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A word of Advice to both Sexes, consisting of several Directions with regard to Copulation.
As Nature has a mutual desire for copulation in every creature, for the increase and propagation of its kind, and more especially in man, the lord of creation and the masterpiece of Nature, in order that such a noble piece of divine workmanship should not perish, something ought to be said concerning it, it being the foundation of everything that we have hitherto been treating of, since without copulation there can be no generation. Seeing, therefore, so much depends upon it, I have thought it necessary, before concluding the first book, to give such directions to both sexes, for the performance of that act, as may appear efficacious to the end for which nature designed it, but it will be done with such caution as not to offend the chastest ear, nor to put the fair sex to the blush when they read it.
In the first place, then, when a married couple from the desire of having children are about to make use of those means that Nature has provided for that purpose, it is well to stimulate the body with generous restoratives, that it may be active and vigorous. And the imagination should be charmed with sweet music, and if all care and thoughts of business be drowned in a glass of rosy wine, so that their spirit may be raised to the highest pitch of ardour, it would be as well, for troubles, cares or sadness are enemies to the pleasures of Venus. And if the woman should conceive when sexual intercourse takes place at such times of disturbance, it would have a bad effect upon the child. But though generous restoratives may be employed for invigorating nature, yet all excess should be carefully avoided, for it will check the briskness of the spirits and make them dull and languid, and as it also interferes with digestion, it must necessarily be an enemy to copulation; for it is food taken moderately and that is well digested, which enables a man to perform the dictates of Nature with vigour and activity, and it is also necessary, that in their mutual embraces they meet each other with equal ardour, for, if not, the woman either will not conceive, or else the child may be weak bodily, or mentally defective. I, therefore, advise them to excite their desires mutually before they begin their conjugal intercourse, and when they have done what nature requires, a man must be careful not to withdraw himself from his wife's arms too soon, lest some sudden cold should strike into the womb and occasion miscarriage, and so deprive them of the fruits of their labour.
And when the man has withdrawn himself after a suitable time, the woman should quietly go to rest, with all calmness and composure of mind, free from all anxious and disturbing thoughts, or any other mental worry. And she must, as far as possible, avoid turning over from the side on which she was first lying, and also keep from coughing and sneezing, because as it violently shakes the body, it is a great enemy to conception.
Treating of the several Maladies incident to the womb, with proper remedies for the cure of each.
The womb is placed in the hypogastrium, or lower part of the body, in the cavity called the pelvis, having the straight gut on one side to protect it against the hardness of the backbone, and the bladder on the other side to protect it against blows. Its form or shape is like a virile member, with this exception, that the man's is outside, and the woman's inside.
It is divided into the neck and body. The neck consists of a hard fleshy substance, much like cartilage, and at the end of it there is a membrane placed transversely, which is called the hymen. Near the neck there is a prominent pinnacle, which is called the door of the womb, because it preserves the matrix from cold and dust. The Greeks called it clitoris, and the Latins praeputium muliebre, because the Roman women abused these parts to satisfy their mutual unlawful lusts, as St. Paul says, Romans 1. 26.
The body of the womb is where the child is conceived, and this is not altogether round, but dilates itself into two angles; the outward part is full of sinews, which are the cause of its movements, but inside it is fleshy. It is wrongly said, that in the cavity of the womb there are seven divided cells or receptacles for the male seed, but anatomists know that there are only two, and also that those two are not divided by a partition, but only by a line or suture running through the middle of it.
At the bottom of the cavity there are little holes called cotyledones, which are the ends of certain veins or arteries, and serve breeding women to convey nourishment to the child, which is received by the umbilical and other veins, to carry the courses to the matrix.
As to menstruation, it is defined as a monthly flow of bad and useless blood, and of the super-abundance of it, for it is an excrement in quality, though it is pure and incorrupt, like the blood in the veins. And that the menstruous blood is pure in itself, and of the same quality as that in the veins, is proved in two ways.—First, from the final object of the blood, which is the propagation and preservation of mankind, that man might be conceived; and that, being begotten, he might be comforted and preserved both in and out of the womb, and all allow that it is true that a child in the matrix is nourished by the blood. And it is true that when it is out of it, it is nourished by the same; for the milk is nothing but the menstruous blood made white in the breast. Secondly, it is proved to be true by the way it is produced, as it is the superfluity of the last aliment of the fleshy parts.
The natural end of man and woman's being is to propagate. Now, in the act of conception one must be an active agent and the other passive, for if both were similarly constituted, they could not propagate. Man, therefore, is hot and dry, whilst woman is cold and moist: he is the agent, and she the passive or weaker vessel, that she may be subject to the office of the man. It is necessary that woman should be of a cold constitution, because a redundancy of Nature for the infant that depends on her is required of her; for otherwise there would be no surplus of nourishment for the child, but no more than the mother requires, and the infant would weaken the mother, and like as in the viper, the birth of the infant would be the death of the parent.
The monthly purgations continue from the fifteenth to the forty-sixth or fiftieth year; but a suppression often occurs, which is either natural or morbid: the courses are suppressed naturally during pregnancy, and whilst the woman is suckling. The morbid suppression remains to be spoken of.
Of the Retention of the Courses.
The suppression of the menstrual periods, is an interruption of that accustomed evacuation of blood, which comes from the matrix every month, and the part affected is the womb.
The cause of this suppression is either external or internal. The external cause may be heat or dryness of air, want of sleep, too much work, violent exercise, etc., whereby the substance is so consumed, and the body so exhausted that nothing is left over to be got rid of, as is recorded of the Amazons who, being active and constantly in motion, had their courses very little, if at all. Or it may be brought about by cold which is very frequent, as it vitiates and thickens the blood, and binds up the passages, so that it cannot flow out.
