In this section I must first tell you what I mean by the parts proper to a child in the womb; and they are only those that either help or nourish it, whilst it is lodged in that dark repository of nature, and that help to clothe and defend it there, and are cast away, as of no more use, after it is born; and these are two: viz. the umbilicurs, or navel vessels, and the secundinum. By the first it is nourished, and by the second clothed and defended from wrong. Of each of these I shall speak distinctly: and, first,
Of the Umbilicurs, or Navel Vessels.
These are four in number: viz. one vein, two arteries, and the vessel which is called the urachos.
1. The vein is that by which the infant is nourished, from the time of its conception till the time of its delivery; till, being brought into the light of this world it has the same way of concocting its food that we have. This vein ariseth from the liver of the child, and is divided into parts when it has passed the navel; and these two are divided and subdivided, the branches being upheld by the skin called chorion (of which I shall speak by and by), and are joined to the veins of the mother’s womb, from whence they have their blood for the nourishment of the child.
2. The arteries are two on each side, which proceed from the back branches of the great artery of the mother; and the vital blood is carried by those to the child, being ready concocted by the mother.
3. A nervous or sinewy production is led from the bottom of the bladder of the infant to the navel, and this is called urachos; and its use is to convey the urine of the infant from the bladder to the alantois. Anatomists do very much vary in their opinions concerning this; some denying any such thing to be in the delivery of the woman; and others, on the contrary, affirming it: but experience has testified there is such a thing; for Bartholomew Carbrolius, the ordinary doctor of anatomy to the College of Physicians at Montpelier, in France, records the history of a maid, whose water, being a long time stopped, at last issued out through the navel. And Johannes Fernelius speaks of the same thing that happened to a man of thirty years of age, who, having a stoppage at the neck of the bladder, his urine issued out of his navel many months together, and that without any prejudice at all to his health; which he ascribes to the ill lying of his navel whereby the urachos was not well dried. And Volchier Coitas quotes such another instance in a maid of thirty-four years of age, at Nuremberg, in Germany. These instances, though they happen but seldom, are sufficient to prove that there is such a thing as an urachos in men.
These four vessels before-mentioned, viz. one vein, two arteries, and the urachos, do join near to the navel, and are united by a skin, which they have from the chorion, and so become like a gut or rope, and are altogether void of sense, and this is that which women call the navel-string. The vessels are thus joined together, that so they may neither be broken, severed nor entangled; and when the infant is born are of no use, save only to make up the ligament which stops the hole of the navel, and some other physical use, &c.
Of the Secundine, or After-Birth.
Setting aside the name given to this by the Greeks and Latins, it is called in English by the name of secundine, after-birth, or after-burden; which are held to be four in number.
I. The first is called placentia, because it resembles the form of a cake, and is knit both to the navel and chorion, and makes up the greatest part of the secundine, or after-birth. The flesh of it is like that of the melt, or spleen, soft, red, and tending something to blackness, and hath many small veins and arteries in it; and certainly the chief use of it is, for containing the child in the womb.