Chapter VI: Of the Womb in General

Herein I propose to treat of the womb, and the various maladies to which it is subject. By the Grecians it is called metra, the mother; adelphos, says Priscian, because it makes us all brothers.

It is placed in the hypogastrium, or lower part of the body, in the cavity called pelvis, having the strait gut on one side, to keep it from the other side of the backbone, and the bladder on the other side to defend it from blows.

It is divided into the neck and the body. The neck consists of a hard fleshy substance, much like cartilage, at the end whereof is a membrane transversely placed, called hymen, or engion. Near to the neck there is a prominent pinnacle, which is called by Montinus the door of the womb, because it preserves the matrix from cold and dust; by the Grecians it is called clytoris; by the Latins, præputium muliebre.

The body of the womb is that wherein the child is conceived; and this is not altogether round, but dilates itself into two angles, the outward part of it nervous and full of sinews, which are the cause of its motion, but inwardly it is fleshy. In the cavity of the womb there are two cells or receptacles for the seed, divided by a line running through the midst of it. In the right side of the cavity, by reason of the heat of the liver, males are conceived; and in the left side, by the coldness of the spleen, females. Most of our moderns hold the above as an infallible truth, yet Hippocrates holds it but in general: “For in whom (saith he) the spermatic vessels on the right side come from the reins, and the spermatic vessels on the left side from the hollow vein, in them males are conceived in the left side, and females in the right.” Empedocles, in giving his opinion, says, “Such sometimes is in the power of the seed, that the male may be conceived in the left side, as well as in the right.” In the bottom of the cavity, there are little holes called the cotiledones, which are the ends of certain veins and arteries, serving in breeding women to convey substance to the child which is received by the umbilical veins; and others to carry their courses into the matrix.

The menstruals are a monthly flux of excrementitious blood, which is to be understood of the surplus or redundance of it. For it is an excrement in quality, its quality being poor and corrupt, like unto the blood in the veins. This is proved two ways; first, from the final cause of the blood, which is the propagation and conservation of mankind, that man might be conceived; and being begotten, he might be comforted and preserved both in the womb and out of the womb. And all will grant it for a truth, that a child, in the matrix, is nourished with the blood. And being out of the womb, it is still nourished with the same; for the milk is nothing but the menstruous blood made white in the breast. Secondly, it is proved to be true, from the generation of it, it being the superfluity of the last aliment of the fleshy part.

The natural end of man and woman’s being is to propagate; and this injunction was imposed upon them by God at their first creation, and again after the deluge. Now, in the act of conception, there must be an agent and patient; for if they be both every way of one constitution, they cannot propagate: man therefore is hot and dry, woman cold and moist; he is the agent, she the patient or weaker vessel, that she should be subject to the office of the man. It is necessary the woman should be of a cold constitution, because in her is required a redundancy of nature for the infant depending upon her; for otherwise, if there were not a surplus of nourishment for the child, more than is convenient for the mother, then would the infant detract and weaken the principal parts of the mother, and like unto the viper, the generating of the infant would be the destruction of the parent.

The monthly purgations continue from the 15th year to the 46th or 50th; yet often there happens a suppression, which is either natural or morbical: they are naturally suppressed in breeding women, and such as give suck.