evacuation downward is apt to occasion miscarriage The Womans mind ought to be kept sedate and quiet all melancholly news and frightful objects must be removed far from her nor must any thing that may cause sorrow be suddenly told her She must moderate her passions and excessive anger must by all means be avoided for the passions do wonderfully affect the Child and often cause miscarraige some have been born dumb others have had a continual shaking of their Limbs and the like when the Mother has been suddenly and violently surprized or frighted wherefore it is best to be discoursing of such things before big-bellied Women as may moderately rejoyce them and that such objects be presented as may please and divert them and if it be absolutely necessary to acquaint them with sorrowful things great care and caution must be used and the misery must be discovered piece-meal Some Women are so very vain that they will lace themselves hard with Bodice stifned with Whale-bone to preserve their shapes forsooth but they do not consider what injury they do themselves for their Breasts being prest too much are apt to be inflamed and impostumated and the growth of the Child is hindered and the Limbs of it too often disfigured thereby and sometimes miscarriage happens They ought therefore at this time to have their Cloaths more loose and easie Some Women have also a custom to bleed once or twice when they are with Child tho' they have no need of it but this is certainly an errour for Women with Child ought not to bleed but upon necessity some having miscarried by bleeding but once a little too much blood being taken away tho' others I confess having blouded nine or ten times whilst they were with Child and yet have not miscarried Now seeing all are not of the same constitution they must not be all treated alike Those that have most blood can best bear bleeding If Purging be thought necessary gentle things must be only used as Manna Rhubarb or the like Women with Child are subject to many accidents the first is Vomiting whereby they often judge they are breeding it is not always occasioned by ill humours in the stomach but sometimes from a sympathy betwixt the Stomach and the Womb by the nerves inserted in the upper Orifice of the Stomach which have communication by continuity with those that pass to the Womb. Now the Womb which has a very exquisite Sense because of its membranous composition beginning to wax bigger feels some pain which being at the same time communicated by this continuity of nerves to the upper Orifice of the Stomach cause there these Vomitings for Women that were in good health before they conceived Vomit from the first day of their being with Child tho' they have no ill humours in their Stomach If the Vomiting continues a long while it weakens the Stomach very much and hinders digestion tho' it oftentimes continues till the Women are quick and then they recover their Appetite but in some it does not go off till they are delivered and some are most afflicted with it towards the end of their reckoning and this sort seldom ceases before they are brought to Bed Vomiting at the beginning if it be gentle and without great straining is not much minded and sometimes it is beneficial but if it continue after the third or fourth Month it ought to be remedied because the nourishment being daily Vomited up the Mother and the Child will be much weakened and moreover the continual subversion of the Stomach causing great agitation and compression the Belly occasions miscarriage It is very difficult to prevent wholly this Vomiting yet it may be much lessened by a good Diet and by eating little at a time and to strengthen the Stomach let her eat her meat with the juice of Oranges or the like Marmalade of Quinces is also very good being eaten after dinner or after meals and she ought to drink Claret-wine with water and it is convenient to quench Iron in her drink She must forbear fat Meats and Sauces for they much soften the membranes of the Stomach which were too weak and relaxed Sweet and Sugar Sauces are also injurious But if the vomiting continue tho' regular diet has bin used the corrupt humours must be purged off by stool by some gentle purge made of Mallows Cassia Rhubarb and the like but if the vomiting continues tho' the woman observes a good diet and tho she has bin purged we must do no more for there is great danger of miscarriage There are sometimes great pains in the back reins and hips especially the first time the woman is with child by reason of the dilatation of the womb and the compression it makes by its greatness and weight on the neighbouring parts The ligaments as well round as large cause these pains being much straightened and drawn by the bigness and weight of the womb namely the large one of the back and loins which answer to the reins because these two ligaments are strongly fastned towards these parts the round ones cause pains in the groins and thighs where they end they are some times so violently extended by this extream bigness and great weight of the womb that they are torn especially if the woman happen to stumble which causeth violent pain and much mischief A woman being six Months gone with Child upon stumbling felt something crack in her belly near the loins and she presently felt great pain in her back and in one side of her belly she vomited violently and the next day was seized with a continual Fever this lasted seven or eight days without sleeping or resting an hour and all the while she vomited up all she took and she was also very much troubled with Hicoughs and had great pains like those of labour But by keeping her bed twelve days and by bleeding in her arm thrice and by the use of a grain of laudanum divers times and by corroborating cordials she was somewhat eased and all the symptoms went off by little and little and she went her full time and indeed there is nothing that will mitigate the pains of the back and reins better than rest in bed and bleeding in the Arm especially if they were occasioned by the ligaments broke or two much extended it may be convenient to keep up the belly with a broad swaith if the Woman cannot keep her Bed Oftentimes when a Woman has conceived the courses being stopt a great quantity of blood flows to the Breasts which makes them swell and be painful therefore to prevent inflammations Women ought to take great care that they are not strait-laced so as to compress the breasts and this is all that needs to be done at the beginning only she must be sure that she receives no blows upon them but it 's better to bleed in the Arm after the third or fourth Month if a great deal of blood flow to the Breasts then to endeavour to repel
distinct original from the bone of the Pubes The head of this is covered with a most tender skin and hath a hole like the Glans though not quite through in which and in the bigness it differs only from the Yard By a little drawing aside the lips there then appear the Nymphs and Clytoris The Nymphs are so called because they stand next to the Urine as it spouts out from the Bladder and keep it from wetting the lips they are also call'd wings they are placed on each side next within the lips and are two fleshy and soft productions beginning at the upper part of the privity where they are joined in an Acute angle and make that wrinkled membranous production that covers the Clytoris like a fore-skin and descending close all the way to each other reaching but about half the breadth of the Orifice of the sheath and ending each in an obtuse angle They are almost Triangular and therefore as also for their colour are compared to the thrills that hang under a cocks throat They have a red substance partly fleshy partly membranous within soft and spongy loosly composed of small Membranes and Vessels so that they are very easily stretched by the flowing in of the animal Spirits and arterial Blood The Spirits they have from the same Nerves that run thro' the sheath and blood from one of the branches of the Iliack Artery Veins they have also which carry away the arterial blood from them when they become flaccid They are larger in old Maids than in young and larger yet in those that have used Copulation or born Children They never according to Nature reach above half way out from between the lips their use is to defend the inner parts to cover the urinary passages and a good part of the Orifice of the sheath and to the same purposes serve the lips Above betwixt the Nymphs in the upper part of the privities a part bunches out a little that is called Clytoris from a Greek word that signifies lasciviously to grope the privities It is like a mans Yard in shape situation substance repletion with Spirits and erection and differs from it only in length and bigness in some it grows to that length as to hang out from betwixt the lips of the privities yea there are many stories of such as have had it so long and big as to be able to converse with other Women like unto men and such are called Hermophridites who it is not probable are truly of both Sexes but only the Stones fall down into the lips and this Clytoris is stretched preternaturally but in most it branches out so little as that it does not appear but by drawing aside the lips it is a little long and round body consisting like a mans Yard of two nervous and inwardly black and spongy parts that arise on each side from the bunching of the bone Ischium and meet together at the Conjunction of the bones of the Pubes It lies under the hill of Venus at the top of the great Cleft in Venery by reason of the two nervous bodies it puffs up and straightning the Orifice of the sheath contributes to the embracing the Yard more closely It s outward end is like to the Glans of a Mans Yard and has the same name and as the Glans in men is the seat of the greatest pleasure in Copulation so is this in Women It has some resemblance of a hole but it is not pervious It is most of it covered with a thin Membrane by the joyning of the Nymphs which is called the Prepuce The Clytoris has two pair of Muscles belonging to it the upper are round and spring from the bones of the hip and passing along the two nervous bodies are inserted into them these by straitning the roots of the said bodies do detain the Blood and Spirits in them and so erect the Clytoris as those in men do the Yard the other arise from the Sphincter of the fundament it has veins arteries and nerves CHAP. III. Of the fleshy knobs and the greater neck of the Womb. PResently behind the wings before we go far inward in the middle of the Cleft there do appear four knobs of flesh being placed in a quadrangular form one against the other they are said to resemble Myrtle-berries in form In this place is incerted the Orifice of the bladder which opens it self into the fissure to cast forth the Urine into the common Channel Now least any cold air or dust or any such thing should enter into the Bladder after the voiding of the Urine one of these knobs is seated so that it shuts the urinary passage The second is right opposite to the first the other two collateral They are round in Virgins but they hang flagging when Virginity is lost The lips of the Womb being gently separated the neck of the Womb is to be seen In which two things are to be observed the neck it self or the channel and the Hymen which is there placed By the neck of the Womb is understood the channel which is between the said knobs and the inner bone of the womb which receives the Yard like a Sheath The substance of it is sinewy and a little spongy that it may be dilated in this concavity there are certain folds or orbicular pleights these are made by a certain Tunicle so wrinkled as if a man should fold the skin with his fingers In Virgins they are plain in Women with often copulation they are oftentimes worn out sometimes they are wholly worn out and the inner side of the Neck appears smooth as it happens to Whores and Women that have often brought forth or have bin over troubled with their fluxes In old Women it becomes more hard and grisly Now though this Channel be something writhed and crooked when it falls and sinks down yet in time of the flowers and copulation or in time of travel it is erected and extended and this over-great extension in Women that bring forth is the cause of that great pain in Child-bed CHAP. IV. Of the Hymen THE Hymen is a Membrane not altogether without blood neither so tender as the rest but more ruddy and scatter'd up and down with little veins and in a circular form it is placed overthwart and shuts up the cavity of the neck of the Womb. In the middle it hath a little hole through which the Menses are voided This at the first time of Copulation is broken which causes some pain and gushing forth of some quantity of blood which is an evident sign of Virginity for if the blood do not flow there is a suspicion of a former deflowring The Hymen is a thin nervous membrane interwoven with fleshy fibres and endowed with many little Arteries and Veins coming across the passage of the sheath behind the incertion of the neck of the bladder with a hole in the midst that will admit the top of ones little finger whereby the Courses
Practice of the whole Art a Work very useful and necessary for the information of all in Physick Chyrurgery Chymistry c. By N. Culpeper late Student in Physick With on account of the Author's Life The Contents OF the Genitals or Vessels dedicated to Generation in men or women Page 1 Of the Vessels of preparation p. 2 Of the Parastatae or Vessels where the blood is first changed p. 5 The use of the preparing Vessels p. 4 Of the Testicles in general p. 6 Of the Tunicles of the Stones p. 8 Of the suspensory Muscles p. 9 Of the substance and temper of the Stones p. 10 Of the actions of the Testicles p. 11 Of the Vtility of the Testicles and their parts p. 12 Of the Vessels that casteth forth the Seed p. 14 Of the Seminary Bladders p. 15 Of the Kernelly Prostatae or forestanders p. 17 Of the structure of the Yard p. 21 Of the several parts constituting the Yard p. 22 Of the action of the Yard p. 26 Of the use of the Yard in general ibid. Of the use of the parts constituting the Yard p. 27 Of the Genitals of Women p. 29 Of those parts called Nemphae and the Clytoris p. 30 Of the fleshy knobs and the greater neck of the Womb. p. 33 Of the Hymen p. 34 Of the Vessels that run through the neck of the Womb. p. 36 Of the fabrick of the Womb. p. 37 Of the preparing Vessels in Women p. 40 Of the stones in Women p. 41 Of the deferent or ejaculatory Vessels p. 45 Of the actions and uses of the Genital parts in Women p. 48 Of the action of the Clytoris p. 49 Of the action and use of the neck of the Womb. ibid. Of the uses of the Vessels running thro' the neck of the womb p. 50 Of the actions of the Womb. p. 50 Of the Vtility of the Womb. p. 51. Of the Vtility of the preparing Vessels in Women p. 52 Of the Vtility of the Stones ibid. Of the signs of Conception p. 53 Whether she hath conceived a Male p. 56 Whether a Female ibid. Of the Conception of Twins p. 57 Of false Conception ibid. How Women ought to govern themselves in the time of their going with Child p. 63 The Womb-Cake p. 85. Of the mixture of the Seed of both Sexes as also of its substance and form p. 96. Of the three Tunicles which the Birth is wrapt in in the Womb. p. 97. Of the true generation of the parts and the increase of them according to the several days and seasons p. 98 Of the nourishment of the Birth in the Womb. p. 102 Of the condition of the Infant in the Womb in the 6 7 and 8 month p. 103 Of the situation of the Child in the womb ibid. Of Midwives p. 107 What ought to be observed when she is near the time of her lying down p. 108 How to expell the Collick from Women in Child-bed p. 110 How the Midwife may know when the pains of Travel do seize on a Woman p. 111 Of the falling down of the Waters a good while before the Woman Travels ibid. What the Midwife ought to do in time of Travel p. 112 How to draw forth the Secondines p. 114 What may be given to a Woman in Travel ibid. How to put the Womb again into its place p. 115 Against the extream loss of blood which happens to women immediately after their delivery p. 116 What is to be done to a woman presently after her Delivery p. 117 Of Women that have a great deal of blood and purge not neither in their Travel nor after p. 118 Of those who have but a little blood p. 120 What is to be done to the Infant ibid. How to govern Women in Child-bed p. 121 Of the bathings that a Woman is to use for the first eight days of her Lying-in p. 122 How a Midwife ought to govern her self in case a Woman be to be deliver'd of two Children ibid. Of the danger that a Woman hath to purge her self for the first days of her Lying-in p. 124 Of the second washing for Women ibid. What is to be done to Infants as soon as they are born p. 125 Of the last Washing for Women p. 126 Of an Astringent for women when they shall have occasion 127 To make Cere-Cloaths for Women ibid. To cleanse a Woman before she rises ibid. How a woman lying in of her first Child may avoid the gripings of her belly p. 128 The Queen of France her Receipt p. 129 Certain Precepts hindring the delay and difficulty of bringing forth ibid. How the Secondines are to be hasten'd out p. 132 Pills for that purpose p. 134 Of cases of extremity and first what is to be done to a woman who in her Travel is accompanied with a flux of blood and with Convulsions p. 135 Of ordering the woman after she is delivered p. 148 What is to be done to the Breast Belly and lower parts of the woman in Child-bed p. 150 An Ointment p. 151 An Ointment to keep the Milk from clotting ibid. A Fomentation much commended ibid. Of the choice of a good Nurse p. 153 What is to be done in the extream parts of the Child p. 154 What is to be done to such Children as are troubled with Flegm p. 155 What is to be done to Children that have their Cods full of wind ibid. How to take away the Canker out of the Infants mouth 156 What is to be done to Children whose Intestines are fallen ibid. To make an ointment to strengthen the thighs and legs of a Child and to make him go p. 157 Of the relaxations of the Matrix and the cause ibid. Of a Disease that happens by reason of the fall of the Matrix p. 159. To remedy the fall of the Fundament in Infants p. 160 Of the Diseases of Women and first of the inflammation of the Breast ibid. Of Windy Tumours in the breasts p. 169 Of Swelling from Milk p. 164 Of the watry Tumour in the Breast p. 172 Of the Kernel in the Breast p. 174 Of the Scirrhus of the Breast p. 176 Of the Cancer in the Breasts p. 183 Of the greatness of the Breasts p. 186 Of the defect abundance and coagulation of the Milk 187 Of the Diseases of the neck of the Womb and first of the Disease called Tentigo p. 188 Of the narrowness of the neck of the Womb. p. 189 Of Wheals Condyloma's of the Womb and of Hemorrhoids p. 191 Of the Vulcers of the neck of the Womb. p. 194 Of the Womb being out of temper p. 200 Of the narrowness of the Vessels of the womb p. 203 Of the puffing up of the Womb. p. 204 Of the inflammation of the Womb. p. 206 Of the Scirrhus of the Womb. p. 209 Of the Dropsie of the Womb. p. 210 Of the falling of the Womb. p. 211 Of the ascent of the Matrix as also of the Wounds and Vlcers of the same p. 213 Of the pain of the Womb. p.
their design because they know nothing but the outside of things so that in matters of extremity because they are ignorant of the structure of the parts they cannot tell how to go about their work We shall therefore begin with the Anatomy of the privy parts the Organs of generation whereby through procreation is conserved a perennity of mankind which nature has denied to particulars These parts being not alike in both Sexes we must necessarily treat of each apart and first of those of Man In Man some of these parts afford matter for the Seed viz. the Spermatic Arteries others bring back again the blood that is superfluous to the making of the Seed and to the nourishment of the Stones and these are the Spermatic Veins and both the Arteries and Veins were formerly called preparing Vessels Some make the Seed as the Stones some carry the Seed back again some contain the Seed and an oyly matter as the Seed-bladders the first and the Prostats the latter Some discharge the Seed into the Womb and this is done by the Yard CHAP. I. Of the Vessels of Preparation AMong the Spermatic Vessels are to be considered first two veins and two arteries these are carried downward from the small guts to the Testicles and are much bigger in Men than they are in Women The original of these Veins is not always the same for commonly the right Vein riseth out of the Hollow vein a little below the source or original of the Emulgent but the least takes his original from the lower part of the Emulgent it self Yet sometimes it hath a branch carried to it from the trunk of the hollow Vein The middle part of these veins runs directly through the Loyns resting upon the Lumbal Muscle a thin Membrane only intervening and thus having gone above half its journey it branches out and distributes it self to the near adjoyning filmy parts of the Body The uttermost part of these vessels is carried beyond the Midriff to the Stones yet do they not pass through the Peritonaeum but descend with a small nerve and the Muscle called Cremaster through the Duplicity of the Midriff when it approaches near the Stones it is joyned with an Artery and now these Vessels which were before a little severed one from the other are by a film rising from the Peritonaeum closed up and bound both together and so twisting up like the young tendrils of a Vine they are carried to the end of the Stones The arteries which are associated to these veins take their original a little beneath the Emulgent vein whence they descend downward and a little from their beginning or original they are joyn'd to these veins till they are closed together by an Anastomôsis or Inosculation ending like a Piramid It has been generally taught that there are several Inosculations of the Arteries with the Veins in their passage whereby the blood of the Veins and Arteries are mixed but since the knowledge of the Circulation of the Blood this Opinion has been rejected for the blood in the Arteries goes down towards the Stones and that in the veins ascends from them and therefore if these two Vessels should open one into the other the Blood in one of them must necessarily be thrust back or else stopping stretch and break the Vessels but the truth is the blood both for the nourishment of the Stones and the making of Seed flows down by the Arteries only in an even course without any windings and twinings like the tendrils of Vines so much talked of as the excellent Anatomist de Graef says he has found by frequent inspection The Veins carry back from the Stones what of the blood remains from their nourishment and making of Seed and these indeed come out of the Stones with a vast number of Roots whereby they suck up the said Blood and are most admirably interwoven and inosculated one with another 'till about four or five fingers breadth above the Stone which space is called the Pyramidal Body Two things are to be noted First That these spermatic Veins have from their rise to their end several Valves which open upwards and so suffer the Blood to ascend towards the hollow Vein but not to return back again Secondly That tho' the Spermatick Arteries go a direct course in Men yet in Brutes they are more complicated and twisted with the Veins but without any opening of one into another There are Nerves and Lympheducts that pass into the Testicles together with the Vessels of preparation CHAP. II. The Vse of the preparing Vessels THE Use of those Vessels which are called the Vessels of Preparation is chiefly to attract out of the hollow Vein or left Emulgent the most pure and exquisitely concocted Blood which is most apt to be converted into Seed which they contain and prepare giving unto it a certain rude form of Seed in those parts that lie as it were in certain pleights or folds which they do by a peculiar property bequeathed to them Another Use of them is gathered by their situation for as they are now situated that is to say the right Vein coming from the Hollow Vein and the left from the Emulgent This incovenience is avoided that the left Vein is not forced to pass over the great Artery and so be in danger of breaking by reason of the swift motion of the Artery Moreover there being a necessity that Male and Female should be begot it is fit that there should be Seed proper for the generation of both Sexes whereof some must be hotter and some must be colder and therefore Nature hath so ordered it that the hotter Seed should proceed from the right Vein for the generation of man and the colder from the left for the generation of Females The left Vein hath also this property to draw from the Emulgent the more serous and less pure Blood to the intent that the serous humour might stir up Venery by its salt and acrimonious substance and therefore it is observed that those who have the left Stone bigger are most full of Seed and most prone to Venery These Veins are so far from preparing the Seed as that they only bring back what was superfluous from the making it And indeed the Arteries in Men do no more merit the name of preparing Vessels in regard to the Seed than the Gullet in respect of the Chyle or the chyliferous thoracick duct in regard to the Blood But however we continue the old Names declaring only against the reason of them CHAP. III. Of the Parastatae or Vessels where the Blood is first changed THESE four Vessels after many ingraftings and knittings together seem at length to become only two bodies full of little crumplings like the tendril of a Vine white and in the form of a Piramid resting the right upon the right Stone and the left upon the left Stone These are called Parastatae which as they stand pierce the tunicles of each Stone with certain fibers or extraordinary
for them to hang by on both sides one in form oblong and slender These Muscels derive their original from a thick membrane which is joyned to the Hanchbone in the further part of that region where the hair grows and is fastned to this bone with certain fleshy and straight fibres where the oblique Muscles of the Abdomen or Midriff end thence reaching down upon the superiour Members of the Testicles they are extended through the whole length of that round Body These Muscles are never seen in Women being altogether useless because their Stones are not pendent but are inclosed within their bodies CHAP. VII Of the substance and temper of the Stones THE substance of the Stones is glandulous or kernelly white soft loose spongy and hollow having sundry vessels dispersed thorow them Now although the substance of the Testicles be most soft and moist yet doth not this moistness constitute an uniform or homogeneal body for the substance of the Stones is wholly dissimilar and full of fibres These fibres also seem to be of a different substance from that of the Stones being only cloathed with the flesh of the Stones as the fibres of the Muscles are inwardly nervous but covered over with the flesh of the Muscles These fibres again differ in this that the fibres of the Testicles are hollow but the fibres of the Stones full and substantial These fibres are said to come from the spermatic vessels and thence branch themselves forth thorow the Testicles by which that part of the Seed which is over and above what serves for the nourishment of the Testicles is drawn forth and kept for procreation As concerning the temper of the Stones they would sooner be thought cold than hot if that Maxim were true that All white things are cold and all red things hot Notwithstanding because nature is known to abhor all coldness in the work of generation Therefore we must presume to affirm the temper of the Stones to be hot for they always abound with blood and a pure spirit that can never be without heat besides that heat is requir'd for the concoction of this blood and the changing it into seed yet it is very temperate as appears by the softness of the substance for as coldness and driness is the cause of hardness so heat and moisture is the cause of softness Nevertheless we are to understand this that the temper of the Stones are not alike in all for in some they are far colder than in others And therefore those who have hot Testicles are more salacious and prone to venereal actions having the places near about much more hairy and their Testicles much harder than others Those that have their Testicles cold find every thing contrary The greatest heat is in the right Testicle because it receives more pure and hotter blood from the hollow Vein and the great Artery the left colder because it receives a more impure and serous blood from the Emulgent Vein CHAP. VIII Of the Actions of the Testicles THE action and use of the Testicles is To generate Seed a gift which they obtain from an inbred quality which Nature hath bestowed upon them For the blood being received by the spermatic Vessels and there beginning to change its colour is by and by received by the deferent Vessels or the vessels which carry the blood so prepared to the Testicles where it is for a while contained and afterwards being carried to the Stones is by them made Seed and the last work perfected And it may with more easiness be affirmed that the Seed is generated by the Stones because every like is said to generate its like now the substance of the Testicles is very like the Seed it self that is white moist and viscous Whether the Stones are the only efficient cause of the Seed is not here to be disputed being only a nice point and no way profitable We shall rather with silence adhere to that opinion which affirms the function of the Testicles to be the generation of the Seed which is most likely and proceed to the next CHAP. IX Concerning the Utility of the Testicles and their parts THE structure of the Testicles being thus known it remains that we shew you their use This is first discovered from their situation For of those Creatures that have Stones some have them in their bodies as all Fowl others have them without though not pendent others have them hanging downward as men Men therefore have their Testicles without their bodies for two causes first because it is required that the Testicles of the Male should be bigger and hotter than those of the Female so that it were impossible for them to be contained within the body because of their quantity Besides the Seed of the Male being the effective original of the Creature and therefore hottest it is also required that the Seed should be more abundant than could be contained in the Testicles were they placed within the body for the seminary passages must have been less and the veins themselves would not have afforded such plenty of matter as now they do The motion of the Testicles is also to be considered by which they move sometimes upward and sometimes downward The one of these motions which is made upward is voluntary as being made by the Muscles but the motion downward is a forced motion not hapning without the laxity of the Muscles the Testicles through their own weight falling downwards These Muscles are called Cremasters their use being to draw up the Testicles to shorten the way of the Ejaculation of the Seed as also to keep the vessels from being distended too far by the weight of the Testicles The use of the Tunicles is now to be spoken of and first of that which is outermost and is called by the Latins Scrotum being the purse wherein the Testicles are contained It is made to wrinkle it self up and to let it self loose that it may be large enough for the Testicles when they swell with plenty of Seed and to wrinkle up again when the Testicles being emptied and so becoming less are drawn upward The other Coats or Tunicles are also made for the defence of the Stones but so thin and light that they should not oppress the Stones with their weight that which is called Erythroides hath many veins for the nourishment of the adjacent parts The Epididymis was made to wrap the Testicle round about lest the Humid matter of the Testicle should flow about and consequently be wasted CHAP. X. Of the Vessels that cast forth their Seed THat passage which comes from the head of the Testicles to the root of the Yard is called the Ejaculatory Vessel This as I said before rises from the head of the Testicles and joyning downward to the Testicle descends to the bottom and thence being reflected again and annext to the preparing Vessel it returns again to the head of the Testicle from thence it proceeds upward from the Testicles till it
either burst or moved out of their places They have a third use For being placed between the Bladder and the right gut they serve instead of Cushions for the Vessels to rest upon and to guard them from all compression Hence it happens sometimes that those who are very much bound in their bodies while they strain themselves over-vehemently do now and then void a kind of Seed which happens by a violent compression of those parts The Prostats in English standers by or waiters are placed near to the Seed-Bladders De Graef calls them the glandulous body supposing them to be one body and only divided by the common ducts of the seed-bladders and the vasa deferentia coming through the midst of it They are of a white spungy glandulous substance about as big as a small Wall-nut encompassed with a strong and fibrous Membrane from the Bladder to the beginning of whose neck they are joined at the root of the Yard in shape they come nearest to an Oval save that on their upper and lower part they are a little depressed and in that end whereby the vasa deferentia enter they are somewhat hollow like a Tunnel The sphincter Muscle of the Bladder encompasses them so that for so far as they cover the neck of the Bladder the sphincter touches it not they coming between They have all sorts of vessels which run chiefly on their out-side in the inner part they have ten or more small Ducts which unload themselves into the Urethra by the sides of the great Caruncle thro' which the Seed passes from the Seed Bladders into the Urethra but themselves have each one a small one to stop its Orifice least the liquor that is contained in the Prostats should continually flow out or the Urine flow in and these small Ducts I suppose are continued from those small Bladders which are seen in the Prostats of those that dye suddenly after having had to do with a Female for in such the spungy part of the Prostats is very full of a thin liquor and in their inner part may be found the same small bladders which if you press upon they will discharge themselves into the above said Ducts There is a great variety of Opinions what the liquor in them should be or what is their use Some think that the Seed that flows from the Testicles is further elaborated here but that cannot be because the vasa deferentia deposit nothing in them but all into the small Seed Vessels Others think that there is separated from the Blood in them an acrimonious and serous humour which serves for Titulation or causing the greater pleasure in Venery As to this de Graef appeals to the taste of it which has nothing of Acrimony in it Dr. Wharton thinks they make a particular kind of Seed as the Stones do another and the Seed Bladders a third that these last make a different Seed from that made in the Stones is grounded on a mistake in Anatomy viz. That the vasa deferentia have no communication with the Seed-Bladders whereas they apparently open into them and desposite in them all the Seed they contain that the Prostats make a peculiar sort he endeavours to prove because gelded Animals emit some Seed but tho' they do emit something it is not necessary it should be any true Seed or if it be it may well be supposed to proceed from the small Seed-Bladders that were full when the Animal was gelt for this reason it has been observed that presently after gelding they have sometimes got the Female with Young but not afterwards when that stock was spent Others think they make an oyly and slippery humour which is pressed out opon occasion to besmear the Urethra to defend it from the acrimony of the Seed and Urine and lest it should dry up De Graef believes that the Humour that is separated in the Prostats serves for a vehicle of the Seed which flowing but in small quantity thro' small Poors into the Urethra it was necessary that this Humour should be mixed with it that it might the better reach the Womb whatever this Humour be it is squeezed out partly by the swelling and erection of the Yard and partly by compression of the sphincter of the Bladder that girds the Prostats about These Prostats are often the seat of a Gonorrhaea and the Humour they contain is that which flows out in the running of the Reins for if it were true Seed they could never endure a Gonorrhaea so long some thirty Years without being much wasted the flux being so much as sometimes it is CHAP. XIII Of the structure of the Yard THE structure of the Yard is not unknown that is to say at the root of the share bone in the hinder part of the Hypogastrion or lower part of the belly where the hair grows which bone is called Os pubis Though the greatest part of it is not pendent without but adjoining to the Podex is situated near the joining of the share-bone being fast knit to it in the Perinaeum or space between the Cods and the Fundament the other part is pendent and is seen hanging outward This situation is most appropriated to the manner of the act of generation usual and peculiar to men who do not couple after the manner of Beasts The figure of it is in a manner round though not exactly broader in the upper part which is called the back of the Yard The thickness and longitude of the Yard is so much as is required for Procreation yet it is not so long as in many other creatures Yea and in several men there is a very great diversity little men being for the most part best provided in that part It is a general received opinion that the often use of Venery doth increase the quantity of it in all dimensions The Yard will also be longer if the Navel-strings are not bound up or knit too close by the Midwife in Children that are newly born but at some distance from the Navel This happens by reason of the Ligament coming from the Navel to the bottom of the Bladder which if it be too much abreviated draws up the Bladder and consequently shortens the Yard but if the Navel-string be left at a longer distance the Urachus is enlarged and consequently the Yard hath more liberty to extend it self And therefore the Midwives are from hence advertised that they do not spoil the harvest of generation by cutting the sithe too short As to the substance of the Yard it is not of a bony substance as in Dogs Wolves or Foxes for so it would become always hard and erected and hinder men from all business but the act of Venery Neither is it gristly for so it could neither erect it self nor flag when occasion required Neither is it full of veins for so it could not be emptied and repleted on such a sudden as often happens besides the Tunicles of the veins are so thin that they could not
flow where it is found it is a certain note of Virginity but upon the first Copulation it is broke and bleeds and when it is once broke it never closes again This Blood is called the flower of Virginity and of this the Scripture makes mention Dut. cap. 22. 13.21 But tho' a man when he finds these signs of Virginity may be fully satisfied he hath married a Maid yet on the contrary it will not necessarily follow that where they are wanting Virginity is also wanting for the Hymen may be corroded by acrimonious fretting Humours flowing thro' with the courses or from the falling out or inversion of the Womb or sheath at least It sometimes happens even to Maids for if a Maid be so inconsiderate as to marry while her courses flow or within a Day after then both the Hymen and the inner wrinkled Membrane of the Sheath are so flaggy and relaxed that the Yard may easily enter with out any lett and so give suspicion of Unchastity when really she is unblameable saving for her imprudence to marry at that season Sometimes the Hymen grows so strong in old Maids that a Man is forced to make many essays before he can penetrate it and in some it is naturally quite closed up and these by this means having their courses stopt are in great danger of their life if they be not opened by some Chyrurgical Instrument Close to the Hymen lye the four Myrtle-berry Caruncles so called from their resembling Myrtle-berries The largest of them is uppermost standing just at the Mouth of the Urinary passage which it stops after rendring the Urine Opposite to this in the bottom of the sheath there is another and one on each side but of these four there is only the first in Maids the other three are not indeed Caruncles but little knobs made of the angular parts of the broken Hymen roll'd into a heap by the wrinkling of the sheath These three when the sheath is extended in Womens labour loose their roughness and become smooth so that they disappear until it be again contracted and indeed the sheath near its outer orifice has a Muscle near three Fingers broad that upon occasion contracts it so that Men and Women need not be solicitous concerning their Genitals being proportionable one to the other CHAP. V. Of the Vessels that run through the neck of the Womb. BEtween the Duplicity of the two Tunicles that constitute the neck of the Womb there are many Veins and Arteries that run along arising from those Vessels that descend on both sides the thighs and are incerted into the side of the neck of the Womb The great quantity and bigness of them deserves admiration for they are much bigger than the nature and openness of the place seems to require The cause of this is twofold first Because it being requisite for the neck of the Womb to be filled with abundance of spirits and to be extended and dilated for the better taking hold of the Yard there is required a great heat for these kind of motions which growing more intense by the act of frication doth consume a great quantity of moisture so that great Vessels are requisite and only able to make that continual supply that is needful There is another cause of the longness of these Vessels which is this Because that the monthly purgations are poured through those veins for the flowers must not come only out of the Womb but out of the neck of the Womb also Whence it happens that Women with Child do sometimes continue their purgations because that though the womb be shut up yet the passages in the neck of the womb are open This is also further to be noted in the neck of the womb that as soon as ever your sight is entred within the female fissure there do appear to the view two certain little holes or pits wherein is contained a serous humour which being pressed out in the act of copulation does not a little add to the pleasure thereof This is the humour with which women do moisten the top of a mans Yard not the Seed but a humour proper to the place voided out by the Womb. CHAP. VI. Of the Fabrick of the Womb. TO the neck of the Womb the Womb it self is adjoined in the lower part of the Hypogastrium where the hips are widest and broadest which are greater and broader thereabouts than those of men which is the reason also that they have broader Buttocks than men have The Womb is placed between the Bladder and the streight gut being joined to the bladder and leaning upon the streight gut where it lies as between two Cushions this situation of the womb was fittest that so it might have liberty to be stretched or contracted according to the bigness of the Fruit contained in it The figure of the womb is round and not unlike a Gourd that lessens and grows more acute at the one end The bottom of the womb is knit together by Ligaments of its own which are peculiar The neck of the womb is joined by its own substance and by certain Membranes to the Share-bone and the Sacred bone As to the bigness of it that varies according to the age or constitution of the body and use of Venery For it is much greater in Women that have brought forth than in those that are with Child and after the birth It is of a substance so thick as that it exceeds a thumbs breadth in thickness which after conception is so far from decreasing that it increases still to a greater bulk and proportion This substance the more to confirm it is interweaved with all manner of fibres streight oblique and overthwart The Vessels of the Womb are Veins Arteries and Nerves There are two little Veins which are carried from the spermatick Vessels to the bottom of the womb and two greater from the Hypogastricks which go not only to the bottom but to the neck The mouth of these veins pierce as far as the inward concavity in which place the extremities of them are called Acetabula which in the time of the Flowers gape and open themselves by reason of the great plenty and stream of blood that pours it self from thence and therefore they are at that time most conspicuous in women with Child that which is called the Liver of the Womb is joined to them that it might draw blood for the nourishment of the Child at which time their veins do so swell especially in the time of or near Delivery that they are as big as the Emulgent veins or at least half as thick as the Hollow vein It hath two Arteries on both sides the Spermatick and the Hypogastrick which every where do accompany the Veins The Womb hath also divers little nerves knit together in form of a Net which are carried not only to the interior part of the bottom of the Womb but also to the Neck and as
far as the privities themselves and that chiefly for sense and pleasure for which cause there is a great sympathy between the Womb and the Head This is also further to be noted that the Womb in its situation is not fixed and immoveable but moveable by reason of two ligaments which hang on both sides from the Share-bone and piercing through the Peritonaeum are joined to the bone it self so that it sometimes happens that through those holes of the Peritonaeum which give passage to these ligaments being loosened either the Omentum or the Entrails do swell outwardly and cause the burstness either of the Caul or of the Guts and sometimes it happens by reason of the looseness of those ligaments that the womb is moved with such force that it falls down and in the act of Copulation is moved up and down sometimes it moves upward that some Women do affirm that it ascends as high as their Stomack Now though the Womb be one continued body yet it is divided into the Mouth and the Bottom The Bottom of the Womb is called all that which by still ascending stretches it self from the internal Orifice to the end being narrow toward the Mouth but dilating it self by little and little 'till it come at the entrails The Mouth of the womb is that narrowness between the neck and the bottom it is an oblong and transverse Orifice but where it opens it self orbicular and round the circumference very thick and of an exquisite feeling and if this mouth be out of order and be troubled with a Scirrhous brawn or over-fatness over-moisture or relaxation it is the cause of Barrenness In those that are big with Child there uses to stick to this Orifice a thick viscous glutinous matter that the parts moistned may be the more easily opened For in the delivery this mouth is opened after a very strange and miraculous manner so that according to the bigness of the birth it suffers an equal dilatation from the bottom of the womb to the privy member CHAP. VII Of the preparing Vessels in Women THE Spermatick Preparing Vessels are two Veins and two Arteries differing not at all from those of men either in the number original action or use but only in their bigness and the manner of their insertion For as to their number there are so many veins and so many Arteries as in men They arise also from the same place as in men that is to say the right from the trunck of the hollow vein descending the left from the left Emulgent There are two Arteries also on both sides one which grow from the Aorta these both bring vital blood for the work of Generation As to the Longitude and Latitude of these Vessels they are narrower and shorter in Women only where they are wrinckled they are much more wreathed and contorted than in men for the way being shorter in women than in men Nature required for stretching out these vessels that they should be more wrinckled and crankled than in men that the blood might stay there in greater quantity for preparation of the Seed These vessels in Women are carried with an oblique course through the small guts to the Stones being wrapt up in fatter membranes but in the mid-way they are divided into two branches whereof the greater branch goes to the Stone constituting the various or winding body and those wonderful inosculations the lesser branch ends in the womb in the sides of which it is scattered up and down and chiefly at the higher part of the bottom of the womb for nourishment of the Womb and of the birth and that some part of the flowers may be purged out through those Vessels now because the Stones of Women are seated near the womb for that cause these vessels fall not from the Peritonaeum neither make they such passages as in men neither reach they to the Share-bone The use of these Spermatic Vessels is to minister to the generation of Seed according to the ancient Doctrine but to the nutrition of the Eggs in the Stones according to the new and for the nourishment of the Foetus and of the solid parts and the expurgation of the courses in as much as blood is convey'd by the Arteries to all those parts to which their Ramifications come in which parts they leave what is to be separated according to the law of Nature the remaining blood returning by the Veins CHAP. VIII Of the Stones in Women THE Stones of Women although they do perform the same actions and are for the same use as mens yet they differ from them in situation substance temperament figure magnitude and in their Covering They are seated in the hollowness of the Abdomen neither do they hang out as in men but they rest upon the Muscles of the Loins and this for that cause that they might be more hot and fruitful being to elaborate that matter with which the Seed of man engenders man In this place arises a Question not trivial whether the Seed of Woman be the efficient or the material cause of generation To which it is answered that though it have a power of acting yet it receives the perfection of that power from the Seed of Man The Stones of Women differ from mens also as to their figure because they are not so round and oval as those of men being in their fore and hinder part more depressed and broad the external superficies being more unequal as if a great many knots and kernals were mixed together There is also another difference as to the subject because they are softer and moister than those of men being more loose and ill compacted Their magnitude and temperament do also make a difference for the Stones of Women are much colder and lesser than Mens which is the reason that they beget a thin and watry Seed Their coverings also do make a difference for mens are wrapt up in divers Tunicles because being pendent outward they were otherwise more subject to external injuries but the stones of women have but one tunicle which though it stick very close to them yet are they also half cloathed over with the Peritonaeum They have but one membrane that encompasses them round but on their upper side where the preparing Vessels enter them they are about half way involved in another membrane that accompanies those Vessels and springs from the Peritonaeum When this cover is removed their substance appears whitish but is wholly different from the substance of Mens Stones for mens are composed of Seed-vessels which being continued to one another are twenty or thirty ells long if one could draw them out at length without breaking but Womens principally consist of a great many membranes and small fibres loosly joined to one another among which there are several little bladders full of a clear Liquor thro' whose membranes the nerves and preparing Vessels run Galen and Hypocrates and their followers imagine the
it ought to be stopt the Woman must keep in Bed and forbear all things that may heat her blood and must observe a cooling and strengthening Diet and feed on Meat that breeds good Blood and thickens it as Broths made of Chicken Knuckels of Veal and the like wherein may be boiled cooling Herbs Rice Milk and Barley Broth is also very good and in all her Drink quench Iron She must forbear Conversation with her Husband And to comfort the Child which in this case is usually very weak Linnen dipt in strong Wine wherein Cinamon and Pomgranat Peel has bin infused must be applyed to the Mothers Belly Flooding is much more dangerous than a Flux of the Courses for the Blood comes from the bottom of the Womb with pain and in great Abundance and continues flooding daily without Intermission only sometimes Clods of Blood stop it for a while but afterwards it flows more violently and destroys both Mother and Child if not seasonably stop'd by the delivery of the Woman A false Conception or a Mole which the Womb endeavours to expel is usually the Cause when the flooding happens when young with Child whereby some Vessels at the bottom of the Womb continually cast forth Blood until the strange Body is ejected But when a flooding comes upon a woman that has truly conceived at whatsoever time it be it proceeds likewise from the opening of the Vessels of the bottom of the womb occasioned by some blow slip or other hurt and especially because the after-birth separating in part if not wholly from the in side of the womb opens all the Orifices of the Vessels where it was joined and for this reason a great flux of blood follows and never stops 'till after the delivery of the woman for if but part of the after-birth only be once loosened it never joins again to the womb and therefore the opening of the Vessels cannot be stopt 'till all that is in the womb is expelled and afterwards the womb like a spunge squeezed contracts it self and stops the Vessels But tho' it be necessary to deliver the Woman presently to stop a great flooding which manifestly endangers the womans life yet it is to be noted that when the flooding is small other things are to be first tryed for some small floodings have for sometimes bin suppressed by keeping quietly in bed by bleeding in the arm and proper remedies and perhâ—ps it may in a short time be found to be only an ordinary flux of the Courses if therefore the strength of the woman keeps up and the flux be not attended with ill symptoms it is best to leave the whole business to Nature but if the flux be very much and the woman is afflicted with Convulsions and Fainting she must be instantly delivered whether she has pains and throws or no. Sometimes women with child are oppressed with a great weight at the bottom of their bellies by reason the womb bears down and sometimes she cannot walk without pain and difficulty In this case the large ligaments of the womb are much relaxed either by the burthen upon them or by a fall shaking or great pains or bad labour in a former delivery Sometimes also a great many humours are the cause for they moisten and relax the ligaments This bearing down of the womb hinders coition and causes numness in the Hips and Thighs and difficulty of Urine and costiveness The best remedy in this case whatsoever is the cause of the bearing down is keeping the Bed for the ligaments are continually more and more relaxed by the weight when she is up but if her condition or circumstances are such as will not admit of continual rest in the bed she ought at least to keep up her belly with a swaith and if the weight causes a difficulty of rendring her water she must lift up her belly as oft as she has occasion to make water if humours be the cause of the relaxation of the ligaments of the womb a drying dyet must be constantly used and her meat must be roasted and the woman must be very careful when there is such a weight and relaxation of the womb from whatsoever cause it proceeds that she be not strait laced because thereby the womb is forced down but above all when she is in labour care must be taken that neither by means of the throws which strongly force down the womb nor by the birth of the Child nor the violent extraction of the Burthen she gets a precipitation instead of a bearing down as is seen often If a woman chance to be infected with the Venereal Disease during her pregnancy the case is very difficult for those Methods and Medicines that are proper for the Cure of it are apt to occasion a miscarriage and yet notwithstanding if she be infected at her first being with Child or if the symptoms are violent and dangerous when she is â—ear her time something must be done for should the disease lie unregarded upon her seven or eight Months her mass of blood would be corrupted and the venom imparted to the Child in her Belly and tho' she be near her time if the symptoms are violent she will be in great danger of being ruined if Medicines be not presently used to mitigate them If it be only a Gonorrhea or running of the Reins ten grains of Mercurius dulcis more or less according to her strength must be given at Bed time in form of a Bolus in conserve of Roses or the like and some gentle purge the next Morning and at Bed-time after the purge you must be sure to give some Anodyne to appease the commotion raised by the Purge The Bolus and Purge must be repeated twice a Week or oftner if the strength will permit and if no ill accident intervene If the Urine be very hot and sharp it will be convenient to use an emulsion to mitigate the pain and heat the following is of good use Take of blanched Almonds number 12 of the four greater cold Seeds each one dram and an half of the Seeds of Lettice and white Poppies each half a dram beat them in a marble Mortar and pour on them a sufficient quantity of barly Water make an emulsion for two Doses add an Ounce of Syrrup of Violets and half a dram of Sal Prunella If the privy parts are excoriated or swelled you must foment them with a decoction of Mallows and Fenugreek-seeds and afterwards anoint the excoriated parts with the white Ointment with Camphor but if the Disease arise to a confirm'd Pox a gentle Salivation must unavoidably be ordered Some venture to raise it with a Mercurial Ointment but I think it is much safer to do it by Mercurius dulcis inwardly taken and great care must be taken to prevent sickness of the stomach gripes and stools therefore as soon as ever you perceive any sickness of the Stomach faintness or gripes you must leave off the use of Mercury for a while 'till the
but something unequal or rough and in that part of it that sticks to the Womb-cake and thereby to the womb there are many Vessels which rise from the Womb-cake it self and the Umbilical Vessels Twins are both encompassed in one Chorion but each a particular Amnios it covers the Egg originally and when the Egg is carried to the Womb and becomes a Conception this membrane sucks up the moisture that abounds in the womb at that time for while the Conception is loose in the Womb it is increased in the same manner as an Egg in a Hen which while it is in the knot it is only a Yolk and when it drops off from thence and falls thro' the Infundibulum it is not at all altered but when it comes into the Cells of the Process of the Womb it begins to gather white tho' it adhere to no part of the Womb nor has any Umbilical Vessels but as Eggs of Fishes and Frogs do without procure to themselves whites out of the Water or as Beans Pease and other Pulse and bread Corn being steep'd in Moisture swell and so acquire Nourishment from the Bud that is springing out of them In like manner does a whitish Moisture flow out of the Wrinkles of the Womb whence the Yolk gathers its white and concocts it by its vegetative and innate heat And indeed the Liquor that abounds in the Wrinkles of the Womb tasts like the white and in this manner the Yolk falling by Degrees is encompassed with a white till at last the outmost Womb having got Skins and a Shell is brought to perfection Even so the Chorion sucks up the albugineous Liquor that from the first Conception increases daily in it and sweats thro' the Amnios wherein the Embrio-swims till the Umbilical Vessels and the Womb-cake are formed from and thro' which the Child may receive Nourishment The Liquor that it sucks up is supposed to be nutritious juice sweating out of the Capillary Orifices of the Hypogastrick and spermatick Arteries That Membrane that immediately contains the Child is called Amnios it is joined to the Chorion only where the Umbilical Vessels pass thro' them both into the Womb-cake it is soft smooth very thin and transparent and loosely invests the Child the shape of it is somewhat oval it has Vessels from the same Origins as the Chorion This Membrane before the Egg is ripened contains a clear Liquor which after impregnation is that out of which the Child is formed In it resides the formative power and the matter from whence the first Lineaments of the Child are drawn But because this Liquor is so very little there sweats thro' this Membrane presently part of that nutritious albugineous humour that is contained in the Chorion which it had suckt out of the Womb and the Child receives its increase by Addition of this humour to its undiscernable Rudiments Yet after the formation of the Umbilical Vessels and the Womb cake the Amnios receives a nutritious humour after another manner and not as before only by transudation Milky Veins come directly to the Womb-cake acrording to the Opinion of some and out of it arise others that carry the Chyle to the Amnios but it is doubted of by others The Membrane call'd Allantoides is the third that encompasses the whole Child it is very probable that this as well as the other two was originally in the Egg yet it does not appear till after the formation of the Umbilical Vessels and Womb-cake and 'till the Albugineous Liquor ceases to be suckt up by the Chorion out of the Womb but as soon as the Child begins to be nourished by the Umbilical Vessels and the Urachus is passable then this Membrane begins presently to appear It contains the Child's Urine brought into it by the Urachus from the Bladder and with which it is filled more and more daily till the birth This Membrane is very thin smooth soft and yet dense it may be distinguished from the Chorion and Amnios because they have a great many Vessels dispersed thro' them but this has neither Vein nor Artery that is visible After opening the Membranes that encompass the Child the Navel-string appears which is membranous wreathed and unequal arising from the Navel and reaching to the Womb-cake it is about half an ell long and a finger thick The Vessels contained in this string are four one vein two arteries and the Urachus wrapt in a common Coat The Vein rises from the Liver of the Child and is larger than the Arteries and from thence passing out of the Navel it runs along the common Coat to the Womb-cake into which it is implanted by many roots but before it reaches it it sends some little twigs into the Amnios It was formerly thought that the only use of this Vein was to carry the blood from the Womb-cake to the Child and some still think that it carries chyle In the common coat are included also two small Arteries they spring from the inner Iliack branches of the great Artery and passing by the sides of the bladder they rise up to the Navel out of which they are conducted with the Womb-cake in the same common cover with the Vein and Urachus wherewith they are twined like a Rope Spirituous blood is driven from the Child by the beating of its Heart to the Womb-cake and the Membranes for their nourishment from which what blood remains circulates back again in the umbilical vein together with the nutritious juice afresh imbibed by its Capillaries dispersed in the Womb-cake but Blood and Vital Spirits are not carried by the Arteries from the Mother to the Child as Galen and many others have taught The Urachus is the fourth Umbilical Vessel which is a small membranous round pipe endued with a very straight Cavity it rises from the bottom of the Bladder up to the Navel out of which it passes along within the common Cover and opens into the allantoides these four Vessels have one common Cover which keeps each of them from touching the other which is called funiculus it is membranous round and hollow and consists of a double Coat it has several knots upon it here and there whereby the Midwives guess how many Children more the Mother shall have but this is vain and superstitious This Navel Rope is wont to be tied when the Infant is born one or two fingers breadth from the Navel with a strong thread cast about it several times and then about two or three fingers breadth beyond the ligature to be cut off what is not cut off is suffer'd to remain 'till it drop off of its own accord There have been great disputes among Physicians with what and by what way the Child is nourished some say by blood alone received by the umbilical Vein others by chile alone conveyed in by the mouth but indeed according to the different degrees of perfection that an Egg passes from a Conception to a Child fit for the Birth it is nourished differently for
as soon as an Egg is ripened and falls into the womb it immediately sucks up thro' its outward membranes some of that albugonious liquor wherewith at this time the internal superficies of the womb is much moistened and therefore as soon as the first liniaments of the Child begin to the drawn out of that Humour contained in the Amnios they are immediately increased by the apposition of the said liquor strained out of the chorion thro' the amnios into its cavity but when the parts of the Child begin to be a little more perfect and the chorion is so dense that not any more of the said liquor is suckt up by it the umbillical Vessels begin to be formed and to extend to the side of the amnios which they penetrate and both the Vein and the Arteries pass also through the allantois and Chorion and are implanted into the Womb-cake that at this time first gathering upon the Chorion joins it to the womb and now the hypogastrick and spermatick Arteries that before carried the nutritious juice into the cavity of the womb open by their orifices into the Womb-cake where either by straining through it or by fermenting they put off the said juice which is suckt up by the umbilical Vein and carried by it first to the Liver afterwards to the Heart of the Child where the thin spirituous part of it is converted into blood but the thick and earthy part going down by the aorta enters the umbilical Arteries and by those branches of them that run through the amnios is discharged into the cavity of it Some perhaps may ridicule this passage of the nutritious juice because it is supposed according to this account to chuse its way as if it were a reasonable Creature but they may as well expose the passage of the Chyle from the common duct to the Womb-cake when the Child is in the Womb for how should the Chyle know or the milky Vessels by which it passes that there is any Child in the Womb that the one should offer to go that way and the other give it way to go thither at that time whereas the passage is shut at other times and yet this they that laugh at this passage of the nutritious juice allow and how comes the Chyle to turn its course presently after the Child is born and instead of going down to the womb rise up to the breasts What reason can be given for these and many other things in nature We are therefore forced to confess that there are many things in nature that are only known to Almighty God the maker of all things There is also another objection against this opinion because it allows none of the Mothers blood to be received by the Child thro' the Umbilical Vein but only nutritious juice and how should it come to pass that the blood should be bred in the Child seeing it has blood before the Liver or Heart or any other part that assists in the making blood are in a condition to officiate It is indeed very strange how blood should be made so soon but that it is made out of the Nutritious Juice without the mixture of any from the Mother is manifest by Dr. Harvey's curious Observations concerning the order of the generation of the parts in a Chicken which from first to last receives nothing from the head says he there appears at the very first a red leaping Speck a beating Bladder and Fibres drawn from thence containing blood in them and as far as one can discern by inspection blood is made before the leaping Speck is formed and the same has vital heat before it is stir'd by the Pulse And as the beating begins in the blood and from it so at last at the point of Death it ends in it And because the beating Bladders and the sanguinous Fibres that are made from it and are seen first of all it seems as if the blood were before its Receptacles This Worthy Author in his Treatise of the generation of Animals owns it is a Paradox that blood should be made and moved and have vital Spirit before any Organs for making blood or of motion have a being and that the Body should be nourished and increased before the Stomach and Bowels the Organs of Concoction are framed But neither of these are stranger than that there should be Sense and Motion before there is a Brain And yet he says in his 57 th Exercitation that the Faetus moves contracts and stretches out it self when there is nothing to be seen for a Brain but clear water Now if all these wonderful and unaccountable things do undoubtedly come to pass in an Egg by the warmth of the Hen only why should we count it a wonderful thing that nutritious Juice impregnated with the vital Spirits of the arterial blood wherewith it circulates thro' the Mother's Heart should be turned into blood in a Child comforted with the friendly warmth of the Womb tho' the Mother sends no humour to it under the form of Blood and tho' it self as yet has no perfect Organs to make Blood The thicker nutritious juice being put off in the Amnios by the umbilical Arteries the Child sucks in some of it as soon as the Mouth Stomach and the like are perfectly formed which going down into the Stomach and Guts is received by the milky Veins as in grown people Diemerbrock proves that the Child is nourished this way by the following Reasons first because the Stomach of the Child is never empty but has a milky whitish liquor in it and in the mouth of the Child there is also such an humour 2 dly Because there are Excrements in the guts and the Child voids them by stool as soon as it is born and certainly these are Excrements of some nourishment taken in by the Mouth 3 dly Had not the Stomach been accustomed to perform Concoction in the Womb it would not presently after the Birth perform the same 4 thly Because the Infant presently after it is born knows how to suck the Breast which it cannot be thought it could so readily do if it had taken nothing by suction while it was in the Womb. 5 thly Because many Children vomit up a milky nourishment as soon as they are born before they have suckt any Breast or taken any thing by the Mouth which therefore must needs be received into the Stomach Some say by way of Objection to what has bin before set down if the Child be not nourished by the Mothers blood why should her Courses be stopt all or most of the time she goes with Child to which may be answerâ—d that it is for the same reason that Nurses that give suck commonly want them also for as in Nurses the Chyle passes in a great proportion to the Breasts whereby the Blood being defrauded of its due and wonted share does not increase to that Degree as to need to be lessened by the flowing of the Courses so there is so great
the Infant The third Tunicle within all these compasses the whole Birth round about defending it from all sharp exteriour humours being very soft and tender CHAP. III. Of the true generation of the parts and the increase of them according to the several days and seasons AFTER the Womb hath received the Genital Seed and by its heat hath shut them both up curdled and coagulated together from the first to the seventh day are generated many fibres bred by a hot motion in which not long after the Liver with its chief Organs is first formed Through which Organs the vital spirit being sent to the Seed within the tenth day forms and distinguishes the chiefest members This Spirit is let in through certain Veins of the Secondine through which the Blood flows in and out of which the Navel is generated At the same time in the clotted Seed there do appear three white lumps not unlike curdled Milk out of which arise the Liver the Brain and the Heart Presently after this a Vein is directed through the Navel to such the thicker sort of the Blood that remains in the Seed for the nourishment of the parts This Vein is two-forked In the other branch of this Vein is a certain blood collected out of which the Liver is first framed for the Liver is nothing but a certain mass of Blood or Blood coagulated and hardned to a substance And here you may see what a company of Veins it hath which serve both for the expulsive and attractive faculty In the other Branch are generated those Textures of Veins with a dilatation of other Veins as also of the Spleen and the Guts in the lower part of the Belly by and by all the Veins like branches gathering into one Trunk toward the upper part of the Liver meet all in the Concave or hollow Vein This Trunk sends other branches of Veins to constitute the Diaphragme others it sends into the upper part of the back-bone seated about the Diaphragme as also the lower parts as far as the Thighs Afterwards the Heart with its Veins directed from the Navel to that part of the Seed and carried as far as the Back-bone is formed These Veins suck the hottest and most subtil part of the Blood out of which the heart is generated in the membrane of the heart otherwise called the Pericardium being by nature thick and fleshy according as the heat of the Members requires Now the hollow vein extending it self and piercing the interior part of the right side of the heart carries blood thither for the nourishment of the heart From the same branch of this vein in the same part of the heart arises another vein called by some the still vein because it beats not with so quick a Pulse as the others do ordained to send the most purely concocted blood in the heart to the lungs being encompassed with two Tunicles like Arteries But in the concavity of the left part of the heart arises a great beating vein called the Aorta diffusing the vital spirit from the heart into all the beating veins in the body Under the said vein called the Aorta in the concavity of the heart there is another vein called the veiny Artery which was therefore framed to carry the cool air from the lungs to temper the great heat of the heart Now there being many veins which running from the concavity of the heart are inserted into the lungs therefore by these veins the lungs are also framed for the vein which proceeds from the right concavity produces a most subtile blood which is turned into the substance of the lungs By the great veins of the heart and liver the hollow vein and the Aorta is the whole breast generated and after that the arms and legs in order Within the foresaid time is generated the last and chiefest part of this substance that is to say Brain in the third little skin of this mass For the whole mass of the Seed being repleat with vital spirits that vital spirit contracts a great part of the Genital moisture into one certain hollowness where the Brain is formed outwardly it is covered with a certain covering which being baked and dried by the heat is reduced into a bone and so is the Skull made Now the Brain is so formed as to conceive retain and change the nature of all the vital spirits whence are the beginings of Reason and of all the Senses for as out of the Liver arise the Veins out of the Heart arise the Arteries so out of the Brain arise the Nerves of a more soft and gentle nature yet not hollow like Veins but sollid These are the cheifest instruments of all the Senses and by which all the motion of the Senses are made by the vital Spirit After the Nerves is generated by the Brain also the pith of the back-bone which cannot be called Marrow For the Marrow is a superfluous substance begot out of the Blood destined for the moistening and for the strengthening of the bones but the brain and pith of the back-bone take their beginning from the Seed being not destined for the nourishing or strengthning of the members but to constitute certain private and particular parts of the body for the motion and use the Senses that all the other Nerves may take their begining thence for from the pith of the back-bone do arise many Nerves by which the body obtains both sense and motion Here is also to be noted that out of the Seed it self are generated gristles bones tunicles for the Veins of the Liver the arteries of the heart the brain with its Nerves besides the tunicles and pannicles and the other coverings which the Infant is wrapt in Now of the proper blood of the Birth the flesh is formed and whatever parts are of a fleshy substance as the heart the liver the lights Then are all these nourished by the menstrous blood which is attracted through the veins of the Navel This is all distinctly done from the conception unto the eighteenth day of the first month in all which time it is called Seed After which it receives the name of Birth CHAP. IV. Of the nourishment of the Birth in the Womb. WHilst the Birth remains in the Womb it is cherished up with blood attracted through the Navel which is the reason that the flowers do cease alwayes in Women as soon as they have conceived Now this blood presently after conception is distinguished into three parts the purest of it drawn by the Child for the nourishment of it self the second which is less pure and thin the Womb forces upwards to the breast where it is turned into milk The third and most impure part of the blood remains in the Matrix and comes away with the Secondines both in the Birth and after the Birth Now the Infant being thus formed and perfected in the womb for the first month sends forth its Urine thro' the passages of the navel but in the last month that
Swathes pretty hard bringing them also round the Hips then take whites of Eggs beaten and a dram of Pepper in Powder which being spread upon Tow is to be applied warm to the Navel then let the Belly be well swathed This is the only remedy to ease the Pain CHAP. X. Against the extreme loss of blood which happens to women immediately after their delivery THere are many women which immediately after their Delivery do suffer great loss of blood which proceeds from a great plentitude or fulness or by reason that in their travel they took too many hot and corrosive medecines or by straining themselves too hard over-heated the blood so that after Travel it runs from them in great quantity To remedy this the woman ought to take a small quantity of wine in a spoon and if the weakness be much let her mix half a dram of Alkermes with a draught of wine and take care that she be well swaithed upward for that presses down and streightens the vessels and hinders the violent flux Give her also the yolk of an Egg to take for that recalls the natural heat to the stomach which was dispersed through the whole It would be necessary also to spread along the reins of the woman and all along the back-bone by reason of the hollow vein a napkin dipt in Oxicrate or Water mingled with Vinegar You may also lay upon each groin a Skein of raw Silk moistned in cold Water Take also of that well tempered Earth of which they make the Floor of an Oven and steep it in strong Vinegar then spread it upon a linnen Cloath and lay it upon the Reins this moderates the heat of the Blood and stops the violent flux of it Great care must be also had that all the while the blood comes from her she do not sleep for many times they are taken away in that weakness when the people think they do but take their Rest But when you see this great Flux moderated you may take away the astringent Medicines by little and little so that the Blood may cease running by degrees lest any blood should be retained that may chance to do mischief CHAP. XI What is to be done to a woman presently after her Delivery PResently after a woman is delivered if she have had a sore Travel they ought to cast her into the skin of a Sheep flead alive and put about her Reins as hot as may be upon her Belly also lay the Skin of a Hare flead alive having cut the Throat of it afterwards and rubbed the Skin with the Blood which is to be clapt as warm as may be to her Belly This closes up the dilatations made by the Birth and chases from those parts the ill and melancholy Blood These remedies are to be kept on two hours in Winter and one hour in Summer After this swathe the Woman with a Napkin about a quarter of a yard large having before chafed the belly with Oyl of St. John's-wort Then raise up the Matrix with a linnen Cloath many times folded then with a little pillow about a quarter of a yard long cover her Flanks then use the Swathe beginning a little above the Hanches yet rather higher than lower winding it pretty tite Lay also warm Cloaths upon the nipples letting alone those remedies which are proper for the driving back of the Milk which are not so soon to be applied for the body is now all in a commotion and there is neither vein nor artery which doth not beat Wherefore those Remedies that chase away the Milk being all dissolving therefore it is not proper to put such Medicines upon the Breast during that commotion for fear that those medecines should make a stop of any thing hurtful in those parts and therefore it is better to give ten or twelve hours for the Blood to settle in as also for that which was cast upon the Lungs by the agitation of Travel to distil down again into its place You may also make a restrictive of the white and yellow of an Egg beaten together with an Ounce af Oyl of St. John's wort and an ounce of Oyl of Roses an ounce of Rose-water and an ounce of Plantain-water beat all these together very well in this you may dip a linnen cloath folded double and apply it without warming of it to the Breasts This comforts and eases the pains of that part She must not sleep presently but a matter of four hours after her delivery you may give her some nourishing Broth or Caudle and then if she will she may sleep CHAP. XII Of women that have a great deal of Blood and purge not neither in their travel nor after SOme women have great Superfluity of Blood and yet purge not at all neither in their Travel nor afterwards to which if remedies be not applied the Women do run great Hazards and Dangers in their lying in great Suffocations of the Matrix and continual Feavers this may be remedied being first informed of their natural disposition before they were with Child knowing that when they had their purgations they had them in great quantity and for a good while together as also when they came being a gross and thick Blood and therefore seeing that now they do not purge in great quantity and that they have divers unquietnesses weaknesses of the Stomach and pains of the head wherefore you may give her in the Morning a little Syrup of Maiden-hair and Hysop-water mingled together and Syrup of Wormwood with White-wine in their broths you may boyl Jacines and opening Herbs keeping the belly soluble with Clysters she must eat no solid Meat she must be well chafed from the Groins down to the very Ankle-bone always strokeing and carrying the hand down-ward Blood-letting also in the Foot in the morning is not amiss as also fome Fumigation that cleanses the Matrix and draws down the Blood Yet care must be had that these last Remedies be not used before the Matrix be put into its place for fear that these remedies should draw it down too low but about eight or ten Days after the Matrix was put into its place For cleansing the Matrix you may use this Receipt Take Pellitory Sanicle Camomile Melilot Greenbalm Red-balm white Mullein Mallows Marsh-mallow Betony Margeram Nipp March-violets Mugwort take of each a like quantity and cut them small and let them boyl in a new pot with three pints of good White-wine let the Woman take the fume of this Receipt three times in a day if she have any gross Blood in the Matrix it will undoubtedly bring it down You may also chafe the Womans Belly with Oyl of Violets this helps the Purgations being once dissolved The reason why this thick Blood stays in these parts is because the Woman having it before she was with Child the heat of the Womb when she is with Child redoubling thickens it more so that when she comes to lie down it cannot flow so that it is
to be taken away as much as may be with the aforesaid means Mollyfying Fomentations are also proper for this purpose while the woman sits over the fumigation CHAP. XIII For those who have but a little blood THose Women that have but little blood ought not to lie in their beds as those who have a great deal They ought to take good nourishment in a little quantity As Eggs well boyld in the shell in a Morning The juyce of Mutton and Veal squeezed out and Mutton broth and all these being mingled together nourish very much and make very good blood as also Pigeons Partridge Mutton Quaile and such other meats good for the stomach CHAP. XIV What is to be done to the Infant THE Midwife having tied up the Navel-string as is before said she ought next to cleanse the Infant not only in the face but also over the whole body anointing the groins hips buttocks thighs and joynts with Oyl of sweet Almonds or fresh Butter this makes the skin more firm and shuts up the pores of the skin so that the exterior air cannot come to hurt it and besides this it strengthens all the parts of the body It would not be amiss to make a bath or decoction of Roses and Sage in Wine and with that to wash the Infant every morning After the Infant is thus well anointed and after that well dried and wrapped up you may give to the Infant a little Sack and Sugar in a spoon or else the quantity of a Pease bigness of Mithridate or Treacle dissolved in Wine with a little Carduus-Water CHAP. XV. How to Govern Women in Child-bed THere is great difference in the governing Women in Child-bed for she that thinks to order an ordinary labouring or Country-woman like a person of quality kills her and she that thinks to govern a person of quality like an ordinary Country-woman does the same to her For the Stomach and Constitution of the one is tender and weak and the Constitution and Stomach of the other strong and lusty which will not be satisfied with ordinary Viands For if you give to one of these strong Stomachs presently after their delivery any strong Broth or Eggs or a draught of Milk they are like Mills that always grind and empty as fast as they pour in and that that gives one Woman a fever keeps another from it and therefore Women in Child-bed are to be governed by their several Constitutions As for Women that are delicate and have been accustomed to live delicately greater care must be taken of them giving them meats that breed good nourishment and do not clog the stomach forbearing also to give her those meats to which she has too great a dislike agreeing to her humour provided that the meat which she loves be not hurtful and giving her for the first eight days of her lying in boyled meats rather than rosted as gellies c. the juice of Veal or Capon but not Mutton it being too feverish giving her to drink Barly-water or else water boyled wherein is boyled a dram of Cinnamon to every pint and two ounces of Sugar dissolved or if she do not love Sugar Coriander-seed water if she drink wine let it be two thirds of water to one third of wine giving her in the morning white-wine and in the afternoon Claret taking care of eating any thing that may breed any crudities She may also take at the discretion of those about her Almond-milk now and then There are some women that cannot be kept from sleeping and others that cannot sleep at all It will not be amiss to give to those that cannot sleep French barley-water the way to make it well is to let it boyl well and to take the broth without straining it neither ought it to be taken after the eight days are past by reason that it nourishes exceedingly and does not a little obstruct the Liver CHAP. XVI Of the Bathings that a Woman is to use for the first eight days of her lying in TAke a good handful of old or new Chervil and boyl it in a sufficient quantity of water then taking it from the fire add to it a spoonful of Honey of Roses this draws down the Purgations cleanses and heals the part The herb it self may serve for a fomentation to take away any inflammation There are some that use milk to the purpose aforesaid affirming that it is a great asswager of the pain but that having been proved by others hath been observed rather to engender filth than to be any way a clearer by reason that the sharp humour causeth it to curdle CHAP. XVII How a Midwife ought to govern her self in case a Woman be to be Delivered of two Children TAE Travel of a Woman bringing forth two Infants is more tedious and it many times happens that one of the Children comes forth very well and the other comes forth very hardly and this is certain that that which comes forth first is always the strongest having the power to go before the other and to break the membranes that enveloped it And oft-times while the first is born the other remains behind wrapt in such membranes as the former was so that it remains a good space behind the other sometimes two hours and yet it hath been very well born Now knowing that that which came first was the strongest it would not be amiss to assist the other in coming forth by breaking the Membranes that contain the waters and if that fail by giving strong Clysters to excite the pain which were it not many times done the Child would never be able to endure the pain of coming into the World by reason of its extraordinary weakness which is so great sometimes that the bone of the Forehead is divided and separated down to the nose although the Infant being born it joyns together again and the Infant does very well Which if it happen you must have a great care to bind some kind of soft pillow upon the place that the air may not enter in If the second Child come forth ill you must not delay to break the Membranes and to draw the Infant gently out by the feet For having used all its endeavours to come forth to keep it there or to prolong the Travel any longer is more dangerous than profitable sometimes two come so suddenly the one after the other that there seems to be but one Delivery of both there being but a little Membrane that separates them In this case holding the first you must cut the Navel-string and bind it about and tye it about the Hip while they draw forth the other Infant which by a longer stay would be much weakned CHAP. XVIII Of the danger that a Woman hath to purge her self for the first days of her Lying in IT is an ordinary thing for Women that lye in by reason of their bed to lose the benefit of their bellies which hinders the evacuation of their Milk which causes Fevers by
Matrix by reason of which glutinous Humours the Secondines stick to the Matrix These are no way else to be pulled away but by the Hand of the Midwife Thirdly the Secondines are hard to come away if all the waters come away with the Infant for then the Secondines being left without moisture cannot come away by reason of the driness of the womb besides that the Matrix and the Neck of the womb are rougher by reason of the driness thereof for these waters render the way slippery and easie both for the Infant and for the Secondines which being slipped away the womb is to be anointed with Juices and Oils Fourthly when the Mouth of the Matrix by reason of the pains of Child-bearing swells as often happens unless there be a provident care taken to prevent it Fifthly when the Neck of the Matrix is streighter and more close and for that reason fat Women travel with much more difficulty Therefore when the Secondines do make any extraordinary stay the Midwife is to use all her endeavour to make way for them for that retention causes suffocation and divers other Evils for being long detained they putrifie and cause an evil smell which ascending up to the Heart Liver Stomach Diaphragme and so to the Brain cause pains in the Head and Lungs shortness of Breath Faintness cold Sweats so that there is great danger and also Apoplexies and Epilepsies are not a little to be feared Now in all the time of their stay the Women are to be refreshed with convenient Food to add strength to them giving them sometimes the Yolks of Eggs boiled in old wine with Sugar and sprinkled over with Saffron and Cinamon or some Broth made of Capon or Hen seasoned with Cinamon and Saffron It may not be amiss to make certain Perfumes for the Woman to receive up into her womb made of Saffron Castor Myrrh and Cinamon of each the quantity of a Bean and care must be had that the Fume pass no further than the Matrix and this may be done till the Fume of these Spices shall cease After this a little sneezig Powder is to be put into to her Nostrils composed of Hellebore or such like the Woman shutting her Mouth hard and keeping her Breath If these things prevail not give her this following Potion Take Trochisch of Myrrh ten grains of Saffron one Scruple of Cinamon Penny Royal waters two ounces make of this one draught and give her after she hath taken this and rested a little while let a Pessary of Hellebore and Opoponax wrapt up in pure wool be thrust up into the neck of the womb This will certainly bring down the Secondines for it is of so great vertue that it is efficacious in expelling the Child which is dead together with the Secondines Take Mallows Hollihock Wormwood Mugwort Calamint Origanum each one handful make a Bath and let her sit therein up to the Navel and stroke ever downwards with her Hands and give her inwardly Myrrh a Scruple Cinamon poudered in Nutmeg-water or wine or drink Calamint or Penny-Royal in wine Neither will it be amiss to anoint the Matrix with the Ointment called Basilicon if this doth nothing avail toward the bringing down of the Secondines and that the Woman is in great danger of her life then with the Consent of her Husband and Kindred give her seven of the following Pills which being taken let her lie still 'till the vertue of them do provoke new Pains for they are of so great Vertue that they also do expel the dead Child together with the Secondines yet herein it will not be amiss to consult the skilful Physician The Pills are these Take of Castor Myrrh Liquid Storax of each a scruple the bark of Cinamon or Cassia and Birthwort of each half a scruple Agaric half an ounce Diagridium 6 grains Saffron Siler of the Mountain Savin of each 3 gr Thebaic Opium Assa faetida of each one gr mingle all these with as much extracted Cassia as is sufficient and make of them certain Pills as big as pease and give them to the Woman in a small quantity of Penny-Royal water It may be also expedient to apply this ensuing Plaister Take one part of Coloquintida boiled in water and as much of the juice of Rue with these mingle Lineseed Fenugreek Barly meal of each a spoonful let them all boil together and the Plaister made of these must be laid upon all that part from the Navel to the Privities CHAP. XXVIII Of cases of Extremity and first what is to be done to a Woman who in her Travail is accompanied with a flux of blood and with Convulsions IN the first place great care must be had as to the situation of the Woman The Woman in this case must be laid cross her Bed where she must be held by some one that hath strength that she may not slide or move her self in the operations of the Chirurgion Her thighs must be held hard and wide abroad with her legs bent backwards towards her Hips and her Head leaning upon a Bolster the reins of her Back and her Crupper being a little elevated with certain pillows put underneath her Thighs besides this she must be well cover'd with linnen Cloaths laid upon her stomach Belly and Thighs to defend her from the cold and wind Being thus situated the Chyrurgion ought to put up his Hand being first well opened within the neck of the womb to remove all those clots of blood which may lie there to obstrust the passages of the blood He may then try if the interiour neck of the womb be sufficiently dilated that he may put in his hand and move the Infant if it be needful which must be done as gently and with as little violence as may be He must anoint it on all parts with sweet-butter or good Pomatum and so opening it by little and little he may put his hand quite in and if the waters are not yet come down he may without any difficulty let them forth and then at the same instant if the Infant comes with the head forwards he shall gently turn it to find out the feet and when he hath found one of them he shall gently draw it forth and immediately tye a riband about it with a knot hanging downward then let him put it in again suffering part of the riband to hang out that he may more easily be able to find out the other foot which he shall quickly do by thrusting up his hand along the thigh of the Infant when he hath found it he shall take the other foot and draw them both together at an even length giving the woman now and then some leisure to breath but urging her still to strain her self when she feels the pains coming on her Then shall the Chirurgion or Midwife take a fine linnen cloth and wrap about the thighs of the Child lest by taking it naked his fingers should slip in that manner drawing
it forth 'till it appear all come forth observing still that the Belly and the Face be still kept downward Now if the woman hath a flux of blood and that the neck of the Matrix be open the Chirurgion ought to consider whether the Infant or the Secondines come forth first of all for it oftentimes happens that the Secondines passing toward the mouth of the Matrix do so stop and obstruct it that they do not give leave for the Child or the Waters to come forth so that some perceiving that softness are presently of opinion that the mouth of the Womb is not open But this the Midwife or Chirurgion may easily discern by thrusting up the middle finger as high as may be and feeling therewith the circumference of the neck of the Womb by which they will soon perceive whether the Womb be dilated or no and whether it be the Secondines that present themselves Now when it is found to be the Secondines and that they cannot easily come forth the Midwife may with her two fingers widen the passage that she may have thereby the liberty to put up her hand and seek for the Infant Now if the Secondines be not placed in the middle they must be turned a little as quickly as may be that you may more conveniently seek for the feet of the Infant to draw it forth as we have said In such a case as this all care must be had that nothing be broken and that every thing be brought out whole for so though the woman should die the Midwife or Chirurgion would be blameless If the Secondines come first the best way is to deliver the Woman with all the expedition that may be by reason of the great fluxes of blood that will follow by reason that the veins are opened But here are two things to be considered the first is whether the Secondines are much or little come forth if they are but little advanced they must be put back with care and diligence and if the head of the Child appear first it must be guided directly toward the neck of the Womb as in the most natural birth but if there appear any difficulty in the birth by reason of the weakness either of the Child or of the Mother then the most convenient way will be to seek for the Feet as we have said before Another thing to be observed is that if the Secondines be so far advanced that they cannot be put back and that the Child follow it close then are the Secondines to be pulled away with all the care and expedition that can be and to be laid aside without cutting the Entrail that sticks to them for by that you may be guided to the Infant which whether it be alive or dead is to be pulled out by the feet with as much care and quickness as may be though it is not to be done but in case of great necessity for otherwise the Secondines ought to come last If the Child be dead in the Womb of the Mother the Woman is then to be situated in the same posture as when she is troubled with a flux of blood If it present it self dead with the head foremost and that there is little or no hope that the woman may be delivered without assistance and that her strength begins to fail her the most certain and safe way is to put up the hand For the Chirurgion must then slide up his left hand being hollowed as when a Man strives to hold water in it causing it to slide in the neck of the Womb along the lower part thereof toward the feet and that between the head of the Infant and the neck of the Matrix And having thus opened the Womb with his left hand he shall with his right put up his hook above his left hand between the head of the Child and the flat of his hand and fix in in the bone of the temple toward the ear or else in the hollow of the eye or in the Occipital bone keeping his left hand still in its place after this gently moving and stirring the head with his left hand with his right hand holding the hook well fixed he shall draw the Child forth by degrees exhorting the Woman all the while to force and strain her self with all her power and then is the best time to draw forth the Child when the pains shall seize her now if it happen that he lose his hold in one place the danger is nothing for he hath the liberty to fix his Instrument better in another place The head being thus drawn forth he must with all speed that may be slip his hands down the Child's arm-holes to draw forth his shoulders and the rest of his body In the mean while it will be requisite to give the Woman a small draught of wine or a tost sopt in wine of Hipocras If after these Medicines following adhibited the Child make no haste into the World but lies unmoved in the Womb then you may proceed to Instruments after another manner First of all as soon as the Woman is brought to bed let her take this following potion hot and abstain from all other meat and remain quiet for the space of an hour or two 'till she feel the power and efficacy of the Medicine Take seven cut Figs Fenugreek Motherwort-seed and Rue of each two drams water of Peny-royal and Motherwort of each six ounces boil all these to the consumption of half strain them and to the straining add Trochischs of Myrrh one dram three grains of Saffron Sugar as much as is sufficient make one draught of this and spice it with a little Cinamon After she hath rested a little upon this let her again return to her travel at what time certain perfumes must be made ready of Trochischs composed of these following Spices to be cast on the coals and so used as that the perfume may only come to the Matrix and no further Take Castor Sulphur Galbanum Opoponax Pigeons-dung Assa-faetida of each half a dram mingle all these with the juyce of Rue and make a Trochisch of them in the form of a Filberd If these produce no effect you may use this following Emplaister Take Galbanum an ounce and a half Coloquintida without the grains two drams the juyces of Rue and Motherwort new wax as much of each as is sufficient of each make a plaister Let this be spread upon a cloth to reach from the Navil to the Privities and in breadth to both the sides which she may keep on for the space of an hour or two A Pessary may be also convenient made of Wool and closed over with silk and then moistned in the following Decoction Take of round Birth-wort brought from France Savin and Coloquintida with Grains Staves-acre black Ellebore of each half a dram bruise these together and make a Pessary with as much of the juyce of Rue as is sufficient But now if all these things
within side with Oil of Henbane-seed Of the defect abundance and coagulation of the Milk THE defect of Milk arises from a double cause for either it is a defect in the blood which is dried up by reason of some hot maladies of the body either through intemperancy of the Liver through fasting or too much evacuation If the deficiency of milk come from these causes it may be increased again either by prepared Crystal The leaves also root and seed of Fennel do avail much in this particular and the powder of Earth-Worms prepared and drunk in Wine as also the Electuary called Electuarium Zacuthi There is another cause which proceeds from the Lactifying quality which is many times so weak that it can neither attract nor concoct the Blood by reason of some outward refrigerating and astringent qualities or by reason of some other Diseases The Cure of which being looked after in their respective places much conduceth to the restoring of that defect The redundance of milk proceeds from too great a plenty of blood and a strong lactifying quality In the cure of which the increase of blood is to be impeded which is done by drying up that humour and diversion to which blood-letting conduceth much Medicines also that drive it back are to be put upon the Breasts towards the Arms to which purpose Hemlock boiled in Chervil-water and Vinegar avails Curdling of the milk is when the thinner part of the milk exhales and the more gross and heavy part stays behind which many times is the cause of tumours kernels and Aposthumes In this case the Infant is not to suck the part affected though that Breast is also to be suckt for fear lest the milk which is newly generated should be curdled and knotted by that which is there already and so that part of the coagulated milk may be hindred from putrifying To the dissolving of the Milk it much conduceth to wash the Breast with Water Wine and Vinegar mixt together as also a Fomentation made of the decoction of Marsh-mallows Fenugreek and Melilote and then anointing them with a liniment of Oil of Roses Oil of sweet Almonds juice of Parsley and Vinegar wherein let the Gall of a Hare be first dissolved Hemlock water in this case also is not a little commended Of the Diseases of the neck of the Womb and first of the Disease called Tentigo TENTIGO is a Disease in Women when the Clitoris increases to an over great measure the subject of this Disease is the Clytoris or nervous piece of flesh which the lips or wings of the privities do embrace and which suffers erection in the act of Venery The signs of it are evident for it hangs below the orifice of the Privities as big as the neck of a Goose The causes hereof are a great concourse of Humours or nutriment by reason of the laxity of it which happens by often handling The Cure is performed by the diminution of the blood and drawing out of the other humours A slender and refrigerating diet is also necessary and such things as have a discussive faculty as the leaves of Mastick-tree and the leaves of Olive-tree In the next place by taking away the excrescence to which purpose gentle Causticks may be first applied as Allum and the Aegyptiack Ointment and that Lie whereof Sope is made being boiled with Roman Vitriol to which at last you may add some Opium and form the composition into Trochisques which being afterwards made into a powder is to be sprinkled upon the fleshy excrescence At length the flesh is to be out away either by binding hard or by section care being taken that you avoid an inflammation There is another Disease which is called Cauda which is a carnous substance proceeding from the mouth of the Womb which sometimes fills up the privy parts and sometimes thrusts it self outwards like a tail The Cure of this is the same with the former only if it come to Section it may be done either with a Horse-hair or a silken thread wound about it being first dipt in Sublimat water or else with a Knife Of the narrowness of the neck of the Womb. THIS narrowness is either of the Womb it self or of the Orifice of the Womb the signs are the stoppage of the Courses followed with a depressing and weighty pain The cause is partly natural from the Nativity and partly varies according to the differences of the Disease The difference is in this it hapning sometimes that this streightness consists in the exterior orifice whereby neither the Flowers have free passage neither can she enjoy coition or conceive with Child because she cannot receive either the Man or the Seed Sometimes the narrowness is in the interior orifice of the Womb into which the flowing retires back again to the absolute hindrance of Conception sometimes it is occasioned by way of compression when the Caul being fatter than ordinary lies upon the neck of the Womb. Sometimes the splaying of the thighs stone in the Bladder or some tumour in the straight gut Sometimes it happens by the clinging of other parts together which happens either from the Birth and then either the Flesh which appears red and is soft to the touch intercepts the passage or else the Membrane which seems white feels hard being touched In the Cure of this the use of moist Fomentations is very prevalent and an insection is to be made perpendicularly great care being taken for fear of hurting the neck of the Bladder The Humour is next to be provoked forth and a Tent dipt in some suppurating Plaister is to be put up the next day it is to be washed with water and Honey and cicatrizing Plaisters to be applied if it come after the Birth it is either occasionâ—d by an Ulcer and then either the sides of the neck cling together in which case either incision or cauterization is to be used or else there is a brawny substance which is to be cut away with a Pen-knife or else some spongy and luxuriant flesh in which case drying and dâ—â—cuâ—â—ng Medicines â—re to be used as Birthwort Frankincensâ— Myrrh and Mastick afterwards you may apply things to eat it away and last of all to cut it away by incision Of Wheals Condyloma's of the Womb and of the Hemorrhoids THE Wheals of the Womb are certain risings in the neck of the womb which by their acrimony excite both pain and itching The signs of them are an itching pain and full of scurf from that part for the better searching of which the Instrument called speculum Matricis is to be used The Causes of this are certain cholerick sharp and adust humours and thick Among the preparing Medicines Syrup of Fumitory is much commended and Chichory with a decoction of Lupines Topicks also are useful that discuss and mitigate the humour as Baths and insessions and the washing of the place with Wine and Nitre which is often to be used These Wheals are divided into gentle and
venemous which are said to be contagious they are to be washed in a water thus made Take of Aloes the quantity of a Pea of the flower of brass the quantity of half a Pea powder these and mingle them in an ounce of white-wine Plantain-water and Rose-water of each an ounce which is to be kept in a glass vessel Condyloma's are certain swelling wrinckles in the neck of the Womb with pain and heat There is no need to tell the signs of these for they are apparent to the eye the wrinkles are like those which appear in the hand when you close the first but are much bigger when the courses flow they are caused by adust and thick humours some of these are with an inflamation which have more pain and heat and the swelling is hard In the cure of which you must use insessions and fomentations that ease pain sometimes they come without any inflammation which if they be new come are to be dried up if they be old they are first to be softned afterwards to be digested and dried up for which purpose you may use powder of Egg-shels burnt or this Oyntment Take of the Trochisques of Steel one dram powdered mixt with a little Oyl of Roses and Wax with half an ounce of the juyce of Mullein if this profit not the Warts are to be shaved away with a knife and an astringent powder laid upon them Hemorrhoids of the Womb are little protuberancies like those of the Fundament produced in the neck of the Womb through the abundance of feculent blood the subject is the neck of the Womb for where the Veins end there do grow these extuberancies just as in the Hemorrhoids The signs are evident and easily seen by the help of the Speculum Matricis The women who are thus affected look pale and are troubled with a weariness The cause is a feculent blood which flowing to these Veins before its season and setling there grows thicker so that it cannot pierce the orifice of the Veins They are cured by a revulsion of the humour First by letting blood in the Arm. Secondly by drawing it to another part as by letting blood in the heel Sometimes these Hemorrhoids are very painful and are distinguished from that menstruous effluxion by the pain which they bring they are cured by mittigating and asswaging inâ—eâ—â—ions â—s also by Opiates carefully applied Others are without pain to which the foresaid remedies may be applied Others are open and do sometimâ—s run moderately and then Nature is to be â—et alonâ— or violentâ—y so that thereby the strength of the person is impaired in which case a Vein must be opened in the arm two or three times purgation is also to be used by Myrobolans Tamarind and Rheubarb and at length you must apply those things which cease the blood Others are termed blind out of which there issues no blood they are cured by blood-letting the part is to be also softned and fomented with things that soften and open the orifices of the Veins and dispel the humour such are an Oyntment made of the pith of Coloquintida and Oyl of sweet Almonds or the juyce of Capers mixt with Aloes neither is the applying of Horseleaches amiss The Cure of these Excrescences at their first budding forth may be attempted by drying and astringent Medicines as with the tops of Brambles and Horse-tail with the Leaves and Berries of Myrtles and Sumach with the rind of Pomgranats Balaustins scales of Brass wash'd Lime Allom and the like made into fomentations or powder'd and mixed with Oyntments and applied upon Tow. If these do not check their growth you may cut them off with a Knife or Scizers and consume the remaining roots by Escharoticks or actual Cautery and then proceed in the cure by digestion and Epuloticks accordingly To prevent their growing again Authors commend the ashes of Vine and Bean-stalks mix'd with Vinegar to apply upon the part The Cure of Chaps or Fissures consists in removing the Callosity and Cicatrizing them smooth if moisture abound things that are dry must be used To which purpose Take of the flowers of Red-Roses of Myrtle-Berries of the tops of Brambles each one handful of the roots of Tormentil and Bistort each one ounce of Allom one dram boyl them in a pint and an half of Steel-water towards the end of boyling add four ounces of red wine wherewith foment the part then apply what follows Take of Litharge and Ceruse each three drams of Sarcocoal Mastick and Frankincense each one Scruple of Sealed-earth two Scruples of Oyl of Roses four ounces of Wax a sufficient quantity mingle them over the fire then beat them in a leaden Mortar for use If dryness be the fault you must dress them with Medicines that are moistening as Take of Calves fat of Ducks and Hens-grease each two drams of Litharge of Gold one dram mingle them in a leaden Mortar according to art The material cause of all these sorts of Excrescences is flegmatic or gross clammy blood thrust forth by the strength of the expulsive faculty out of the Pores of the skin and dry'd up into these forms in which you see them All these species of Excrescences are for the most part Symptoms of the French Pox. Of the Ulcers of the neck of the Womb. THE signs of these Ulcers is a pain and perpetual twinging which increases if any thing that hath an abstersive quality be cast in the issuing out of putrid humours and matter with blood if the Ulcer be great or the Flowers come down often making water and the water hot as also a pain in the fore-part of the head toward the roots of the eyes as also some kind of gentle Fever The Cure of this is hard because of its being in a place of so exquisite sense and moist and having such a sympathy with other parts of the Body For the easing of the pain Chalybeated milk is very much conducing and to the drying of them up drying baths are the best and most prevalent remedy These differ much coming either from external causes as rash Physick hard labours and violent coiture or from internal causes as the corruption of the Secondines the Courses retained and the Urine flux a virulent Gonorrhea the Pox inflammations turned into Apostems humors flowing from other parts of the body and there setling all which must be duly considered in the Cure Others are in the outward part and may be easily come at with Medicines others deep and must be come at only with injection for which purpose use this following Take whites of four Eggs beat them well and put to them an equal quantity of Rose water and Plantain-water as much in quantity as they come to Câ—mphire Ceruse Litharge of Gold and Bole-Armoniâ—ck of each a like quantity green Copperas half as much as of any of them beat all to powder mix it and strain it through a cloth and make your injection 'till the part infected be whole and if there be
humor which consumes the Patient with a continual Fever If it be an Erisypelas or St. Anthonies fire there is no cure at all because the Birth dies by reason of the excessive heat which causes abortion to follow which kills the Woman if it turn to a gangrene it is deadly it is cured as other inflammations which may be observed in the following Chapters Only observe that for revulsion you must not let blood in the veins of the thighs for that draws down the blood to the womb but in the arm the blood flowing from the Liver and the parts adjoyning For deriving of the matter you may cut a vein in the ham unless the Woman be with Child for that will cause abortion Refrigerating and moistning Topicks without any binding faculty may be well applied to which purpose the decoction of wild Thyme prepared with Chalybeat water and outwardly applied with a sponge is an excellent Remedy These inflammations sometimes affect the whole womb and sometimes either side of the Womb which causes the heat to descend into the Hip because of the ligaments of the Womb which are carred thither the thigh is difficultly moved and the groins are inflamed sometimes the inflammation possesseth the posterior part which causes the belly to be bound and a pain in the loins and back-bone sometimes it possesseth the forepart which because it coheres to the bladder the Urine is suppressed or made very difficultly and the pain is extended above the Privities Semetimes it possesses the bottom of the Womb which causes such a pain in the lower part of the Belly that it is hardly to be touched and the pain extends to the Navel There is another inflammation which degenerates into a Scirrhus whereall the symptoms are not so dangerous yet there is a great heaviness perceived in the parts adjoyning This evil is diuturnal and commonly ends in the Dropsie sometimes it turns to an Apostem swelling 'till it break In this case the body is troubled with a shivering especially towards the Evening when the Apostem is broken sometimes it empties it self into the concavity of the Womb wherein there is less danger and sometimes in other parts of the Body which causes sometimes a stoppage in the Urine and sometimes in the Belly with a swelling of the hairy parts and the feeling of something floating up and down Of the Schirrus of the Womb. THE Schirrus of the Womb is a hard swelling of the said part without pain begot by some thick earthly and feculent Humour the signs besides others that are general are these in particular The Flowers at the beginning are either wholly stopt or flow very sparingly the evil increasing there is a great flux of blood by intervals the mouths of the Veins being opened more than ordinary or because the Womb is not able to receive or to retain its wonted proportion of blood It is distinguish'd from the Mole because in that distemper the Flowers if they flow flow inordinately the Breasts swell with Milk which in the Schirrus grow very lank The cause of this is a gross feculent humour being a thick blood sometimes Flegmy sometimes melancholy which happens to those who decline in their age or to those who have been troubled with a squeamish and naughty stomach Often it arises from an ill cured Inflammation through the use of Medicines that cool too much The Cure is difficult either because having been dried for a long time they cannot be softned or because the natural heat in those places where the Schirrus is is for the most part extinct and then because while the humour is mollifying if it have conceived any putrefaction it easily turns to the Cancer For the cure it is the same as of the Breasts It differs either as being in and possessing the substance of the Womb which causes the Womb to lean downward upon the Hip and Back and there begets pain sometimes possessing the neck of the Womb which is discerned by touching it and is cured more easily than the former If it be in the upper part of the neck of the Womb the Woman is hindred in the lower part of the neck of the Womb the streight gut is affected Of the Dropsie of the Womb. THE Dropsie of the Womb is a distemper from water collected in the Womb either by some fault in the part it self or in the parts adjoining The signs of this are a loose swelling at the bottom of the belly extending it self according to the proportion of the Womb the fewness and naughtiness of the Courses a moistness and slenderness of the neck of the Womb softness of the Breast want of Milk a shivering in the Body and sometimes a Fever It differs from an inflammation by the symptoms above related and from an inflation in the defect of sound and distention from a Mole because in this there is a greater weight perceived at the bottom of the belly and the Breasts at the time of delivery are not without milk It differs from Conception because in the Dropsie the swelling is just according to the form of the Womb but in Conception it is always sharper In Women with Child the Flowers do not flow but in this Disease there flows such a certain bloody vitious humour without any order which ceases quickly It differs from the Dropsie of the Belly because the face of the Patient is coloured unless the Liver be any way affected the want of thirst and the ascent of the swelling from the lower part to the upper The cause of this is a water gathered there through some defect of the Liver or Spleen or through some weakness in the Womb by reason whereof it is not able to concoct or expel the Excrements or through a too immoderate defluxion of the Courses which oppresseth the natural heat or through a suppression of them which suffocates the heat The cure is to be performed by the eduction of the water and strengthening of the Womb for which purpose the use of Antimonial Pills is not a little to be commended Her diet must be of meats that breed good Juice she must drink little she must use instead of drink a Ptisan or Barly-broth made with Sassafras or Sarsaparilla if her Courses be stopt you may let her blood in the foot if the repletion be great then to let her blood in the arm will not be amiss The use of Clysters is not amiss and Fomentations are also very necessary made with the decoction of Broom wild Cucumbers Flowers of Camomile Melilot with Origan Cumin Fenel Aniseed of which you may make several injections Ointments also may be useful made of Oil of Lillies or Oil of Dill Then may you apply upon the Belly this Plaister Take of the emplaister of Laurel berries two Ounces Oil of Camomile and Melilot two ounces and a half Pigeons dung and Goats dung of each half an ounce mix them altogether and make a Plaister adding thereto a little Venice Turpentine Of the falling
out of the Womb and the pain is fixed chiefly about the orifice of the Womb the right Gut and the Bladder being affected by reason of the continual desire of expelling forth the humor In the Cure first you must seek to dissolve the clotted blood which is done by the use of Treacle dissolved in wine and then to evacuate which is performed with Agaric Aloes with the juice of Savin decoction of Rosemary with the Flowers of Cheiri in Wine Sometimes it is caused by the menstruous blood when the vessels are more open or the blood too thick which happens through the over-much use of cold drink especially when the woman is hot The cure may be found in the cure of the suppression of the Flowers Sometimes it is caused by other vitious humours collected in the concavity of the womb or adhering to the other Vessels and then these humours are to be removed with purging and evacuating Medicines Sometimes windy vapours are the cause hereof arising from the heat of the vitious humors caused by copulation It is cured by things that discuss the wind to which purpose it may not be amiss to use a Clyster made of Malmsey and Oyl of Nuts of each three ounces of Aqua vitae one ounce of Oyl of Juniper and distilled Rue of each two drams and applied warm or a mixture of spirit of wine and spirit of Nitre of each half a dram or two scruples exhibited in the spirit of Wine Sperma ceti with Oyl of sweet Almonds or a Plaister of Caranna and Tachamahacca applied to the Navel Sometimes it is occasioned by the retention and corruption of the seed For the Cure look the Chapter of the suffocation of the Matrix Of the Suppression of the Flowers THE suppression of the Flowers is the retention of the menstrual blood either by reason of the narrowness of the vessels or through some corruption of the blood The signs are evident from the relation of the Woman Yet if they are loth to confess it may be discerned by this for in Virgins the suppressed blood wanders up and down the Veins and begets obstructions changing the colour of the Body and causing Fevers In Women because the blood is carried down to the Womb where it begets many diseases it is distinguished from retention after Conception because women with Child find no alteration of affections of the mind and retain the native colour of their bodies and in the third month they shall perceive the motion and situation of the Infant and lastly the mouth of the womb is closed up The Causes of this distemper are the narrowness of the Veins and the vitiousness of the blood The Cure of this must be hastened because this suppression if it stay long begets many more diseases as Fevers Dropsies Vomiting of blood and the like The Cure is hard if it be of any continuance and if it stay beyond the sixth month it is almost incurable especially if it happen through any perversion of the neck of the Womb for then the woman is troubled with often swooning and vomiting of blood and a pain seizes the parts of the Belly the Back and the Back-bone which is attended with a Fever and the excrements of the Belly and Bladder are suppressed a weariness possesses the whole Body because of the diffusion of the retained blood through the whole body and especially the hips and thighs because of the sympathy of those parts with the veins of the Womb. In the first place the letting of blood is commended for the blood which every month stays in the body and sticks in the Veins is to be provoked downward to the Womb and therefore a vein is to be opened in the heel for so the plenty of blood is diminished and the motion of the blood is made toward the Womb if necessity requires that it should be done more than once one day a vein must be opened in one thigh and another day in the other and that which is opened for evacuation must be first opened that which is opened in the ham or heel must be done after Purgation three or four or five days before the time that the accustomed evacuations of the Woman ought to come down Cupping-glasses also are to be applied first to the more remote places as to the thighs and then to the nearer parts as to the hips Ligatures or bindings and frictions at the time of the coming down of the Flowers after Purgation of the whole body are not to be omitted In the second place the matter is to be prepared for which purpose in bodies troubled with Flegm the decoction of Guaiacum with Cretan Dittany doth much avail without provoking sweat In the third place evacuation is to be made at several times Among evacuating Medicines are commended Agaric Aloes with the juice of Savin and these Pills Take Aloes Succotrine three drams the best Myrrh one scruple extract of sweet smelling Flag Carduus Saffron of each three drams Roots of Gentian and Dittany of each five grains make them up with Syrup of Laurel-berries taking the quantity of one scrupâ—e at evening before supper In the fourth place by opening obstructions by those things which provoke the Flowers of which these are most to be commended the decoction of Rosemary with Flowers of Cheiri Pennyroyal-water twice distilled and mingled with Cinnamon-water Extract of Zedoary Angelica and Castor and the Earth which is found in Iron Mines prepared in the same manner as Steel spirit of Tartar the fat of an Eel Colubrina with the distill'd water of Savin And in the fifth place by the discussion of the dregs and relicks that remain by sudoroficks or things that provoke sweat with a potion made of a Chalybeate decoction with spirit of Tartar c. The differences of this Disease arise partly from the obstruction of the Veins of the Womb caused by a cold and thick blood and thick slimy humours mixed with the blood and coming either from some hot distemper of the Womb which dissipates the sharp and subtil humours and leaves behind the gross and earthy parts or from the cold Constitution of the Liver and Spleen especially if at the time of the menstrual Flux at what time the Flux of Blood is more violent those subtil humours happen to be dissipated and then at the time of the monthly Purgation the Party affected feels a great pain in the loins and parts adjoining and if any thing come down it is slymy whitish and blackish The whole Body is possessed with a numness the Colour pale a slow Pulse and raw Urines The Cure is the same with the former great care being taken of a gross and ill diet There is another difference of this Disease when it happens by Compression which arises from external causes as the Northern wind and long standing in cold water which may be known from the relation of the sick Person The Blood in this case is to be drawn to the lower parts by
Frictions and Baths or from internal causes as fatness or swelling of the Womb or of the lower parts in which case Medicines must be applied that asswage the swelling There is another difference which is in the hardness of the skin which happens either from the first Nativity and then the disease is not easily taken away or long after from some cold and dry distemper Concerning which look the former Chapters Another difference there is when there happens a closing up of the skin which is caused after Cicatrising of an Ulcer or by reason of some skin or Membrane growing to the Vessels of the Womb or by reason of frequent Abortion after which these Veins to which the Secondines adhere do grow together so close that they cannot be afterwards opened Another difference of this Disease there is when it happens through want of Blood which is not generated either by reason of external causes as Famine over much evacuation Issues and such like or through internal causes as a frigid Constitution of the principal parts old Age and Fevers or when it is converted to other uses as before full growth to the nourishment of the Body In Women with Child to the nourishment of the Birth In those that give suck to the increase of Milk And in fat people to the augmentation of the Fat Or when it is consumed either by External causes as over much Exercise Affrights Terrors Sadness Baths overmuch Sweating which do consume the serous quality of the Blood or through Internal Causes as are hot and dry Diseases or over-great evacuations in other parts of the Body Sometimes another difference of this Disease proceeds from the dryness of the Blood which happens to Women who in the Winter time do too much heat their lower parts by putting Coals under their Coats For the cure thereof you must use refrigerating and moistning Medicines Of the dropping of the Flowers and the difficulty of their coming down THE dropping of the Flowers is when they are coming down for many days together drop by drop This happens both from external causes as over hard labour c. And sometimes from the drossiness of the blood the passage not being wide enough For the cure of this it is convenient to open a Vein in the Arm with gentle purging as in the former Chapter Sometimes from the weakness of the retentive faculty there being at that time great plenty thinness and serosity of the blood In this case there is no pain Medicines that bind and corroborate the Stomach here must have place The difficulty of the Flowers is when they come down with pain and trouble either through defect in the Veins or in the Blood The signs of this are gathered from the relation of the sick person who is then much troubled with pain in the Head Stomach and Loins and lower parts of the body And they do either flow altogether or drop by drop as in the former disease It is a Disease more incident to Maids than married Women because the Veins of the Womb are less open in them than in those who brought forth Children It happens sometimes from a corruption of the blood that is from the drossiness and thickness thereof and then the blood clots together and there is a great pain long before the Flowers begin to come down The Cure of this is performed by attenuating Medicines Sometimes from the sharpness and acrimony of the Blood which proceeds from a mixture of sharp humours with the Body and then the genital parts do itch It is cured by those Medicines that temper the sharpness of the Humour as the four greater Seeds Violets and Flowers of Nenuphar Sometimes from windy Vapours and then the pain comes by intervals and is suddenly exasperated rumbling up and down and when the wind is forth the pain ceaseth The cure hereof is procured by evacuation of the matter and dispelling of the wind as is before declared Of the discolouring of the Flowers THE discolouring of the Flowers is when their right colour which ought to be red declines either to paleness whiteness greenness yellowness or blewishness through some defect or vitiousness of the blood The signs are apparent by the sight of the blood besides that it is accompanied with an ill smell many times also it is the cause of Fevers trembling of the body loathing of the meat pain in the stomach c. The differences of this disease consist first in the vitiousness of the blood which is caused through some distemper either of the whole body or some part thereof Sometimes the blood is affected by reason of some stoppage thereof and then the Flowers are suppressed which causeth pains in the Breast and strong beating of the Breast and if the woman begin to amend the Blood flows out with a stinking putrefaction which continues 'till the eighth day or it may be because the Blood is foul'd by the Womb being full of excrements and then you may perceive the signs of a foul Womb. Sometimes the difference of this disease consists in the mixture of the Blood with other vitious humors The Cure consists in preparation and evacuation but care must be had that because the thick humors need attenuation and that over attenuating things do melt the serous humor that you therefore do not use over attenuating things as Vinegar c. Another difference is when the Flowers decline to a whitish colour which ' proceeds from abundance of Flegm or from Putrefaction and then Ulcers follow in the Womb and barrenness follows unless the womans Flowers do happen to flow for seven or eight days together by which the woman is freed from the disease or else they break out to the parts above the groin without any tumor and burst forth a little above the Hypochondrium and then the woman seldom lives or else there will appear after some few days a great swelling in the Groyn without a head of a red colour because the Flesh is there filled up with the Blood When it inclines to yellowness or greenness the distemper comes of Choler when to a blackness and blewness from Melancholy Of the inordinate Flux of the Flowers THE disorderly Flux of the Courses is either the coming of them down before their time or else the stoppage of them for some time after the usual course of Nature They come down sometimes before their time partly by reason of internal Causes and partly by reason of external Causes as falls blows and such like casualties that open the veins Or from the expulsive faculty of the Womb too much provoked First by the plenty of blood which is known by this that the blood which is sent to the womb from all part is fluid and of its natural constitution signs of a Plethora or fulness of blood are apparent in the Woman It is Cured by blood letting if the blood abound by good diet and frequent though gentle exercise Secondly it proceeds from the Acrimony and sharpness of
the blood which is known by the hot temper of the body the blood it self is more thin and yellowish It must be Cured by evacuating Medicines as Rheubarb and such things as temper the blood whereof we have already spoken It comes also when the retentive faculty of the womb grows lank which may be known by the looseness of the Vessels of the Womb besides a moist and faint habit of the body In the Cure beware of things which are too Astringent baths wherein the force and strength of Iron may be effectual may with safety be used The subsistence and stay of the Courses beyond the accustomed time proceeds from a frustration of the expulsive faculty as when there is small store of blood which is known by this that the Woman is not troubled with the stay of the Courses and especially if she have over-exercised her self or used a spare diet before Secondly the thickness of the blood which is known by the whiteness and clamminess thereof In the performance of the Cure you must purge before too much blood be gathered together Next the Courses are to be attenuated for the performance of which Calamint and Mercurialis are to be most commended In this Case scarification of the heels is not amiss There is another difference of this Disease which arises from the weakness of the expelling faculty caused either by the frigid distemper of the Womb of which we have spoken already or by a kind of numness thereof of which we shall speak anon Of the over abundance of the Courses THE over much flux of the Courses is either a more abundant or a more lasting Purgation of the Courses through some defect either in the blood or the womb or the veins of the womb The signs are evident viz. want of Appetite Crudities a bad colour in the face a swelling in the feet and the rest of the body a waxing lean of the body and in brief a general ill habit of body The Cure if it be of any continuance is difficult if it happen to an aged woman there is none at all It requires a revulsion or drawing back of the blood interception and incrassation or thickning thereof and a closing up of the Vessels by astringent Medicines Yet observe that they must be stopt by degrees To this effect you may take this Powder Take of the seed of White Henbane red Coral of each half a dram white Camphor half a scruple and give the quantity of half a dram at a time powder of Amber Dragons-blood Bloodstones Red Coral Lettice seed of each one dram Balaust two scruples Bole armoniack two drams given in three ounces of Plantain-water Asses milk heated with Steel You may externally also apply a girdle made of the bruised leaves of Bares-foot Of this Disease there are many differences Sometimes it happens from the blood which is derived from the bottom of the Womb where for the most part lies the blackest and most clotted blood or from the neck of the Womb which is more red and fluid Another difference ariseth from the plenty of blood which appears by this that the Vessels are either broken or much opened especially in those women who have had a stoppage in their Courses for a time which presently break out again The signs of this are evident that is to say a fulness of blood in the body besides that the blood which comes forth easily curdles In the Cure you must have recourse to blood-letting which if you do for evacuation it must be done in the Hepatick Vein If the woman be weak in Salvatella of both hands In the next place the use of Cupping-Glasses is to be commended being applied with scarification to the back c. Or without scarification to the Breast being used again when the woman is troubled with difficulty of breathing In the third place ligatures and frictions of the Arms are to be used Another difference of this disease arises from a sharp blood which is known by the gnawing of the humor upon the Vessels In the Cure you must purge with syrup of Roses solutive or with leaves of Sena a pessary of Sows dung and Asses dung which is made up with Plantain water and the muscilage of the seed of Quinces is here of use if need require Another difference arises from a serous and watry blood for either the Liver is weakned or the Veins so debilitated that it cannot attract the serous or wheyie humour in the blood in this case the blood flows not forth in such a quantity nor is easily curdled If a Cloth be dipped in it and then dried in the shade it presently discolours In the Cure hereof you must look to the rectifying of the weakness of the Reins and Liver with convenient remedies for which purpose the Livers of Foxes Calves Hens c. are very good Sometimes from a Rupture of the Veins which proceeds either from a fulness of blood or from Causes that do vehemently stir up the blood especially from hard labour if it be needful you must let blood and apply conglutinating Medicines Or from a gnawing of the Vessels which is known by this that sometimes there flows forth little blood and that purulent and full of the wheyie or serous humor It arises from a sharp and corrupt blood and sometimes from the use of sharp Medicines Among the astringent Medicines the root of Filipendula is much to be commended or a decoction of the same Root Of the Whites and Gonorrhea in Women THE Whites is an inordinate eruption of an excrementitious humour collected together through some vitiousness of the blood It affects Women chiefly and sometimes also Virgins of which there are Examples Yet it is more often in women especially if they be of a moist constitution and live an idle and delicate life eating such things as are cold and moist Old women also are affected herewith through the abundance of Flegm and the weakness of the concoctive faculty It differs from the Gonorrhea because in that the seminal matter is white and thicker and flows by long intervals and issues forth in a lesser quantity from a nocturnal pollution for that is joyned with venereal imaginations and only happens in the time of sleep It differs from the discolouring of the Flowers for they though not exactly do always observe their times of Flowing Besides they happen not to Women with Child or such whose Courses are stopped It differs from the putrid humour that issues from the Ulcers of the Womb because that is joyned with the signs of an Ulcer and the putrefaction is thicker and whiter if it be mattery it is coloured with blood and issues forth with pain The Cure of this must be hastned because in a short time it endangers the making of women barren causing them to be lean to fall into a Consumption Melancholy the Dropsie fall of the Womb Swoonings and Convulsions which is the cause that though it be not hard to be cured in
the beginning yet it is afterwards very difficult for by this means the whole body accustoms it self to send forth its excrements this way and the Womb being now weakned gathers excrements apace Sometimes it proceeds from the whole body and then you may perceive the signs of an ill humor through the whole body In the Cure of this you must avoid blood-letting for that the bad humor must not be recalled to defile the blood besides that the disease is a sufficient weakning and consuming of the body The humor is discussed by the decoction of Guaiacum and China and Lentisk-wood For the drying up of the humor the Root of Filipendula doth very much conduce For astringent Medicines you may use chiefly the powder of dead men's bones the ashes of Capons-dung in rain water The Patient must avoid sleeping upon her back lest the heat of the Lungs should carry the humors toward the Womb Frictions also of the upper parts for the diversion of the humor may be used Sometimes it is caused by the Womb it self and then there will appear signs of the affection of the Womb and the Flux is not so great For the Cure of this Suffumigations of Frankincense Labdanum Mastick and Sanders are very requisite Of the Green-Sickness THE Green-Sickness is a changing of the colour of the Face into a green and pale colour proceeding from the rawness of the humors The signs of this appear in the Face to which may be added a great pain in the Head difficulty of breathing with a palpitation of the heart a small and thick beating of the Arteries in the Neck Back and Temples sometimes inordinate Fevers through the vitiousness of the humors loathing of Meat Vomiting distention of the Hypocondriack part by reason of the reflux of the menstrous blood to the greater Vessels a swelling of the whole body by reason of the abundance of humors or of the Thighs and Legs above the heels by reason of the abundance of serous humors The Cause is the crudity and rawness of the humor and quantity withal arising from the suppression of the Courses through the natural narrowness of the vessels or through an acquired narrowness of the vessels by the eating of Oatmeal Chalk Earth Nutmegs and drinking of Vinegar or from the obstruction of the other bowels Hence arises an ill concoction in the bowels and the humors are carried into the habit of the body or become habitual thereunto The Cure is performed by the letting of blood especially in the heel if the Disease be of any continuance by Purgation preparation of the humour being first considered which is performed by the decoction of Guaiacum with â—retan Dittany purging of the humor is performed with Agarick Aloes Succotrin with the â—â—ice of Savin for the unobstructing of the humor prepared Steel the root of Scorzonera Bezoarstone in diet Vinegar is utterly to be avoided The Cure of this Disease is performed by opening Obstructions by purging off vitious Humours by correcting the intemperies of the Bowels and by strengthening them First therefore a gentle purging Medicine must be given that is agreeable to the Constitution that the first region may be emptied and if the Belly be bound a Glister must be given first of all afterwards bleeding must be ordered unless the Disease is very inveterate and the Maid be inclined to a Cachexy But a Vein in the Arm must be opened tho' the Courses are stopt for at that time if you bleed in the Foot the obstructions of the Veins and of the Womb would be increased That quantity of Blood being taken away that is necessary proper purges must be used Take of the Pill Coch. major two scruples of Castor powdered two grains of Peruvian Balsom four drops make four Pills let her take them at five in the Morning and sleep after them if she can Let these Pills be repeated twice or thrice every Morning or every other Morning according to the strength of the sick and their operation After the purging Pills let her take the following Take of the fileings of Steel eight grains with a sufficient quantity of extract of Wormwood make two Pills to be taken in the Morning and they must be repeated at five in the Afternoon She must continue this Course for a Month drinking presently after the Pills a draught of Wormwood-wine If a Bolus be more pleasing Take of the conserve of Roman Wormwood and of the conserve of the inner peell of Oranges each one ounce of candied Angelica and Nutmegs candied and of Venice Treacle each half an ounce of Ginger candied two drams with a sufficient quantity of Syrup of Oranges make an Electuary take of this Electuary one dram and an half of the filings of Steel well powdered eight grains with a sufficient quantity of Syrup of Oranges make a Bolus to be taken in the Morning and at five in the Afternoon drinking upon it a draught of Wormwood wine Of the suffocation of the Matrix THE signs of the Suffocation of the Womb are a weariness of the whole body with a weakness of the Thighs a paleness and sadness of the Face a nauseousness though seldom vomiting oftentimes a loathing and distate of Meat and that sometimes with a grumbling and noise in the Belly and sometimes without The signs of the present Disease are that when the Vapours are carried up to the Heart and do there stop the vital Spirits a light swooning follows the Pulse changes and is little the Body grows cold all the spirits flying up into the Heart the Vapour being thrust up to the Head and Chaps the Chaps are many times set fast the Patient seeming to be stifled the motion of the Breast and Diaphragm is disturbed and hindred so that the breath is almost stopt the Patient living only by transpiration Sometimes there is joined with it a kind of Uterine fury with talking and anger Sometimes it causes other madness sometimes the Woman falls into a dead sleep which makes her seem as though she were dead It differs from the Epilepsie because in that the Convulsive motions are more general nor is there any memory of those things which happen about them after the Fit the Pulse is great and the Mouth of the Party affected fomes with a froth It differs from the Apoplexy because in that the Fit comes suddenly without any notice and the Patient is affected with a kind of snorting and there is such a Resolution of the parts that they feel not although they be pricked It differs from a Syncope in that there are no signs when the Fit will be the Pulse ceases to the apprehension and the Patient is troubled with cold sweats They differ from dead people by sneezing which may be provoked by putting something for that purpose into the Nose The cause of this is a venemous subtle and thin Vapour piercing in one moment through the whole body and carried up from the matter in the Womb corrupted after a peculiar manner either
go before it is impregnated with saline particles whereby the Citron colour is to be imparted to it whereof we have daily experiment in those that drink much especially of thin and attenuating Liquors for then their Urine is very clear in which case the blood being over-power'd by that quantity of serum and being wholly unable to retain it puts it off quite clear not yet died by the juice of the Body by reason of its too short stay As to the Cold by which the external parts are so often chilled it is very manifest that that happens because the Spirits forsaking their stations too officiously intrude themselves into this or that part Nor is it to be doubted that weeping and laughing fits which often seise hysterical women without any occasion are procured by the Animal Spirits forcing themselves violently upon the Organs that perform these Animal functions And now I suppose it is manifest that this whole Disease is occasioned by the Animal Spirits being not rightly disposed and not by seed and menstruous blood corrupted and sending up malignant Vapours to the parts affected nor from I know not what depravation of the juices and congestion of acrid humors as others think but from those Causes we have assignâ—d for that the fomes of the Disease does not lurk in matter will plainly appear by this one instance viz. A Woman that used to enjoy perfect health being delicate and of a thin habit of body if she chance to be weakned and exhausted by some error or by some strong Vomit or Purge will certainly be afflicted with some one of those Symptoms that accompany this Disease which would rather be removed than occasioned by such Vomiting or Purging if the fomes of the Disease was contained in matter The same may be said of a great loss of blood whether it is taken away by opening a vein or flows immoderately in Labour or of emptiness or too long abstinence from Flesh all which would rather prevent hysteric Diseases than occasion them if the fomes of them was involved in some matter whereas on the contrary nothing does so constantly occasion this Disease as these evacuations But tho' it is apparent enough that the Original fomes of this Disease is not lodged in the humors yet it must be confessed that the confusion of the Spirits produces putrid humors in the Body by reason the function as well of these parts which are distended by the violent impulse of the Spirits as of those which are deprived of them are wholly perverted and most of these being as it were separatory Organs designed for the reception of the impurities of the blood if their functions are any way hurt it can not be but a great many feculencies will be heaped up which had been elimmated and so the mass of blood purified if the Organs had performed their office which they had certainly done if a due Oeconomy of the Spirits had invigorated them To this Cause is to be attributed great Cachexies loss of appetite a Chlorosis and the White Fever in young Women which is a species of hysteric Diseases and the source of many miseries From what has been said it is very manifest that that is the chief indication in this Disease which directs the corroboration of the blood that is the Fountain and Origin of the Spirits which being done the invigorated Spirits can preserve that tenure that is agreeable to the Oeconomy of the whole body and the particular parts and therefore when the confusion of the Spirits has vitiated the humors by long continuance it will be proper first to lessen those humors so corrupted by bleeding and purging if the Patient has sufficient strength before we endeavour to corroberate the blood and which indeed we can scarce do whilst a feculent heap of humors lies in the way But forasmuch as Pains Vomiting and Looseness are sometimes so very severe that they will not bear a truce so long until we have satisfied the first intention of fortifying the blood therefore sometimes we must begin the Cure by quieting the effects the cause being let alone a little while with some anodyne Medicine and then we must endeavour to rectifie the Spirits whose infirm constitution is the cause of this Disease by which we may again endeavour to Cure such kind of Symptoms And because experience teaches that there are many stinking things that will repell the inordination of the Spirits and contain them in their places which are therefore call'd hysterics we must make use of them when we would answer such intentions According to what has been said I order the Sick to be blooded in the arm and that after bleeding she be purged three or four Mornings following The Woman thinks her self worse of those days she is blooded and purged for these evacuations promote the confusion of the Spirits which I take care to forewarn her of that she may not despair the Disease of it self being apt to incline her so to do But however those ill humours heapt up by the long continuance of the Disease are in some sort to be evacuated before we can well answer the prime intention After these evacuations some steel Remedy must be prescribed to be taken about a Month to comfort the blood and so consequently the Spirits that proceed from it and nothing will more certainly answer your intention in this case than steel for it raises a volatile ferment in the vapid and languid blood whereby the weak Spirits are roused that before were kept down by their own weight and this is very manifest for as often as Chalybeats are given in the Green Sickness the Pulse are presently greater and quicker and the outward parts grow warm and the pale and dead Countenance is changed and becomes fresh and lively But here we must take notice that bleeding and purging must not always be used before Chalibeats or when the Woman is weak and almost worn out by the long continuance of the Disease they may and ought to be omitted and you must begin with steel which must be well minded I think steel is most conveniently given in substance and as I never observed nor heard that so taken it ever injur'd any person so I have been fully satisfied by frequent experience that the bare substance performs the Cure sooner and better than any of the common Preparations of it for busie Chymists make this as well as other excellent Medicines worse rather than better by their perverse and over-officious diligence I have also heard and if it be true it much strengthens our assertion that the crude Mine as it is digg'd out of the Earth is more effectual in curing Diseases than Iron that has pass'd the Fire and bin purified by fusion So the Author affirms but I have not yet try'd whether it be so or not This I certainly know that there is no excellent and powerful Remedy which has not received its chief Vertues from Nature Upon which account grateful Antiquity
call'd excellent Medicines God's handicraft Next to the substance of the steel I chuse the Syrrup of it prepared with the fileings of Steel or Iron infused in the cold in Rhenish Wine 'till the Wine is sufficiently impregnated and afterwards strained and boiled up to the consistence of a Syrrup with a sufficient quantity of Sugar Nor do I use any purging Medicine at set times during the whole Chalybeat course for I think the Vertue of the Steel is destroy'd by a purge in hysterical Diseases and when the chief design is to reduce the Spirits to order and to renew and confirm their System If any one objects that fileings of Steel may hurt those that take them by sticking in their Bowels unless they are purged now and then I answer first that I never found any such thing in any one and it is much more probable that being involved in the slime and with the Excrementious humours of the parts they should at length pass away with them than when they are exagitated by purging Medicines which occasion unusual compressions twisting and contraction of the guts whereby the particles of the steel thrust upon the coats of the Bowels may penetrate deeper into them When the patient is in a Steel course remedies commonly call'd Hysterics are to be used as it were by the by to comfort the Blood and animal Spirits in that manner and form which is most agreeable to the sick But if she can take them in a solid form they will more powerfully retain the Spirits in their office and place than things that are liquid for the very substance affects the Stomach longer with its savour and works more forcibly upon the body than either decoctions or infusions Being about to answer all the indications I have touched upon above I use to prescribe these few and common things which commonly do what I desire Let eight ounces of blood be taken from the Arm the next Morning let her enter upon the use of the Pills of Coch. Major and of Castor as they are mentioned in the Chapter of the Green-Sickness and let them be repeated as it is there ordered Take of Galbanum dissolved in tincture of Castor and strained three drams Tachamacha two drams make a Plaister to be apply'd to the Navel Take of black Cherry-water of Rue-water and compound Briony-water each three ounces of Castor tyed up in a Rag and hanged in a glass half a dram of fine Sugar a sufficient quantity make a Julep whereof let her take four or five spoonfuls when she is faint dropping into the first Dose if the Fit is violent twenty drops of Spirit of Harts-horn After the Purging Pills are taken let her use the other Pills made of fileings of Steel and extract of Wormwood mentioned in the Chapter of the Green-sickness according to the directions there set down or she may take the Bolus there mention'd if she likes a Bolus better than Pills Take of choice Myrrh and Galbanum each one dram and an half of Castor fifteen grains with a sufficient quantity of Peruvian Balsome make twelve Pills of every dram let her take three every Night and drink upon them three or four spoonfuls of compound Briony-water thro' the whole Course of this process But if the Pills last prescribed move the Belly which sometimes happens in Bodies that are very easily purged by reason of the Gum that is in them the following are to be used Take of Castor one dram of volatile Salt Amber half a dram with a sufficient quantity of extract of Rue make 24 small Pills let her take three every Night But it is to be noted that Steel Medicines in whatsoever form or Dose they are taken occasion sometimes in Women great disorders both of Body and Mind and that not only on the first days which is usual almost in every body but also almost all the time they are taken in this case the use of Steel must not presently be interrupted at those times but Laudanum must be given every night for some time in some hysteric water that they may the better bear it but when the symptoms are mild and it seems that the business may be done without taking steel I think it sufficient to bleed and to purge three or four times and then to give the altering hysteric Pills above-mentioned Morning and Evening for ten days It is to be noted that some Women do so abhor hysteric Medicines that they are much injured thereby therefore they must not be given to such If the blood is so very feeble and the confusion of the Spirits so great that steel ordered to be us'd according to the method prescribed is not sufficient to cure the disease the Patient must drink some mineral waters impregnated with the Iron Mine such as are Tunbridge and some others lately found out But this is more especially to be observed in drinking of them viz. That if any Sickness happens that is to be refer'd to hysteric symptoms in this Case the Patient must forbear drinking them a day or two 'till that symptom that hindered their passage is quite gone But if the Disease by reason of its obstinacy will not yield to steel-waters the Patient must go to the Bath and when she has used these waters inwardly three Mornings following the next day let her go into the Bath and the day following let her drink them again and so let her do by turns for two whole Months Venice Treacle alone if it be used often and a long while is a great remedy in this Disease Spanish Wine medicated with Gentian Angelica Wormwood Centaury the yellow rind of Oranges and other Corroboratives infus'd in it does a great deal of good some spoonfuls of it being taken thrice a day if the woman be not of a thin and cholerick habit of Body The Peruvian-Bark also wonderfully comforts and invigorates the Blood and Spirits a Scruple being taken Morning and Evening But if any of the Remedies above-mention'd do not well agree which often happens in cholerick and thin Constitutions then a Milk Diet may be used but nothing does so much strengthen the Blood and Spirits as riding much on Horseback every day for a long while If the Disease be such or so great a one that it will not bear a truce 'till it may be cured with Medicines that corroborate the Blood and Spirits we must presently make use of hysteric Remedies as Assa-faetida Galbanum Castor Spirit of Sal-Armoniack and whatever else has a filthy and ungrateful smell To conclude if some intolerable pain accompanies this Disease or if their be violent Vomitings or a Loosness then besides hysteric Medicines above-mentioned Laudanum must be used which is only able to restrain these symptoms But in quieting these pains which vomiting occasions we must take great care that they are not mitigated either by Laudanum or any other Paregorick before due evacuations have been made unless they almost exceed all humane patience but if the
Air more moist than dry and his diet must be the same The best and most approved remedy is to apply a cautery in the hinder part of the Head to the nook of the Neck between the second and third Vertebra which may be done to new born Children Frictions also of the Legs Back-bone and Thighs are very profitable as also Cupping-Glasses applied to the Thighs and Legs If the Convulsion come by reason of the Worms you may give him this Clyster Take of simple Hydromel four ounces new butter one ounce powdered Aloes half a dram and make a Clyster Or you may give him two drams of Earthworms killed dried and poudered Sugar poudered one ounce and let the Child take two drams of it every day in a spoonful of Lettice-water If any venemous Vapour be the cause hereof let him take six grains of Treacle or Mithridate in Mint-water Of the swelling of the Hypochondria in Infants WHICH causeth Children by reason of the narrowness of the Mouth of the Stomach to be troubled with a difficulty of breathing It ariseth from the greediness of the Infant which either sucks too great a quantity of Milk or of other Meats The inward Cure of this is performed by administring the Powder of the root of Orrice or Paeonie Of Costiveness in Children THIS proceeds from the unskilfulness of the Nurse in the Dieting of the Child or from a cold and dry Distemper of the Guts or from the hot and dry Distemper of the Bowels in this case the Belly may be well loosned with Cassia or with a liniment composed of new Oil of sweet Almonds Goose fat May butter Ointment of Marshmallows of each two drams Colocynth gr sixteen one scruple of Salt Species Hierae one scruple Diagridion four grains make of this an ointment and anoint the Navel Or it proceeds from a viscous Flegm which wraps about and holds the dregs which may be remedied by a suppository of Mouse Dung and Goats suet or by the use of an Emplaister of Aloes Bulls-gall Myrrh and May butter to be laid upon the Navel Of looseness in Children LOoseness of the Belly happens either in the time of Teeth breeding or out of the time in the time of breeding Teeth either by reason of the corruption of the nutriment or by reason of overmuch watching through the pain of the Teeth or by reason of a Fever and some unnatural heat It must not be suddenly stopt if it be not over copious and that the Infant can endure it the Belly must be afterwards cleansed with Roses solutive and afterwards stopped great observation being had whether the cause come from a hot or cold Distemper Of Burstness in Children BUrstness happens to Children either by reason that the Peritonaeum is burst through crying or falling or splaying with the Thighs For the Cure whereof the Child must be kept quiet and still from crying upon which after the part affected is well bound up you may give the Child inwardly of the essence of the greater Comfrey one spoonful with two drops of Balsam of Sal Gemma You may also foment the place with a fomentation made of the roots of the greater Comfrey and Osmund Royal the bark of Elm and Ash Knot-grass each half an ounce the leaves of Plantain Mullein Rupture wort Horsetail Flowers of Camomile red Roses and Melilot of each a handful and a half Balaust Cypress Nuts and Acorns of each two drams put these into two bags and boil them in equal parts of sowre Wine and Smiths water for a Fomentation to be used for a quarter of an hour then you may lay on a Plaister of the red drying Ointment eleven ounces pouder of Mastick Olibanum and Sarcocol Cyprest Nuts of each one dram with a little Wax and Oil of Mastick to make a Plaister which must be put upon the place affected and bound down with a little pillow Sometimes this burstness proceeds from a watry humour abounding in the Abdomen which descending into the Cods causeth them to swell for which you may use with good success this Ointment Take of Unguent Comitiss and the red drying Ointment of each two ounces Pigeons dung half an ounce live Sulphur three drams powder of Lawrel Berries and Mustardseed of each a dram Oil of Dill and Venice Turpentine of each three drams Wax as much as sufficeth This is also an extraordinary remedy for the burstness proceeding from Wind. Of the Inflammation of the Navel THE Inflammation of the Navel ariseth when the blood gathers thither by reason of some external hurt the danger is very great if it should Apostemate and so the Guts fall down and therefore suppuration must be hindred as much as may be Of the jutting forth of the Navel THIS differs from the Inflamation because here the Navel doth not give way to the touch neither is the colour of the Skin changed neither is there any very great pain or Pulse unless the Intestines are very much fallen it proceeds from the ill binding thereof at first which is incurable or when a greater portion than needs of the Navel string is left Secondly from a laxation of the Peritonaeum and then the tumour is equal nor doth the Navel jut forth very far In the Cure hereof you must let the Child abstain from all windy meats and from much crying Sometimes it is occasioned by the rupture of the Peritonaeum the swelling is hardly perceived when the Child lies upon his back but increaseth and swells forward when he walks sits cries and bawls In the Cure of this the Moss that grows upon the wild Prune Tree is very much commended or you may make little swathbands of Leather and anoint them with Oxycroceum Of the Stone in the Bladder THIS is known by the coming forth of the Urine by drops and with pain which is sometimes unmixed sometimes containing a kind of serous humour sometimes died with a little blood It is produced either by the Milk which is engendred of meats that do increase the Stone or through a hot distemper of the Liver which attracts the Chyle and sends it unaltered to the Bladder For the Cure you must use Baths among which this is commended to anoint the Bladder withal take Oyl of Scorpions Oyl of bitter Almonds Conies Grease and Hens Grease of each an ounce and a half and of the juice of Pellitory of the Wall two ounces Or take Sal Tartar one ounce Parsly-water a Pint mix them through a fine paper rubbed over with the Rinds of Oranges and give a small quantity thereof Of the not holding of the Urine THis ariseth either from the Muscle which shuts the orifice of the Bladder which is so disposed that it is loosed upon the least exciting of the Urine and grows so into a habit that it many times accompanies them to their Graves or from the stone in the Bladder or from the weakness of the Sphincter proceeding from a cold and moist distemper which is cured partly by
bed or to keep it over-warm in apparel or give it too much meat which are things that fatten and enlarge the Flesh whereas the restraint of them diminisheth and dries it up which driness increaseth wit and much availeth toward long life According to this Rule which I have prescribed was He who of all men living that ever the World had was the wisest brought up for as soon as he was born he began to be inur'd to cold and other alterations of the air his first bed was the Earth his apparel coarse and a few days after they went with him to Aegypt a place very hot and the meat they gave him was that which I have already mentioned to have been used by the ancient Greeks Whereupon it is that the Prophet Esay saith He shall eat butter and honey that he may know to eschew evil and chuse the good For though he was very God yet being also perfect Man he omitted not to make use of the same natural remedies as were used by the rest of the sons of men Thus we have shown what the qualities are which the Brain ought to have and what the substance having proved according to the opinion of Heraclitus that driness maketh the wisest soul and that by age from the day of our birth 'till that of our death we still acquire more and more dryness and by consequence more knowledge We have also proved that the subtile and delicate parts of the Brain are corrected by what we eat for those that always feed upon Beef and Pork must of necessity have a Brain so gross and of such evil temperature that the reasonable soul cannot be so capable of eschewing evil or adhering to good CHAP. VIII Some farther Considerations than have before been mentioned concerning the gradual progress of the Births Formation in the Womb. COncerning the Gradual Formation of the Infant in the Womb of the growing up of the Fibrae within the first seven days of the Umbilical Veins and Arteries of the Formation of the Liver the Heart the Brain the Nerves the Gristles c. a particular Discourse hath been already made in this Book It remains only that we touch upon some things in reference to the same matter As the use of the two Membranules that enwrap the Birth whereof the first is called Ambiens Avicius Amnium Aurela Abcas Abigas Sela Aligas or the Armature of the Conception the latter Alanthoides Bilis Ascari Secca Involucrum which hath been formerly delivered is a thing of great consequence to be known and well considered so likewise is the consideration of the Umbilical Veins and Arteries a matter no less important These Veins meeting together a little beneath the Navel and extended along that concavity where the Liver is to be formed serve for the purging of the menstruous blood which is to be destributed through the members The two Arteries are connected with ductile ligatures unto the great Artery Through those the heart of the Embryo receives ventilation and draws spirit and the purer part of the blood from the Womb. Then after the first six or seven days the lineaments of all the members are described Next the Lineation being perfected within the space of between four and eight days after a certain sanguinous matter drawn through the Navel passeth all along through the whole Birth and being pre-disposed toward the formation of the members fills up at that time the lineatures The following days from the ninth to the fifteenth this sanguineous juice is converted into Flesh At which time also the Members receive their colour and that degree of hardness or softness which is peculiar to them like as a Painter when he hath drawn the outward lines of any Picture in the next place he fills it up with various colours according as the nature of each several part requires Thus Nature proceeds to perfect the Formation of the Heart Liver Brain and other principle Members All which things are distinctly brought to pass from the Conception to the eighteenth day of the first Month at which time it is called Seed but afterward it begins both to be called and to be a Feature But for the better retaining of these things in memory that Author did not amiss who thought fit to comprehend them in these following Verses Sex in lacte dies ter sunt in sanguine trini Bis seni carnem ter seni membra figurant Six days compleat to milk thrice three to blood convert the seed Twice six soft flesh do form thrice six do massive members breed Otherwise thus Injectum semen sex primis rite diebus Est quasi lac reliquisque novem fit sanguis at inde Consolidat duodena dies bis nona deinceps Effigiat tempusque sequens producit ad ortum Talis perficitur praedicto tempore forma The first six days to milk the fruitful seed Injected in the Womb remaineth still Then other nine of milk red blood do breed Twelve days turn blood to flesh by Nature's skill Twice nine firm part the rest ripe birth do make And thus foregoing time doth form man's shape To conclude this subject the ancients were of opinion that the heart which in all animals possesseth the middle seat like a King which hath the chief Seat of his Empire in the midst of his Dominions is both the first principal member which is formed in mans body and the last which dies But later Physitians hold that the liver is first formed next the Heart and lastly the Brain CHAP. IX Concerning the Notes of Virginity and whether or no it may be Violated without the knowledge of man ABOUT the orifice of the sinus pudoris vulgarly miscalled the Neck of the Womb is that pendulous production by some termed the Hymen by others more rightly claustrum Virginale and by the French Bouton de Rose for that it beareth a near resemblance with the expanded bud of a Rose or Gilli-flower Hence therefore originally sprung that common expression of the Deflowring of Virgins Forasmuch as the Integrity or Violation of this part is accounted the most certain and infallible sign of Virginity intire or violated some Learned Physitians that have written of this Subject esteem it a great vanity and folly to think that there is any other Hymen Moreover this word Flower is used in divers acceptations for besides the proper signification it is commonly taken for the prime or chief part of any thing and so youth is called the Flower of a Mans age or for that which is handsome or elegant and so Rhetorical expressions are called Flowers or else for such things as are not marred or spoiled by use and according to this sense a Woman deprived of her Virginity may be said to have been Deflowred or to have lost her Flower Now this Claustrum Virginale or Flower consisteth of four Caruncles or Fleshy substances called Myrtle-formed in regard they resemble Myrtle berries These four caruncles are situated as it were in the four Angles of
Mayern Physician to His late Majesty King CHARLES the First Of Ever Blessed Memory In which are contained the sufficient Testimonies of the renowned and happy successes of his management in his general Practice on the greatest Ladies of the Court and Country in the use of so publick a benefit as that of the Excellent Art of MIDWIFRY LONDON Printed in the Year 1696. TO THE Understanding Reader I Shall not need to spend many words in recommending to the World these present Observations and Experiments in Midwifry since had not my own knowledge and experience of them warranted me to give a sufficient testimony of them It had been enough to say that they were the Collections of a Person of so great a fame and therefore of so general a practice for a long series of years both abroad and in this Nation that not to mention his universal insight in all parts of Learning his judgment chiefly in matters of this nature ought not to be suspected He must needs be an absolute stranger to all the Concerns of publick fame and the knowledge of eminent men who hath not been very well acquainted though living in the remotest part of this Nation with the high reputation of Sir Theodore Mayern who not only as he was Physician to the late King but by the proof he had given of his eminent skill and perfection in his faculty has gained the greatest esteem and generality of practice at Court and among the Nobility of any man in his time By which it appears that these present Receipts extracted from the Musaeum of this excellent Person have been frequently made use of by himself among the greatest Ladies of Court and Countrey Upon this account I having had the fortune as being a near Relation of his to get these among several other of his Papers into my hands should have thought my self very injurious to the World if I had not taken the first opportunity to communicate to the publick view a matter of so publick a benefit especially since it is a business of no less importance than the preservation of Life to be very cautious what to make choice of and not easily to be satisfied with every thing that may have rashly and without mature judgment been publisht of this Subject The truth is among all the Treatises of Midwifry that I have seen set forth in our Language I have not met with any to which I can more willingly subscribe my approbation than to the works of Madam Lowise Burgeoise late Midwife to the Queen of France Therefore hearing of a second Edition of the said Treatise to come forth I thought it most convenient to annex thereunto this collection more considerable for its quality than quantity the experiences of the one having been no less approved among the Ladies of the French Court than those of the other among our great Ladies of England To conclude I shall not for this supplement go about to implore the favourable censure of the Courteous Reader but commit it to the fortune of that free reception which it cannot but meet with both from the advantageous Testimony I have alledged and the beneficial Effects I dare promise it will produce RARE SECRETS Brought to LIGHT Which for many years were locked up in the breast of that most Famous and Learned Physician Sir Theodore Mayern Physician to His late MAJESTY King CHARLES the First of ever Blessed Memory To know the time of Delivery whereby the woman may know the better how to prepare her self THE natural time of Delivery falls out to be at the end of nine months especially if at that season the Woman be wont to have her natural purgations or else if at nine Months end she happen to be near the full or the new Moon For these things hapning together not only hasten her Delivery but also facilitate the Labour To this end it is necessary that a Woman should be careful to remember and take notice of the time of her Conception that she may be able to govern her self according to the seasons as she grows near her time It is also very necessary for Women to have in memory the days and seasons of their natural Purgations not only in regard of their delivery but also in regard of several Maladies and Diseases which upon this occasion happen at the said time and of which no person can rightly judge of the cause unless those things be well known Now if it happen that a woman have mistaken or forgot as not being rightly able to observe either because of some retention extraordinary or some extraordinary and tedious flux of her natural Purgations she may redress her self by the means which follow Most commonly and ordinarily women have their natural Purgations from the age of fourteen years to twenty one at the new Moon after that from twenty one to thirty in the first quarter from thirty to thirty seven or thirty eight they have them at the full of the Moon from thirty seven to the time that they begin to cease in the last quarter Signs which precede Delivery THE Woman having a regard to the end of the nine Moons as also to the times of the full and new Moons as also to the time that she uses to have her Purgations as hath been said she must be provided of all things for her assistance and preservation Now when her Delivery is near she shall know by these signs Great pains in her groins thighs the small of her belly and all the lower parts of the Navel together with swellings and hardness in the said places Shiverings and shakings through the whole body as at the coming of an Ague after that again a sudden heat feebleness lassitude and small sweats upon the face after which the blood being inflamed rises up into the face which causes a heat and redness great unrest and changing from hot to cold from strong to weak from weak to strong and she shall feel the Child to make violent thrusts There will come bloody water from the lower parts When these signs but especially the bloody waters appear then she ought to commit her self to the care of the Midwife for before 't is in vain and may prove dangerous Nature hath so well ordered her works that the Matrix never opens it self before the time prefixed at which time these signs appear and therefore a woman ought to be very diligent in the observance of the said seasons and signs To cause the Woman to contain the Birth TAke Mint Roses Marjoram Saffron Musk as much as suffices of each put them into a bag to be hung about the neck so that it may reach to the stomach this will keep the womb from falling low An Emplaister to hinder the Monthly Flux in Women with Child TAke Oyl of Roses white Wax juyce of Male-knot-grass of each 2 ounces Bole-Armoniack Crocus Martis each six drams of this make a plaister when the Flux comes down let the woman contain
to be applied to the breasts If you would increase the milk foment the breasts with the decoction of Fennel or else give her the decoction of Mint and lay the Mint boyled upon her breasts Or if these things prevail not use this following Powder Take of Anise Fennel Cummin-seed two drams Ginger half an ounce Carui of both sorts of Pepper Coral each one dram Cinamon three drams seed of Daucus one dram Siler montan half an ounce Cardamom Long pepper each three drams Seselos half an ounce seed of Sesamum one ounce white Poppy half an ounce mingle them and make a powder thereof and take one dram at pleasure in broth made of red Coleworts Or you may use this following oyntment Take of Venice-Turpentine oyl of Roses Vinegar of Roses equal parts add to this a little new wax and therewith anoint the breasts But if the Milk do curdle and harden in the breasts First chafe the breasts well with raw honey then take of new wax two ounces new oyl of nuts and vinegar two or three spoonfuls melt them together and dip that in little round linnen clothes with holes in the middle to lay upon the breasts Now if there be any tumour or hardness caused by the coagulation of the milk then Take of the leaves of Parsley Hemlock Uinca pervinca Box and Chervile and let them boyl in the strongest Vinegar and then strain them then take oyl of Roses Lillies and sweet Almonds each one ounce of the foresaid Vinegar four ounces mingle them in a marble mortar for an oyntment adding one scruple of Camphire dissolved in part of the oyl and toward the latter end of your stirring it add the white refrigerating Ceratum of Galen Unguent of Roses of Messu one ounce and a half mingle them all well together and apply them to the hard swelling part it asswages the tumour and causes the milk to flow through the Teats If the Tumor be painful and enflamed you must not use the Camphire for it encreases the pain till that the pain be asswaged An Oyntment against the curdling of the Milk in the Breast TAke of the roots of Marsh-mallows half a pound boyl them well in Vinegar and strain them thro' a hair sieve add to this Bean-meal one ounce powder of Rue and dried Mint one dram Oyl of Mastick as much as suffices Against Fissures in the Breasts TAke Gum-Arabick most finely powdered one ounce Rose water and Aqua-vitae a sufficient quantity prepare them together till they come to a just thickness make thereof an oyntment and apply it to the said Fissures Or else anoint the said Fissures with Ointment of Roses then apply the inside of the leaf of Ground-Ivy changing often this cures within six or eight days Another of the same TAke Lytharge of Silver Myrrh Ginger and oyl-Olive as much as suffices mix them to the thickness of an oyntment before you apply this moisten the Fissures themselves with spittle but no part of the breast beside Pain in the Breasts after Delivery TAke new Wax two ounces oyl of Nuts half an ounce oyl of Rape-seeed or Turnep seed half an ounce first melt the Wax then add the Oyls dip therein the clothes cut fit to the breasts if there be any pain after delivery the application of these cloaths will with great success asswage the same An Opiate to be given to Childern newly born TAke Mithridate of Alexandria three drams Conserve of Bugloss and Roses of each one dram mingle them well together and keep them in a glass Vessel well stopt an hour or half an hour after the Child is born before it hath suckt give to it of the foresaid opiate to the quantity of a Filberd let it not suck till five hours after continue thus doing for a month giving the Child this opiate once in a week and then it will be sufficient that the Child abstain but an hours space from the Teat It will not be amiss to anoint the Navel of the Child with an ointment made of Ambergreece and Suet equal parts with a little oil of sweet-Almonds This will preserve the child from Epilepsies and Convulsions Against Barrenness TAKE of Pine-nuts first well washt in Rosewater six ounces sweet Almonds washed in like manner and bruised each two ounces Citron pill condited root of Satyrion Erythranion one ounce Pulp of Sebesten Prunes of Damascus fat boiled in Sugared water each one ounce and a half Coriander prepared three drams Pulveris Diambre one dram Penidium one ounce and a half the inner rind of Cinamon half an ounce true Amber of an Ash-colour one dram Moso one Scruple refined Sugar boiled in Rose-water one pound and a half take all these things and beat them and powder them well and make thereof a Paste so dried at a gentle fire Let the woman take this at pleasure after dinner and three hours before at pleasure abstaining from liquid meats The man also may eat of this paste but let him not use copulation at the time of the Womans Purgations nor when she bathes her self but presently after Those mornings that he abstains let him take one spoonful of the water of Cocks-blood with three or four spoonfuls of the best Broth. For the same A Syrup Take Syrup of Hempagrimony Simple Oxymel Syrup de rad each one ounce and a half waters of Nipp Betony and Mugwort of each three ounces make thereof a syrup perfectly boiled strein it and let it he aromatized with Cinamon for three doses morning and evening A Potion Take Agarick infused in Honey of Roses and a little white-Wine for a whole night one ounce Diacatholicon half an ounce Diaphenicon Elect. Ind. major each one dram and a half Syrup of Roses Solutive with Agorick one ounce with a decoction of red Chiches make a Potion thereof and give it after the Syrup is all taken for ten days and ten days before the coming of the monthly purgations Three days after the operation of the said potion let blood in Vena Saphena of the right foot and take away three ounces of blood at evening An Opiate Take of the great Triphera without Opium two ounces Methridate three ounces mix these well together and let her take thereof the quantity of a Walnut after she is let blood drinking upon the said Bolus a spoonful of Aromatick Wine white or Claret let the Patient take this when she is clean from her Purgations only in the morning while she hath them upon her only at night and then let her also make use of this Pessary Take of Spike Myrrh and Agarick and Colocynth each three drams Benedict one ounce and a half mix them well together with the juyce of French Mercury and wrapt in fine red silk make thereof little Pessaries and put one of them into the Womb in the day and another at night But from the time that she is let blood until her Purgations let her use but one in the day but from the time that they