The
only way to help this is, for people, before they marry, to observe each
others constitution and complexion, if they design to have children. If
their complexions and constitutions be alike, they are not fit to come
together, for discordant natures only, make harmony in the work of
generation.
Another natural cause of barrenness, is want of love between man and
wife. Love is that vivid principle that ought to inspire each organ in
the act of generation, or else it will be spiritless and dull; for if
their hearts be not united in love, how should their seed unite to cause
Conception? And this is sufficiently evinced, in that there never
follows conception on a rape. Therefore, if men and women design to have
children, let them live so, that their hearts as well as their bodies
may be united, or else they may miss their expectations.
A third cause of natural barrenness, is the letting virgins blood in the
arm before their 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.
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