<SPAN name="VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_II"id="VADEMECUM_PART_I_CHAPTER_II"></SPAN>
<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
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<p><i>How to beget a male or female child; and of the Embryo and
perfect Birth; and the fittest time for the copula.</i></p>
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<p>When a young couple are married, they naturally desire children;
and therefore adopt the means that nature has appointed to that
end. But notwithstanding their endeavours they must know that the
success of all depends on the blessing of the Gods: not only so,
but the sex, whether male or female, is from their disposal also,
though it cannot be denied, that secondary causes have influence
therein, especially two. First, the general humour, which is
brought by the arteria praeparantes to the testes, in form of
blood, and there elaborated into seed, by the seminifical faculty
residing in them. Secondly, the desire of coition, which fires the
imagination with unusual fancies, and by the sight of brisk,
charming beauty, may soon inflame the appetite. But if nature be
enfeebled, some meats <!-- Page 11 --> must be eaten as will conduce to afford such aliment
as makes the seed abound, and restores the exhaustion of nature
that the faculties may freely operate, and remove impediments
obstructing the procreating of children. Then, since diet alters
the evil state of the body to a better, those subject to barrenness
must eat such meats as are juicy and nourish well, making the body
lively and full of sap; of which faculty are all hot moist meats.
For, according to Galen, seed is made of pure concocted and windy
superfluity of blood, whence we may conclude, that there is a power
in many things, to accumulate seed, and also to augment it; and
other things of force to cause desire, as hen eggs, pheasants,
woodcocks, gnat-snappers, blackbirds, thrushes, young pigeons,
sparrows, partridges, capons, almonds, pine nuts, raisins,
currants, strong wines taken sparingly, especially those made of
the grapes of Italy. But erection is chiefly caused by scuraum,
eringoes, cresses, crysmon, parsnips, artichokes, turnips,
asparagus, candied ginger, acorns bruised to powder and drank in
muscadel, scallion, sea shell fish, etc. But these must have time
to perform their operation, and must be used for a considerable
time, or you will reap but little benefit from them. The act of
coition being over, let the woman repose herself on her right side,
with her head lying low, <!-- Page 12 --> and her body declining, that by sleeping in that
posture, the cani, on the right side of the matrix, may prove the
place of conception; for therein is the greatest generative heat,
which is the chief procuring cause of male children, and rarely
fails the expectations of those that experience it, especially if
they do but keep warm, without much motion, leaning to the right,
and drinking a little spirit of saffron and juice of hissop in a
glass of Malaga or Alicant, when they lie down and arise, for a
week.</p>
<p>For a female child, let the woman lie on her left side, strongly
fancying a female in the time of procreation, drinking the
decoction of female mercury four days from the first day of
purgation; the male mercury having the like operation in case of a
male; for this concoction purges the right and left side of the
womb, opens the receptacles, and makes way for the seminary of
generation. The best time to beget a female is, when the moon is in
the wane, in Libra or Aquaries. Advicenne says, that when the
menses are spent and the womb cleansed, which is commonly in five
or seven days at most, if a man lie with his wife from the first
day she is purged to the fifth, she will conceive a male; but from
the fifth to the eighth a female; and from the eighth to the
twelfth a male again: but after that perhaps neither distinctly,
but both <!-- Page 13 --> in an
hermaphrodite. In a word, they that would be happy in the fruits of
their labour, must observe to use copulation in due distance of
time, not too often nor too seldom, for both are alike hurtful; and
to use it immoderately weakens and wastes the spirits and spoils
the seed. And this much for the first particular.</p>
<p>The second is to let the reader know how the child is formed in
the womb, what accidents it is liable to there, and how nourished
and brought forth. There are various opinions concerning this
matter; therefore, I shall show what the learned say about it.</p>
<p>Man consists of an egg, which is impregnated in the testicles of
the woman, by the more subtle parts of the man's seed; but the
forming faculty and virtue in the seed is a divine gift, it being
abundantly imbued with vital spirit, which gives sap and form to
the embryo, so that all parts and bulk of the body, which is made
up in a few months and gradually formed into the likely figure of a
man, do consist in, and are adumbrated thereby (most sublimely
expressed, Psalm cxxxix.: "I will praise Thee, O Lord, for I am
fearfully and wonderfully made.")</p>
<p>Physicians have remarked four different times at which a man is
framed and perfected in the womb; the first after coition, being
perfectly formed in the week if no flux happens, which
<!-- Page 14 --> sometimes falls
out through the slipperiness of the head of the matrix, that slips
over like a rosebud that opens suddenly. The second time of forming
is assigned when nature makes manifest mutation in the conception,
so that all the substance seems congealed, flesh and blood, and
happens twelve or fourteen days after copulation. And though this
fleshy mass abounds with inflamed blood, yet it remains
undistinguishable, without form, and may be called an embryo, and
compared to seed sown in the ground, which, through heat and
moisture, grows by degrees to a perfect form in plant or grain. The
third time assigned to make up this fabric is when the principal
parts show themselves plain; as the heart, whence proceed the
arteries, the brain, from which the nerves, like small threads, run
through the whole body; and the liver, which divides the chyle from
the blood, brought to it by the vena porta. The two first are
fountains of life, that nourish every part of the body, in framing
which the faculty of the womb is bruised, from the conception of
the eighth day of the first month. The fourth, and last, about the
thirtieth day, the outward parts are seen nicely wrought,
distinguished by joints, from which time it is no longer an embryo,
but a perfect child.</p>
<p>Most males are perfect by the thirtieth day,
<!-- Page 15 --> but females
seldom before the forty-second or forty-fifth day, because the heat
of the womb is greater in producing the male than the female. And,
for the same reason, a woman going with a male child quickens in
three months, but going with a female, rarely under four, at which
time its hair and nails come forth, and the child begins to stir,
kick and move in the womb, and then the woman is troubled with a
loathing for meat and a greedy longing for things contrary to
nutriment, as coals, rubbish, chalk, etc., which desire often
occasions abortion and miscarriage. Some women have been so
extravagant as to long for hob nails, leather, horse-flesh, man's
flesh, and other unnatural as well as unwholesome food, for want of
which thing they have either miscarried or the child has continued
dead in the womb for many days, to the imminent hazard of their
lives. But I shall now proceed to show by what means the child is
maintained in the womb, and what posture it there remains in.</p>
<p>The learned Hippocrates affirms that the child, as he is placed
in the womb, has his hands on his knees, and his head bent to his
feet, so that he lies round together, his hands upon his knees and
his face between them, so that each eye touches each thumb, and his
nose betwixt his knees. And of the same opinion in this matter
<!-- Page 16 --> was
Bartholinus. Columbus is of opinion that the figure of the child in
the womb is round, the right arm bowed, the fingers under the ear,
and about the neck, the head bowed so that the chin touches the
breast, the left arm bowed above both breast and face and propped
up by the bending of the right elbow; the legs are lifted upwards,
the right so much that the thigh touches the belly, the knee the
navel, the heel touches the left buttock, and the foot is turned
back and covers the secrets; the left thigh touches the belly, and
the leg lifted up to the breast.</p>
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