The Seeknesse of Women

[bunnyjadwiga]

Translating into English from a reprint of Yale Medical Library MS. 47...
Cut for LOTS of period Girly TMI!

Here begins the sickness of women which is called the mother, it is the matrix. You shall understand that women have less heat in them than men, and more moistness in default of heat that should dry their humors and their moistness, but nevertheless kind has ordained women a purgation of bleeding at certain times, to make their bodies clean and whole of sickness, which purgation they have from the time they are 12 years of age until the time of fifty years.
And some have it longer as they that be of high complexion and be nourished with hot meats and drinks, and lying in much rest, and they have this purgation every month once, except when they be with child or if they be of dry complexion and labor much. For when they be with child, till they be delivered they have not this purgation, for then the child in her womb is nourished with the blood.
And if they have purgation in such time, it betokens that the child refuses that blood and then the child is sick and like to die, before it is is born.
Women being of high complexion that fare well and have much ease, have this purgation oftener than once a month.
And the blood that passes from them in this purgation it comes out of the veins of the matrix [womb].
The matrix is a skin that the child is closed in, in his mother's womb, and many of the grievances that women haveare caused of the mother that we call the matrix.
One is much flowing out of time of this blood and it feebles women much, another is stopping of this blood beforesaid, another is suffocation of the matrix, another is precipitation, another when the matrix fleyeth [flies? flays?] in forth, another is impostume of the matrix, another is swelling of the matrix, another is grievance being with child or hardeness before they may be delivered, another is the going out of the mother beneath forth, another is withholding of the secundyne, another is ache of the mother.
Withholding of her blood that she may not have her purgation in due time is caused of divers manners, as of heat or of cold of the mother, or of humours enclosed in the mother, or of great dryness of her complexion, or much waking or of much thinking, or of great anger, or of much sorrow, or much fasting.
Generally signs and tokens of this sickness be age [ague?] ache and grievance and heavyness from the navel to the privy member, and ache of the reins and of all the ryge boon, and the forehead and the neck, and of the eyes and of infection of the bryes, that is to say changing of her colors into another color that they should have.
Also heaviness about the mouth of her womb and of her stomach.
And ache about the shoulder blades both before and behind and heaviness of her thighs, of her hips, and of her hams and of her legs.
And they have sometimes an unskillful appetite to meat that is not according to them, as to eat colys [collops? coals?]
And her face is yellow colored.
And sometimes they wax wannish in their visage.
And other whiles in this sickness they have will to comyn [come in? cohabitate?] with man and doon [do? euphemism?].
And then they bring forth children that are measly [?] or else they have other foul sickness and long withholding of this blood make women otherwhiles to fall into the dropsy and some times it causes the hemorrhoids, some times it grieves the heart and makes them to have a cardiacal.
Some time it afrays them falling as they have the foul evil and so lie a day or two as they were dead.
And if this withholding be from thickness of blood that stops the ends of the veins of the mother that the blood may not flow in due time, then her urine will be red sometimes as blood, and in time they should have her purgation it will be dark and the veins of her body will be full of blood and her eyes clear red.
And if this stopping be caused of choleric humors, then they feel breening and pricking in within forth and then her urine is of high color and fatty.
And in time of her purgation three or four days before they be delivered when they go to privy of a choleric matter hard as it were brent, and her eyes be of swart red color.
And if it be caused of phlegm, then her urine is fat and discolored and in time of her purgation they be delivered of phlegmatic matter.
When they go to the privy that is white and thin, her color is feeble and her eyes swollen somewhat.
And if it be caused by melancholy, then they feel much heaviness beneath forth, then her urine is discolored and thin and therein is some time axen, small grauayle as axen.
Sometimes it is black and fat and there be a little black meats and dark in time of her purgation if they deliver of anything it is but little.
And women that be stopped, her urine is meddled with little black small axen as it were of coals.
Sometimes it is white and thick and dark as milk, some time white and thin with squames matter hanging in the urine or small black bodies meddled with the urine.

Comments

[paquerette.livejournal.com]

Ooh, a lot of the symptoms of amenorrhea sound like hypothyroidism.

[florentinescot.livejournal.com]

What a neat post! Have you ever run across information on How the women dealt with "The Purgation?" (man, I just love that phrase! Hallelujah, I no longer have Functional Hormomes; but I must have been one of those "of high complexion that fare well and have much ease" -- 23 day cycle for me!)

dealing with the Purgation

[bunnyjadwiga.livejournal.com]

Bizarrely, I've found very little information on how women dealt with menstruation. I'm reading The Seeknesse to see if I can find out, but transcribing it while reading it is working best for me. :)

Re: dealing with the Purgation

[florentinescot.livejournal.com]

It really is interesting. As much information as there is written by women, you'd think it would come up once in a while!

[fnoxib.livejournal.com]

and it adds dimension to the movie "the matrix" . . . considering the womb-like things surrounding the "real" people. I had never connected "matre" and "matrix", strangely, til just now. I wonder how the word relates to the rows-n-columns we call by the same name. Perhaps a different root?

This word-geeky post brought to you by someone totally out of context :)