love their children very little or but from the lips outward when as poor dumb creatures ordained for the slaughter shew such great love toward their young CHAP. IV. Of the likenesse of Parents and Children whence it is that outward accidents are communicated to the Children and the Mothers Imagination is the cause of the production of many Forms The force of the Seed is a reason of similitude IT is a constant opinion amongst Physitians and confirmed by many reasons that if the Woman afford most seed the child will be like the Mother but if the man afford most then it will be like the Father but if they both afford alike for quantity and force then will the child be like to them both or one part will resemble the Father another part the Mother Lastly if it fall on the right side of the Womb and proceed from the right Testicle by reason of heat it will be a Manchild but if it proceed from the left and incline to the left side by reason of cold and moisture it will be a Girle Libro de opifice Lactantius his mind of the likenesse of the seed Lactantius saith that sometime when the mans seed falls on the left side of the womb a male child is begotten But because the conception is perfected in that part of the womb that is ordain'd for the procreation of females there will be something in it that is but half man and will be fairer and whiter or smoother and lesse hairy than is convenient for a man to be or the voice will be small and sharp or the chin will be bare and bald and the courage will be lesse Whence is the name Virago Again if the seed be cast into the right side of the womb it may be a girle may be begotten but because she is conceived in the place ordained for the male she will be more viraginous than ordinary women as having strong limbs very tall a swart countenance What woman is most imperious a hairy chin a ruder face a strong voyce and a bold and man-like courage whence it falls out that such women will cast off the yoke and rule over men and will take so much power to themselves in governing that men dare not speak or stir for them Though these things and many more might be alledged for the similitude of the form which are very probable and for the most part they so fall out yet the principal cause of this effect seems to me to consist in the tacite Imagination of the woman For if she conceive in her mind or do by chance fasten her eyes upon any object and imprint that in her Mind the child commonly doth represent that in the outward parts The womans Imagination what it doth So whilest the Man and Woman Embrace if the woman think of the mans countenance and look upon him or thinks of any one else that likenesse will the child represent For such is the power of Imagination that when the woman doth intentively behold any thing she will produce something like that she beheld so it falls out that children have the forms of divers things upon them as Warts Spots Moles Dashes which cannot easily be wiped off or taken away So some of our women seeing a Hare bring forth a child with a Hare-lip Hare-lip so some children are born with flat Noses wry mouths great bubber lips and ill shaped of all the body because the woman when she conceived the child and in the time she was big of it had her eyes and mind busied upon some monstrous creature Art can change the shape and colour of Animals Men use to effect the like by art in other creatures setting before them when they are to conceive the colours of divers things Jacob used that stratagem who was afterwards called Israel laying rods he had pilled off the rinds from before them every where Gen. 30. and so he made the greatest part of the flock spotted and party-coloured So we make painted birds dogs and horses dapled and with divers spots Which Artifice of Nature and all the reasons and causes of similitude Pliny exactly comprehended almost in these words Similitude in the mind is a diligent thinking of a thing L. 7. c. 12. Pliny his opinion of the cause of similitude wherein many accidents have great force as sight hearing memory forms taken up at the very instant of conception and a sudden thought rising of any thing is supposed to give the form and similitude hence some are like their Grandfathers others like their Fathers or some other kindred Hence there are more differences in Man than in other Creatures because the quicknesse of his thought and nimblenesse of his mind and variety of his wit imprint divers marks because other creatures have their minds fixed almost and unmoved and all of the same kind are alike Hence it is that a woman may cause her Child to have a strange form and nothing like to the father So a woman that had layn with another besides her husband fearing lest her husband should come in the mean time after 9. moneths she brought forth a Child not like the party that she lay with but like her husband that was absent There is a very witty Epigram written of this Sir Tho More 's witty Epigram by that most ingenious Man Sir Thomas More Those four boys Sabine Which thy Wife brought forth Thou think'st are not thine Unlike thee naught-worth But that Boy alone That she lately bore Like thee for thine own Thou tak'st and no more Four as bastards born Rejected are in scorn Yet wise men suppose That the Mothers mind Doth the Child dispose For likenesse in 's kind Four were begot When that many miles From home thou wert not Feared nor thy wiles This last like to thee Was begot in fear Thy Wife was not free Thou wert then too near This I think was it That thy likenesse hit Hence it followes that the argument is vain to assign the Father from the likenesse of the Child Likenesse can confiâ—m no child to be the Fathers own For neither the Law of Nature nor the publick consent of Mankind will suffer a child to be laid to any man because it is like him But what concerns Wit and Manners and propensions of the mind daily examples teach us that Children which have all force and vital spirits from the faculty of the Seed are commonly of the same condition with their progenitors and of the same nature But there is much in this whether Venery be used with great or weak desire For many are lesse venereous and not so hot and do not with any great desire use copulation but rather decline from it and that they may pacifie their wives they pay their due benevolence as St. Paul calls it very faintly and drowsily 3 Cor. 7. whence it happens that the Child falls short of the Parents nature manners and
that may raise distempers quarrels or troubles between them The affections passe to the Child Which are those the people call naturall Children for all these things fall upon the Child that is then begot and inform it with the like manners and the parents conditions are imprinted upon it I referr that to the like causes that Children which they call naturall that is such that are illegitimate and born without lawfull matrimony are of different nature condition and manners from the other Children whereof such as were begot by noble parents and gentlemen are oft of an high and lofty behaviour and are adorned with many great and rich endowments with rare wits singular prudence exact judgements especially if the parents are a help to their liberal education so that somtimes they become the pillar of the family and are an Ornament and glory to all that are of their kin and blood Why illegitimate Children are more witty than others The reason seems to me to be because they have received all things abundantly from their fathers loynes and bowells and in that secret copulation obtaind by stealth they received not sparingly and slenderly but abundantly the guifts of Nature From when both greedily desire to satisfie their Lusts and are prodigall in their embracements and use all the might they have to propagate and beget a Child it comes to passe that all things necessary for conception are afforded plentifully and there is no want in this businesse and so it falls out Whence comes it Parents love their Children and contrarily that since Children represent their parents manners and have obtain'd much from them there is an incredible love and prosension on both parts and they love one the other exceedingly From which force also there ariseth cheerfullnesse and readinesse of mind in the Child and a generous inclination whereby they disdain that they were born illegitimate and out of the laudable bands of Matrimony and that they should want any thing that others do not to make them uncapable of honours and dignities and publick employments A sublime mind strives for the highest things This makes them use all means to bring themselves out of contempt and by their good life and sound manners to blot out that mark of infamy which some very unwisely impute unto them who some times were begotten more beastly than those that were begotten in adultery But such Children that are born after this adulterous way from mean and base parents and so want the benefit of education for want of means can hardly ever attain to any great matter or raise themselves from the Earth for as the Poet saith Juvenal Satyr 3. They hardly can proceed Who are at home in need Poverty that is wise For though a poor man be wise as the Proverb saith and be the inventor of many rare Arts yet it is a very great hindrance to famous wits that they cannot rise to any high things CHAP. IV. How comes it that the Bay-Tree which some say will not grow in Zeland grows no where more beautifully than in this place and what you must do to make it endure the Winter frost and cold MAny wonder that in the Sea-coasts and that part of Zeland which is denominated from the River Scheld that runs by it that such stately and large Bay-Trees grow being the Country is cold and this Tree abhors cold and frosty climates The Bay-Tree what ground it loves And they wonder the more at this miracle of nature because they are not onely in every mans Garden and allwaies green and very tall with leaves still upon them but they bear long fashioned Berries very black and smooth no lesse effectuall and good in discussing winds and dissipating collections of humours than those that are brought from hot Countries Sometimes the Bay-Tree feels the injury of the Ayre Cold an Enemy to the Bay-Tree especially to the voot and in Winter when it is very cold is in danger by it so that the leaves boughs stalks sometimes wither and dye but the root takes no harm wherefore the Bay-Tree dead upwards must not be dug up by the roots but cut off by the body for when the spring comes or somewhat sooner it will grow green again But that it riseth so high in this Country is caused by the fruitfullnesse of the earth which is wonderfull and the thick compacted nature of the ground that consists of a fat tenacious earth so that by reason of the Earth's solidity The Bay-Tree requires a thick ground Snow melted hurtfull to Plants the cold cannot in frosty weather penetrate to the root of it Now nothing is more hurtfull to plants or more destructive than Snow or Ice melted if when they are melted the drops come to wet the roots especially if after this it chance to freiz again and to stick first about the roots in icecles For so the earth loosned drinks-in the cold chilly moysture and the root drenched with it withers and dyes But that plants may not be subject to this inconvenience nor be obnoxious to the injuries of cold the superficies of the ground wherein they are set must be fenced with straw and ashes Ashes keep herbs from frost A comparison of Vineger and Lees with ashes Why the Bay-Tree grows not in Brabant for ashes by their imbred heat foster the ground and will not let the strong cold enter For as Vinegar and Wine-lees so coles and ashes are of a fiery quality But that the Bay-Tree grows not in Brabant and other parts of the Low Countries or else grows more sparingly amongst them it is not to be ascribed to the Ayre which is very calm and wholsome but to the nature of the ground which is dry sandy light empty that the cold can easily enter nor is there any solid substance to make the Tree fat and thence it is that in those Countries the Bay-Tree is low and shrubby and wanting berries whereas in the City of Zirizea by the benefit of the Earth it grows so tall that it is above 20 foot high and full of boughs about the root with many shoots coming forth whereby it defends it self from the cold Water shoots Wherefore that numerous company of suckers about the root must not be taken away or cut up for it is defended thereby that it cannot easily take cold for if it lose the leaves yet next Spring it grows again so the root be kept untouched by the cold and frost CHAP. V. Of a neutrall body that is one that can be said neither sound nor sick but is of a tottering and doubtfull condition floting between both IT is confessed that the art of Physick was formerly divided into three parts The first is that preserves the present health and carefully keeps off all inconveniences of sicknesse The second that which containes the reason whereby the body may be fenced and defended that it shall not easily fall into sicknesse The last that
covered with blood which affect when it passeth to the child that membrane becomes of divers colours and fashions Whence comes beauty or foulnesse This also makes children to have chins and cheeks red as a rose Which then useth to happen when the great bellied women blush or are angry their blood being raised by natural heat and carried aloft For such as are frighted or suddenly put into fear they are the cause of a pale colour and frame the child with an austere and sad countenance CHAP. IX Why in Holland they say that such as have unconstant and weak brains have been conversant amongst beans IF at any time the Low-Countrey people will set forth a man of an unconstant brain The Proverb to wander amongst beans and unsetled mind who in his manners gestures words and deeds and all his actions is like a mad-man they will say he hath been amongst the beans and it is their common Proverb the beans flourish he wandreth amongst beans and this is applied to weak brain'd men that want judgment and reason For we see in the spring-months when bean-stalks begin to flowre that some men will grow mad and speak many ridiculous and absurd things and sometimes they grow so mad that they must be bound in chains For at the begining of the spring the humours begin to overflow and to choke the brain with grosse fumes and vapours which when bean flowrs do exasperate if they smell to them the mind begins to rave and to be troubled with furies For though bean flowrs smell sweet and pleasant Why bean flowers hurt the brain yet they offend the head and will at great distance send forth an offensive smell especially to those that have weak brains and are filled with a cholerick and melancholiqve humour Whereupon some of these are disquieted and wander then they grow clamorous and full of words and others again are pensive and alwaies musing Their head stands stiff Pers sat 3. their eyes sixt on the ground They mumble silently and eat the sound Their lips thrust forth their words they do confound And as some things dissipate fumes and discusse what is hurtfull to the brain and raise the fainting soul and spirits that are sleepy as Vinegar Rose-water wherein Cloves are steeped new bread wet in well sented wine for these breath forth a thin and pleasant ayre so other things cause pain and make the head heavy as Garlick Onions Leeks Elder Worm-wood Rue Southern wood What things cause the headacâ—â—e and many spices that send forth strong heavy fumes and offend the brain violently affecting the Nostrils Which Hippocrates shewd in this Aphorism The smell of spices draws the secrets of women L. 5. Aph. 28. and it is good for many other things but that it offends the head and makes it heavy For all things very odoriferous hurt the head and draw the heat and moysture to the upper parts even the very smels that evaporate from cold plants especially in those that are lean and decayed in their flesh For they cannot endure the smells of their meats and of boil'd flesh and when they faint and swound they will suffer nothing to be put to their nostrils that is of a sharp and piercing nature so that they seem to be suffocated by a grosse thick vapour as those that sit down in a dinining room that is filled with smoak whose breath is stopped and intercepted An example from smoaky houses unlesse the dores be set open and fresh Aire be let in the windows that the house may be Ayr'd and the wind may passe in and our Those that dwell near lakes are of another temper than these tender bodies and such as are made to empty Jakes and make clean sinks For these men reject all sweet smels as offensive unto them So Strabo writes that amongst the Sabaeans L. 6. those that are offended with sweet odours are refreshed with bitumen and the smell of Goats hair on their beards when it is burnt Aridiculous thing of a Countryman A certain Country-man at Antwerp was an example of this who when he came into a shop of sweet smells be began to faint but one presently clapt some fresh smoking warm hors-dung to his nose and fetched him again CHAP. X. Every strong filthy smell is not hurtfull to man For some of these will discusse contagions and resist corrupt diseases By the way whence came the Proverb that horns are burnt there MAny things are of a most filthy smell which yet do no ways hurt the body nor cause any corruption in it and they will resist some diseases and discusse the faulty troublesome Ayre and vapours as Castoreum Galbanum Sagapenum the dregs of Masterwort called Asafaetida Bean Trifoly Brimstone Gunpowder the fumes of burnt horns and skins Ill smells sometimes usefull For these are of a strong filthy sent but they cause no contagion but they represse and strike back the filthy sents and pestilent vapours which lakes and standing waters and the hearb Camarina and stinking earth send forth Also by the smell of these they raise young maids that are in a swound when they are troubled with the strangling of the mother when being fit for marriage they are forced to stay for Husbands But filthy smels that rise from dead carcases and muddy waters cause corrupt diseases and infect the Ayre by reason of heat and moisture but not the vapours of those that tend to drinesse Hence our Country people cast snips of leather horns and wet bones into the fire Ill smells sometime resist the Plague and with those sents they Ayre their houses to dispell the contagion of diseases and keep themselves and their cottages free from pestilent Ayres Hence came the Proverb that Horns are burnt there A Proverb that horns are burnt Whereby they signifie that places infected with contagious diseases must be avoided Such a kind of remedy in former times was used about Tourney when the Plague cruelly raged all the Town over A history that is true done about Tournay For the Souldiers of the Garrison in the Fort fill'd their Guns with Gunpowder without bullets and shot against the Town and they shot them off with a lighted match about the evening and morning whence it hapned that by the great noise and strong smell the contagion of the Ayre was removed Fire dispells contagions of the Ayre and the City delivered from the Plague For this is as powerfull to dispell contagions of the Ayre as Hippocrates remedy by making bon-fires and burning many fagots in the streets could be CHAP. XI The excellency of the finger of the Left hand that is next the little finger which is last of all troubled with the Gout and when that comes to be affected with it death is not far off By the way wherefore it deserves to wear a Gold Ring better than the rest PHysitians grant that all parts of the body that are affected
the City of Zirizea abounds exceedingly well with all things which are usefull and commodious for mans life and no lesse than when it was famous for negotiations with strangers and frequented with goers and commers of all sides For the concourse and merchandise of forraigners and celebrity of a place may sometimes be lost suddenly either by the rising of some war from without or seditions at home or popular tumults for presently all strangers withdraw themselves and take care for their own safety But that negotiation that is performed amongst the Citizens and Inhabitants shutting out all usury and traffique in a compendious way made with strangers or the Inhabitants and is a liberal gain is stable firm solid and not so much subject to envy But if calamity come from some other place then the Citizens and natives Mediocrity of felicity is commendable stand firm and undaunted and do not easily forsake their Country their Churches their houses wives and dear children nor do they go away yeild what they have to strangers to enjoy Yet the men of Zirizea All things are governed by divine providence in so great mutation of humane things and change from one to another which is all wrought by Gods providence seem wisely to have consulted for their own profit and to have exchanged uncertain things for certain For their people being most skilfull Marriners when their trading at Sea did not succeed very well in forraign commodities they altered their course of Trade and began to fall to fishing which is a very great gain and hurts no body and here they fear no shipwrack nor losse of traffique no disgrace for usury or increase upon money and the rest of the Citizens follow saving wayes of gain such as are honest and envied by none out of those things that the earth yeilds abundantly for mans use wherewith they recreate themselves liberally besides a laudable education they provide a very large patrimony for their children and leave them an inheritance to preserve their Parents names by But that strangers may understand in what part of the earth and under what climate the City Zirizea is and under what elevation of the Pole I took the height of the Pole-artick or North-Pole above Zirizea's Horizon and I found the elevation to be 51. degrees 47. Minutes and that was the altitude of that verticall point the longitude is 25. degrees whence it comes that since the Sun is not far from them and departs not very far from the Island but doth moderately shine upon them in the two Equinoctials and two Solstices the Inhabitants by the benefit of the Sun have no dull and stupid wits but they are witty civill merry yet many of them by the reason of the Sea that hath its influence upon them will speak very scurrilous crabbed and brinish language sometimes of which subject I lately held a pleasant discourse with Job Nicolais a discreet man and industrious who carefully labours for the publick good and doth what he can to promote it and desireth that the Citizens should be men of sound and good manners and if they have contracted any fault by the Salt vapours of the Sea that are so near to them that it might be mended with good education CHAP. III. How comes it that such as are old men or far in years do beget children not so strong and oft times such as are froward and of a sad and sowre Countenance and such as are seldome merry THey that marry when their age declines and their youthly heat is abated for the most part beget sorrowfull children and such as are froward sad not amiable silent and of a sowre and frowning countenance Youth is full of juyce because they are not so hot in the act of venery or so lusty as young people that are full of juice For the heat of our age is fittest for to act this Comedy Old men being feeble their spirits small and their body dry and exhausted of bloody humours the natural faculties are weak and that force that comes from them to beget a child is uneffectuall and invalid having very small ability so that they cannot perform the marriage duty so manfully and there wants many things in those they do beget Which is intimated in that dispute that the Angel is said to have had with Esdras Esdras 4. Ask saith he thy Mother and she will tell thee why those she bears now are not like those she bore before thee but are lesse in stature and she will say unto thee that the rest were conceived and born when she was young but these when the Womb decayed hence it is that such as are born in old age are slender small weak Why some are not so strong feeble not tall and have not so much strength because natures forces are decayed with age and the natural and vitall spirits are diminished Why some are dejected in mind whence also the mind is more dejected is not so nimble lively merry and jocant because these have obtain'd all things sparingly and not so largely unlesse perhaps their Parents were pleasing and merry and moderately heated with wine when they were begot For sometimes old people wil shew themselves young and lascivious together to be so wel pleased that in the spring they wil one embrace the other A Proverb from Horses that are worn out For that time of the year serves for Horses also that are decaid and worn out as the Proverb saith for to make them neigh whereby the Hollanders mean that there are none so old but at that pleasant time of the year when nature puts forth all her forces but they will shew some tokens of a mind raised also whereby it falls out that if a woman thus chance to conceive when they are merry The affects of Parents go to the Children after nine months she will bring forth a mild beautifull pleasant flourishing lively generous active Child And if their Parents in their young years were of a clowdy and impleasing disposition as many froward people be when they get their Children all falls to the worst all those affections and tumults that use to arise amongst married people and all their distempers will be derived to their Children so that neither the conception nor time the woman goes with Child nor her delivery not nutrition can be performed decently and according to Natures order and the Children contract many ertours and faults of bodies and mindes from the disturbed motions of their minds of all which the fault is to be imputed to the parents who were the cause and seed plot of all these imperfections of nature The faults of Children to be imputed to the Parents Wherefore such as would take the best care for their Childrens good and would have them tractable and pleasant and sweet of behaviour must take especiall care for this that in matrimoniall embracements all things may be moderately performed that nothing happen
as we see the flowing and ebbing of the Ocean to break forth and dilate it self all abroad which although it be not plainly perceived in Summer daies and is less presented to the eyes yet thou dost perceive it either by smell or dost apprehend the hidden poyson in thy inmost bowells And as these very things work destruction to the body and bring in deadly poyson so sweet smells and fragrant hearbs do stir up the spirits and do cherish and recreate the heart it self the fountain of life Which even any one of a dull Judgment can perceive when he seeth the strength weakened by swounding and fast a sleep by the defect of the mind to be restored and stirred up by sweet smells But these mean things being let alone afterwards by the assistance of the most high God I will relate more secret things For which if I shall seem to any one to have wholly searched out the secrets of nature and the uses under weak and very unconstant reasons and a very small proportion of judgment and with no trimmed sentences to have furnished nature with no store I would desire him to be perswaded that I rather afford and demonstrate matter of writing to the learned then take it up before hand But I have attempted and undertaken to handle those things not with so great hope and confidence of accomplishing it as desire and will to try it and also that I might the better deserve of my Advocate and that I might more oblige my Citizens by this service But after Plato Persius doth stir up to attempt things of this kind and doth desire that this should be paid to our Countrey and Citizens as a due benevolence For so he doth prick us up to the consideration of things to the study of vertue to searth out those things which are profitable to men O wretched men ye ought to learn and show The cause of things and what we are to known Or to what end we 're made on earth to live What order or what bounds doth nature give To gentle-sliding Rivers and what measure Of silver or what 's lawfull to wish for pleasure What good doth money afford how much we owe Unto our Country and what we should bestow On neighbours what direction God doth give To thee how thou in humane things dost live Therefore I will try what I can perform or wherein I can go forward if I do not proceed in every thing exactly I may beg pardon for my fault and so much the more justly because the argument of the appointed Work is so great and doth stretch it self forth so unmeasurably so that it requires infinite labour and no mean Witt to accomplish every thing exactly The chief City of Laconia in Peloponnesus and adorn that * Sparta for its honour and amplitude Which if Horace in a homely and very easie argument Doth pardon faults which want of care doth cause Or are neglected by humane Nature's Laws By how much the more is it convenient to wink at and keep silent most things in so great difficulties and not to cut every thing as 't is said to the quick For it can scarcely be expressed how great wearinesse is to be born patiently by Physitians what labours are to be undergone what troubles complaints and bewailing speeches are to be endured at home and abroad when they follow their own affairs and diligently employ their assistance to their Citizens when all their study and industry doth consist in action their no lesse troublesome then gainful practice doth suffer no liberty no time to take breathe so that when they meditate on those things that were dispatched in borrowed hours that is in convenient service they are scarce at leisure to write them much lesse to make them perfect Which when it daily happeneth true and these kind of occupations do continually environ me at home and abroad all things scarcely and very hardly could be perfected according to my mind but when the consideration of Nature did onely delight me neither a more acceptable Argument could be thought upon it seemed good to me to write of its Miracles more at large and make all the Works of Nature more known Wherefore after I had dedicated these four Books of the Miracles of Nature to ERICUS King of Swedland the most invincible token of this New Year I do purpose to adde Two of the same Argument in short whereby the most Serene King having brought to an end and quieted the War which he undertook by Sea and Land against some conspiring Enemies by most excellent vertue and the greatnesse and courage of an high and invincible Mind might be refreshed more abundantly by the Contemplation of Nature and Things Having required this of William Simonds a Printer of Antwerp that he would bring these honourable and notable examples into the favour of the King's Court and of the desirous Reader which when he promised to accomplish and very truly performed by the industry of Christopher Plantin I think to finish the rest suddenly if it be so that no hindrance happen and our Heavenly Father grant constant and durable health For I hope it will be so that some new thing will come forth at the next Franckford Mart whereby at length the studious Reader may delight himself For Newes and Delight is the encouragement and allurement of Reading and Learning especially where the thing is declared very evidently and with convenient words and serious things are mixt with merry and profitable with sweet and pleasant which very thing I have studied to perform according to my power by that moderation of practice that I may no where digresse from comelinesse no where passe beyond the limits of honesty An Index of all the Chapters contained in this BOOK The Contents of the Chapters contained in the First Book Chap. 1. OF Nature Gods Instrument Page 1 Chap. 2. Man's Worth and Excellen Page 6 Chap. 3. It is most natural to procreate one like himself and men ought to use it reverently as a divine gift and Ordinance of God Page 8 Chap. 4. Of the likeness of Parents and Children whence it is that outward accidents are communicated to the Children and the Mothers Imagination is the cause of the production of many Forms Page 10 Chap. 5. Of the strange longing of Women with child and their insatiable desire of things And if they cannot get them they are in danger of life Page 16 Chap. 6. That a Woman doth afford seed and is a Companion in the whole Generation Page 18 Chap. 7. Whence growes the Sex and Kind that is whether of the two Man or Woman is the cause of a male or female Child Page 20 Chap. 8. Of Prodigious and Monstrous Births and by the way what is the meaning of the Proverb Those that are born in the fourth Moon Page 22 Chap. 9. By what means he that will may get a Boy or a Girle and by the by whence Hermaphrodites are bred and people
imbred generosity and hence it is that wise men sometimes beget stupid slothful Children Why wise men sometimes beget fools and that are of a feeble mind because they are not much given to these delights But when the Progenitors are hot in venereous actions and do liberally and abundantly employ themselves therein it oft-times happens that the children are of the same manners desires and actions of mind that their Parents are A Simile from Birds For as Birds are of the same Nature with those they are bred from and are of the same colour'd Feathers so Children exactly imitate the manners of their Progenitors and are essentially the same in nature with them And the same native signs that are printed on the Parents are found also commonly upon the Children For Horace Carmin l. 4. od 4. speaks thus Good and strong beget the same Calves and Colts their Sires ' present From stout Eagles never came Birds like Pigeons impotent And because Education perfects the gifts of nature corrects errours and frees from vice he added very fitly Art amends what Nature is Good Manners mend what 's amisse Chremes in Terence concludes from the Mothers Manners what the son is for thus he brawls with Sostrata Heauton-timerum Act. 4. Scen. 3. His manners shew him born of thee In that in all he doth agree He hath thy vices to a hair None but thee then could him bear Ill Crows ill Egs. And truly it is so by nature and we see it fall out most commonly that Children will imitate their Parents conditions and tread upon their heels following dicing whoring tipling yet some by their Parents care and benefit of education come to good manners wherefore every man ought to strive so to moderate his passions and so order his course of life and dyet that he may not hurt himself or infect his posterity For from the fathers seed and the mothers blood many things use to descend to posterity for the same force and vertue that is in the Parents sperm is poured forth into the children as from one vessel into another So saith Catullus Cat will ever follow kind And Children are of Parents mind Parents diseases faults descend to their children Seeing that the seed flowes from the principall parts and contains in it the force and nature of all the members it comes to passe that what disease is in any part descends by right of succession to the Children So the Leprosie Epilepsie feet-gowt hand-gowt and other diseases and defects are hereditary And because the Mothers blood is the chief nutriment for the Child Women derive most part of mischief to the children and the secondary beginning of procreation it oft-times happens that Children take more mischief from the Mother whether you consider their bodies or minds So wicked drunken foolish women commonly with us bring forth just such Children and that are subject to the same vices The Mothers fault doth more wrong to Children if she be unchaste and play the whore than the Fathers fault doth so likewise if she be given to drunkennesse or any other vice For if a man of ripe years or when he is young and unmarried should get a Maid ☞ with child he deserves almost to be commended for it and not to be disgraced For it is commonly said that one may safely marry his daughter to such a man who is not unfruitful and barren but hath proof of his Manhood already in getting of a child But if a woman or a maid that is marriageable should do the like or suffer any such matter to be done when she begins to fall in love she would so lose her reputation and honour that no Cobler nor any mean fellow whatsoever but would scorn to marry her and if one should marry her he would quickly hit her in the teeth with her whoredome So as soon as any maid is overcome and hath lost her maidenhead and those cloysters of Virginity are entred that fault can never be washt away nor can those closets be ever lockt again For so the Poet describes it Virginity once stain'd Can never be regain'd So Plautus in Amphitruo I do not think that to be the dowry which people call so but chastity and bashfulnesse and a moderate desire a fear of the Gods love of Parents and concord with kindred Wherefore besides others Ecclus. that wise Hebrew doth earnestly warn Parents that they should be very careful to look to their daughters chastity and honesty that they may not be polluted with wicked company or be stained by them For women-kind are naturally frail and more subject to be abused Since therefore there are many things that hinder manners and good life as also there are many things that defile the body and the decent frame thereof care must be had that nothing may pollute the mind with ill manners or disgrace the body by any monstrous deformity And because the beauty and decent form of the body is very acceptacle to all Men we should observe exactly by the progresse of natural causes what things will make one beautiful or deformed and ugly since these things principally consist in womens Imagination and in such things as proceed from without care must be had that that Sex may see nothing A woman with child is subject to passions that may move their mind to think absurdly which in framing the child may bring any hurt For if any mischief happen from without if any fear or trembling fall on them when they meet any terrible thing presently all this fright falls upon the child the natural spirits and humours being turn'd thither and all the faculties of the woman are busied in framing such a thing For a vehement and fixed cogitation whilest it doth tosse the vehement species of things and turns them often over it doth imprint that form and figure which it so often thinks on upon the Child For the confluence of the internal spirit and humours paints out the Image of the thing thought on Whence comes deformity of body It is not for nothing and for no cause that some have such ill shapen bodies ill and uncomely cruel countenances swoln blabber'd cheeks wry mouthes wide chaps for these things come to passe because their mothers being great with them thought on such deformed shapes and representations or fastned their eyes too much upon them So I dislike nothing more than lascivious women that use to delight themselves beyond measure with Whelps and Apes and to carry them in their bosoms to foster them to kisse and hug them For by the company and sight of these creatures the imperfect Nature of women may take some strange impressions and they may frame in their minds such forms as may make their children deformed Maka Dogs So the great women of the Low-Countroys love Malta dogs they are commonly called Camusii from their crooked nostrils their bodies are but small they are white as snow their noses are flat
in the middle and pressed down they have a crestiâ—urining upward their tail doth not turn under their belly as we see it doth in mungrels but it stands upright and bends like a sickle he hath very great eyes and that stick forth and they are both blear eyes weak legs and that are crooked about the joynts but the hinder part of his body is smooth without any hair and their tail is seen very uncomely by those that are present and they will turn their tails on purpose for people to look on This small creature because it is ridiculous for its parts and manners and hath many things that may hurt a woman when she is with child and cause the child within her to be ill formed I think not fit to keep least Women with child should be wronged thereby But this monstrous form and limbs so crooked are not naturall but artificiall Women love dogâ— too well For men shut them up in small Cages and taking their food away they make them grow small as in Terence they took away meat from maids to make them grow small as bulrushes least if any of them should grow corpulent she should seem to be a Champion See your Juglers that passe the Countries use to wrest the limbs of young boyes that they may leap and dance the better Lately A History there was a notable Knave who carried a child to be seen from Town to Town which had a very great head all the other limbs bore no proportion with it This deformity when it is naturall and not by art Physitians call Hydrocephalon Very great heed what disease by reason of the head swoln with a watry humour When a woman great with child had looked on this picture she was so frighted with this unusual sight that when her â—â—â—e came to be delivered she brought forth a child with a spongy vast bead and it had like to have cost her her life And this mischief followed it that it grew greater in the Nurses arms till it became monstrous great The woman a â—e to me and made this complaint bringing the child with hot and when I pressed the head of it with my fingers it would sink down like to a cushions and come forth again These spectacles are not onely to be a â—oided by Women with child but also by all those that may beâ—â—roubled and frighted in their sleep by such frights as it commonly happens to children sick weak old melancholique people Whence Children have ill marks yet monstrous sights will hurt them lesse that they will women with child For they by the sights of such things will frame 〈◊〉 like in their Children For since all their forces and natural faculties are wholly employed to form the child it happens that when the woman is any way offended all the humours and spirits run downwards to the womb And when the imagination of a thing that sticks fast in the mind joyns with these it frames the like fashion on the child that the mind conceives A Proverb from Imagination For it is not said in vain Imagination makes fashion For by the same reason if a Mouse a Cat a Weasel leap suddenly on a Woman or Strawberries Cornel-berries Cherries Grape-stones fall on any part of the body When a Woman doth remove marks from the Face to the Thighs or hinder parts they presently leave their mark and the print of this thing will be printed on that limb unlesse the woman at the same time that these things happen to her body do presently wipe the part and put her hand behind her back or on some remoter part of her body For so the mischief is suddenly cured or the mark is made on that part she touched all her Imagination and natural faculty being turn'd thither CHAP. V. Of the strange longing of Women with child and their insatiable desire of things And if they cannot get them they are in danger of life THe order of the former narration seems to require me to speak something concerning the longing of Women Longing a Disease For they are both all most from the same cause About three Moneths after conception a disease troubles Women which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Latines Pica when by reason of cold vitious humours and sharp â—â—â—gm that lyes in their stomachs they earnestly desire coles parings chalk shels and other things unfit to eat this mischief prevails most when the childs hair first begins to grow and they are with child of a Girle For by reason of want of heat flegmatique humours are lesse concocted Hence it is that winds and often belchings frequently trouble Women Of kin to this is the daintinesse of Women wherewith men and Feavourish people are oft troubled But child-bearing Women that are tempted with this disease are so insatiable in their desire that if they cannot obtain what they long for they bring both themselves and their Child in danger of death Mayst Women long for strong things This disease for the most part troubles the Low Country Women because they are of moyst cold constitutions and feed on ill Nourishment There have been some in our dayes that when they saw a corpulent well â—â—d man they desired to bite at this shoulders A History and there was a man who that he might satisfie a womans longing granted her leave to bite least she might take any hurt whereupon she bâ—t out a part with her teeth and chewd it a little and then she swallowed it raw When she was not yet satisfied she desired to bite again but the man would not endure her But she presently began to languish and to be delivered She brought forth Twins the one living and the other dead for want of a second bite I can see no other reason for it than that the woman grieving in her mind the vitall spirits are lessned A Woman with child suffers if her longing be demed her and the humours appointed to nourish the child turn another way and are not carried to the womb so the child wanting the food which the mother longed for grows feeble and dies For when the passages and receptacles whereby food useth to be derived to the Matrix are stopped it must needs follow that the child will want nutriment and die But if the teeming woman be strong of nature and knows how to moderate her passions the child doth not die but grows sickly By these you may see abundantly what a womans Imagination can do and what outward objects conceived in the mind can print upon the child that is then to be formed When we must please sick people with diet Wherefore I suppose they do not much transgresse the bounds of Art that are not so rigid but do sometimes indulge to sick people such meat as they long for though they are not so proper for them in case they are such as will bring no great hurt to their bodies
of the Husbandman so the Infant receives all things more plentifully from the Mother For first the seed of them both is foster'd and heaped together in the womb then it growes up with the Mothers blood and increaseth by degrees secretly Hence it is that by sympathy Children love their Mothers most Why Children love their Mothers best for it proceeds from heaâ—nesse of Nature and because the Mothers forces were most employed about them Also Mothers are full of love to their Câ—ildren and more indulgent to their young ones than the Farâ—ers be who are oft-times more rigid I think the Evangelist meant so Math. 2. when he brings in Rachel lamenting for her Children who was so wounded in her mind with grief for being deprived of them Jer. 32. that she would by no means be comforted For there is nothing â—yâ— the opinion of Esaias more repugnant to Natures Laws than for a woman to forget her child Ch. 49. and to be cruel against the fruit of her womb laying aside natural affection We see that Fathers have their natural propension to their Children also but it is laâ—er before it appears For Fathers love them best when they are grown up and then they take most care for them when they begin to see some hopes of them But Mothers take more care of them in their Iâ—fancy and because that age stands in need of other's help most they are then the most loving and careful over them and not so curst as the Fathers be Math. 23. Stoâ—ks love their dâ—ms For this cause the Scriptures do so oft inviâ—er us to gratitude which by the example of Storks children do lowe to their Patents and we are commanded to requite them The like love we see in a Hen which loves the chickens A Hens siting she hate bed more dearly and though the Cock was the cause that the Eggs breed chickens yet he takes no care for them when they are hatched But that both yield seed we may prove in hen-eggs A Hen lays egs without a Cock. for a Hen will lay eggs without the Cock but if she sit on them they will sooner corrupt than hatch but the eggs the Hen laid when a Cock â—od her will after 19 dayes be hatched put under a Hen so that the Chickens will peep before the shell break This tedious Câ—ild-bearing time of the Mother in which for 9. moneths she feeds the Child with her purest blood and then her love toward her Child newly born and the usual likenesse of the Child to the Mother do clearly prove Women are not idle in making the child that women afford seed and that women do more toward making the Child than men do who onely injecting their seed are gone and neither further the woman nor help the child any more Yet in so many moneths the woman must do much to frame the child and nourish it Aeneid 6. For it cannot be that it should grow up from that congealed lump but by a wonderfull way CHAP. VII Whence growes the Sex and Kind that is whether of the two Man or Woman is the cause of a male or female Child God the chief cause of fruitfulnesse THough all things are justly ascribed to God that made all yet many things go in order by Natures rules and are carried by their imbred motion God being the Author of all these things he useth to alter many of them and to change the order of things and to bring forth some things in other forms and orders contrary to Natures Lawes For example a woman desiring a Man-child prayes unto God earnestly for it and God hears her prayers For example Sarah being past children Gen. 27. and her courses long since stayd yet she conceived Isaac by Abraham that was a very old man in which child God would have to be placed all hopes of his posterity and that hence all Nations should take the beginning of their happinesse Also Aâ—na being much afflicted with her long barrennesse 1 Reg. 1. by earnest and constant prayer she obtained Samuel from God Also Elisha's officious Landlady 4 Kings 4. by the prayers of the Prophet had a Child given her from God and afterwards he raised this Child that was dead to life again Luc. 1. So Zacharias being old by Gods dispensation had a Child by Elizabeth that was stricken in years and uncurably barren which was John the fore-runner of Christ So many others have pray'd to God for a Child to be their Heir in their Estates and God hath granted them their request None can doubt but this is Gods work and these things have a peculiar effect from the divine Will But we shall speak of things that proceed from natural causes and that nature useth to work by her imbred force For she prepares a body fit for the Souls condition and gives every thing its temper But since there are two principles out of which the body of man is made and which make the Child like the progenitors The force of seed and to be of this or that Sex Seed common to both sexes and Menstrual blood proper to the woman The similitude consists in the force of the male or female feed so that it proves like to the one or the other as the seed is more plentifully afforded by one or the other The force of the menstruall blood which belongs onely to the woman For were that force in the seed since the mans seed is alwaies stronger and hotter than the womans children would be all boyes Wherefore the kind of the creature is attributed to the Temperament of the active qualities which consist in heat and cold and to the substance or nature of the matter under them that is to the flowing of the menstrual blood Now the seed affords both force to beget and form the child and matter for its generation also in the menstrual blood there is both matter and force For as the seed most helps to the material principle so doth the menstrual blood to the potential Seed is saith Galen L. 2. de sem blood well concocted by the vessels that contain it so that blood is not onely the matter of generating the child but it is also seed in possiâ—ility Now that menstrual blood hath both principles that is both matter and faculty of effecting any thing is confessed by all But seed is the strongest efficient the matter of it being very small in quantity but the menstrual blood is much in quantity Menstrual blood affords matter to feed the child but the potential or efficient faculty of it is very feeble Now if the material principle of generation according to which the sex is made were onely in the menstrual blood then should all children be girles as if all the efficient force were in the seed they would all be boys But since both have both principles and in menstrual blood matter predominates in quantity and
in the seed force and vertue deservedly saith Galen the child receives its sex rather from the Mother than from the Father though his seed do afford something to the material principles but more weakly But similitude though Imagination be of great force therein is referred rather to the Father than the Mother for there is more force in the mans seed But the womans seed receiving faculty from the menstruall blood for 9. moneths doth as much exceed the man's as the man 's did the woman at first copulation For it is proper to the womans seed to strengthen and increase her own substance more than the mans So the woman not onely affords matter to make the Child but force and vertue to perfect the conception though the womans seed be fit nutriment for the mans feed by reason of the moysture and thinnesse of it and is more fit to frame and make up the conception thereby For as of soft running wax and moyst clay A Similitude from wax and moyst clay the workman can work what he will with his hand so the man's feed mixed with the womans seed and the menstruall blood helps effectually to make the form and perfects the parts of a man Or if you would have a comparison of these things from Natural things as the Earth is to plants so is the womb for conception A comparison of the Earth and the Womb. For as the seeds of Plants need the Earth to nourish and increase them so the seed of man requires the womb which is affected with a desire of an off spring For by the moysture thereof and by blood running forth at the veins to water the child it doth grow and increase Hence you may conjecture what art nature useth in conceiving and framing a child which by an innate force growes up by degrees and secretly increasing comes to its full strength wherein I think that worth the Enquiry by what force the nature of the woman makes a man or a woman what faculty seems to be ascribed rather to the woman than to the man by reason of more matter coming from her which consists in the blood and seed of the woman whereby the Child all the time it is in the womb is nourished and increased For as mans seed is the chief cause of motion and the Instrument and Artificer whereby Man is made yet the womans seed with the plenty of her menstrual blood affords more matter than the man doth and by help thereof the child is perfected and is distinguished for its sex for that is it makes a child a male or a female CHAP. VIII Of prodigious and Monstrous Births and by the way what is the meaning of the Proverb Those that are born in the fourth Moon THe Nature of Man and his parts destinated to the Generation of man if they be rightly disposed and there be no defect in them will beget a perfect man But if they be defective or faulty or the feed be confusedly mixed Whence come Monsters or the principles of Generation be otherwise involved than they should be it falls out that prodigious and monstrous births are made Some fay that these things happen from the influence and aspects of the Stars and as just judgments for sins And I think it very consonant to truth For they commonly happen from a faulty constitution of the Womb from filthy corrupt seed A simile from Founders and disorderly copulation For as in the art of melting meâ—â—als if the matter be not pure and well cleansed if the vessel or receiver be oblique full of windings ill joynted hath conners is set awry or is full of chinks or plains is unloosed or holds ill together we see that men cast ridiculous and improper figures so if the places be ill appointed if the womb inclines to one side or the matter be unfit or ill tempered nature shall never make a fit and decent form So the Low Countrey Women chiefly those that live near the Sea-side being restlesse and troubled in copulation A Mola of the Matrix they have strange mishapen Embrio's and do not onely bring forth rude and deformed burdens not made up that no sword will cut but also something deformed that pants and is alive and is like the imperfect draught of a figure that Artists use to draw with a rude Pensil For Marriners which they commonly marry when they come from long voyages run mad upon their wives with full sail Intemperance of Venery burts the child never regarding their menstrual courses nor the Conjunction or new Moon at which time by reason of their terms copulation useth to be hurtfull for the seed cannot stick together nor be fitly united with the womans blond whence it comes to passe that the seed either runs forth or if it chance to stick together nature cannot make up any thing rightly of a confused matter that sticks not so as it should do And not onely the mens incontinence is to be found fault with but also of the women who having waited so long in their absence do voluntarily put themselves upon their husbands and snatch the seed from them as hungry dogs do a bone or Cerberus his bait Whence it comes that the faculty of the Womb loseth its force to generation and successe of breeding a child Or if it try to do any thing it makes some monstrous form that is nothing like to the shape of a man sometimes after three Moneths space that filthy matter runs forth and an undigested heap comes out by pieces as filthy water out of a Ship by the Pump Not unlike to this is an efflux that troubles women with many heavy torments our women because this conception begins in the fourth Moon when she is in Conjunction by whose force the terms flow down call it a Moon birth or Manekinds A birth not natural is cast forth Sometimes this false conception is made without the help of man by Imagination onely in those that are very lascivious so as by often seeing their Husbands and but touching them the womans seed will mix together with the blood and the neat of the Womb will begin to frame something like to a living Creature But the formal cause the mans seed being wanting that is like the Work-master the matter the woman affords Mans seed is the former of the child obtains a strange deformed shape sometimes the like is made by the help of the man when in the sourth and silent Moon he copulates with his wife and on the fourth day after the Moons Conjunction when her courses run not observing natures rules for he strives against the flux and sails against the stream A common proverb to pisse against the Moon Our people by a Proverb call it pissing against the Moon the Latines call them Born in the fourth Moon Because they have unhappy beginnings of their life and had their first entrance by generation contrary to natures order whence it happens
men to lie with women that time that they were defiled with this Excrement So he drives from the company of men those that have Gonorrheas that is fluxes of bloud and commands them to be purified And Esaias to expresse extream foulnesse to be abhorred All our righteousnesse saith he is as a menstruous rag c. Which though it be true We must abstain from menstruous Women and and the great Law-giver by Gods order did most justly forbid it that no man should defile himself with fowl copulation or be polluted thereby yet this proves not that this flux is superfluous and doth not serve for the childs nutriment For Hippocrates the Authour of Physick and Galen a great lover of it do rightly professe in many places that the menstrual bloud feeds the child and that the child grows by receiving that flowing out of the veins De tuenda valetudine So Galen Blood saith he and genital seed are the beginnings of our Generation which arise from the very principles as from a root The blood is as fit matter that obeys the Artificer the seed is as the Workmaster Again in comment Aphoris The menstruall blood is one principle of our Generation and is by nature moist L. 1. Aph. 14. Hitherto belongs that Aphorism of Hippocrates If a Woman with child have her courses the child cannot be well For the blood is taken thus from her that is directed to the womb from all the body to feed the child If therefore the courses running away weaken the child and defraud him of his nourishment it must needs be that they do good when they are stopt and serve to feed the child all the while it is in the womb The Breasts fill with milk when the terms stop If they do no good and the child hath no nutriment from them I pray what is the cause that the courses are stopt in women with child and such as give suck and that without any hurt to them There can be no other cause given but that they are consumed to make plenty of milk or to feed the child But to explain this question the more fully I shall set down this dilemma If the courses confer nothing to feed the child The Authours dilemma of the monethly terms then women may conceive though they want their courses for nature can draw blood from the veins to feed the child But if they do help to feed and increase the child they cannot conceive unlesse they do run Aristotle excellently unties this knot Hist Animal Women saith he conceive naturally after their terms are over and they that want their terms are commonly barren Yet it may be that some may conceive that have them not namely as many as have so much humour collected in their wombs as useth to remain with those that are purged For some have the humour remaining in the womb but not so much as to break forth and run out yet enough to feed the child For many when the courses run do conceive but they cannot conceive afterwards for their Matrix presently after purgation closeth and the places are no longer open De vul se Galen clearly explains the same in these words The vessels of the Matrix that penetrate into the inmost part from whence flow the terms when the woman is about to conceive open their orifices But the time of conception is when the terms begin or at least end For though the rest of the time of purging these orifices are open yet the woman can by no means conceive because the seed cannot stay in the womb but is washt away by the blood that runs in so plentifully But when the terms end or begin the orifices are open and the menstrual blood runs not by streams but gently forth by little and little as by a dewy humour sweating in whereby the Matrix is moistned whence it is that the seed sticks to the roughnesse of the womb and nourishment enough follows by the dropping of bloud that flowes thither For before the Terms flow conception cannot be made because the nourishment is wanting nor doth the seed stick fast for at that time the vessels being shut the matrix is smooth and the seed by reason of smoothnesse like glasse polished runs away and cannot stick and unite for roughed things are fitter than smooth things to sodder together Why Whores conceive not Hence it is that whores by frequent lying with men do not conceive To which appertains that sentence of Hippocrates Those that have moyst wombs do not conceive L. 5. Aphor. 62. for the seed is drown'd in these as corn is in wet grounds Likewise they that have over-dry matrixes are unfit to bear children for it is necessary that the parts should be wet with the dropping of the menstrua I do not now discusse the matter what strong arguments they insist upon who think the terms not needfull to nourish the Child Let them hold their opinion but I can never believe that this humour is unprofitable and doth not serve toward the Childs generation For since all women that are in perfect health have their courses at set times what can we think but that this humour runs forth for some end and is not venomous unlesse it stay beyond Natures time in the body or it be restrain'd by some disease or accident So in plethorick bodies that is Continual Feavers such as are full of humours pure blood if it be not ventilated corrupts and causes a putrid feaver and other next to contagious diseases as the small Pox and Measels A Simile from houses shut up so we see houses long shut and not cleansed by the wind to grow musty and smell filthily Since therefore the terms are an excretion of superfluous blood which the weaknesse of that sex can neither concoct by heat nor discusse by exercise it must needs break forth by the Moons urging of it at a set time and by the running out thereof the body is cleansed and if it chance to be stopped longer it growes venomous by corrupting But it is not so in Nurses or women with child What menstrua are venemous for it is a strong argument because that humour is usefull in its time and fit to nourish the Child but that is not so that by long stay corrupts in the body But because after conception it drops from the veins into the womb and feeds the Child all the time the Woman is great with child if the womb should lye open or the terms any way run from it the Child cannot live or would grow very weak CHAP. XI The Soul comes not from the Parents Seed but is infused by God and can neither dye nor corrupt what day of Child-bearing it is infused How the mind raiseth it self toward God THe Soul of Man is by no means more invited to love God nor can know it self better than by searching into it self and when it doth
no man living shall be justified If thou Lord shouldst observe what is done amisse who might abide it but with thee there is mercy and plenteous redemption Despair must be cast away CHAP. XV. Whether there be a reasonable Soul infused into monstrous births and to abortives and whether they shall rise again to life And by the way from whence Monsters proceeed ALl those that are like men and according to the order of being born received from our first Parents by that way and means proceed from both Sexes though they are monstrous in shape and deformed in body Deformity unmans no man have notwithstanding a reasonable soul and when they have run the race of this short life they shall be made at last partakers of the Resurrection But those that are not from man but by mixing with other Creatures and exercise their Actions otherwise than men do shall neither be immortal nor rise again So the wood-gods Satyrs houshold gods Centaurs Fairies Tritons Sirens Harpies and if fabulous antiquity hath invented any other things of this nature they have neither rational souls nor enjoy the benefit of the Resurrection There are indeed amongst so many millions of men many that are deformed in body and are of an horrid aspect with hogs snowt and uncomely Jaws yet all these though they are far from the natural shape of Man are referred to the number of men For they speak discourse judge remember and perform other offices of the Soul and perfect their actions after the manner of men though they somewhat degenerate from mans dignity and his imbred force of Nature Whence monstrous shapes proceed Now a Monstrous habit of body is contracted divers wayes For fear frights influence of the Stars too much or too little seed Imagination of women with child and divers phantasms which the mind conceives deform the body and cause Children to be of a shape not proper to the Sex Sometimes the whole course of Nature is changed either when the seeds are vitiated or the Instruments be unfit so that the natural faculties to propagate and form the Child cannot perform their offices exactly A Simile from the Industry of an Artificer For as the most Industrious Artist cannot bring to perfection a work happily begun where the matter is naught or the Instruments are dull so Nature wanting the forces of her faculties or not having a fit matter doth all things ill and fails of her end Some there are that by their operation do make some parts of the body otherwise than Nature made them So in Asia as Hippocrates testifies Of Ayr and places there were great heads that the Nurses made their heads to be long figured for that they thought was a sign of a noble and generous spirit as a Hawk nose was amongst the Persians whereby at length it came to passe that though the Midwives ceased to presse the childrens heads yet nature whilest she was forming the child agreed with the ancient custome and what they did by great Industry Nature did of her own accord Also nutriments and the qualities of the outward Ayr make some parts deformed So they that dwell in cold moyst Countries have great heads great bellies fat bodies Countries change the conditions of Soul and Body babber lips swoln cheeks Many Countries produce Pigmies and little men very short Other Countreys produce people with great throats and scrophulous tumours with flat noses crooked legs Yet though many things be wanting in these people and the parts be either ill framed or wrested amisse yet because they are born of women and some force of reason shines in them and they are led by the same Laws of Nature Orthodox Divines say There is a rational soul in them and that they shall rise again The Resurrection will restore bodies deformed to their right shape And by rising again they shall lay aside all deformities of their bodies that were ill favoured to behold and be well formed like as men are and all lame crooked imperfect limbs shall be made perfect And though in some the force of reason shines lesse because of the unaptnesse of the organ as in children old men drunkards mad-men in whom the force of the Soul is hindred or oppressed Yet every one of them hath a reasonable soul and what is defective shall be made up at the resurrection But imperfect and abortive births and all mischances where the limbs are not fashion'd or very imperfectly because these want the reasonable soul they cannot be call'd men nor shall they rise again Difference between abortion and a mischance Physitians make a difference between abortion and a mischance For a running forth of a mischance is when the seeds were for some dayes joyn'd in the womb but by the slipperinesse and smoothnesse of it they run forth again before they come to make a perfect shape so that a rude unframed mass runs out that was the rudiments of a Child that should have been and a shadow of what was begun but it was cast out untimely as seeds and buds from trees that bear not fruit to maturity But Abortion oft-times shews the parts of the Infant perfectly made up which when it is 42 dayes old is endowed with a rational Soul and is alive Whence if it chance to be cast forth by some sudden accident it shall one day rise again For though many things be wanting in it and it is not come to its full magnitude yet in the Resurrection all shall be made up that time would have produced A Simile from children increasing And as children have many things in possibility that with progresse of time and increase of years do shew themselves as teeth nails hair and full stature of body which by faculty of the seed increases by degrees and come to perfection so in the Resurrection all things wanting in the body and parts that are imperfect shall be made perfect Whosoever therefore is born of the seed of man and not from some foul matter or vitious humours concurring though he be of a monstrous body and ill favoured shape yet shall he rise again from death to life all faults being repaired by vertue of the Resurrection and framed decently for that Omnipotent Work-master of all things Makes nothing weak Prudentius who doth the body raise For were there fault it were not for his praise What is by chance or sicknesse or by care Or otherwise decay'd he will repair Nothing is impossible to God For that is easie for him who made all things of nothing For as Augustine saith It is more easie to create men than to raise them when they are dead It is more to give that a being that never was than to repair what was before And the earthly matter never is perished in respect of God who can easily restore to its former nature what is vanished into the Ayr and other Elements or what leannesse or hunger hath consumed or
I think we should not wholly neglect the mingling of wine with water that of Plutarch was ever my delight I had rather drink wine moderately in its time Plutarch his opinion of mingling wine with water than to mingle it with water for it is spoil'd by putting water to it If any one would keep Chestnuts from corrupting let him mingle Walnuts with them for they will drink up all filthy excrementicious moisture from them How to keep Chest-nuts that makes them rotten and will not let them corrupt For the nature of the Walnut is drying and drinks up moisture wherefore it is good for the Tonsils and all diseases of the throat for which use there is a confection made called Diacarion that is made of Walnuts Dianucum that stops all defluxions from the head and because they resist poyson and discusse all contagions of the Ayre the composition Diatessaron that is made of four Ingredients was invented by the Antients An Antidote against the Plague which hath in it two Nuts as many Figs twenty leaves of Rue and some grains of Salt if any one eat these bruised together fasting he shall be that day free from venomes and contagious diseases Onions differ from other plants by nature Onions contrary to the nature of all other Plants increase when the Moon decreaseth and decrease when the Moon increaseth The reason is because the Moon choaks it with too much moysture For it being by nature full of juyce as all Bulbate plants are the Moon increasing augments the humour of it but it abates the heat which is the principal cause that plants increase For the same cause such as are over fat are barren Fat women are barren and produce no children because they want heat which makes the seminal excrement fruitfull And this is the cause that Onions Aloes Venus navel Saffron roots Squils Leeks and many more that are full of natural moisture if they be hanged up in the larder to the roof of the place they will sprowt forth and grow For being full of juice they want nothing but heat to make them shoot out Those that are hungry when a Feaver comes Feavers that make men hungry use to last long and therefore I alwaies held it better that the feavourish Patient should be thirsty than hungry For since their Feaver proceeds from yellow choler good store of drink powred on and sweat being dried up those Feavers will abate with ease but those that are greedy after meat in a Feaver are sick of a melancholique humour and of a sharp Salt flegme that kindles the Feaver and the stomach being full of those humours they will desire meat exceedingly whence it is that such as are so affected do feed their disease and give it fuel whereby they must longer be afflicted by it De plenit But there are three kinds of flegme sweet sowre salt and the first makes one sleepy the second hungry the third thirsty That onely makes the disease long that makes a man hungry wherefore if you would have the disease sooner end give them little meat at the beginning How to keep wine from sowring Wines in Summer as we see will grow sowre by reason of the heat of the Ayre Wherefore they must be set in cold Cellars and places underground and be well stopped But if you want that convenience put into the vessel a pound and half of Lard and Hogs-flesh salted or as the vessel is great a greater quantity wrapped in linnen so hanged that as the Wine is drawn forth you may let it sink still untill you come to the bottom that all the wine be drawn forth and the wine will neither dead nor sowre For all that would make the wine faulty goes to the Hogs flesh But the mouth of the vessel must be very close stopped that no Ayre may enter and a bag filled with Salt or sand must be laid on the top of it so will it neither grow sowre nor corrupt But that wine may grow sowre like Vineger you may do it with Leek-seeds or by casting in some tendrels and leaves of the Vine To restore clammy wine Corrupt clammy wine is restored with Cows milk moderately salted Some attempt to do it with Brimstone Quick-lime and Allum but that they may do men no hurt I could wish they would add Orris root and Juniper-berries to them That wine may please the pallat and be well liked for taste and smell put an Orange or Pom-citron stuck with cloves into the vessel that it may touch the wine and swim in it for it would rot by being wet it will contract no dead or musty taste but will have an excellent rellish Rue is an Antidote to poyson Since Hearb-grace is fit for many diseases and hath many excellent properties yet this shews the wonderfull force of it because a Weesil by biting Rue beforehand will destroy a Basilisk that is a most venemous serpent whence we may easily guesse what force it hath against venome and contagious diseases The Physitians in Italy do beg of the Governours that they may have such men as are condemned for wicked actions How the Italians dissect an Anatomy to dissect their bodies that such as are studious in Physick may be exercised in Anatomy Wherefore that no humours may be dissipated or their grosser spirits vanish Thefoe reof Opium and that all things may appear plainly they kill such as deserve to dye with Opium that is the juyce of black Poppy to the quantity of two or three drams given in the strongest wine when they have drank this potion they first begin to be merry and have as it were a Sardinian laughter then they fall fast asleep and die for it so suddenly runs into the veins and vitall parts that their bodies that died of Opium being dissected it is found to stick to the heart If Wine or Ale set in the Sun and wind are long before they grow sowre That Wine or other drink may soon sowre Salt pounded and mingled with Pepper and sowre leaven will soon do it But if you would have it done sooner yet cast a piece of Steel or a brick made red hot again and again into the vessel or infuse radish roots in it and they will soon sowre Also Medlars and Cornels unripe Mulberries or Blackberries Sloes cut in pieces Actian Cherries that look black without Morellen Cherries and are red within as bloud will make any liquor sowre and exceeding red also the flowre of Meadow Wind-flowre will do as much and the berries of both Elders and the most beautifull flowre of Clove-gilliflowers For that field poppy that commonly grows amongst Wheat Wild Poppy is hurtfull colours drinks of a very red Scarlet colour but the use of it is hurtfull and dangerous so that their errour is to be abandoned that in the Quinsey or pain of the side do give either the decoction or infusion or distilled liquor
this spot from Adam so we have the same principles of our birth with great pain and labour in travail and the same kind of end and death with great fear and trembling Wherefore as we were begot by him so were we made of the same earth and become guilty of the same crime And no man of so many thousands but had done the like All men â—â—e born and â—ye after the same manner if the same occasion had been presented and he had stood in Adams room he would have been baited and allured with the same baits and allurements and promises and any of us would have fallen into the same snare and stuck in the same mud if the same fraud had been used unto us to entrap our minds with But as besides Kings and Princes the Governours and chief officers of Towns and Cities A simile from such as are oppressed by usury which is now a common thing in the Low-Countries with a desire to help the Common-Wealth do burden it with debt and bind themselves and Citizens in strong obligations and for the money received bind themselves and the Cities to yearly payments and their heirs also so that if they keep not the days of payments or do not pay as they should they may be arrested by strangers and imprisoned that they cannot freely go forth or remove but they must pay their penalty either by laying down money or putting in good security even so almost are we bound to the Divel and like bank-rupts for Adams transgression are we entangled in most grievous dammage for by his fault we are fallen into the same inexpiable errour and wickednesse that no man could possibly get forth of it or untangle himself unlesse our most merciful father having conquer'd the tyranny of the Devil by his son Jesus Christ had redeemed us into liberty blotting out the hand-writing that was against us Colos 2. How original sin is blotted out as St. Paul saith for he took that away that the enemy pressed us with and fastned it unto his Crosse and he spoiled principalities and powers making a shew of them openly triumphing over them that he had wholly divested and cast down and pardoning all our offences that there is no danger that what any man hath formerly done amisse should be imputed unto him so that he henceforth by a firm faith rely on God and truly repent himself of his former misdoings Gods Judgement in misfortunes that come to posterity But to proceed in what I began It falls out sometimes that children are plagued and suffer losse for their Parents faults when they chance to possesse an inheritance purchased by fraud and wickednesse which oft-times are ruined by a secret Judgment of God When Children suffer for their Parents faults and come to nothing either by fire or water or some other sad mischances So that God will not suffer their innocent children to grow rich by their wicked rapins and frauds of their parents or long to enjoy those possessions that were heaped of injuries and injustice Likewise some dye suddenly before their time when the Parents for the Childrens cause indulge unto themselves overmuch and do nothing but gripe and plot for wealth possessions honours dignities and lofty titles and they make their way unto them by right and wrong and without any firm trust in God do all they can to mount to high preferments whereas God oft-times soon takes their children from this life Whence comes death before the time and will not let them live long and the empty hopes of the Parents perish Which is confirmed by that saying of the Wise man He pleased God and was beloved of him Wisdome 4. so that living amongst sinners he was translated yea speedily was he taken away lest that wickednesse should alter his understanding or deceit beguil his soul It is from God that Parents are deprived of children therefore hasted he to take him away from the midst of the wicked And when men see this saith he they understand not the cause of it nor can they tell why they dye so soon and come so suddenly to an end So sometimes it falls out by the providence of God that the heir dieth and all hopes of posterity and the very pillar of the family falls Also Hoseas professeth that God takes away some mens children for their Parents wickednesse Chap. 7. For so God threatneth wicked men there Their glory shall flye away like a Bird from the birth and from the Womb and from the conception that is they shall be barren and unfruitfull Barrennesse and want of Children from God nor shall they beget or conceive any children and if they get any I will slay them and take them away from the earth There are in all ages innumerable examples of this matter For we see the chief Nobility and Lords in Court not onely to want and be deprived of their children but to run in debt exceedingly But that David was deprived of the child he had by sheba the wife of Uriah there was great reason for it in the Judgements of God 2 King 12. For a grievous revenge from God followed that Tragedy and wickednesse committed Gods anger being kindled both against David and the child For God stroke the child with an incurable sicknesse that it died on the seventh day as it useth to be in very acute diseases For the provident justice of God would have none remain that was so begotten though David as the Scripture relates fell down upon the ground and wept and prayed continually that God would have mercy on the child This History affords every man a wholesome lesson that so far as mans frailty will permit he should keep himself from all dishonesty Adultery to be avoided and especially from embracing those that are lawfully married according to Gods institution to other men We must not grieve too much for losse of children And again if God take away a mans children he ought not to vex toil and perplex himself and destroy or hurt himself with immoderate sorrow For what a madnesse is it to afflict a mans self for those things that cannot be restored or possibly live again Wherefore Davids courage deserves praise his great moderation of his passions in so sad a condition For as soon the child was dead whereas a little before he was in a very sad case David was not sorrowfull for the child's death lying in dust and ashes as the custome of that country is could possibly lament no more than he did he presently shook off all sorrow and sat down to eat in his Kingly majesty But as for the other part of the Tragedy which had as lamentable an end as the former God offended with David's wickednesse denounceth terrible threats against him by Nathan the Prophet Adultery not unpunished 2 Kings 12. for that having ravished so chaste a Matron and killed so faithfull a Captain Uriah
understanding and reason and judgement and upon every small occasion she casts off the bridle of reason Why a woman grows angry suddenly and like a mad dogg forgetting all decency and her selfe without choice she sets uppon all be they known or unknown If any man desires a naturall reason for it I answer him thus that a womans flesh is loose soft and tender so that the choler being kindled presently spreads all the body over and causeth a sudden boyling of the blood about the heart A simile from things on fire A woman is soon hot soon cold For as fire soonest takes hold of light straw and makes a great flame but it is soon at an end and quiet so a woman is quickly angry and flaming hot and rageth strangely but this rage and crying out is soon abated and grows calm in a body that is not so strong and valiant Why a woman will cry when she is angry What men are more subject to weep and that is more moyst and all her heat and fury is quenched by her shedding of teares as if you should throw water upon fire to put it out Which we see also in some effeminate men whose magnanimity and fiercenesse ends almost as Childrens do in weeping when the adversary doth strongly oppose himselfe against them If any man would more neerely have the cause of this thing explain'd Whence do women become furious and desires a more exact reason I can find no neerer cause that can be imagined than the venim and collection of humours that she every month heaps together and purgeth forth by the course of the Moon For when she chanceth to be anry as she will presently be all that sink of humours being stirred fumeth and runs through the body so that the Heart and Brain are affected with the smoky vapours of it and the Spirits both vitall and animal that serve those parts are inflamed and thence it is that women stirred up especially the younger women for the elder that are past childing are more quiet and calme Old women lesse â—â—gry because their terms are ended will bark and brawle like mad doggs and clap their hands and behave themselves very unseemly in their actions and speeches and reason being but weak in them and their judgement feeble and their mind not well order'd they are sharply enraged and cannot rule their passions And the baser any woman is in that sex the more she scolds and rails and is unplacable in her anger hence the vulgar woman and Whores for Noble women and Gentle women will usually observe a decorum though oft times they will be silent and bend their brows and scarse vouchsafe to give their husbands an answer the Dutch call it Proncken because their Bodies are commonly polluted with faulty humours are full of impudence joyn'd with equall malice as if the Divell drove them and they cannot be perswaded by counsell reason shame flattery admonition that will ordinarily make wild beasts quiet and you cannot hold them from their cruelty or make them forbear their mad and lowd exclamations They see not right nor good nor just Terent. Heaut Scen. 1. Act. 4. What may help or hurt them their lust Doth govern all So forgetting themselves they despise their faith honour chastity fame honesty reputation and hazard all To which may be applyed that enquiry of Solomon concerning mans condition Eccles 7. I applyed my heart to know and to search and to seek out wisdome and the reason of things and to know the wickednesse of folly and of foolishnesse and madnesse and I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets and her hands as bands I have laboured to this hour to find a good and cordiall woman and could find none one man amongst a thousand have I found but a woman amongst all those have I not found A good woman is rare Pro. 36. And that enquiry in the Proverbs is not much different from this Who can find a vertuous or good woman as if he should say you shall not easily in any Country no not in the remotest parts of the earth or any corners of it find an honest and well manner'd woman and if by chance you should light upon her Solomons place explained she may be equal'd with the most precious Jewells and no Merchandise be they never so costly can be compared to her But because I have fall'n upon this argument and have begun to examine the condition of women I shall by the way clear the meaning of those words of Solomon the wisest Eccles 25. The iniquity of a man is better than a woman doing good I interpret that sentence thus That a man The wise Hebrew his sentence interpreted be he never so sluggish idle unskillfull and rude in merchandise will do his businesse better than a headlong and rash woman that undertakes any thing with a vain perswasion of wisdome and inconsiderate confidence and thereupon doth all things more uprightly than a woman doth For a man distrusting himselfe doth by leasure and circumspectly all his actions using other mens help that he calls to counsell with him so that the successe is more happy than when the same things are performed by an arrogant woman that is puffed up with a proud opinion of her own wisdome as they commonly are For such a womans endeavours commonly run to the worst and are unsuccessefull A Dutch Proverb against women why a woman is not so ingenious which the Dutch commonly signifie by this Proverb Het quaeste van Een man is better dan het beste van een vrouwe that is If any thing be done and brought to perfection by a woman it deserves lesse praise than what is but yet rude and imperfect begun by a man namely by reason of a woman's want of mind and counsell her dullnesse and blockishnesse for want of naturall heat and because their languishing mind is soked into great moysture so that the faculties of their souls come forth more slowly and are not so fit for action and to do noble things The Roman Law concerning women Wherefore the Romans who took great care to order and to confirm the Common-wealth would have women as Tully saith Pro Murena to be under Guardians by reason of the infirmity of their natures and to bear no civill office Also St. Paul who with indefatigable labour instructed mens minds in the sound faith St. Pauls precept concerning Women and diligently informs us what is godlinesse commands silence unto women in publick solemnities in the Congregation by reason of the impotency of their minds 1 Cor. 14. and want of moderation in their affections and will not suffer a woman to preach or to aske a question in publick meetings or to be present in voting or to give her opinion concerning it Since therefore so great is the frailty and weaknesse and imperfection of womens nature Platoes
XVIII To what we ought to ascribe amongst such multitudes of men the great dissimilitude of forme and the manifold difference that is between man and man in their faces countenances eyes and other parts so that sometimes Brothers and Sisters are not one like the other AS there is in Nature a wonderful gracious variety so there is the same in the form and shapes of men in their colours contenance eyes lineaments and in their faces there is found an admitable and numberlesse disparity and dissimilitude To What must be ascribed dissimilitude in men Some refer this to the influence of the Starrs but I think to referr it more properly and rationally to the nature of the Seed and the Mothers Imagination For being that the woman in the very conception and all the time she goes with Child The Womans imagination doth many things even for nine months hath divers thoughts in her mind and every moment is drawn this way and that way by thinking on divers things and her eyes being still fixed upon such objects she lights upon it falls out that those things she sees and are fastest rivered in her imagination are communicated to her Child For when the Nature of the woman is carefully intent in framing the Infant and thinks on nothing but a fair and well proportioned Child and all her forces are bent thereunto if any shape or Image be represented to the sight this soon reflects upon the of-spring who participates of it Moreover Mothers so soon as the Child is born do the best they can that the Child may have a decent comely well proportioned body fitly distinguished in all the parts of it The faults of Nature may be amended For Childrens bodies are ductile and pliable as Clay or Wax and may be bended any way Wherefore if the mouth stand awry and is uncomely they forge frame and order it into a decent posture and if the face be frowning and lowring they will make it pleasant and amiable and beautifull they make the eyes very handsome and lovely and of gray eyes or blunket which Infants commonly have by reason of moysture they make them black by abundantly feeding them with milk and chiefly if the Nurse be of a hot temper and the Child be kept in a dark place For a light Chamber where the Sun shines in much or a great fire hurts the render eyes But squint rolling gogle eyes and such as turn the wrong way That the balls of the eyes may grow black are reduced to their right posture by bending the sight the contrary way for the Muscles will be brought to their naturall places by wresting them to the otherside and being turned about will come right they raise and set eaven the nostrills that are crooked and fall down by a gentle way of handling them but they reduce Eagle noses and such as are with beck by pressing them down to a decent figure that the perpendicular of the nose may be stretched forth from the forehead and eybrows unto the hollow part in the upper-lip like a gnomon or right line or style that stands upon Sun Dialls What forme of Nose is comely neither set on bending outward or inward Likewise if the lips be swoln or fat which is usuall with the Aethiopians as also if the nose that is crooked be pressed down they handle these artificially and they often presse them that they may grow lesse and sink down lower by the same way they frame into a comely fashion a chin that sticks out or is drawn in the forehead head cheeks or eybrows that are deformed and decently order by art what is not seemly So if nature limp on any part and is gon off from the best forme and proportion Whence comes deformity of the body as some have wry necks crooked gowty ill favourd legs or bunch backs that makes them ugly all these errours are easily mended in those that are Children and such members as are wrested or disjoynted or out of their places are for right by the care and industry of man So the diligent care of Nurses makes Children grow up handsomely and so are obnoxious to no deformities of their limbs But the negligence of many Mothers and great idlenesse makes Children not onely to grow up unhandsomely and ill favour'dly but they become bunch-backr lame squint eye'd bull-headed and not comely to look on for they are departed from the dignity and excellency that is in man's body Some Nurses are over diligent and too officious who bestow some labour also on the Childrens privy parts that serve them them to make water with and in time shall be usefull for propagation of Children that they may be ripe betimes and not fail of hopes of getting Children and when they come to be marryed they may not be a shamed for ill performing the matrimoniall duty when they observe bitter contentions and quarrels to arise amongst kindred for this very cause that they will threaten to divorce their Sons in Law unlesse they can shew their manhood and please their wives the better yet I use to dislike and discommend this effeminate and lascivious office used by Nurses for young youths by reason of pulling them thus by their yards before their time or that they come to be of age or have mans strength they are prone to venery and so consume those helps and vent out those humours and vitall spirits wherewith afterwards they might be able to procreate lusty and lively Children whereas by unseasonable venery The discommodities of untimly venery they either get no Children or if they beget any they are lither and not so long lived Therefore I think it is good not to let young people marry too soon untill their forces bestrong and confirmed and that they can endure any hardnesse in matrimoniall society which tender years cannot do for they will presently wax faint and effeminate It is then better that the secret parts should swell out of their own accord naturally than that they should be drawn forth by any allurements CHAP. XIX Many kinds of Animals Fishes Birds Insects are bred without Seed as also Pants and many Animals and small Birds by an unusall way without the copulation of Male and Female do conceive DAily examples shew that many things come forth and are propagated by nature of their own accord and withovt any embracings of others or generation onely from filth corruption as Dormice Rats Snails Shell-fish Carterpillers Grass-Worms Wasps Hornets Weevils Froggs Moths Toads Eels Many things breed from corruption In mens bodies Worms though these have seed within them whereby afterwards they propagate abundantly Also many plants grow forth from the muddy moysture of the earth and fatnesse of it no seed being sowed or plants set in the ground before as are Darnel Cockle Nettles wild Olives Weeds and grasse that spring up of themselves Also there are some Crows in the Low-Countries that conceive by their
words in treating of the motions of conscience because this argument be longs to Preachers and professours of Divinity whose duty it is and by vertue of their office they are bound to pacifie and settle mens consciences and to free them from all feares But since these affections do overthrow mans health that proceed from the stings of conscience and the Spirits and humours vitiated do afford nutriments for it it is the Physitians part also to remove these perturbations out of mens minds that those being taken away the body may be in perfect health For it it a laborious and very difficult matter to restore the body that is fallen sick where the conscience is polluted with the spots of sinns where the Organs of the senses and the Spirits vitall and animall are vitiated And it is no lesse troublesome for a Church-man to give comfort to the soul when the body is full of vitious humours for by reason of the narrow consent and union of both parts the vices of the mind fly upon the body and the diseases of the body The sympathy of the Soul and body are carryed to the Soul As we have for example all mad people and such as are melancolique or frantique such as rave or dote or are drunk Apoplectick paralytick forgerfull stupid Lunatick and many more whose sick distempers proceed from the distemper of the brain wherefore we must carefully look to the head which is the seat of the mind and use all meanes to preserve both parts in health CHAP. XXII How many months doth a Woman go with Child and which must be accounted a seasonable birth By the way of the framing of the body of man and in how many dayes or months the Child is made perfect and comes to live In which narration all things are handled more accurately because from hence bitter quarrells arise not onely betwixt marryed people but others also that use unlawfull copulalation SInce there use oft times great contentions and quarrells to arise amongst many people concerning the time that the woman goes with Child and some complain that are jealous of their Wives that they have formerly marryed to keep them company that they have not gone their full time to be delivered so that somtimes they suspect that they have play'd the Whores and that some other men have secretly made use of their bodies I thought it not amisse to write something to this purpose and the rather because Lawyers that end controversies referr the judgment of this matter to Physitians and leave the resolution of it to them to decide So Paul The judgment of inspection is referred to Physitians Digest Tit. 2. Of the state of Man the Counsellour lib. 19 Respons It is now a received truth that a perfect Child may be born in the seventh month by the Authority of the most learned man Hippocrates and therefore we must believe that one born in lawfull matrimony in the 7th month is a lawfull Child Gellius handleth this argument but rather after mens opinions than according to the truth of the businesse or from natural reason who supposeth that there is no certaine time set of bearing Children and that from the Authority of Pliny who saith that a woman went 13 months with Child L. 7. c. 5 A Child at seven months is full of life But as for what concernes the 7th month I know many marryed people in Holland that had Twins who lived to extreame old age their bodies being lusty and their minds quick and lively Wherefore their opinion is foolish and of no moment who think that a Child at seven months is imperfect and not so long lived and that a Child cannot be borne perfect in all parts untill nine months be past So of late there arose a great conflict amongst us A History of a Child born and it was cruell and bloody and a most deadly and desperate fight by reason of a Maid whose chastity was violated that had no ill Name or doubtfull report but she had a weak head and a feeble judgment and these of all others are soonest overcome and do not so valiantly and corragiously resist and stand against either threats of flattering inticements other wise than some fierce clamorous maids use to do who will bite and scratch and compell one that shall assault their chastity to forsake them But in this Tragedy the conflict grew again more violent and bitter because the Father who was reported to have gotten her with Child or to have ravished her denyed the fact which his enemies charged upon him so bitterly that he might be torturd and racked till he should confesse it but he confidently avouched A deniall of a rape charged upon one that he was ready to forswear it upon the Bible he himselfe being wont to be President in judgment and to handle sacred matters that he never so much as entred her or broke the membrane of her Virginity nor penetrated into her body Wherefore he would by no means be taken for the Father of the Child or that it should be accounted his amongst other arguments he alleaged for his innocency this was one that the Child was born in the 7th month and hardly so late for the month was rather then new begun than ended and all the parts of it were perfect except the nails which we observe sometimes to be wanting in a Child born in nine months especially where great bellyed women use salt fish too lavishly or lick salt as that sex is most prone to desire salt and sharp things When a Child wants nails Wherefore he strove to prove it was not a Child of seven months but nine months and that by making that account of the months and by observing the reason of time they must seek for another Father who had formerly lain with her and got her with Child But when the Judges gave Judgment that the Infant should be viewd and searched by the Physitians a Midwife being called some honest women one was a noble woman who was the Mother of 19. Children and who severall times had been delivered at seven months and the seven months not fully ended They all pronounced not examining the cause of the fact nor respecting the Father whether they should reckon this man or some other to be the Father that this was a Child born in seven months that was carried in the Mothers belly 27 weeks and if the Mother could have gon nine months the child's parts and limbs would have been more firme and strong and the structure of the body would be more compact and fast and not so loose For the brest bone that â—yeth as a buckler or fence over the heart the Dutch call it Borstplate and the sword-like gristle that lies over the stomach were higher than naturally they should be and did not lye down plain but crooked and sharp pointed like the brest of young Chickens that are hatched at the beginning of Spring or
especially in the month of March Whence comes the Nails Also this Infant that was a Female wanted her nails upon her fingers and the utmost joynts of her fingers upon which from the musculous or cartilaginous matter of the skin nails that are very smooth do come forth and grow hard there appeared hardly any marks or prints of nails and they were not so hard as horn but soft as thin skin But on the joynts of their feet there were not resemblance of nails because those parts are not so hot as the hands and are farther from the heart the Fountain of heat for the joynts of the hands that are fastned to the brest by the Armes by the benefit of the heat that is diffused from the heart have more apparent signes on the fingers than any other parts The judgement of Physitians concerning Child birth with no favour or disfavour unto any Wherefore the Physitians observing many naturall causes and depending on solid reasons with favour or disfavour to neither side but as the matter would beare it if he would be so content that was in question to set his integrity and honesty upon it pronounced before the Judges to whom that tryall was commited by them that amongst the Dutch are the King of Spains vicegerents at Brussels that this Infant was to be taken for a Child not of nine but of seven months birth the time the woman went with Child being 27 weeks and such a Child must be accounted born in seven months though the time was not quite finished and one or two weeks were wanting and some dayes to make the time compleat But in this businesse the Moons circuit must be observed The Moon makes the months for women with Child that is perfect in four weeks that is in lesse than 28. days in which space of her revolution the blood being agitated by the force of the Moon the courses of women flow from them which being spent and the matrix cleansed from the menstruall blood as it useth to be oft times on the fift or seventh day Naturall conception is after the courses if after that time a man lye with a woman the conception proves to be most naturall so that the Infant born after seven or nine months is most healthfull and free from diseases to which Children use to be obnoxious For Children use to be troubled with many diseases by reason of the menstruall blood The Epilepsie is Childrens diseases that stays in the Matrix at the time of conception as are the Measils that is lively eruptions commonly called Measils and small-Pox in low dutch Maeselen ende Pocken and other red or wan Pushes that are contracted by the menstruall foulnesse and in the Spring or Summer thrust themselves forth into the outward parts of the body To this we may add the Epilipsie or Falling-sicknesse the Dutch call it Vallende Siecte which disease because it hath many differences the superstitious Gentiles of old were wont to referr it to certain Gods before the light of the Gospel was revealed to men whereas it proceeds from naturall causes and chiefly from clammy and tenacious flegme Moreover in the mouths of young Children there breed almost so soon as they are born some blisters about their throats and Palates the Araâ—â—ans call them Alcolam the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Dutch dan Sprowe What is Alcola and uâ—der rheir tongues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 commonly call'd the Frog What the Frog is in low Dutch Spanare which either by incision or with ones naile or rubbing with Salt as I use to do when they fear the iron instrument or Oxymel of Squils is taken away to say nothing of Hydrocephalon A spongy head that is a head swoln with a spongy watry humour and of many other collections of humours that come from vitious milk and menstruall blood which also use to accompany men in yeares and when they seem to be gon they will come oft times again Therfore both in tilling and sowing of ground A simile from tilling of ground as also in copulation with women and manuring that ground and proâ—reation of Children even by Moses law the Moons motion was to be observed by force whereof at set times womens courses run or are stopt The Moons circuit is performed through the Zodiack in 27 dayes and in one third part of a day which dayes comprehending lesse than four weeks make a Lunar month In how many dayes the Moon peâ—fects her course especially if you take away that time that this planet lyeth hid and is not seen for she is three dayes more or lesse in conjunction that is as they say conmonly the time she is invisible See Galen of decretory dayes in which time she doth not exercise her force upon the earth and is not fit to alter them But when she begins to shew her selfe and is new and when she is full that is she is in opposition to the Sun and shews round she hath wonderfull force in conception and many other things for she both augments Corn and fruits and shell-fish and flesh that hangs to the roofs of houses is corrupted by the beams of it shining upon it such as sleep or continue long in the Moon light she makes pale and trembling and heavy headed brings the Epilepse to Children as also stupidnesse and the Palsey and many more things she doth not that she exceeds the other Planets but she doth it by being so neere to us For she being so placed in the lowest Orb The Moon is a Planet next the Earth and next to the earth she doth so guide the beginnings and increase of things that by the effect of her even after conception of the seed the Child in the Mothers Womb by the Mothers blood that nourisheth it is augmented and made to grow The time of carrying the Infant is to be referred to the course of the Moon Also all the time a woman goes with Child whether you please to measure it by dayes or months or weeks as great bellyed women commonly use to reckon must be referred and counted by the age of the Moon But she shews her forces more effectually upon the body either when first she meets with the Sun begins to be enlightned by him or when she is round and full but when she is but a halfe Moon she hath lesse forces and least of all when she is crooked and by degrees fades and is obscured For at that time there is no concourse of waters in the Ocean no abundance of humours in the bodies of men no collection of marrow in the bones so that then it is fit for tender bodies to leave off copulation and to make a League with it But I oft times use to foretell to women great with Child when their travel shall be easie When the birth will be easie and so to raise their minds to hope very well if they chance
of the Womb but because this misery and pain in travel was brought in by God Gen. 3. by reason of the fall of Adam and Eve and this punishment was laid upon her the man also being cast into a condition of misery not inferiour to it For the most part in the ninth Moneth the Matrix parts and the os pubis being loosned the Woman striving what she can and desiting to thrush forth what is a burden to her and the child breaking forth by an imbred strength and by the conduct of nature which help the Woman lacks when the child is born dead For a child that is quick and lively labours no lesse in this work than the woman and strives to come forth to draw in the outward Ayre Yet there are many that when 9 Months are compleatly ended Tenth Months births are not delivered till the tenth such births Hippocrates calls births of the tenth month namely the tenth Lunar Month being begun that is perfected in 28. dayes to a month and not fully ended Wisd 7. So the Wiseman saith he was ten months formed in the Womb and coagulated of the seed of the man and woman from pleasure that comes by copulation By like reason they that have now passed the sixth Month in which no child born can live because the parts want strength and are entred upon the seventh and are gon two or three weeks in it are said to be born in the 7th month The same reason serves to reckon weeks and months by which are terminated in a certain number of dayes for the former week or month being past and the following begun from this is the reason of the time deducted and the course that the woman went with Child is ascribed to that from that month the great bellyed woman is in or the Child is born is the Account made as it useth to fall our in 7 or 9 turns of the Moon The like reason serves in reckoning of years either from Christs incarnation or passion so that the inscription is dated from the following yeare as for the beginning of the first month Why a child is vitall born at seven months the precedent month being neglected and defaced It is not besides reason that a Child should be vitall at seven months but there is a certaine cause for it For the Child by an imbred force and order of Nature doth then turn it selfe about and changeth its place for larger room A simile from a Captain in War And as a Captain in Warr marcheth to some other place when the place he is in is too narrow or difficult or he want necessaries for food yet so that in pitching his Tents and quarters the Souldiery allwaies keeps watch and is ever ready for all events of warr and sudden force that might fall on and is prepared against the assaults of the enemy so if in that moment of time whereby in the seventh month that motion of nature useth to be stirred the time of Child-birth chance to happen and the Infant come forth with joynt forces of the Mother assisting him without doubt it will be vitall A simile from such as cannot sleep in the night But the like hapeneth to this Infant as it doth to those that watch in the night and turn themselves to the other side and seek to lye on the softer part of the bed that is not so much pressed down and if any thing unlooked for befall them or any sudden occasion hinder them that they cannot turn themselves againe in their beds they presently leave their beds and shaking off sleep though the night be not quite spent they hasten to do what they are urged unto But if any accident unlookt for befalls them that are fast asleep they quake and tremble and if they goe about any thing it is confusedly and without all order that the businesse can have no good or succesfull end as it useth to fall out in the eighth month wherein the Infant being come to rest begins to be refreshed again and to enjoy its lodging in the womb and nutriment from the Mother Some are born in the 7th month whose bodies are loose and not not firme and that have but weak naturall heat A simile from ripning of fruits but being helped by the care and industry of Nurses they will last long and live many yeares For it happens to them as it doth to apples and other fruits of Trees that fall or are pulled off too soon which fruiterers and haglers hide in straw and bury in chafe that they may grow ripe in time and fit to be eate For such Infants by the labour and care of their Mothers or Nurses gain strength and by fostering grow strong and by this help they prolong their dayes for many yeares which can be obtain'd by no means in a Child born the eighth month for such a one seldome lives because that motion of Nature is quiet and asleep which agitation is wont to proceed from a certain cause both from the Mother and the Child Wherefore being tyred by that strugling in the 7th month it begins to regain strength and to be fostered untill the set time it ought to remain in the Mothers Womb. A Child in the eight month seldome lives Hence if any distemper or perturbation arise and the Child be driven forth of its place and habitation it is deadly by reason of an externall cause and that is against natures order Saturn an enemy to Children which is also exasperated by Saturn a cruel and hurtfull Planet to Children that by the coldnesse of it dejects their strength wherefore it is safe to stay in the womb till the 9th month that they may recollect their forces and just firmnesse For when the ninth month begins to come the Child sinks down for want of nutriment and falls low to the neck of the Matrix seeking to come forth to the light and is desirous to be released Sometimes in the very heat of birth and hastening it slips through the slippery parts the Womb giving way without the help of any Midwife suddenly as a ripe apple falls with the least touch of it which is most common to them whose Matrix is wide and the Infant hath all helps together being sufficiently enabled to come forth For such as have narrow month'd wombs bring forth with difficulty and painful labour with all the force they have From this pressure and hard travel A morall from hard labour John 16. our Saviour draws a most fit comparison and comforts and encourageth mightily his followers that they should not faint nor be discouraged by reason of calamities and persecutions which they suffer for the Gospell since by the example of a woman in Labour all their sorrow shall be turned to sudden joy and solid consolation Wherefore he shews that danger is at hand anxiety sadnesse and trembling but all these things by joy unexpected arising and by the