nourishment. One main cause of barrenness is
attributed to want of a convenient moderating quality, which the woman
ought to have with the man; as, if he be hot, she must be cold; if he be
dry, she must be moist; as, if they be both dry or both moist of
constitution, they cannot propagate; and yet, simply considering of
themselves, they are not barren, for she who was before as the barren
fig-tree being joined to an apt constitution becomes as the fruitful
vine. And that a man and woman, being every way of like constitution,
cannot create, I will bring nature itself for a testimony, who hath made
man of a better constitution than woman, that the quality of the one,
may moderate the quality of the other.

SIGNS OF BARRENNESS.

If barrenness proceeds from overmuch heat, if she is a dry body, subject
to anger, has black hair, quick pulse, and her purgations flow but
little, and that with pain, she loves to play in the courts of Venus.
But if it comes by cold, then the signs are contrary to the above
mentioned. If through the evil quality of the womb, make a suffumigation
of red styrax, myrrh, cassia-wood, nutmeg, and cinnamon; and let her
receive the fumes into her womb, covering her very close; and if the
odour so received passes through the body to the mouth and nostrils,
she is fruitful. But if she feels not the fumes in her mouth and
nostrils, it argues barrenness one of these ways--that the spirit of the
seed is either extinguished through cold, or dissipated through heat. If
any woman be suspected to be unfruitful, cast natural brimstone, such as
is digged out of mines, into her urine, and if worms breed therein, she
is not barren.

PROGNOSTICS.

Barrenness makes women look young, because they are free from those
pains and sorrows which other women are accustomed to. Yet they have not
the full perfection of health which other women enjoy, because they are
not rightly purged of the menstruous blood and superfluous seed, which
are the principal cause of most uterine diseases.

First, the cause must be removed, the womb strengthened, and the spirits
of the seed enlivened. If the womb be over hot, take syrup of succory,
with rhubarb, syrup of violets, roses, cassia, purslain. Take of endive,
water-lilies, borage flowers, of each a handful; rhubarb, mirobalans, of
each three drachms; make a decoction with water, and to the straining of
the syrup add electuary violets one ounce, syrup of cassia half an
ounce,