arry 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.

* * * * *

CHAPTER II

_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.

CAUSE.

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