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.
Most males are perfect by the thirtieth day,
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.
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
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.
CHAPTER III
The reason why children are like their parents; and that the Mother's imagination contributes thereto; and whether the man or the woman is the cause of the male or female child.
In the case of similitude, nothing is more powerful than the imagination of the mother; for if she fix her eyes upon any object it will so impress her mind, that it oftentimes so happens