The Female Physician / Containing all the diseases incident to that sex, in virgins, wives, and widows; together with their causes and symptoms, their degrees of danger, and respective methods of prevention and cure: to which is added, the whole art of new improv'd midwifery; comprehending the necessary qualifications of a midwife, and particular directions for laying women, in all cases of difficult and preternatural births; together with the diet and regimen of both the mother and child.

by John Maubray

AS Sterility is in it self a Præternatural Faculty, so I cannot but think, that, in the Class of Præternatural Conceptions, that of a NON-CONCEPTION may at last pertinently take place.

NOW I remember the Reader was referred to this Place, by Sect. II. Chap. 5. where I promised to expound the unsuccessful Act of Copulation; as I there briefly did the Reverse-Case: And after having all a long thus far forward, safely conducted the Fertile or Fruitful Woman, thro’ the different Trains and Consequences of the successful Act, I have left Her in a safe Condition, together with the Dear Pledge of her Natural Fœcundity; whilst in the next place, I come now to treat of the Præternatural BARREN WOMAN.

IN order to which, I First observe, that the Jews, and almost all other Nations, deemed it the greatest Mark of Infamy imaginable, for a Woman, to yield no Children; as is evident from the Scriptures, how Hagar, the fruitful Chamber-Maid,[^[219]] despised Sarah, her barren Mistress, &c. But moreover——

SECONDLY, We may observe, that, upon every provoking Occasion, the Lord himself threatned them with this Curse; as one of the greatest Instances of his heavy Displeasure, and One of the severest Judgments, that his VENGEANCE could inflict on them for their Sins, as is also manifest from repeated Instances of Scripture, particularly from the Words of the Holy Prophet, saying,[^[220]] They sowe the Wind, and shall reap the Whirlwind: Their Glory shall fly away from the WOMB: Their Root is dryed up, they shall bear no Fruit, &c.

THIRDLY, We may easily conclude that, such a Sentence passing from the Mouth of the most high JUDGE, the Supreme Physician, and Omnipotent himself, could never be revers’d by the Art or Ingenuity of Man: But as Christians have no Reason to suspect themselves to lay under this accursed Sentence, so they may well look nearer Home, and take a view of the many different mediate and immediate Causes of STERILITY or NON-CONCEPTION in them.

FOURTHLY, however, before I enter upon these, I would previously have it noted, that, sometimes the Fault, or Cause of the Woman’s not conceiving, lies in the Man; and may proceed from many diverse Diseases or Symptoms in him, as particularly mentioned, and treated of at large,[^[221]] by the most Learned Senertus, to which we refer the Curious; Because we have nothing to do with the Man in this place: Wherefore that I may return to the Woman, I say——

THE immediate Causes of STERILITY in her, are manifest from the very Definition of CONCEPTION: Which, according to Galen,[^[222]] is nothing else, than a Comprehension of SEED in the Womb, for the Generation of Man. But here it may be requisite, to explain this general Term of Comprehension, which I would have understood to imply four particular Qualities of the Womb, viz. Attraction, Retention, Distribution, and Fomentation. Hence it is that such Women must needs be Barren, as cannot either attract the effused; or retain the attracted; or distribute and alterate the retain’d SEED through the Parts of the Womb, and excite its latent Virtue to Action; or lastly, such as cannot duly foment and nourish the same SEED, when regularly distributed; and These, I think, are all the immediate Causes of BARRENNESS: As Those, for which the SEED either cannot be attracted, or retained, or distributed, or fomented, are the mediate Causes of STERILITY.

NOW, as to the First of These then, the Attraction, or the attractive Faculty, may fail in its Duty two ways, viz. either because of its own Debility; or because of some præternatural Impediment. The Debility or Imbecility of this Faculty may proceed either from a Defect of Spirits in the Seminal Vessels; or from either of the Intemperatures of the Womb, whether Natural or Adventitious: And Impediments may happen in Attraction many different ways, such as by a læs’d or extinct Venereal Appetite; by the Woman’s Aversion or Indifference to her MATE; by the perverse Affections of the Mind, such as Melancholy, Grief, Anger, Fear, &c. by Causes of the Vagina, or Orifice of the Womb; by a Coalescence, Ulcer, Membrane, Carnous or Scirrhous Substance, or any other kind of Tumours; as also by a Constriction, Distortion, or Compression of the ORIFICE; or at last by too much Fat, &c.[^[223]]

SECONDLY, the Retentive Faculty may come short of its Duty three different ways; namely, either because of its own Imbecillity, or because of some Præternatural Impediments; or because of the Object it self. The Imbecillity or Impotency of this Faculty may proceed either from the Intemperature of the Womb; or from the Abundance of some slimy Mucous Humour in the same: And its Impediments may happen from a Prolapsus, an Inflammation, an immoderate Flux, the Whites, a Gonorrhæa, Worms, Scirrhous, or other Tumours, Ulcers, or the Cicatrix of an old Sore in the Body of the Womb; as also from the Amplitude or Laxity of the Orifice, whether Natural or Adventitious: Which Accident frequently happens even to Child-bearing Women, sometimes by an Abortion, sometimes by a difficult Birth, and sometimes also by the rude Usage of an ignorant Midwife, that they can never more Conceive, until they be duly Cured: Again, the Cause may be in the Object, or Seed it self; when it is either impure, acrid, vitious, and disagreeable to the Womb; or deprived of its natural Heat and Spirits.

THIRDLY, the Distributive or Alterative Faculty may be also impugned in its Function, 1st, by its own Debility, occasion’d by either of the Diseases, or Intemperatures above-mentioned; or 2dly, by the discording Qualities of the Seminal Matter; or 3dly, by some certain Disproportion betwixt that Matter and the Womb it self: Since as all Seeds do not answer alike in one Field, some requiring a Pinguid and Loose Soil, others a Lean and Slender Ground; so it is with the Womb and the injected SEED: For, however fruitful the One may be, if the other be not of a proportionable Fœcundity, no CONCEPTION can possibly follow: Hence it is that many Women have been accounted BARREN in their first Marriage, who have had several Children to a second Husband. Again, as some SEEDS perish and are quite lost in moist, clayish, or marshy Ground, and others decay and are burnt up in an Acrid, Sandy, or Gravelly Field; So it is also with the Human SEED: For, in the too cold, or moist Womb, it is extinguished, and in the too Hot or Dry Womb it is corrupted[^[224]].