Q. Why do they at that time abhor their meat? A. Because nature labours more to expel their terms than digest; and, therefore, if they should eat, their food would remain raw in the stomach.
Q. Why are some women barren and do not conceive? A. 1. It proceeds sometimes from the man who may be of a cold nature, so that his seed is unfit for generation. 2. Because it is waterish, and so doth not stay in the womb. 3. By reason that the seed of them both hath not a like proportion, as if the man be melancholy and the woman sanguine, or the man choleric and the woman phlegmatic.
Q. Why do fat women seldom conceive? A. Because they have a slippery womb, and the seed will not stay in it. Or, because the mouth of the matrix is very strait, and the seed cannot enter it, or, if it does, it is so very slowly that it grows cold and unfit for generation.
Q. Why do those of a hot constitution seldom conceive? A. Because the seed in them is extinguished or put out, as water cast into fire; whereof we find that women who vehemently desire the flesh seldom conceive.
Q. Why are whores never with child? A. By reason of divers seeds, which corrupt and spoil the instruments of conception, for it makes them so slippery, that they cannot retain seed. Or, else, it is because one man's seed destroys another's, so neither is good for generation.
Q. Why do women conceive twins? A. Because there are seven cells or receptacles in the womb; wherefore they may naturally have
so many children at once as there falls seed into these cells.
Q. Why are twins but half men, and not so strong as others? A. The seed that should have been for one, is divided into two and therefore they are weakly and seldom live long.