Page:A practical method as used for the cure of the plague in London in 1665.pdf/23

 deduceth all the Malignancy that attends it.

Willis says, that the Cause of this contagious Sickness proceeds from the Coagulation of the Blood and nervous Juice; like Milk turn'd sowre, that has had an Acid pour'd upon it; whence the Parts of it, thrown into a Fermentation, immediately curdles, grows black and. corrupted, and, if not presently evacuated, by obstructing the Circulation, brings Death.

Our Author, Sir Charles, derives the Original Cause of this Evil from Maternal Nourishments, and the Ignorance of Midwives; who, before they tye, and cut the Navel-string of the Child, ought to drive up (with the Finger and the Thumb) the loose, unconverted Menstrual Blood of the Mother from the Root of the Navel, that is newly come in by the Spring: For tho' such Menstrual Blood be not nocent in the Womb because it then becomes its natural Nourishment, as being converted therein to the Child's Substance and Juice, by its universal Distribution thro' the Body; yet when the Child is born to the free Air, and requireth Nourishment by the Mouth; then what came in by the Navel, and was not (before its Birth) converted into the essential Juice of the Child, must lie rotting there, and, as a Ferment of Putrefaction, break out into some higher and universal Rh