"
As for coition, it ought not to be used unless the parties be in health,
lest it turn to the disadvantage of the children so begotten, creating
in them, through the abundance of ill humours, divers languishing
diseases. Wherefore, health is no better discerned than by the genitals
of the man; for which reasons midwives, and other skilful women, were
formerly wont to see the testicles of children, thereby to conjecture
their temperature and state of body; and young men may know thereby the
signs and symptoms of death; for if the cases of the testicles be loose
and feeble, which are the proofs of life, are fallen, but if the secret
parts are wrinkled and raised up, it is a sign that all is well, but
that the event may exactly answer the prediction, it is necessary to
consider what part of the body the disease possesseth; for if it chance
to be the upper part that is afflicted, as the head or stomach, then it
will not so then appear by the members, which are unconnected with such
grievances; but the lower part of the body exactly sympathising with
them, their liveliness, on the contrary, makes it apparent; for nature's
force, and the spirits that have their intercourse, first manifest
themselves therein; which occasions midwives to feel the genitals of
children, to know in what part the gulf is residing, and whether life or
death be portended thereby, the symptoms being strongly communicated to
the vessels, that have their intercourse with the principal seat of
life.
Pages:
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53