therefore, is hot and dry, whilst woman is cold and moist: he is the
agent, and she the passive or weaker vessel, that she may be subject to
the office of the man. It is necessary that woman should be of a cold
constitution, because a redundancy of Nature for the infant that depends
on her is required of her; for otherwise there would be no surplus of
nourishment for the child, but no more than the mother requires, and the
infant would weaken the mother, and like as in the viper, the birth of
the infant would be the death of the parent.

The monthly purgations continue from the fifteenth to the forty-sixth or
fiftieth year; but a suppression often occurs, which is either natural
or morbid: the courses are suppressed naturally during pregnancy, and
whilst the woman is suckling. The morbid suppression remains to be
spoken of.

* * * * *




CHAPTER II

_Of the Retention of the Courses._


The suppression of the menstrual periods, is an interruption of that
accustomed evacuation of blood, which comes from the matrix every month,
and the part affected is the womb.