The _chorion_ is an outward skin which
compasseth the child in the womb. The _amnios_ is the inner skin which
compasseth the child in the womb. The _alantois_ is the skin that holds
the urine of the child during the time that it abides in the womb. The
_urachos_ is the vessel that conveys the urine from the child in the
womb to the _alantois_. I now proceed to
SECT. II.--_Of the Formation of the Child in the Womb._
To speak of the formation of the child in the womb, we must begin where
nature begins, and, that is at the act of coition, in which the womb
having received the generative seed (without which there can be no
conception), the womb immediately shuts up itself so close that the
point of a needle cannot enter the inward orifice; and this it does,
partly to hinder the issuing out of the seed again, and partly to
cherish it by an inward heat, the better to provoke it to action; which
is one reason why women's bellies are so lank at their first conception.
The woman having thus conceived, the first thing which is operative in
conception is the spirit whereof the seed is full, which, nature
quickening by the heat of the womb, stirs up the action. The internal
spirits, therefore, separate the parts that are less pure, which are
thick, cold and clammy, from those that are more pure and noble.
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