp or a little more the shell will grow so tender that you may draw it through a ring like a thin membrane Vineger consumes an egge and dissolves a Whet-stone Also a Whet-stone or a Flint steeped 7 dayes in Vinegar may be crumbled with your finger into powder Hence when Hanniball was to passe the Alps to go into Italy He made the Rocks dissolve with boyling Vineger with the losse of one of his eyes For so great and penetrating is the force of Vineger that it will eate and break stones I oâ—ce made experience of it in a Jewel and a Pearl but it was not so pretious as that of Cleopatra Queen of Aegypt Pearls will dissolve in Vineger which she steeped in Vineger and dissolved and drank it up for the sharpnesse of the Vineger will consume Pearls By the same reason it resists Venomes and drives away the Contagion of Pestilent diseases Therefore me-thinks they do well who when any publick disease is spread in a Country do moderately use Vineger For this will disperse and scatter the faulty Ayre and if you eate any of it will keep the humours from infection and corruption So those that suck out venome with their mouths and any stinking wounds do wash their mouths with sharp Vineger But great care must be taken that we do not use Vineger too much and immoderately for it dryes the brain and hinders sleep wherefore I Counsell you to mingle some Rose-water with it and a little Rhenish-wine and Saffron a smal quantity For so it will do the head lesse hurt Of the same nature almost and of the same efficiency are all very sowr and sharp things
poure in Sea-water boyled with Honey With what things Wines use to be seasoned some mingle Cows Milk with it others strew Quick-lime Sand Powdred Stones that are brought into these parts from Bentimary with some handfulls of Salt added to it or six or seven Eggs and thus they use to correct all the faults of the wine and to restore the taste and colour as they were at first And though some of these are not very hurtfull yet artificiall wines are alwaies worse than naturall wines and are not so wholesome CHAP. XLIX Predictions of Tempests by the touch of Sea-water and what Winter Thunders fore-shew I Oft observed as I passed in a Ship to the farther Shores by putting my hand into the Salt-water that the Sea-water was luke-warm which shews three daies before-hand that a Tempest is comming with strong winds and storms For when in the deep Sea that is far from us whence the floud comes to us there hath been a tempest the Sea-water shaken and tossed grows hot as our hands do clapt together and so the tempests come roling along unto us and the waves rise to a mighty height So when the Spring comes Southern tempests bring forth hearbs and grasse by the motion and agitation of the Ayre that causeth heat Likewise if in Winter it Thunders and Lightens and the Ayre be hot with frequent coruscations it shews that a tempest will follow and Whirl-winds will arise and cause great floods in the Ocean Winter Thunders foreshew Tempests 〈◊〉 Thunâ—â—â—â—â—â—â—shew â—â—â—â—sts For when that distemper of the Ayre is tossed besides the season and contrary to natures order there must needs be some violent cause that moves those tempests for I never observed any such thing but the next day grievous tempests arose and inundations in many places For thunder and lightning are ordinary in Summer as also burning Feavers which if they come in Winter it must proceed from some vehement cause which the contrariety of the season could not hinder To which purpose is that of Hippocrates Those are not so dangerously sick that fall sick of a disease that is suitable to their nature L. â— age custome or to the season of the year as those are that are sick without any of these circumstances CHAP. L. Children are delighted with beautifull things and cannot away with the sight of old wrinkled women and therefore they are not to be put to lye with old women in their beds and much lesse to lye at their feet in the bed THere is no mortall wight that is not allured with beautifull and pleasant things but above all others children and young people who being lively and waggish All men love pleasant things do greedily look on fire-torches lights squibs and all flaming things and catch at all alluring speeches that cheer the mind and make the spirits more active Wherefore froward children are never better made quiet than with songs or when delightfull spectacles are presented unto their eyes which their fiery vigour and aereal and clear substance effects whereupon they fear the dark and cannot away with deformed and horrid spectacles Children cannot endure old Women So when some wrinkled or warty old wife carrieth a young child in her arms and fosters it in her bosome at the very sight of her the child will cry and fly back and if any women that are more beautifull and well adorned stand by the child will lean toward one of them and reach out its arms unto her Wherefore they do unadvisedly that hire crabbed and testy nurses to tend their children or put them forth to old women to bring up who will chew the meat and put it into the childs mouth The breath of old women ill for children For when they commonly have an ill-sented and corrupt stinking breath all this ill savour that comes from them the children partake of and thence they are of a wan dark colour and Weesill colour and contract many ill things from them especially if they lye on the lower side of the bed with them or at their feet CAAP. LI. How it comes to passe that children women with child Priests and such as lead a solitary and sedentary life are of all people first infected with popular diseases and with the Plague I Find by experience that when popular and contagious diseases spread abroad Who first fall sick of contagious diseases such as are wont to wander here and there in Summer and Autumn that those are soonest sick that are very young and weak and of moist constitution As children young people and females and such as live idly and sleep much and so heap up much excrements For these are soonest exposed to danger and soonest take hold of the contagion of diseases For as a very fine well-polished Looking-Glasse A simile taken from a glasse and all clean things are soonest clouded and stained with grosse vapours and as fire soonest takes hold of light straw and chaff and dry fuel for what is solid is longer a burning So tender bodies when popular diseases first begin to reign A simile from Souldiers that are unarmed like Souldiers unarmed are soon slain in war and next of all women with child cannot easily stand out against it because they can hardly bear the burden they carry about them and are ready to faint already whereupon when any light disease invades them not so fierce as the Plague they presently sink under it But Priests and Monks because they are given to sleep and idlenesse and never use exercise or to labour can very hardly resist these diseases But Porters and Carriers and other common people that are deficient in their diet and all the course of their life is irregular and because they live sordidly they are not freed from these diseases though many of them whose bodies are hardned by labour are longer before they fall into them But since children in acute diseases cannot endure the violence of them yet in more mild diseases they can struggle with them as long as lusty young people can and can hold out as long in lingring and wasting sicknesses for Children have in possibility what young men have actually For there is an imbred force and vigour in this age that must be continued to last many years Hence St. Augustine saith children have a kind of perfection De civitat Dei c. 14. for they are conceived and born with it yet they have it in possibility and in their reasonable soul and not in bignesse of their bodies For all the parts are in the seed and they grow forth by degrees and come to their full magnitude and beauty For in time as they grow up the force of reason and other gifts of Nature do shew themselves Whence our Country people use to say when they commend young children and bring them up in hopes This child hath a man within him CHAP. LII Divers documents of Nature and a fit conjunction of several matters
the City of Zirizea abounds exceedingly well with all things which are usefull and commodious for mans life and no lesse than when it was famous for negotiations with strangers and frequented with goers and commers of all sides For the concourse and merchandise of forraigners and celebrity of a place may sometimes be lost suddenly either by the rising of some war from without or seditions at home or popular tumults for presently all strangers withdraw themselves and take care for their own safety But that negotiation that is performed amongst the Citizens and Inhabitants shutting out all usury and traffique in a compendious way made with strangers or the Inhabitants and is a liberal gain is stable firm solid and not so much subject to envy But if calamity come from some other place then the Citizens and natives Mediocrity of felicity is commendable stand firm and undaunted and do not easily forsake their Country their Churches their houses wives and dear children nor do they go away yeild what they have to strangers to enjoy Yet the men of Zirizea All things are governed by divine providence in so great mutation of humane things and change from one to another which is all wrought by Gods providence seem wisely to have consulted for their own profit and to have exchanged uncertain things for certain For their people being most skilfull Marriners when their trading at Sea did not succeed very well in forraign commodities they altered their course of Trade and began to fall to fishing which is a very great gain and hurts no body and here they fear no shipwrack nor losse of traffique no disgrace for usury or increase upon money and the rest of the Citizens follow saving wayes of gain such as are honest and envied by none out of those things that the earth yeilds abundantly for mans use wherewith they recreate themselves liberally besides a laudable education they provide a very large patrimony for their children and leave them an inheritance to preserve their Parents names by But that strangers may understand in what part of the earth and under what climate the City Zirizea is and under what elevation of the Pole I took the height of the Pole-artick or North-Pole above Zirizea's Horizon and I found the elevation to be 51. degrees 47. Minutes and that was the altitude of that verticall point the longitude is 25. degrees whence it comes that since the Sun is not far from them and departs not very far from the Island but doth moderately shine upon them in the two Equinoctials and two Solstices the Inhabitants by the benefit of the Sun have no dull and stupid wits but they are witty civill merry yet many of them by the reason of the Sea that hath its influence upon them will speak very scurrilous crabbed and brinish language sometimes of which subject I lately held a pleasant discourse with Job Nicolais a discreet man and industrious who carefully labours for the publick good and doth what he can to promote it and desireth that the Citizens should be men of sound and good manners and if they have contracted any fault by the Salt vapours of the Sea that are so near to them that it might be mended with good education CHAP. III. How comes it that such as are old men or far in years do beget children not so strong and oft times such as are froward and of a sad and sowre Countenance and such as are seldome merry THey that marry when their age declines and their youthly heat is abated for the most part beget sorrowfull children and such as are froward sad not amiable silent and of a sowre and frowning countenance Youth is full of juyce because they are not so hot in the act of venery or so lusty as young people that are full of juice For the heat of our age is fittest for to act this Comedy Old men being feeble their spirits small and their body dry and exhausted of bloody humours the natural faculties are weak and that force that comes from them to beget a child is uneffectuall and invalid having very small ability so that they cannot perform the marriage duty so manfully and there wants many things in those they do beget Which is intimated in that dispute that the Angel is said to have had with Esdras Esdras 4. Ask saith he thy Mother and she will tell thee why those she bears now are not like those she bore before thee but are lesse in stature and she will say unto thee that the rest were conceived and born when she was young but these when the Womb decayed hence it is that such as are born in old age are slender small weak Why some are not so strong feeble not tall and have not so much strength because natures forces are decayed with age and the natural and vitall spirits are diminished Why some are dejected in mind whence also the mind is more dejected is not so nimble lively merry and jocant because these have obtain'd all things sparingly and not so largely unlesse perhaps their Parents were pleasing and merry and moderately heated with wine when they were begot For sometimes old people wil shew themselves young and lascivious together to be so wel pleased that in the spring they wil one embrace the other A Proverb from Horses that are worn out For that time of the year serves for Horses also that are decaid and worn out as the Proverb saith for to make them neigh whereby the Hollanders mean that there are none so old but at that pleasant time of the year when nature puts forth all her forces but they will shew some tokens of a mind raised also whereby it falls out that if a woman thus chance to conceive when they are merry The affects of Parents go to the Children after nine months she will bring forth a mild beautifull pleasant flourishing lively generous active Child And if their Parents in their young years were of a clowdy and impleasing disposition as many froward people be when they get their Children all falls to the worst all those affections and tumults that use to arise amongst married people and all their distempers will be derived to their Children so that neither the conception nor time the woman goes with Child nor her delivery not nutrition can be performed decently and according to Natures order and the Children contract many ertours and faults of bodies and mindes from the disturbed motions of their minds of all which the fault is to be imputed to the parents who were the cause and seed plot of all these imperfections of nature The faults of Children to be imputed to the Parents Wherefore such as would take the best care for their Childrens good and would have them tractable and pleasant and sweet of behaviour must take especiall care for this that in matrimoniall embracements all things may be moderately performed that nothing happen
silent So in some peoples eyes and countenance there shines meeknesse modesty placability clemency probity and many more tokens there are to be seen of a pleasing and sedate mind And in others by looking on their eyes you may discover pride arrogancy hautinesse cruelty craft fraud anger envy hatred indignation fear elation joy sorrow despair Also Physitians in diseases do carefully observe the constitutions of the eyes For if they be sprinkled with rednesse or streaked with bloody streaks Arguments of the mind from the eyes The divers disposition of the eyes they shew a frensy or madnesse from the inflammation of the brain but if they be wan and dark lead-colour they shew the extinction of natural heat and losse of life But instable winking moving unquiet eyes and unconstant signifie alienation of the mind and doting but faint moist flagging full of tears dark trembling stiff shaking swoln hollow hid dull twinkling eyes besides the diversity of affections of the mind in sound people they shew in sick people also not without danger of life distemper of the brain from plenty or want of humours from heat or cold Pore-blind what condition of mind they are of But pore-blind goggle ey'd squint-ey'd and such as look obliquely and a-skew besides their muscles drawn awry and pulled divers ways they have this errour in their Natures also which vice because it principally consists about the Brain which is the habitation or rather the Court of the mind as it doth outwardly much deform the eyes so it enclines the mind to some vitious affections for most of these that want good education are false crafty deceitfull quarrelsome inconstant subtile to circumvent and have wonderful tricks to gull men with Wherefore the Hollanders when they describe a man that is so marked call him A Proverb from sight of the eyes against wicked people a slim gast een loos ende listich schalck Een boos wicht that is an overthwart crooked crafty knave that you cannot safely trust for that he doth all his actions with fraud deceit fallacy catching deceits impostures and dissembling tricks to do other men mischief and himself profit All those men partake of this nature and condition who in the principal and chief part of their bodies have any remarkable sign namely on their head Heart Liver whereof I spake more largely in my Physiognomie the second book Chap. 36. CHAP. VII The Reason why some are born without some parts and want some Limbs others have some parts double and superfluous and serving for no use Redundance of matter brings things double DAily examples shew that some are born with double limbs and such as grow to the rest as with appendixes to their Feet Armes Head and sometimes they are distinguished by joynts And as deformed Whence are depraved Births and monstrous shapes proceed from faulty and corrupt seed and the ill constitution of the Womb the Stars also joyning their forces in the production of them so by redundance of humours and plenty of seminall excrement the parts of the body come forth double the imagination of the parents being busied about some such thing in the formation of it For if at any time that sex which is shaken with the smallest affections and prints them upon the Child conceives any thing in the mind or thinks that things are double before their eyes by the concourse and Flux of humours that fall down on those parts about which the thoughts are employed do serve to frame double parts that are superfluous or parts of some other kind For such absurd imaginations are observed in living Creatures So lately a Lamb was yeaned with a Head of a Sea-Calfe at the sight of that Sea-Monster So the yeare before there was seen a Sheep and a Calfe with double Heads and I saw and handled a Hen When double things are represented that had four feet and four Wings But since Women in conception and all the time they go with Child have divers species and things in their imaginations and sometimes it falls out that double representations of things are made to them from grosse vapours rising from beneath or with distracted and broken Spirit that should be directed to the point of the Apple of the Eye whereby their sight is divided and cut into two all this affection is carried to the Child that 's breeding What imagination in a woman can do and some parts being handsomely formed imagination fastneth to them other needlesse parts For the force of imagination is so strong that if a woman once fasten her eyes and thoughts upon any object all the faculties of nature and that force that serves to form the Child the humours running from all parts which are at her command fall down thither and imagination is wholly intent to do the businesse hence it is that somtimes she frames divers and unusuall shapes double parts and superfluous appendixes and fastneth strange limbs to the body But from defect of humours and penury of nutriment Whence come parts to be wanting or where the naturall faculties in making the parts are too weak and not forceable enough it falls out that men want some parts or have them disproportioned and too small and though Nature sometimes have matter enough to make the Child of and hath force and strength enough to do it yet she is now and then hindred that she cannot bring all things to perfection and frame a comely and well proportioned body How hands and feet come to be wanting or maimed so that the Infant is born sometimes with some parts cut short or maimed and not made up for sometime a woman may have a narrow Matrix a hard and callous Spleen Hips sticking forth and turned inward back again and other Obstacles that will not suffer the Infant to grow and to be perfect in all parts for the tender parts of the body by reason of so great impediments cannot be dilated nor diffuse themselves nor enjoy the nourishment comes to it but is stopt and stay'd that the parts cannot grow beautifully and well formed For I think it falls out here A simile from Trees planted in stony ground as it is with Trees that are set in stony grounds so that the roots cannot spread every way but being hindred turn back again and grow crooked and being repulsed they return So in the body of a Woman when the Child is framed either it is hindred by the narrownesse of the passage or for want of nutriment or by reason of some hard thing that comes against it so that the limbs cannot be framed with joynts and distinctly as they should be So I saw a noble mans Daughter with a maimed and spongy hand A History related which when the Parents ordered mee to handle her I found by touching of her fingers that the joynts which by nature should come forth were turned inwards and retorted so that they represented no shape of fingers for all the
wound people afar off as if he shot an arrow at them and he is not onely hurtfull to man and other living creatures but he pollutes the Corn and Plants with but touching them And there is no living creature that can stand against the poyson of this Serpent but the Weesil the Dutch call it Wesel The Weesil is a deadly enemy to the Basilisk Pliny L. 8. c. 21 which is so fenced and armed by eating of Rue that he will set on the Basilisk boldly and will pull him forth of his lurking holes and kill him and if the Weesil when the Basilisk is dead do not presently run away and eat of Rue again to refresh himself he would be choaked by the contagion of the Ayre Wherefore they do wisely The vertue of Rue who in planting their Gardens assign the principal place unto this hearb because it hath a present vertue to resist poysons and no kind of Serpent will hide it self under the shadow of it So if any man take Mandragora Hemlock Henbane Cerusse Opium and many more things that stupefy by their immoderate cold quality Rue subdues cold Poysons he is helped with the juice of Rue or the decoction of it in Wine which will discusse the malice of it Also Hemlock wherewith as we read Socrates was put to death or if there be any other Hearbs that are of a cold stupefying nature as Poppy Lettice Purslane will rebate the force of Rue and overcome it if it be taken in great quantity for Rue being of a hot and burning quality if it be taken too largely will hurt the body So I observed that when any popular disease did spread it self and in the time of the Plague as many as now and then put Rue to their noses dipt in Vinegar that they might drive away the contagion of the Ayre had pushes above and beneath their lip for this doth exulcerate applyed outwardly and rubbed on any part it will raise blisters Rue burns being laid to the body Wherefore for Carbuncles and Bubo's and other tumours that put forth in the Plague it is fitly applyed for it draws forth the venome and will not let the venemous vapours flye inwardly So I bid men make a plaister with Rue bruised with sharp salt leaven A plaister for Pestilent humours ' Figs Cantharides Onions and Squils rosted Quicklime French-Soap Ammoniacum and a little Theriac which being timely laid to the part affected will soon break through the secret and lurking humours but inwardly must be given Antidotes that may drive the fuliginous vapours from the heart and discusse them amongst which are Theriac and Mithridate for present remedies given a drachm or a drachm and half for a dose as the age and forces will bear it in wine or the decoction of Marigold-flowers What free the heart from ill vapours which the Dutch from the Golden colour call Goudt bloemen But since the monstrous birth of the Cock from whose Egg the common people think a Basilisk is bred doth not a little fright and amaze all men so the Cock-stone called Alectorius is desired by all and all men are in love with it For if this be worn about us What the Jewel Alectoria will do it will augment mens forces and will make a man both strong and confident to attempt any businesse It is taken forth of the gizard of a Capon or gelded Cock included in a thin memorane or skin four years after that his stones were cut out this Jewel is of a transparent colour like to Crystal and as great as a Bean. How a Jewel breeds in a Capon I think this congeals of a seminal excrement and is heaped together by the help of natural heat For since nature ceaseth not to elaborate seed in this creature though it be ineffectual and invalid and forces want to cast forth the moysture concocted yet it condenseth into a stone Milk grows hard as a stone in the Breast So milk when it is not drawn forth grows hard as a stone in the breasts and in the collections of Impostumes a hard stony concretion is sometimes taken forth The Jewel Alectoria procures men favour The force of the stone Alectorius in man and makes them gratious amongst women lastly in putting forth their man-hood which is required in the Marriage bed when they get children it will make them strong and lusty What force the Jewel Aetites hath So the Jewel called Aetites found in an Eagles nest that rings with little stones within it makes women that are slippery able to conceive being bound to the breast of the left arm by which from the heart toward the ring-finger next to the little finger an artery runs and if all the time the woman is great with child this Jewel be worn on those parts it strengthens the child and there is no fear of abortion or miscarrying On the contrary being applyed to the thigh of one that is in labour it makes a speedy and easy delivery without any difficulty almost or streight in bringing forth Which thing I have found true by experiment for when a Noblewoman wore this at her neck all the time she went with child and was in very good health and when she was in labour forgat to take off this Jewel from her breast she found presently a difficulty in her labour and that the child was slow to come forth Wherefore taking off the Eagle-stone from her neck and applying it to her thigh upon the inward part not far from the privities An experiment in a Matron of the Jewel Aetites she had an easy and quick delivery Wherefore I shewed to Matrons that the use of that Jewell was very good for them when it was fit to apply it to their breasts or to their thighs If any man should ask By what vertue it doth this and is desirous to learn I believe it doth it by an attractive vertue as the Loadstone draws Iron Jet and Amber draw straws and chaft Which must seem absurd to no man since the Matrix hath an exquisite sense of feeling The Nature of the Matrix and is so affected with sweet smells that if they be put to the Nose it will strive to come upward so that women and maids not married will be in danger to be choaked unlesse they be presently taken away and applyed to the nethermost and secret parts for then it will make haste to run downwards Wherefore women with child require the sweetest smells to smell to whereby their spirits are recreated and the child tends upwards To what parts we must apply stinking and to what sweet smells but such as lust after men must have stinking things applyed to their nostrills and sweet things to their Secrets and Thighs especially when they are troubled with the strangling of the Mother But if the Matrix send downwards and fall low stinking things must be bound to the nether parts and sweet things to the
upper parts which by their pleasing vapours may recreate the spirits decayed But if these things be used otherwise and preposterously it falls out that the disease is exasperated and women are grievously affected if they do not copulate with men so that besides the great pains they endure they faint and swound away CHAP. XIII Of the nature condition and manners of women and why that sex being angry is more violent than men are and will scold more outragiously and is overborn by many other affections and passions and by the way what is the meaning of that saying of the wise Hebrew The iniquity of a man is better than a woman that doth well THe wickednesse of some women is the cause that not onely Stage-Players Eccle. 25. and Poets Orators and Philosophers who knew not the true Religion but also Wise men Jews and Prophets who had abundance of the knowledge of God do in many places speak against and condemn women Women are spoken against by all Writers and that deservedly though they are not all of them of the same strain nor are they alike bitter and unsavoury For there are some Matrons who by the benefit of education are so adorned with many great virtues that they are not short of the best men nor are they inferiour unto them Esdr 3. c. 4. though the promiscuous multitude and the multiplicity of women be shamelesse foolish fierce and imperious even toward Kings slippery various mutable and as for lust of the flesh and pleasure they are insatiable and can never have enough though they be tired out with it yet some of these are more prone and addicted to these affections But since so many vices of this sex are wont to be observed every where and many that are marryed complain of the nature and condition of their Wives and make their pitifull relations unto others of the indignities they suffer by them which gives occasion to some to abhor this kind of life The inconveniences of Marriage and they rather withdraw themselves from the intimate company and society of women which others are forced to endure being tedious irksome querulous bitter fierce and must bear their threatnings and imperious behaviour Why God ordain'd Marriage But since the order of nature and necessity of living and the love a man hath and propension to propagate his like to succeed him that he may provide for posterity that he may procure a companion and fellow-helper they do wisely that marry that they may plesantly and with delight passe over this transitory life in an undivided society and mutual consent of souls and bodies For the condition of mans life requires it unlesse nature be clean against it and the constitution and state of the body cannot away with it Gel. l. 1. c. 6. To this belongs the speech of Metellus of Numidia which the Romans commended Metellus his speech of Marrying a Wife wherewith he exhorted the Citizens lest the Commonwealth should decay that every man should presently take him a Wife For saith he if we could lead our lives without a Wife all men would willingly desire to be freed of that trouble and inconvenience but since Nature hath so ordained it that we cannot live so happily with them nor can we live by any means without them we must take care for the perpetual safety whereby the Common-wealth may subsist than for our own short-during pleasure And if the office of a woman in houshold affairs affords great use and profit for such as are well and strong truly the use of a woman is very necessary and more requisite for such as are sick For as the Wise man saith Eccle. 36. Where there is no hedge the possession is taken away and where there is no woman the sick man laments who wants the help of another and must be supported by the Office of one to attend him A faithfull Wife will be very diligent to take care for him and for her family and her whole thoughts are fastned upon her husband so that if he sustain any inconvenience if any calamity fall upon him if he be sick or sad Profits of Matrimony she will desire to take the greatest part of the calamity upon her selfe for she grieves no less for her losses or crosses than she doth for her own Gen. 2. which proceeds from the mutuall consent and agreement of their souls and bodies whereby of two they come to be as it were but one body Horace writes knowingly of it Lib. Carm. 2. Ode 13. Thrice happy they and more Who being wedded hold Whose love ne're ends before Death nor do brawl and scold Womans anger like a tempest But daily examples testify that women are subject to all passions and perturbations and that they will be cruelly angry and mad when there is little or no cause for it and that the distemper and rage of a woman is no lesse than is the distemper of the Ayre and the Clowds when they are exasperated with Thunder and Lightning which besides others that were desirous of wisdome the Hebrews found true by their daily use and course of life as we find it abundantly set down in their writings For I think that by their daily familiarity and conversation in the house with them they had found and learned what a wicked and malitious woman will do if at any time she be angry or provoked what Tragedies she will cause and how violently she will rage and storme For so one of them amongst the rest continues his speech Lecles 25. A Woman what living Creature she is taking a similitude from venemous and pernicious beasts Give me any Plague but the Plague of the heart and any wickednesse but the wickednesse of a woman there is no head above the head of a Serpent no anger exceeds the anger of a woman I had rather dwell with a Lyon and a dragon than to keep house with a wicked woman But since a woman came forth and was made out of man a pleasing gentle tame meek tender smooth beardlesse soft skinned creature and that desires to be handled by man and to be subject to him Whence Women become so frail one would wonder whence it is that she is become so cruel and alwaies scolding and brawling and is so unbridled in her affections But I conjecture that all this proceeds from weaknesse of mind and lack of judgement in women whence it happens that a woman enraged is besides her selfe and hath not power over her selfe so that she cannot rule her passions or bridle her disturbed affections or stand against them with force of reason and judgement like to Children and such as are weak and feeble for age that want reason and discretion Delights to play with fellows Horat in Art Poctic and t is strange Angry soon pleased still consists in change For a womans mind is not so strong as a mans nor is she so full of
understanding and reason and judgement and upon every small occasion she casts off the bridle of reason Why a woman grows angry suddenly and like a mad dogg forgetting all decency and her selfe without choice she sets uppon all be they known or unknown If any man desires a naturall reason for it I answer him thus that a womans flesh is loose soft and tender so that the choler being kindled presently spreads all the body over and causeth a sudden boyling of the blood about the heart A simile from things on fire A woman is soon hot soon cold For as fire soonest takes hold of light straw and makes a great flame but it is soon at an end and quiet so a woman is quickly angry and flaming hot and rageth strangely but this rage and crying out is soon abated and grows calm in a body that is not so strong and valiant Why a woman will cry when she is angry What men are more subject to weep and that is more moyst and all her heat and fury is quenched by her shedding of teares as if you should throw water upon fire to put it out Which we see also in some effeminate men whose magnanimity and fiercenesse ends almost as Childrens do in weeping when the adversary doth strongly oppose himselfe against them If any man would more neerely have the cause of this thing explain'd Whence do women become furious and desires a more exact reason I can find no neerer cause that can be imagined than the venim and collection of humours that she every month heaps together and purgeth forth by the course of the Moon For when she chanceth to be anry as she will presently be all that sink of humours being stirred fumeth and runs through the body so that the Heart and Brain are affected with the smoky vapours of it and the Spirits both vitall and animal that serve those parts are inflamed and thence it is that women stirred up especially the younger women for the elder that are past childing are more quiet and calme Old women lesse â—â—gry because their terms are ended will bark and brawle like mad doggs and clap their hands and behave themselves very unseemly in their actions and speeches and reason being but weak in them and their judgement feeble and their mind not well order'd they are sharply enraged and cannot rule their passions And the baser any woman is in that sex the more she scolds and rails and is unplacable in her anger hence the vulgar woman and Whores for Noble women and Gentle women will usually observe a decorum though oft times they will be silent and bend their brows and scarse vouchsafe to give their husbands an answer the Dutch call it Proncken because their Bodies are commonly polluted with faulty humours are full of impudence joyn'd with equall malice as if the Divell drove them and they cannot be perswaded by counsell reason shame flattery admonition that will ordinarily make wild beasts quiet and you cannot hold them from their cruelty or make them forbear their mad and lowd exclamations They see not right nor good nor just Terent. Heaut Scen. 1. Act. 4. What may help or hurt them their lust Doth govern all So forgetting themselves they despise their faith honour chastity fame honesty reputation and hazard all To which may be applyed that enquiry of Solomon concerning mans condition Eccles 7. I applyed my heart to know and to search and to seek out wisdome and the reason of things and to know the wickednesse of folly and of foolishnesse and madnesse and I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets and her hands as bands I have laboured to this hour to find a good and cordiall woman and could find none one man amongst a thousand have I found but a woman amongst all those have I not found A good woman is rare Pro. 36. And that enquiry in the Proverbs is not much different from this Who can find a vertuous or good woman as if he should say you shall not easily in any Country no not in the remotest parts of the earth or any corners of it find an honest and well manner'd woman and if by chance you should light upon her Solomons place explained she may be equal'd with the most precious Jewells and no Merchandise be they never so costly can be compared to her But because I have fall'n upon this argument and have begun to examine the condition of women I shall by the way clear the meaning of those words of Solomon the wisest Eccles 25. The iniquity of a man is better than a woman doing good I interpret that sentence thus That a man The wise Hebrew his sentence interpreted be he never so sluggish idle unskillfull and rude in merchandise will do his businesse better than a headlong and rash woman that undertakes any thing with a vain perswasion of wisdome and inconsiderate confidence and thereupon doth all things more uprightly than a woman doth For a man distrusting himselfe doth by leasure and circumspectly all his actions using other mens help that he calls to counsell with him so that the successe is more happy than when the same things are performed by an arrogant woman that is puffed up with a proud opinion of her own wisdome as they commonly are For such a womans endeavours commonly run to the worst and are unsuccessefull A Dutch Proverb against women why a woman is not so ingenious which the Dutch commonly signifie by this Proverb Het quaeste van Een man is better dan het beste van een vrouwe that is If any thing be done and brought to perfection by a woman it deserves lesse praise than what is but yet rude and imperfect begun by a man namely by reason of a woman's want of mind and counsell her dullnesse and blockishnesse for want of naturall heat and because their languishing mind is soked into great moysture so that the faculties of their souls come forth more slowly and are not so fit for action and to do noble things The Roman Law concerning women Wherefore the Romans who took great care to order and to confirm the Common-wealth would have women as Tully saith Pro Murena to be under Guardians by reason of the infirmity of their natures and to bear no civill office Also St. Paul who with indefatigable labour instructed mens minds in the sound faith St. Pauls precept concerning Women and diligently informs us what is godlinesse commands silence unto women in publick solemnities in the Congregation by reason of the impotency of their minds 1 Cor. 14. and want of moderation in their affections and will not suffer a woman to preach or to aske a question in publick meetings or to be present in voting or to give her opinion concerning it Since therefore so great is the frailty and weaknesse and imperfection of womens nature Platoes
opinion concerning Women that Plato to the disgrace of this sex saith that they have hardly any soul and scarse deserve to be called by the name of man or to be honour'd with it yet St. Paul 1 Cor. 11. who with a fatherly care gives counsell concerning oeconomicall government and peace in Families will have honour given to the woman that belongs to her and that she must not be totally despised or accounted base and vile since she is of allmost the same dignity and condition and partakes of the same guifts with man being taken out of man by the operation of God that made them both Genes 2. Wherefore the man is the Image and Glory of God as the Apostle saith but the Woman is the glory of the Man for the man is not from the Woman but the Woman is from the Man For man was not created for Woman but Woman for Man yet the Man is not witout the Woman Eph. 5. nor the Woman without the Man in the Lord who so orders all things that the woman must be in subjection to the Man For as the Woman is from the Man so the Man by the Woman begetteth Children So that there is a society for help that is seen on both sides Colos 3. and there is required the mutuall succour love and consent of them both Wherefore St. Peter thinks it fit that Women should obey their husbands Pet. 3. and that the men should be gentle and loving to their Wives forbearing them as being the weaker vessells pardoning small faults in them and winking at many things and not repining at them for it is not fit that a man should be too cruell against that sex which is so frail Adultery in woman is an indelible spot Adulterers laugh at adultery with a proverbiall speech or too sharp and bitter so long as a Woman doth her duty and is not tainted in her honesty and chastity which fault when it is known brings a man more indignation than it doth him hurt as Adulterers use to say yet that spot in a woman can never be washt out nor can that wound be healed though Christian charity and matrimoniall love must not be too rigid or implacable since there is reconciliation with God and the divine goodnesse provoked by our wickednesse idolatries and grievous sinns is wont to be pacified by our prayers and repentance when we acknowledge the errours of our lives past when we are sorrowfull for what we have done and disdaine and hate our sinns with a setled purpose of amendment of life Moreover great part of molestation in this sex comes from the tediousnesse of their going with Child and the trouble they have in suckling and breeding up their Children whence women are so froward and no small inconvenience from their Termes stopt which if they run at the set time for them the heat of anger and bitternesse is driven off those smoky vapours being turned from their hearts and brains and the sad vapour being discussed that useth to fly upwards When a woman is more patient But it is best known to them that are marryed I need not enlarge my discourse upon it how calme and mild that man shall find his Wife when the marriage bed is frequently adorned and this ground is manured with often embracings and copulation And although I may seem to have been something tedious and fuller of words than it needs in explaining this Paradox or sentence that is besides the common opinion and vulgar custome of the Wise Hebrew The place of Ecclus explaind that the meaning of it might be searched out That the wickednesse of a man is better than a good woman that is such a one that is afterwards a cause of Infamy and by whose society disgrace may arise The sense is it is better to hold commerce with a wicked man or to deal with him than to have to do with a deceitfull woman For though in shew and at first appearence she may seem to be good and honorable and in outward behaviour discovers no wickednesse or deceit yet afterward you shall find her inconstant false captious fraudulent and full of imposture so that if any man deceive another the fraud and imposture of a man is righteousnesse compared with the wickednesse of a woman The like forms of speech are found frequently in the Scripture So God in Ezechiel aggravates the wickednesse of Jerusalem very much Ezech. 16. saith that she hath justified Sodom and Samaria whereby he condemns her for to be more wicked and that she exceeds those nations in impiety and wicked actions that the Sodomites and Samaritans compared to her The place in Ezechiel explain'd may seem to be just So in the wickednesse of opinions and in asserting any pernicious sect and maintaining it one man may be more dangerous and more impious than another that some Hereticks may be accounted Orthodox and to teach the right saving truth compared with others One man is more wicked than another that establish more absurd impious blasphemous execrable doctrines which is grown to a proverb This man is a godly and holy man in respect of that as much as to say that though they be both Knaves and ungodly yet if you would measure them both by the rule of equity and square of Justice one may be accounted innocent and to be pardoned in respect of the other 's wicked enormities So one man is more superstitious than another and farther from the true religion and piety and worship of God So want of knowing truth doth fools delude Horat. l. 2. Sermon Ignorance of truth begets errors And errour from the right way doth exclude All those that doubt some here do misse some there All such by seeming truths seduced are So errour involvs a man as well as it doth a woman and wickednesse lays hold of them both but the woman is more detestable and execrable for her wickednesse Therefore the wickednesse of a man is better than a woman doing good and as the Dutch proverb runs De deucht van Een vrouwe is Ergher dan Een Mans boosheyt By which proverb they aggravate the malice of that sex that if you should compare vices with vices and examine the frauds impostures fallacies and devices of them both those that are committed by women are farr more pernicious and heavy than such as are acted by men CHAP. XIV Wherefore an Eggat both ends where by at the long and narrower end it will stand like the Pole artick and antartick cannot be brokén between your fingers or both hands closed together although you press it wherfore steeped in sharp Vineger it will grow soft like a tractable and soft membrane lastly why the same Egg steeped in Aquavitae that is in spirits of Wine it will be consumed like iron by Aquafortis An Egge will melt in Vinegar IF you steep an egg in the sharpest Vineger four days or rather
XVIII To what we ought to ascribe amongst such multitudes of men the great dissimilitude of forme and the manifold difference that is between man and man in their faces countenances eyes and other parts so that sometimes Brothers and Sisters are not one like the other AS there is in Nature a wonderful gracious variety so there is the same in the form and shapes of men in their colours contenance eyes lineaments and in their faces there is found an admitable and numberlesse disparity and dissimilitude To What must be ascribed dissimilitude in men Some refer this to the influence of the Starrs but I think to referr it more properly and rationally to the nature of the Seed and the Mothers Imagination For being that the woman in the very conception and all the time she goes with Child The Womans imagination doth many things even for nine months hath divers thoughts in her mind and every moment is drawn this way and that way by thinking on divers things and her eyes being still fixed upon such objects she lights upon it falls out that those things she sees and are fastest rivered in her imagination are communicated to her Child For when the Nature of the woman is carefully intent in framing the Infant and thinks on nothing but a fair and well proportioned Child and all her forces are bent thereunto if any shape or Image be represented to the sight this soon reflects upon the of-spring who participates of it Moreover Mothers so soon as the Child is born do the best they can that the Child may have a decent comely well proportioned body fitly distinguished in all the parts of it The faults of Nature may be amended For Childrens bodies are ductile and pliable as Clay or Wax and may be bended any way Wherefore if the mouth stand awry and is uncomely they forge frame and order it into a decent posture and if the face be frowning and lowring they will make it pleasant and amiable and beautifull they make the eyes very handsome and lovely and of gray eyes or blunket which Infants commonly have by reason of moysture they make them black by abundantly feeding them with milk and chiefly if the Nurse be of a hot temper and the Child be kept in a dark place For a light Chamber where the Sun shines in much or a great fire hurts the render eyes But squint rolling gogle eyes and such as turn the wrong way That the balls of the eyes may grow black are reduced to their right posture by bending the sight the contrary way for the Muscles will be brought to their naturall places by wresting them to the otherside and being turned about will come right they raise and set eaven the nostrills that are crooked and fall down by a gentle way of handling them but they reduce Eagle noses and such as are with beck by pressing them down to a decent figure that the perpendicular of the nose may be stretched forth from the forehead and eybrows unto the hollow part in the upper-lip like a gnomon or right line or style that stands upon Sun Dialls What forme of Nose is comely neither set on bending outward or inward Likewise if the lips be swoln or fat which is usuall with the Aethiopians as also if the nose that is crooked be pressed down they handle these artificially and they often presse them that they may grow lesse and sink down lower by the same way they frame into a comely fashion a chin that sticks out or is drawn in the forehead head cheeks or eybrows that are deformed and decently order by art what is not seemly So if nature limp on any part and is gon off from the best forme and proportion Whence comes deformity of the body as some have wry necks crooked gowty ill favourd legs or bunch backs that makes them ugly all these errours are easily mended in those that are Children and such members as are wrested or disjoynted or out of their places are for right by the care and industry of man So the diligent care of Nurses makes Children grow up handsomely and so are obnoxious to no deformities of their limbs But the negligence of many Mothers and great idlenesse makes Children not onely to grow up unhandsomely and ill favour'dly but they become bunch-backr lame squint eye'd bull-headed and not comely to look on for they are departed from the dignity and excellency that is in man's body Some Nurses are over diligent and too officious who bestow some labour also on the Childrens privy parts that serve them them to make water with and in time shall be usefull for propagation of Children that they may be ripe betimes and not fail of hopes of getting Children and when they come to be marryed they may not be a shamed for ill performing the matrimoniall duty when they observe bitter contentions and quarrels to arise amongst kindred for this very cause that they will threaten to divorce their Sons in Law unlesse they can shew their manhood and please their wives the better yet I use to dislike and discommend this effeminate and lascivious office used by Nurses for young youths by reason of pulling them thus by their yards before their time or that they come to be of age or have mans strength they are prone to venery and so consume those helps and vent out those humours and vitall spirits wherewith afterwards they might be able to procreate lusty and lively Children whereas by unseasonable venery The discommodities of untimly venery they either get no Children or if they beget any they are lither and not so long lived Therefore I think it is good not to let young people marry too soon untill their forces bestrong and confirmed and that they can endure any hardnesse in matrimoniall society which tender years cannot do for they will presently wax faint and effeminate It is then better that the secret parts should swell out of their own accord naturally than that they should be drawn forth by any allurements CHAP. XIX Many kinds of Animals Fishes Birds Insects are bred without Seed as also Pants and many Animals and small Birds by an unusall way without the copulation of Male and Female do conceive DAily examples shew that many things come forth and are propagated by nature of their own accord and withovt any embracings of others or generation onely from filth corruption as Dormice Rats Snails Shell-fish Carterpillers Grass-Worms Wasps Hornets Weevils Froggs Moths Toads Eels Many things breed from corruption In mens bodies Worms though these have seed within them whereby afterwards they propagate abundantly Also many plants grow forth from the muddy moysture of the earth and fatnesse of it no seed being sowed or plants set in the ground before as are Darnel Cockle Nettles wild Olives Weeds and grasse that spring up of themselves Also there are some Crows in the Low-Countries that conceive by their
words in treating of the motions of conscience because this argument be longs to Preachers and professours of Divinity whose duty it is and by vertue of their office they are bound to pacifie and settle mens consciences and to free them from all feares But since these affections do overthrow mans health that proceed from the stings of conscience and the Spirits and humours vitiated do afford nutriments for it it is the Physitians part also to remove these perturbations out of mens minds that those being taken away the body may be in perfect health For it it a laborious and very difficult matter to restore the body that is fallen sick where the conscience is polluted with the spots of sinns where the Organs of the senses and the Spirits vitall and animall are vitiated And it is no lesse troublesome for a Church-man to give comfort to the soul when the body is full of vitious humours for by reason of the narrow consent and union of both parts the vices of the mind fly upon the body and the diseases of the body The sympathy of the Soul and body are carryed to the Soul As we have for example all mad people and such as are melancolique or frantique such as rave or dote or are drunk Apoplectick paralytick forgerfull stupid Lunatick and many more whose sick distempers proceed from the distemper of the brain wherefore we must carefully look to the head which is the seat of the mind and use all meanes to preserve both parts in health CHAP. XXII How many months doth a Woman go with Child and which must be accounted a seasonable birth By the way of the framing of the body of man and in how many dayes or months the Child is made perfect and comes to live In which narration all things are handled more accurately because from hence bitter quarrells arise not onely betwixt marryed people but others also that use unlawfull copulalation SInce there use oft times great contentions and quarrells to arise amongst many people concerning the time that the woman goes with Child and some complain that are jealous of their Wives that they have formerly marryed to keep them company that they have not gone their full time to be delivered so that somtimes they suspect that they have play'd the Whores and that some other men have secretly made use of their bodies I thought it not amisse to write something to this purpose and the rather because Lawyers that end controversies referr the judgment of this matter to Physitians and leave the resolution of it to them to decide So Paul The judgment of inspection is referred to Physitians Digest Tit. 2. Of the state of Man the Counsellour lib. 19 Respons It is now a received truth that a perfect Child may be born in the seventh month by the Authority of the most learned man Hippocrates and therefore we must believe that one born in lawfull matrimony in the 7th month is a lawfull Child Gellius handleth this argument but rather after mens opinions than according to the truth of the businesse or from natural reason who supposeth that there is no certaine time set of bearing Children and that from the Authority of Pliny who saith that a woman went 13 months with Child L. 7. c. 5 A Child at seven months is full of life But as for what concernes the 7th month I know many marryed people in Holland that had Twins who lived to extreame old age their bodies being lusty and their minds quick and lively Wherefore their opinion is foolish and of no moment who think that a Child at seven months is imperfect and not so long lived and that a Child cannot be borne perfect in all parts untill nine months be past So of late there arose a great conflict amongst us A History of a Child born and it was cruell and bloody and a most deadly and desperate fight by reason of a Maid whose chastity was violated that had no ill Name or doubtfull report but she had a weak head and a feeble judgment and these of all others are soonest overcome and do not so valiantly and corragiously resist and stand against either threats of flattering inticements other wise than some fierce clamorous maids use to do who will bite and scratch and compell one that shall assault their chastity to forsake them But in this Tragedy the conflict grew again more violent and bitter because the Father who was reported to have gotten her with Child or to have ravished her denyed the fact which his enemies charged upon him so bitterly that he might be torturd and racked till he should confesse it but he confidently avouched A deniall of a rape charged upon one that he was ready to forswear it upon the Bible he himselfe being wont to be President in judgment and to handle sacred matters that he never so much as entred her or broke the membrane of her Virginity nor penetrated into her body Wherefore he would by no means be taken for the Father of the Child or that it should be accounted his amongst other arguments he alleaged for his innocency this was one that the Child was born in the 7th month and hardly so late for the month was rather then new begun than ended and all the parts of it were perfect except the nails which we observe sometimes to be wanting in a Child born in nine months especially where great bellyed women use salt fish too lavishly or lick salt as that sex is most prone to desire salt and sharp things When a Child wants nails Wherefore he strove to prove it was not a Child of seven months but nine months and that by making that account of the months and by observing the reason of time they must seek for another Father who had formerly lain with her and got her with Child But when the Judges gave Judgment that the Infant should be viewd and searched by the Physitians a Midwife being called some honest women one was a noble woman who was the Mother of 19. Children and who severall times had been delivered at seven months and the seven months not fully ended They all pronounced not examining the cause of the fact nor respecting the Father whether they should reckon this man or some other to be the Father that this was a Child born in seven months that was carried in the Mothers belly 27 weeks and if the Mother could have gon nine months the child's parts and limbs would have been more firme and strong and the structure of the body would be more compact and fast and not so loose For the brest bone that â—yeth as a buckler or fence over the heart the Dutch call it Borstplate and the sword-like gristle that lies over the stomach were higher than naturally they should be and did not lye down plain but crooked and sharp pointed like the brest of young Chickens that are hatched at the beginning of Spring or
especially in the month of March Whence comes the Nails Also this Infant that was a Female wanted her nails upon her fingers and the utmost joynts of her fingers upon which from the musculous or cartilaginous matter of the skin nails that are very smooth do come forth and grow hard there appeared hardly any marks or prints of nails and they were not so hard as horn but soft as thin skin But on the joynts of their feet there were not resemblance of nails because those parts are not so hot as the hands and are farther from the heart the Fountain of heat for the joynts of the hands that are fastned to the brest by the Armes by the benefit of the heat that is diffused from the heart have more apparent signes on the fingers than any other parts The judgement of Physitians concerning Child birth with no favour or disfavour unto any Wherefore the Physitians observing many naturall causes and depending on solid reasons with favour or disfavour to neither side but as the matter would beare it if he would be so content that was in question to set his integrity and honesty upon it pronounced before the Judges to whom that tryall was commited by them that amongst the Dutch are the King of Spains vicegerents at Brussels that this Infant was to be taken for a Child not of nine but of seven months birth the time the woman went with Child being 27 weeks and such a Child must be accounted born in seven months though the time was not quite finished and one or two weeks were wanting and some dayes to make the time compleat But in this businesse the Moons circuit must be observed The Moon makes the months for women with Child that is perfect in four weeks that is in lesse than 28. days in which space of her revolution the blood being agitated by the force of the Moon the courses of women flow from them which being spent and the matrix cleansed from the menstruall blood as it useth to be oft times on the fift or seventh day Naturall conception is after the courses if after that time a man lye with a woman the conception proves to be most naturall so that the Infant born after seven or nine months is most healthfull and free from diseases to which Children use to be obnoxious For Children use to be troubled with many diseases by reason of the menstruall blood The Epilepsie is Childrens diseases that stays in the Matrix at the time of conception as are the Measils that is lively eruptions commonly called Measils and small-Pox in low dutch Maeselen ende Pocken and other red or wan Pushes that are contracted by the menstruall foulnesse and in the Spring or Summer thrust themselves forth into the outward parts of the body To this we may add the Epilipsie or Falling-sicknesse the Dutch call it Vallende Siecte which disease because it hath many differences the superstitious Gentiles of old were wont to referr it to certain Gods before the light of the Gospel was revealed to men whereas it proceeds from naturall causes and chiefly from clammy and tenacious flegme Moreover in the mouths of young Children there breed almost so soon as they are born some blisters about their throats and Palates the Araâ—â—ans call them Alcolam the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Dutch dan Sprowe What is Alcola and uâ—der rheir tongues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 commonly call'd the Frog What the Frog is in low Dutch Spanare which either by incision or with ones naile or rubbing with Salt as I use to do when they fear the iron instrument or Oxymel of Squils is taken away to say nothing of Hydrocephalon A spongy head that is a head swoln with a spongy watry humour and of many other collections of humours that come from vitious milk and menstruall blood which also use to accompany men in yeares and when they seem to be gon they will come oft times again Therfore both in tilling and sowing of ground A simile from tilling of ground as also in copulation with women and manuring that ground and proâ—reation of Children even by Moses law the Moons motion was to be observed by force whereof at set times womens courses run or are stopt The Moons circuit is performed through the Zodiack in 27 dayes and in one third part of a day which dayes comprehending lesse than four weeks make a Lunar month In how many dayes the Moon peâ—fects her course especially if you take away that time that this planet lyeth hid and is not seen for she is three dayes more or lesse in conjunction that is as they say conmonly the time she is invisible See Galen of decretory dayes in which time she doth not exercise her force upon the earth and is not fit to alter them But when she begins to shew her selfe and is new and when she is full that is she is in opposition to the Sun and shews round she hath wonderfull force in conception and many other things for she both augments Corn and fruits and shell-fish and flesh that hangs to the roofs of houses is corrupted by the beams of it shining upon it such as sleep or continue long in the Moon light she makes pale and trembling and heavy headed brings the Epilepse to Children as also stupidnesse and the Palsey and many more things she doth not that she exceeds the other Planets but she doth it by being so neere to us For she being so placed in the lowest Orb The Moon is a Planet next the Earth and next to the earth she doth so guide the beginnings and increase of things that by the effect of her even after conception of the seed the Child in the Mothers Womb by the Mothers blood that nourisheth it is augmented and made to grow The time of carrying the Infant is to be referred to the course of the Moon Also all the time a woman goes with Child whether you please to measure it by dayes or months or weeks as great bellyed women commonly use to reckon must be referred and counted by the age of the Moon But she shews her forces more effectually upon the body either when first she meets with the Sun begins to be enlightned by him or when she is round and full but when she is but a halfe Moon she hath lesse forces and least of all when she is crooked and by degrees fades and is obscured For at that time there is no concourse of waters in the Ocean no abundance of humours in the bodies of men no collection of marrow in the bones so that then it is fit for tender bodies to leave off copulation and to make a League with it But I oft times use to foretell to women great with Child when their travel shall be easie When the birth will be easie and so to raise their minds to hope very well if they chance
sweet consolation of the blessed comforter shall be suddenly discussed But God doth every where threaten the wicked and by an example taken from Childbearing that a sudden and unlooked-for destruction shall fall upon them Chap. 13. For so in Isaiah he frights them Howle because the day of the Lord is at hand as desolation the Hearts of men shal melt and their hands faint terrours and torments and griefs shall possesse their minds Chap. 4. and they shall be troubled and cry out as Women with Child So Jeremias describing the Israelites in the height of their sorrows and extreame calamities I heare saith he the noyse as of a Woman in travel the streights and pangs of one that beares her first Child which is wont to be the most bitter because they are unaccustomed to it and they never felt the like nor were they ever in Travell before So God is formidable to Kings and terrible when they lift up their heads against him Chap. 22. as it is said in the same Prophet concerning Joachin King of Judah whom he cast into those streights that he endured pain and sorrow Hier. 48. as a Woman in Travell Also he cast such fear on the hearts of the Souldiers of Moab though this kind of men be fierce and fearlesse as falls on the mind of a woman in labour that melts and dissolves unlesse she be solaced by those that stand by her Chap. 2â— and the Matrons neere her comfort her There is a very â—â—egant and consolatory speech in Isaiah that is set forth by an excellent comparison For the Prophet compares those who being afflicted and chastised repent and flie unto God by repentance to a woman in travel and is in danger of her life in her pangs crying for help to those that stand by her and turning her eyes every way with groans and sighs and lamentations intreats for comfort For so he proceeds in the order of his speech that I may touch upon some things by the way In the way of thy judgments O Lord have we waited for thee the desire of our Soul is to thy name and to the remembrance of thee with my Soul have I desired thee in the night yea with my Spirit within me I will seek thee early Isaiah explain'd in that place Hereby he testifies that he leanes upon God when any calamity comes and when the rod is nigh his hope depends fast upon him and his eyes are intent toward him lastly that the memory of God is printed upon his soul and that he waited on his commandments with all his will and mind and all times did meditate on his saving Truth not onely at noon day but also at midnight full of tempests and stormes and early in the morning and he presently after sets down what it is that makes forgetfull men so hot in their minds and extorts from them such firme confidence O Lord saith he Affliction maket men Godly the majesty and greatnesse of thy Name came into my mind in trouble and affliction when there was no hopes left and I remembred thee Troubles and adversities do lead us to repentance by the Secret influence of thy Spirit As she that is with Child when her time comes to be delivered she cryes out and calls for help so we have been in thy sight O Lord. So St. Paul exhorts sluggish and lazy people to be industrious and watchfull 2 Thes 4. and by the example of a woman in travell to be ready and prepared for the coming of God For he comes as a Thiefe that oppresseth men in the night and as the sudden pangs that fall upon a woman Studious Reader 1 Pet. 3. Apoc. 3.16 I thought good to add thus much because it is not altogerher from my purpose from whence every man may take some documents of life and may consider what clear and apt comparisons the holy Prophets used in their Sermons taken from the most known things in Nature which they observed the rather because they penetrate more effectually into the hearts of their Auditors whereby they taking up a purpose of a better life may with a ready minde return to serve God and to bring forth fruits worthy of amendment of life CHAP. XXIV At what age Maids desire to he marryed and are fit to conceive Againe when women in yeares grow barren and their courses ceasing they cease to be longer fruitfull In which narration the condition of man is axamined also THat parents may well take care for their Daughters chastity they ought exactly to observe when it is fit and seasonable for Maids that they have care of or for their daughters to marry and so to dispose and to provide husbands for them For that Sex is frail and subject to runine Suitors woing them on every side to undoe them But the propension and inclination of Maids to marriage may be discovered by many arguments For when their body grows hairy about the secrets and their terms flow at the time appointed as it useth to be in the 14 or 15 year of their age their seed increaseth in some sooner in some later according to their habits and constitutions and the blood which is no longer taken to augment their bodies abounding Maids are studious of adorning themselves makes their minds fasten upon venereous imaginations wherefore at that age they kemb and adorn themselves and they do not onely continually all most behold their eyes and cheeks in a Looking-glasse but they desire to be viewed by young men and to be made much of by Suitors Mayds must be married bâ—â—â— times and spoken kindly to casting their eyes obliquely for that purpose and looking sweetly on their Lovers Whence â—â—iseth a tickling delight and itching in their inward parts and â—hey begin to burn in love and are easily allured to copulation and hence it is that oft times setting all shame aside and disobeying their Parents who are frequently slow to give them portions or are unwilling to part with them they willingly offer themselves to their Suitors and much infringe their own chastity to the shame and disgrace of all their family and kindred Whence our Country-men have this proverb Mayds are frail A proverb of Mayds Riype Dochters zorgheliycke ende broosche waere Though for what belongs to Chastity in the Low-Countrys the condition of Mayds is more commendable than the condition of Widdows A proverb againt Widdows For such a Taunting speech is used against Widdows Mayds are stedfast and calm in their loves but Widdows are trouclesome slippery inconstant unquiet and never of one setled mind De Maechden hebben een zinen de weduwen hebben een duvel in I suppose because they have tasted the delight of love which sticking in their minds makes them more greedy after them When a woman becomes first fruitfull than Mayds are who never tasted those delights and are alltogether ignorant of the marriage bed But Mayds in the
14th year of their age or somewhat later shew some signes of maturity their courses then running so that they are fit to conceive which force continues with them till 44 yeares of their age and some that are lusty and lively will be fruitfull till 55 as I have observed amongst our Country women When a womans courses stop I know that the flowing of the terms is extended farther in some women of good tempers but that is rare nor doth allwaies that excrementitious humour flow from a naturall cause Wherefore their opinion must be examined who say that as there is no certain time of womens termes to end so neither of their conception nor cannot any set bounds be prefixed for these things For though some have their courses at 60 yeares old yet that proceeds not from a naturall cause but from some affect that is contrary to Nature which also hinders all conception For anger indignation wrath and sudden fear may cause the vessels and passages to open and cleave asunder so by a violent concourse of humours such a thing may run out many by falls and accidents having the fibres of the veins pulled asunder But since women for the most part about the yeare 45 or at the most 50 have their termes stopt and no hopes are to be had of Children by lying with them Old wives should not marry young men they do contrary to the law of Nature that marry young men or men that for greedinesse of mony woe and marry such old women For the labour is lost on both sides just as if a man should cast good seed into dry hungry lean ground It is more tolerable for a full bodied lively old man that he should marry a very young Mayd in her green and tender years For from that society they may hope for some benefit for posterity because a man is never thought to be so old and barren and exhausted but that he may get a Child But what is the Nature of man and how long the force lasts in him to get Children must be shewed by the way For since young men as Hippocrates saith are full of imbred heat about the age of 16. or somewhat more they have much vitall strength and their secrets begin to be hairy How long a man is fruitful and their chins begin to shoot forth with fine decent down which force and heat of procreating Children increaseth daily more and more untill 45 yeares or till 50 and ends at 65. For then for the most part the manhood begins to flag and the seed becomes unfruitfull the naturall spirits being extinguished and the humours drying up out of which by the benefit of heat the seed is wont to be made There are indeed some strong lusty old men who have spent their younger dayes continently and moderately who are fruitfull untill 70 yeares and subsist very manly in performing nuptiall duties examples whereof there are sufficient in Brabant and amongst the Goths and Sweeds A History done so I heard a trusty Pilate relate that when he traficked at Stockholme when Gustavus the Father of the most invincible Ericus who now reigns ruled the Land he was called by the King to be at the marriage of a man that was a hundred years old who married a Bride of 30 years old and he professed sincerely that the old man had many Children by her For he was a man as there are many in that Country who was very green and fresh in his old age that one would hardly think him to be 50 yeares old The Brabanders live very â—old Also amongst the Tungri and Campania in Brabant where the Ayre is wonderfull calme and the Nation is very temperate and frugall it is no new thing but allmost common that men of 80 yeares marry young Mayds and have Children by them wherefore Age doth nothing hinder a man forgetting of Children unlesse he be wholy exhausted by incontinence in his youngest dayes and his genitall parts be withered and barren wherefore the Dutch have a scoffing Proverb against such that are worn out A Proverb against such as are spent A simile from horses exhausted and quite broken by venery Vroech hengst Vroech ghuyle the comparison being taken from horses who if they back Mares often or too soon they will quickly grow old and will never be fit for any warlick service But what difference there is between men and women or what cause or reason there is in it that a woman is sooner barren than a man and ceaseth to eject her seed if any perhaps should require to know I say it is the natural hear wherein a man excells For since a woman is more moyst than a man A man is hotter than a woman as her courses declare and the softnesse of her body a man doth exceed her in native heat Now heat is the chief thing that concocts the humours and changes them into the substance of seed A man is longer fruitfull than a Woman which aliment the woman wanting she grows fat indeed with age but she grows barren sooner than a man doth whose fat melts by his heat and his humours are dissolved but by the benefit thereof they are elaborated into seed Also I ascribe it to this that a woman is not so strong as a man nor so wise and prudent nor hath so much reason nor is so ingenious in contriving her affairs as a man is CHAP. XXV Who chiefly take diseases from others And how it comes about that children grow well when Physick is given to the Nurse SInce contagious diseases infect all that come in the way of them yet they infect no men sooner than such whose Natures are of much affinity one with another as are Parents and Children Sisters Brothers Cousins who are in danger almost on all hand and the disease spreads amongst them And the nearer any man is of bloud and kindred the sooner he catcheth this mischief from others by reason of Sympathy that is consanguinity and agreement in humours and spirits Kindred soonest infected Wherefore when the Plague is hot and contagious diseases rage I use to speak to people of one blood to stay one from another and live something farther from them least the pestilent Ayre should infect them that will sooner lay hold of acquaintance and kindred than strangers and such as are not allyed Nurses infect children though none be free from danger The same reason serves for Nurses and children sucking at their brests for when the Nurse is sick all the force of the disease comes to the child and the Nurse is helped by it and escapes the danger For the force of the disease being diffused through the veins that are the receptacles of bloud and milk useth to be made exactly from bloud the child draws forth the worst and impure aliment whence it falls out that the whole force of the disease rests upon the child because the bloud which is the substance
of the Milk is infected and tainted with a feavourish quality Wherefore they must be presently weaned that they suck not in the disease and be polluted with the vicious juice Sick children infect the Nurses Also Nurses sometimes take diseases from sucking children but they are not so dangerous because there proceeds not so great force of the Malignity or contagion from children as from Nurses whose bloud is hotter and more corrupt But in curing diseases in children because that age cannot away with Physick I use this stratagem that I give the Poysick to the Nurses to drink for the force of the Physick soon runs through the bloud that the milk is made of comes into the Brests and the Milk receives the quality of it so if it be a purging medicament it will purge the child if it be astringent it will stop and bind him Likewise if they be naturally subject to a Cough or Asthma I give such things as may dilate and cleanse the brest as Hyfop Horehound Orris root Elecampane Licoris Figs Savory Sometimes I command to bind up in a fine rag such Medicaments as are proper for the child and to give the infusion of them as it is commonly called especially where that age hath learned to drink and can put the cup to the mouth wherefore I study to find an art how to handle young children old men childing-childing-women and such as lye in sick people and such as are in labour with child as the condition of every body requires and the nature of the disease having allwaies in my mind that saying of Hippocrates we must yeeld much to age to the climate l. 1. Aph. 17. to custome And as Marriners as the weather serves and the wind sometimes fold in their sheets sometimes hoise up their sails and make all they can and turn the Rudder now this way now that way as Shoomakers fit our feet with Shooes Some similitudes from common things Taylors make our clothes fit for our bodies as Nurses give children meat chewed when they are very young and do not cram them with solid meat as Masters deal with Schollers according to their age and wit and first teach them their letters then solid learning As we read Saint Paul was very carefull to do in delivering the mysteries of our faith and in teaching the Corinthians 1 Cor. 3. who being not capable of more sublime doctrine he fed yet as children with milk that is he let fall his words according to their capacities so a skillfull and experienced Physitian handles every man according to his disposition and gives such things as may profit and do no hurt at all By these reasons and examples I use to stop the mouthes of some young smatterers in learning who will let no Physick be given to Children old men child-bearing women and to such as are weak by travel in child-birth of which there are none but must be strengthened with the greatest care and a very convenient diet and by a wholesome use of Physick that can do no hurt be brought to their former health So I doubt not within three dayes after they are delivered to open a vein to women in child-bed if they have the Quinsey or a Pleuresy and by giving them a pectoral potion to ripen the flegme Also about Women with child if at any time they are infected with an acute disease great consideration must be had least the woman or the child should be endangered If there be necessity to open a vein or purge L. 1. Aph. 4. I resolve to do it as Hippocrates bids us from the fourth Moneth untill the seventh Moneth and that in the upper parts of her Arms but by no means about the Feet Thighs Ankles or Insteps to which not so much as cupping glasses must be set least there should be danger of abortion Also to young men infected with the Plague or taken with an acute disease I soon apply safe remedies and I do all I can to defend the heart the fountain of life and to drive the disease from the principal parts Moreover in these tender bodies the forces must be carefully maintained and the disease must be vanquished For it is ill Physick where nature suffers any losse Wherefore let the Physitian either do good or else let him do no harm but let him study by Art to profit all he can and this he shall well do if he do all by right reason and rules of Art CHAP. XXVI Of the skin or feather covering of the Vulture that is of great force in strengthening the Ventricle and in getting of a stomach something more effectual than Ginger whose nature is here set down also that every man hath not observed SInce there are many things that laid on outwardly will strengthen the stomach and help concoction nothing is better or more present than a Vultures skin pulled off The Nature of the Vulture being dressed and fitted as other skins are This Bird like the Kite is very greedy and will eat exceedingly that the Dutch call this from its desire of Carrion and because it is alwaies hungry and hunting after its prey Ghier from the nature whereof they call covetous people and such as are never satisfied Ghierich that is Vulture-like But since the nature of this bird is such that it greedily seeks after all things and consumes all without any hurt to it the skin of it is of that force that it will corroborate mans stomach and will strengthen a weak digestion to desire and concoct the meat and it will stop fluxes of the belly and vomiting but applyed to the stomach the contrary way For I know this by experience that if one take of the skin of this Bird and let the same be dressed by the Skinners Art handsomely and fitted if it be laid to a feeble stomach or belly it will stop the flux of it and help the slipperinesse of the Intestines especially if it be so applyed that the feathers may be downwards as we use in Garments that are held up to stroke the skins with the hayre with our hands For it comforts and cherisheth one by its warmth and heat and by its astriction it corroborates the faculties of natural forces wherewith nutriments use to be attracted retained concocted and expelled also it effects that the three nervous tunicles of the stomach and so many fibres the right ones as Galen will have it whose office is to attract the oblique that have the retentive faculty the transverse that thrust all things out shall do their offices But that skin applyed the contrary way with the feathers pointing upwards and looking aloft will stay vomiting the Muscles of the stomach being drawn downwards whereby it takes in and holds the meat And in these kind of diseases wherewith the upper or nether parts use to be affected I practise something not unlike to this For in vomiting I bid that the mouth of the Stomach shall be annointed stroking
the hand downwards toward the Navel but when there is a flux of the belly to stroke it with the hand upward from the feet and I use to do the like if the woman be subject to the fits of the Mother So as they call it in the strangling of the Womb whereby a woman seems to be choaked the vapours flying upwards I either command to open a Vein about her Ankles or cupping glasses to be fastened to her Hips and I am carefull that all things may be carryed downwards either by casting in a Clyster or by putting up suppositories into the Fundament as they ordinarily call them But in the falling out of the Womb where all things are carried downwards as if the frame of the body were dissolved I bid bind the upper parts with Ligaments set Cupping glasses to the Breasts or to open a Vein in the Arms to make revulsion the contrary way Also in the affects now mentioned things may be given inwardly according as the disease requires So for a flaggy nauseating stomach or where one cannot well eat his meat or when he hath eaten can hardly digest it besides good strong heating Wines as Sack and Wine of Crete the succulent root of Ginger candyed with Sugar the Dutch call it Groen Gingiber gheconfyt Effects of Ginger is an excellent remedy to help concoction and discusses winds and crudities contracted from flegmatique humours Wherefore it clears the dark sight that proceeds from grosse humours that arise from the stomach to the head I prescribe this to some people in their meats and sawces especially to such that have moyst watry stomachs To others who by drinking too much Ale or Beer have a pain or heavinesse in their stomach and break wind upwards often I bid them eat some pieces of it with a little salt for it can scarse be said how much this will break wind and ease the pains This root indeed at first taste burns and bites the tongue but it causeth no thirst Ginger makes not a man thirsty but by drawing the spittle and watry humour from all parts as from the Head Throat Stomach it keeps the Tongue moyst and allwaies wet and thence it is that no thirst or drinesse is found in the mouth Wherefore the Dutch to their great commodity do strengthen their stomachs by using this root The end of the secret Miracles of Nature THE PARAENESIS or Exhortation OF Laevinus Lemnius a Physitian of Zirizea How to lead a life that shall be most excellent that shall be safe for the greatest or meanest of men and also very commodious whether they desire to take care for their bodies or their minds CHAP. I. We must chiefly lift our eyes and minds to God by Christ VVHatsoever man is desirous of his own welfare Whence we must seek for salvation and would fain have all things go well with him and wisheth that in this transitory life he may stand safe and unmoved and firmely garded against all dangers that may come upon him and to which man is subject every moment let him look stedfastly upon God the greatest and best of all through Christ Jesus and let him have his mind that flowed forth of this most plentifull Fountaine allwaies lifted up unto him God is the Fountain of all good nor let him look any other way or seek for hopes of Salvation but let him trust rely on God onely worship adore and honour him and pray unto him in confidence of our mediatour for all things that are good Then let him diligently examine and consider inentively with himselfe Gods magnificence towards man how great magnificence God hath used towards man with what Ornaments and guifts of Nature he hath tendowed man what dignity and majesty he hath bestowed upon him into what honour and renown he hath raised this workmanship made of Earth CHAP. II. How great things God the maker of all things hath done for man The form of man is twofold THe externall form of man is strait and upright looking towards Heaven whereby he may learn to look with his eyes to his originall and in respect of other Creatures is farr more beautifull Genes 2. comely and artificially made and that an internall forme doth wonderfully adorne him because he was made after the Image and likenesse of God that is he represents and expresses the essence of his Maker and comes next unto the nature of Him Which excellent force infused into him by God Man is Gods Image consists altogether in his soul and mind being taken forth from the first example and secret closeâ— of Divinity by which divine guift Man obtainâ—s thus much that having reason judgement understanding he is made capable of the Heavenly doctrine and by the knowledge of God he is united to him by the light of Faith and is wholy transformed into him 2. Cor. 3. But amongst other excellent prerogatives man obtain'd this priviledge chiefly that God having made other Creatures speechlesse that is wanting the benefit of a voice and way to expresse their minds in words yet Man hath the faculty of speech What distinguisheth man from beasts Speech is a singular guift of God whereby he can communicate unto others the conceits and thoughts of his heart and which is the greatest of all and most pleasing to God that he may be able thereby to magnifie his Creature and praise him exceedingly whom he knows by faith For by this meanes his Majesty and greatnesse of his name is not onely illustrated but also according to the capacity of mans understanding there is some thanks paid unto God for his benefits received and there is a testimony given of our willing and ready minds God requires thankfullnesse Psa 15. that we have toward so bountifull a Father But because God wants nothing that we enjoy he asketh nothing from us but Love and Thankfulnesse CHAP. III. There is nothing more de are to God than man and all things were created for mans use God loves man wonderfully BUt in regard that God is singularly affected toward mankind and hath illustrated the mind and soul of man with many Ornaments wherein his divine Nature shines forth as also hath provided him plentifully with externall guifts and most large possession of things which Nature Gods Minister doth send out in abundance and hath given him the Lieutenant-ship and government of all the world All things were made for mans use even to the meanest Cobler and common Artificer who do no lesse enjoy the great magnificence of God and the pleasant spectacle of the Universe that is so beautifull to look on than the richest Kings so that in this vast Theatre of the world he lives not as a stranger and Forrainer who is a stranger from the possession of worldly matters but as a chief Citizen and free Inhabitant and chief Lord of all things contain'd in this world For for his use benefit and service all things were
and partly for procreation of children It is as besides Saint Paul Columella relates from the oeconomy of Zenophon L. 12. c. 1. a Matrimonial conjunction appointed by nature that not onely the most pleasant but also the most profitable course of life may be entred upon and that mankind might not in length of time come to ruine Gen 2. God would have the male and Female joyned together lawfully and he blessed them so that by this indissoluble band there might not be a help wanting to mortal man wherein besides the desire of begetting the like they might be united in a mutual conjunction of their lives and fortunes use of Marriage Wherefore since the harbour of Marriage is most safe and a fast station for mankind who is by nature prone exceedingly to propagate his like he shall not provide amisse for his own tranquillity who shall marry especially when he or she is come to mans years and are past their childish condition Yet they do inconsiderately and not what is proper for that age who marry too soon and unseasonably Marriage must not rashly be entred on not trying their strength and examining the force of nature For there are some young people not yet ripe who either rashly or by the instigation of bauds or by the provocation of their Parents Marriage enfeebles many who covet some great dowry take upon them this yoke and I have known some of them who before one year was past were feeble and weak and all their vitall moysture was exhausted so that I was forced with medicaments to restore their strength that was wasted and sunk down Wherefore let not children or such as are not yet of age marry to get children but let every one try his own strength and know well what his back is able to bear But whosoever hath a purpose to marry must chiefly observe this An honest family to be observed in Marriage that he choose one to be his companion of life that is of an honest stock not having so great a dowry though that is not to be rejected as to have a woman well descended which is honest chaste well-bred and of good manners For a woman as the Comedian saith if shee have good conditions hath portion enough That of Alcumena in Plautus is a witty saying which all maids and mations should well keep in memory Amph. act 2. I do not think that to be my dowry which is called a dowry but chastity modesty and a setled desire to fear the Gods to love my Parents to agree with my kindred to obey my husband to be bountifull and to do good to such as are good and honest We must have care of maids frailty Wherefore Parents must labour carefully that the frail Sex of Females that is easily overcome especially when a maid grows to be marriageable and to be ripe be not disgraced or suffer any damage in their chastity but they must instruct their daughters in vertue and honourable wayes Ecci 7. and provoke them to lead a sincere life and to be of unblameable behaviour There are some wicked Parents who give ill example to their daughters chastity We must give no cause to maids to fall For they corrupt them by their leud actions at home and open a gap for them to impudence drunkennesse and boldnesse whereby they grow to a custome by degrees to lay aside all modesty and expose their chastity for reward and are easily won or will make no great resistance against any crafty man that layes snares for their Virginity and they refuse not to be handled kissed and tickled by them and they admit their dalliance without resistance Amongst many other errours that are committed in entring upon matrimony Errours committed in Marriage three things chiefly seem to be blame-worthy out of which arise many inconveniences First that the greatest part of men run headlong and inconsiderately and without any mature deliberation on this course of life and that at such years as are not fit for this businesse Again some marry too late and when it is no fit season and when their age is decayed Weak and old men are not fit for marriage and they are old then they take this burden upon them Lastly that people marry unequally one that is well to one that is diseased a young man that gapes for a great portion to some old woman and this is not agreeing to natural society an old man to a young maid which cannot altogether be discommended nor is it contrary to the state and order of nature since many old men are green and lusty and can get children which old women that are past childing cannot have Now as in childhood to think of marriage too soon is rightly disallowed and blamed so in old people too tarry to long before they marry All things must be done seasonably in marrying Strong age fit for Matrimony For they that put on this yoke too soon and hastily and have not their bodies strong and lusty but want strength do soon fail and cannot hold out but for a short time But such as procrastinate and marry too late letting the time slip away before they enter upon it lead an unpleasant and crosse life or else sometimes they have polluted themselves with wandring and unlawfull copulation for hence it is that there are every where so many Pocky sickly distorted blear-ey'd crooked gowty men with swoln legs and if afterwards they chance to marry when they grow weary of that life they cast themselves into great troubles and misfortunes For when they are exhausted and out of date and are grown weak by their former venery and intemperance they grow a burden to themselves and the hope and desires of their new Bride fail CHAP. LV. All society which consists not within the bounds of Wedlock is faulty and is not lawfull Matrimony SEeing that Christ and his Apostles detest unchastnesse and obscene and unlawfull lusts Hebr. 13. and pronounce those to be excluded from the kingdome of God that pollute themselves with adultery and whoring I see not what colour they can have to defend themselves who hating marrimony meditate how they may live freely and loosly without marriage Unlawful lust and copulation For there are some that living without the bounds of matrimony yet they bind themselvs to one Mistresse for a time and this is not seemly nor can it be done with a quiet and contented mind They think as they perswade themselves that they seek for the convenience of life What befalls them who delight themselves in lease venery and they will endure to be married to none but onely to live with those whom they can forsake and leave when they please But these men oft-times are constrained to endure more grievous wrongs and indignities from a petulant and imperious Mistris than he could do from a lawfull and truly married wife And moreover there is an addition