e 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 wh