Conception is generally said to take place the most readily, either at the beginning or the end of the menstrual discharge.1024 It is said, too, that it is a certain sign of fecundity in a woman, when her saliva becomes impregnated with any medicament which has been rubbed upon her eye-lids.1025
About This Book
The volume assembles an encyclopedic survey of the known world and its living inhabitants, moving from detailed regional geography and descriptions of seas, rivers, islands, and peoples to extended treatments of humanity, its generation, anatomy, and the origins and inventions of arts. Subsequent books catalog terrestrial animals—their habits, capture, and uses—followed by comprehensive observations on fish and marine creatures, their sizes and behaviors. Accounts mix naturalistic description, reported marvels, medicinal uses derived from animals, and travel and secondhand reports, organized as topical chapters intended as a practical compendium of natural and human phenomena.