natural courses are come down, which is usually in the
fourteenth and fifteenth year of their age; sometimes, perhaps before
the thirteenth, but never before the twelfth. And because usually, they
are out of order, and indisposed before their purgations come down,
their parents run to the doctor to know what is the matter; and he, if
not skilled, will naturally prescribe opening a vein in the arm,
thinking fullness of blood the cause; and thus she seems recovered for
the present: and when the young virgin happens to be in the same
disorder, the mother applies again to the surgeon, who uses the same
remedy; and by these means the blood is so diverted from its proper
channel, that it comes not down the womb as usual, and so the womb dries
up, and she is for ever barren. To prevent this, let no virgin blood in
the arm before her courses come down well; for that will bring the blood
downwards, and by that means provoke the _menstrua_ to come down.

Another cause of natural barrenness, is debility in copulation. If
persons perform not that act with all the bent and ardour that nature
requires, they may as well let it alone; for frigidity and coldness
never produces conception. Of the cure of this we will speak by and by,
after I have spoken of accidental barrenness, which is occasioned by
some morbific matter or infirmity in the body, either of the man or of
the woman, which being removed they become fruitful. And since, as I
have before noted, the first and great law of creation, was to increase
and multiply, and barrenness is in direct opposition to that law, and
frustrates the end of our creation, and often causes man and wife to
have hard thoughts one of another, I shall here, for the satisfaction of
well meaning people, set down the signs and causes of insufficiency both
in men and women; premising first that when people have no children,
they must not presently blame either party, for neither may be in fault.

SECT. II.--_Signs and Causes of Insufficiency in Men._

One cause may be in some viciousness of the yard, as if the same be
crooked, or any ligaments thereof distorted and broken, whereby the ways
and passages, through which the seed should flow, come to be stopped or
vitiated.

Another cause may be, too much weakness of the yard, and tenderness
thereof, so that it is not strong enough erected to inject seed into the
womb; for the strength and stiffness of the yard very much conduces to
conception, by rea