FOURTHLY, the Fomentation, or the Nutritive Faculty may be deficient in its Office of attracting sufficient Aliment to foment and nourish the Seed; which however, is most commonly occasion’d by Want, or Scarcity of Blood in the Womb, proceeding from perverse Evacuations, Penury or Necessity, an Atrophia, Consumption, or the like, or then, in fine, by the Impurity, or vicious quality of the Blood.
NOW These, I think, are all the most common, as well as the most prevalent Causes of Sterility: Tho’, according to Johannes Anglicus, there are also several external Causes[[225]]; which however, I shall here pass by in Silence; lest, as some good Women are at great Pains to rectify their barren Wombs, others should thereby take Sinistrous Measures to suppress their Fertility. And in this Class may be included the Medicines call’d by the Greeks φθόυα, because they are endued with certain occult Qualities, which extinguish the SEED and obstruct the CONCEPTION[[226]].
HAVING thus defin’d the mediate and immediate Causes of reputed Sterility, I can scarce, because of either of these, call a Woman really Barren; Since I have known some of the most difficult of these Cases to have been duly cur’d, and diverse Women to have conceiv’d, after many Years BARRENNESS, and prov’d the Joyful Mothers of hopeful Children; of which I could give some signal Instances, if I took Pleasure in swelling this Work: Hence it is, that the great Philosopher and Physician, Daniel Senertus, only disswades the Ingenuous from undertaking this Cure, in the Cases of vicious Hereditary Dispositions, venenated Constitutions, or other heavy Diseases[[227]].
MOREOVER, we find that the very best of the Ancients have been at great Pains, in distinguishing exactly the curable, from the incurable Barren Womb: Yea Hippocrates, Galen, &c. have given certain Directions, founded upon the solid Truths of their Immense Knowledge and Heavenly Wisdom, to try and discover the One from the Other; as they have also taught us to Judge of every particular Cause affecting the Curable Womb. But to facilitate these Nice Discoveries, I shall subjoin some few Diagnostick Signs; because except we know the particular Cause, we can never pretend to remove it, and without removing the Cause, the Effect can never cease, or be cured. Not but that——
I KNOW, that the ingenious Physician, undertaking this Cure, requires none of my Instructions; which notwithstanding, I hope, He will allow me to prosecute my Method in treating of this Case, as I have done of some others; and that the rather, considering it is generally well known, that sometimes a Fool has put a Wise Man in the right way. Wherefore I heartily wish that some Word may drop from my Pen, that may prove instrumental to wipe off the imputed Blemishes, and promote the real Glory of Women; And this I could wish the more, because I am fully convinced that many are ignominiously branded with BARRENNESS, without any sufficient Cause: Insomuch, that I verily believe, that, upon an ingenuous Tryal, not one real or incurable BARREN WOMB, would be found in Ten of those, which are this Day so reputed. But à propos——
As I have reduced all the Causes of STERILITY to the above said four CLASSES, so I shall reduce the Diagnosticks to the same number; and thereby demonstrate how it may be easily discover’d, whether the Fault lies in the Attractive, Retentive, Alterative, or in the Nutritive Faculty of the Womb; and how every particular Cause in any of these may be plainly distinguished, &c. In order to which, then—
TOUCHING the First, inquirendum est primò, an ad Venerem apta sit Fæmina, & quidem an Veneris Appetitum habeat, & an Membrum virile rectè admittere possit. Horum enim si alterum desit, Causa, cur non concipiat, procul dubio in Attractrice hæret; ut etiam, si statim à Coitu, aut post breve Intervallum semen effluat. I say, These are the infallible Marks of a læs’d Attractive Power, which also denote some Fault of the Womb, such as an oblique Situation, a Compression of the Epiploon or Cawl, or some obdurated Substance, impeding the SEED to reach the Cavity of the Womb: The Particular of which is easily to be discover’d; the Situation by the ingenious Touch; the Compression of the Omentum or Epiploon happens only to Fat Women; the Substance or Tumour (of whatsoever kind) if not found in the Passage, lodges in the Womb it self.
SECONDLY, If the Party labours under any of the aforesaid Causes debilitating or impeding the Retentive Power; some are manifest to the Woman her self; as in the Cases of any immoderate Flux, a slimy or illuvious Evacuation, a Gonorrhæa, the Whites, a Falling of the Womb, &c. others are obvious to the Midwife’s Touch, as in the Case of Tumours, Ulcers, &c. and in Case of either Intemperature, Dropsy, Inflammation, Worms, &c. all such are abundantly evident to the Physician, after duly examining, and considerately weighing the Disposition or Temperature of the whole Body in general, and of the Womb in particular.
THIRDLY, if the Alterative or altering Faculty be læs’d or impotent, then, after some Days Retention, an Effluxion of the SEED happens, and that either because of some Intemperature of the Womb; or of some discording Quality in the SEEDS, or in the Womb, as above; or lastly, because of a Want or Scarcity of Blood for forming the FOETUS. As to the Intemperatures, I have already observ’d, that, they may be readily distinguished by the ingenious Physician; But the Disproportion betwixt the commixed SEEDS, or between these and the Womb, how much, and in what they may differ one from another, is not so easily known; because this Fault may be as much in the Man, or perhaps more, than in the Woman, as has been already hinted: In this Case, the Physician is to weigh and consider well the Temperatures of the whole Body, and especially that of the Genital Parts of both the Man and the Wife; and as much as possible, to reduce that of the One, to the more convenient Temperature of the Other,[[228]] correcting Both in what may be found requisite; according to the Direction of Lucretius, in these Verses:
“Usq; adeo magni refert, ut Semina possint