The air must be hot and dry, moderate exercise is to be taken and too much sleep prohibited.  She may eat the flesh of partridges, larks, grouse, hares, rabbits, etc., and let her drink diluted urine.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XI

     Of Moles[8] and False Conceptions.

This disease may be defined as an inarticulate shapeless piece of flesh, begotten in the womb as if it were true conception.  In this definition we must note two things:  (1) because a mole is said to be inarticulate or jointless, and without shape, it differs from monstrosities which are both formata and articulata; (2) it is said to be, as it were a true conception, which makes a difference between a true conception, and a mole, and this difference holds good in three ways.  First, in its genus, because a mole cannot be said to be an animal:  secondly, in the species, because it has not a human figure and has not the character of a man; thirdly, in the individual, for it has no affinity to the parent, either in the whole body, or in any particular part of it.

CAUSE.

There is a great difference of opinion amongst learned writers as to the cause of this affection.  Some think, that if the woman’s seed goes into the womb, and not the man’s, that the mole is produced thereby.  Others declare that it springs from the menstruous blood, but if these two things were granted, then virgins, by having their courses or through nocturnal pollutions, might be liable to the same things, which none have ever been yet.  The true cause of this fleshy mole is due both to the man and from the menstruous blood in the woman both mixing together in the cavity of the womb.  Nature finding herself weak there (and yet wishing to propagate her species), labours to bring forth a defective conception rather than nothing and instead of a living creature produces a lump of flesh.

SIGNS.

The signs of a mole are these.  The menses are suppressed, the appetite becomes depraved, the breasts swell and the stomach becomes inflated and hard.  So far the symptoms in a pregnant woman and in one that has a mole are the same, but now this is how they differ.  The first sign of difference is in the movements of a mole.  It may be felt moving in the womb before the third month, whereas an infant cannot be so felt; yet this motion cannot proceed from any intelligent power in the mole, but from the capabilities of the womb, and of the seminal vigour, distributed through the substance of the mole, for it does not live an animal, but a vegetable life, like a plant. Secondly, in a mole the stomach swells suddenly, but in true conception it is first contracted, and then rises by degrees. Thirdly, if the stomach is pressed with the hand, the mole