its conception till the time of its delivery; till being brought into
the light of the world, it has the same way of concocting the food we
have. This vein ariseth from the liver of the child, and is divided into
two parts when it has passed the navel; and these two are divided and
subdivided, the branches being upheld by the skin called _chorion_ (of
which I speak by and by), and are joined to the veins of the mother's
womb, from whence they have their blood for the nourishment of the
child.

(2) The arteries are two on each side which proceed from the back
branches of the great artery of the mother, and the vital blood is
carried by those to the child being ready concocted by the mother.

(3) A nervous or sinewy production is led from the bottom of the
bladder of the infant to the navel, and this is called _urachos_, and
its use is, to convey the urine of the infant from the bladder to the
alantois. Anatomists do very much vary in their opinion concerning this,
some denying any such thing to be in the delivery of the woman, and
others on the contrary affirming it; but experience has testified there
is such a thing, for Bartholomew Carbrolius, the ordinary doctor of
anatomy to the College of Physicians at Montpellier in France, records
the history of a maid, whose water being a long time stopped, at last
issued out through the navel. And Johannes Fernelius speaks of the same
thing that happened to a man of thirty years of age, who having a
stoppage at the neck of the bladder, his urine issued out of his navel
for many months together, and that without any prejudice at all to his
health, which he ascribes to the ill lying of his navel, whereby the
urachos was not well dried. And Volchier Coitas quotes such another
instance in a maid of thirty-four at Nuremburg in Germany. These
instances, though they happen but seldom, are sufficient to prove that
there is such a thing as anurachos in men.

These four vessels before mentioned, viz., one vein, two arteries and
the urachos, join near the navel, and are united by a skin which they
have from the chorion and so become like a gut or rope, and are
altogether void of sensibility, and this is that which women call the
navel-string. The vessels are thus joined together, that so they may
neither be broken, severed nor entangled; and when the infant is born
are of no use save only to make up the ligament which stops the hole of
the navel and for some other physical use, etc.