_Filii ex senibus nati, raro sunt firmi temperamenti_, old men's children
are seldom of a good temperament, as Scoltzius supposeth, _consult. 177_,
and therefore most apt to this disease; and as [1327]Levinus Lemnius
farther adds, old men beget most part wayward, peevish, sad, melancholy
sons, and seldom merry. He that begets a child on a full stomach, will
either have a sick child, or a crazed son (as [1328]Cardan thinks),
_contradict. med. lib. 1. contradict. 18_, or if the parents be sick, or
have any great pain of the head, or megrim, headache, (Hieronymus Wolfius
[1329]doth instance in a child of Sebastian Castalio's); if a drunken man
get a child, it will never likely have a good brain, as Gellius argues,
_lib. 12. cap. 1._ _Ebrii gignunt Ebrios_, one drunkard begets another,
saith [1330]Plutarch, _symp. lib. 1. quest. 5_, whose sentence
[1331]Lemnius approves, _l. 1. c. 4._ Alsarius Crutius, _Gen. de qui sit
med. cent. 3. fol. 182._ Macrobius, _lib. 1._ Avicenna, _lib. 3. Fen. 21.
Tract 1. cap. 8_, and Aristotle himself, _sect. 2. prob. 4_, foolish,
drunken, or hair-brain women, most part bring forth children like unto
themselves, _morosos et languidos_, and so likewise he that lies with a
menstruous woman. _Intemperantia veneris, quam in nautis praesertim
insectatur [1332] Lemnius, qui uxores ineunt, nulla menstrui decursus
ratione habita nec observato interlunio, praecipua causa est, noxia,
pernitiosa, concubitum hunc exitialem ideo, et pestiferum vocat.
[1333]Rodoricus a Castro Lucitanus, detestantur ad unum omnes medici, tum
et quarta luna concepti, infelices plerumque et amentes, deliri, stolidi,
morbosi, impuri, invalidi, tetra lue sordidi minime vitales, omnibus bonis
corporis atque animi destituti: ad laborem nati, si seniores, inquit
Eustathius, ut Hercules, et alii. [1334]Judaei maxime insectantur foedum
hunc, et immundum apud Christianas Concubitum, ut illicitum abhorrent, et
apud suos prohibent; et quod Christiani toties leprosi, amentes, tot
morbili, impetigines, alphi, psorae, cutis et faciei decolorationes, tam