is full of sinews, which are the cause of its movements, but inside it
is fleshy. It is wrongly said, that in the cavity of the womb there are
seven divided cells or receptacles for the male seed, but anatomists
know that there are only two, and also that those two are not divided by
a partition, but only by a line or suture running through the middle of
it.

At the bottom of the cavity there are little holes called
_cotyledones_, which are the ends of certain veins or arteries, and
serve breeding women to convey nourishment to the child, which is
received by the umbilical and other veins, to carry the courses to the
_matrix_.

As to menstruation, it is defined as a monthly flow of bad and useless
blood, and of the super-abundance of it, for it is an excrement in
quality, though it is pure and incorrupt, like the blood in the veins.
And that the menstruous blood is pure in itself, and of the same quality
as that in the veins, is proved in two ways.--First, from the final
object of the blood, which is the propagation and preservation of
mankind, that man might be conceived; and that, being begotten, he might
be comforted and preserved both in and out of the womb, and all allow
that it is true that a child in the matrix is nourished by the blood.
And it is true that when it is out of it, it is nourished by the same;
for the milk is nothing but the menstruous blood made white in the
breast. Secondly, it is proved to be true by the way it is produced, as
it is the superfluity of the last aliment of the fleshy parts.

The natural end of man and woman's being is to propagate. Now, in the
act of conception one must be an active agent and the other passive, for
if both were similarly constituted, they could not propagate. Man,