The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher - Containing his Complete Masterpiece and Family Physician; his Experienced Midwife, his Book of Problems and his Remarks on Physiognomy by Aristotle
page 7 of 378 (01%)
page 7 of 378 (01%)
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For a female child, let the woman lie on her left side, strongly fancying a female in the time of procreation, drinking the decoction of female mercury four days from the first day of purgation; the male mercury having the like operation in case of a male; for this concoction purges the right and left side of the womb, opens the receptacles, and makes way for the seminary of generation. The best time to beget a female is, when the moon is in the wane, in Libra or Aquaries. Advicenne says, that when the menses are spent and the womb cleansed, which is commonly in five or seven days at most, if a man lie with his wife from the first day she is purged to the fifth, she will conceive a male; but from the fifth to the eighth a female; and from the eighth to the twelfth a male again: but after that perhaps neither distinctly, but both in an hermaphrodite. In a word, they that would be happy in the fruits of their labour, must observe to use copulation in due distance of time, not too often nor too seldom, for both are alike hurtful; and to use it immoderately weakens and wastes the spirits and spoils the seed. And this much for the first particular. The second is to let the reader know how the child is formed in the womb, what accidents it is liable to there, and how nourished and brought forth. There are various opinions concerning this matter; therefore, I shall show what the learned say about it. Man consists of an egg, which is impregnated in the testicles of the woman, by the more subtle parts of the man's seed; but the forming faculty and virtue in the seed is a divine gift, it being abundantly imbued with vital spirit, which gives sap and form to the embryo, so that all parts and bulk of the body, which is made up in a few months and gradually formed into the likely figure of a man, do consist in, and |
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