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
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
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
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
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
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
differences of it By the way a consideration of some herbs growing by the Sea that are full of Salt juice and out of which Salt is made Page 213 The Contents of the Chapters contained in the Fourth Book Chap. 1. OF the force and effect of the Moon by whose motion the Sea is driven and what useth to happen to men that are dying or desperately sick when they are in their agony and are beginning to dye by the flowing and ebbing of the Sea and motion of the Moon whose forces such as live near the Sea perceive more effectually then other men Page 221 Chap. 2. Of the Islands in Zealand and of the nature of people there and their Conditions Manners Original and what great benefits the land of this fruitfull Countrey affords to strangers in a short and clear description wherein by the way the memory of things done is rubbed up and many naturall causes are explained Page 225 Chap. 3. 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 sowr Countenance and such as are seldome merry Page 229 Chap. 4. How comes it that the Bay-Tree which some say will not grow in Zealand grows no where more beautifully than in this place and what you must do to make it endure the Winter frost and cold Page 242 Chap. 5. Of a neutrall body that is one that can be said neither sound nor sick but is of a tottering and doubtfull condition floting between both Page 243 Chap. 6. Of the reason of seeing and quicknesse of the eyes and why some will see clearly things a great way off and yet are blind close by others will see the smallest things near them exactly but things afar off though they be high mountains they cannot discern easily and why commonly the right eye is duller than the left and sees not so clear By the way concerning the colours of the eyes and many other things which are arguments of the mind also some remedies for a dull eye Page 247 Chap. 7. A reason why some Men are born without some parts or are maimed others have two bodies or some superfluous parts that are uselesse Page 253 Chap. 8. Whether people in Feavers should change their shirts or waste-coats or sheets and whether it be convenient so soon as a man is recovered of a disease to shave his beard and cut his hair also in what diseases it is good to wash ones feet Page 255 Chap. 9. That by a wonderfull force of nature and incredible efficacy several herbs are appointed for several parts of the body to help them and they do severally help several parts by their imbred qualities and quanities Page 259 Chap. 10. That Planets are of both sexes and that some are affected with one thing some with another Page 262 Chap. 11. That Lampreys which the Hollanders commonly call Pricken if they be dried in a Chimney they will burn like Torches and Links if they be lighted Page 265 Chap. 12. Of an Egg laid by a Cock and at what age he useth to lay it then what is bred out of it also concerning the Cock-stone and the Jewel Aelites Page 266 Chap. 13. 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 Page 272 Chap. 14. Wherefore an Egg at both ends whereby at the long and narrower end it will stand like the Pole-artick and antartick cannot be broken between your fingers or both hands closed together although you press it and wherefore steeped in sharp Vineger it will grow soft like a tractable and soft membrane lastly why the same Egg steeped in Aqua-vitae that is in spirits of Wine it will be consumed like Iron by Aquafortis Page 278 Chap. 15. The Moon by a wonderful force of Nature every Moneth otherwise than the rest of the Starres do searcheth all the sound parts of Mans body secretly and undiscovered but the sick parts manifestly and not without sense or pain and stayes in them sometimes two sometimes three dayes By the way whether a Vein may safely be opened in that part that the Planet governs at that time Page 279 Chap. 16. The counsel wherewith I use to gratifie young men that they may have Beards betimes and that a comely Doun may grow upon their chins By the way a fit comparison of Grasse and Corn with the Hair and Locks of Man Page 282 Chap. 17. How and for what reason preserving Physick ought to be given in the time of the Plague and contagious diseases and what things are best for their force and vertues for this Page 283 Chap. 18. To what we ought to ascribe amongst such multitudes of men the great dissimilitude of form 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 Page 285 Chap. 19. Many kinds of Animals Fishes Birds Insects are bred without Seed as also Plants and many Animals and small Birds by an unusuall way without the copulation of Male and Female do conceive Page 287 Chap. 20. The hand or other parts of the body that are frozen and grown stiff with cold and frost how they may be thaw'd and recover their former heat Page 289 Chap. 21. Whence arise and grow stings of Conscience in Man and whether as passions and perturbations of the mind they are to be ascribed to the humours or whether they consist in the mind and the will Page 291 Chap. 22. How many moneths 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 moneths the Child is made perfect and comes to live In which narration all things are handled more accurately because from hence bitter quarrels arise not onely betwixt married people but others also that use unlawful copulation Page 299 Chap. 23. A profitable and pleasant Narration of the Procreation of Man wherin is illustrated the other part of the Argument Page 301 Chap. 24. At what age Maids desire to be married and are fit to conceive Again when women in years grow barren and their courses ceasing they cease to be longer fruitfull In which Narration the condition of Man is examined also Page 308 Chap. 25. Who chiefly take diseases from others And how it comes about that Children grow well when Physick is given to the Nurse Page 310 Chap. 26. 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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