aking a
sediment, show that a male has been conceived, but if they are white, a
female. Put the urine of the woman into a glass bottle, let it stand
tightly stoppered for two days, then strain it through a fine cloth,
and you will find little animals in it. If they are red, it is a male,
but if white, it is a female.

The belly is rounder and lies higher with a boy than with a girl, and
the right breast is harder and plumper than the left, and the right
nipple redder, and the woman's colour is clearer than when she has
conceived a girl.

To conclude, the most certain sign to give credit to, is the motion of
the child, for the male moves in the third month, and the female not
until the fourth.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XIII

_Of Untimely Births._

When the fruit of the womb comes forth before the seventh month (that
is, before it comes to maturity), it is said to be abortive; and, in
effect, the children prove abortive, that is, do not live, that are born
in the eighth month. Why children born in the seventh or ninth month
should live, and not those born in the eighth, may seem strange, and yet
it is true. The cause of it is ascribed by some to the planet under
which the child is born; for every month, from conception to birth, is
governed by its own planet, and in the eighth month Saturn predominates,
which is dry and cold; and coldness, being an utter enemy to life,
destroys the natural constitution of the child. Hippocrates gives a
better reason, viz.:--The infant, being every way perfect and complete
in the seventh month, wants more air and nourishment than it had before,
and because it cannot obtain this, it tries for a passage out. But if it
have not sufficient strength to break the membranes and to come out as
ordained by nature, it will continue in the womb until the ninth month,
so that by that time it may be again strengthened. But if it returns to
the attempt in the eighth month and be born, it cannot live, because the
day of its birth is either past or is to come. For in the eighth month
Avicunus says, it is weak and infirm, and therefore on being brought
into the cold air, its vitality must be destroyed.

CURE.

Untimely births may be caused by cold, for as it causes the fruit of the
tree to wither and fall before it is ripe, so it nips the fruit of the
womb before it comes to perfection, or makes it abortive;--sometimes by
humidity, which weakens its powe