Of OXFORDSHIRE. ipj 



it felf : To the Infant, in that it is an Index of its ftrength, and 

 perfection of ^Organs-, To the Mother, in the certainty that her 

 child is living, and likely to promote its own exit ; To the State, 

 which is likely to be bleft with an able fubjeft ' the Vagitws being 

 nothing but fuch an/o Triumphe, as Livy d reports was made by 

 the infant in the mothers womb in Marrucink, . Fabiws Maximum 

 being the fourth time, and M. Marcellws the third time COSS. So 

 that if any thing amifs fall out after fuch Vagitws, it muft be im- 

 puted rather to chance than defign of nature: Let us but mend 

 our lives, and no fuch matters can hurt us. 



3. In the birth of man it is equally ftrange, that the fangs of 

 the woman in the exclufion of the child have fomtimes aflfefted the 

 Abdomen of the husband, which yet to fuch as have experiment- 

 ed the fecrecy of fympatbies , and underftand the fubtilty and 

 power of effluviums, perhaps may not feem difficult : But that 

 the Tfltf/zfliould fomtimes fuflfer fuch pains, whil'ft the woman is 

 well, and before (lie is in labor, is a problem I fear beyond all 

 hopes of folution. And yet that this has happen'd to fome per- 

 fins in Oxford is very certain, and that to knowing ones too, very 

 unlikely to be deceived, and of unqueftionable veracity : where- 

 of one of them told me (whom I enquired of more particularly 

 concerning them') that they came upon him when he little thought 

 of his wife, and that the pangs were very odd ones, fuch as he 

 never felt in his life ; not like any griping in the guts, but lying 

 in the mufcles of the Abdomen, which yet he fhould never have 

 thought to have had relation to his wife, had they not fuddenly, 

 and beyond expe&ation ceafed, as foon as his wife began to be 

 in labor. Which makes much for the credit of a relation of the 

 German Virtuofi*, concerning one Faber ofBuxovil in Alfatia>who 

 conftantly a&ed the part of his pregnant wife, being taken with vo- 

 mitings, and fuffering thofe inordinate longings that ufually at- 

 tend women in that condition, his wife all the while fuffering no 

 fuch inconveniencies. 



4. That fuch fymptoms ftiould be thus tranflated from the wo- 

 man to the man, the woman remaining well and undifturbed, Dr. 



IPrimirofe* thought fo irrational (upon account that natural Agents 

 firft work on the nearefi objects, and then on the remote/}, and 



T. Livii JTtft. ab XJrbeCond. lib. 24. e MifceUania Curiofa Med. Tkyf. German. Art. 2. dbferv. 215. 

 } Jac. Primiroiii M. D. de vulgi crroribus, in Med. lib, 2. cap. 13. 



Bb that 



