Folio 90v - the parts of man's body, continued.
blood, it is shaped in the body. The menstrual flow is the superfluous blood of a woman. It is called menstrua from the cycle of the light of the moon which regularly brings about this flow. For the Greek word for 'moon' is mene; menstruation is also called muliebria, 'womanly business'. For the woman is the only creature which menstruates. When they come into contact with menstrual blood, crops do not put forth shoots, wine turns sour, grasses die, trees lose their fruit, iron is corrupted by rust, copper blackens, if dogs eat it they become rabid. Asphalt glue, which cannot be melted by fire or dissolved by water, when it is tainted by this blood, disintegrates by itself. After many days of menstruation, the semen cannot generate, because there is no further flow of menstrual blood by which it can be moistened. Semen of thin consistency does not stick to the womanly parts and is unstable, for it has not the strength to adhere; likewise thick semen has not the power to generate, because it cannot mix with the woman's blood, so dense is it. For this reason men and women become sterile, either through excessive density of the semen, or the blood, or excessive thinness. For they say that a man's heart is the first part to come into existence, because in it is all life and wisdom; then on the fortieth day, the whole body is complete, a fact gathered from abortions. Others say that the fetus takes its beginning from the head. For this reason we see in eggs that in the fetus of birds the eyes are the first things to grow. The fetus is so called because it is still being fostered, fovere, in the womb. The afterbirth, secunda, of the fetus is called folliculus, 'little sack'; it is produced simultaneously with the baby and contains it. It is called secunda because when the baby comes forth, it follows, sequi. They say that children are born resembling their fathers, if the father's semen is stronger. They resemble the mother
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