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THE MIDWIFE’S VADE-MECUM
Containing
Particular directions for midwives,
nurses, etc.
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Some genuine recipes for causing
speedy delivery.
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Approved directions for nurses.
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[Illustration: Medical Knowledge]
[Illustration]
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THE MASTERPIECE
On marriage and at
what age young men and virgins are capable of
it: and why so
much desire it. Also, how long men and women are
capable of it.
There are very few, except some professional debauchees,
who will not readily agree that “Marriage is
honourable to all,” being ordained by Heaven
in Paradise; and without which no man or woman can
be in a capacity, honestly, to yield obedience to
the first law of the creation, “Increase and
Multiply.” And since it is natural in young
people to desire the embraces, proper to the marriage
bed, it behoves parents to look after their children,
and when they find them inclinable to marriage, not
violently to restrain their inclinations (which, instead
of allaying them, makes them but the more impetuous)
but rather provide such suitable matches for them,
as may make their lives comfortable; lest the crossing
of those inclinations should precipitate them to commit
those follies that may bring an indelible stain upon
their families. The inclination of maids to marriage
may be known by many symptoms; for when they arrive
at puberty, which is about the fourteenth or fifteenth
year of their age, then their natural purgations begin
to flow; and the blood, which is no longer to augment
their bodies, abounding, stirs up their minds to venery.
External causes may also incline them to it; for their
spirits being brisk and inflamed, when they arrive
at that age, if they eat hard salt things and spices,
the body becomes more and more heated, whereby the
desire to veneral embraces is very great, and sometimes
almost insuperable. And the use of this so much
desired enjoyment being denied to virgins, many times
is followed by dismal consequences; such as the green
weesel colonet, short-breathing, trembling of the
heart, etc. But when they are married and
their veneral desires satisfied by the enjoyment of
their husbands, these distempers vanish, and they
become more gay and lively than before. Also,
their eager staring at men, and affecting their company,
shows that nature pushes them upon coition; and their
parents neglecting to provide them with husbands,
they break through modesty and satisfy themselves
in unlawful embraces. It is the same with brisk
widows, who cannot be satisfied without that benevolence
to which they were accustomed when they had their
husbands.
