Q. Why hath a woman who is with child of a boy, the right pap harder
than the left? A. Because the male child is conceived in the right side
of the mother; and therefore the flowers do run to the right pap, and
make it hard.
Q. Why doth it show weakness of the child, when the milk doth drop out
of the paps before the woman is delivered? A. Because the milk is the
proper nutriment of the child in the womb of its mother, therefore if
the milk run out, it is a token that the child is not nourished, and
consequently is weak.
Q. Why do the hardness of the paps betoken the health of the child in
the womb? A. Because the flowers are converted into milk, and thereby
strength is signified.
Q. Why are women's paps hard when they be with child, and soft at other
times? A. Because they swell then, and are puffed, and the great
moisture which proceeds from the flowers doth run into the paps, which
at other seasons remaineth in the matrix and womb, and is expelled by
the place deputed for that end.
Q. By what means doth the milk of the paps come to the matrix or womb?
A. There is a certain knitting and coupling of the paps with the womb,
and there are certain veins which the midwives do cut in the time of the
birth of the child, and by those veins the milk flows in at the navel of
the child, and so it receives nourishment by the navel.
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