not placed right until the last day of the courses.

Excess in all things is to be avoided. Lay aside all passions of the
mind, shun study and care, as things that are enemies to conception, for
if a woman conceive under such circumstances, however wise the parents
may be, the children, at best, will be but foolish; because the mental
faculties of the parents, viz., the understanding and the rest (from
whence the child derives its reason) are, as it were, confused through
the multiplicity of cares and thought; of which we have examples in
learned men, who, after great study and care, having connection with
their wives, often beget very foolish children. A hot and moist air is
most suitable, as appears by the women in Egypt, who often bring forth
three or four children at one time.

* * * * *




CHAPTER X

_Virginity, what it is, in what it consists, and how vitiated;
together with the Opinions of the Learned about the Change of Sex
in the Womb, during the Operation of Nature in forming the Body._


There are many ignorant people that boast of their skill in the
knowledge of virginity, and some virgins have undergone harsh censures
through their ignorant conclusions; I therefore thought it highly
necessary to clear up this point, that the towering imaginations of