THIRDLY, the _Distributive_ or _Alterative Faculty_ may be also impugned in its _Function_, _1st_, by its own _Debility_, occasion’d by either of the _Diseases_, or _Intemperatures_ above-mentioned; or 2dly, by the discording _Qualities_ of the _Seminal Matter_; or 3dly, by some certain Disproportion betwixt that _Matter_ and the WOMB it self: Since as all SEEDS do not answer alike in _one Field_, some requiring a Pinguid and Loose _Soil_, others a Lean and Slender _Ground_; so it is with the WOMB and the injected _SEED_: For, however fruitful the _One_ may be, if the _other_ be not of a proportionable _Fœcundity_, no _CONCEPTION_ can possibly follow: Hence it is that many _Women_ have been accounted _BARREN_ in their first _Marriage_, who have had several _Children_ to a _second Husband_. Again, as _some SEEDS_ perish and are quite lost in _moist_, _clayish_, or _marshy Ground_, and _others_ decay and are burnt up in an _Acrid_, _Sandy_, or _Gravelly Field_; So it is also with the Human _SEED_: For, in the too _cold_, or _moist_ WOMB, it is extinguished, and in the too _Hot_ or _Dry_ WOMB it is corrupted[224]. FOURTHLY, the Fomentation, or the _Nutritive Faculty_ may be deficient in its Office of _attracting sufficient Aliment_ to foment and nourish the SEED; which however, is most commonly occasion’d by Want, or Scarcity of _Blood_ in the WOMB, proceeding from _perverse Evacuations_, _Penury_ or _Necessity_, an _Atrophia_, _Consumption_, or the like, or then, in fine, by the _Impurity_, or _vicious quality_ of the BLOOD. NOW These, I think, are all the most common, as well as the most prevalent _Causes_ of STERILITY: Tho’, according to _Johannes Anglicus_, there are also several _external Causes_[225]; which however, I shall here pass by in Silence; lest, as some good _Women_ are at great Pains to rectify their _barren Wombs_, _others_ should thereby take Sinistrous Measures to suppress their FERTILITY. And in this CLASS may be included the _Medicines_ call’d by the _Greeks_ φθόυα, because they are endued with certain _occult Qualities_, which extinguish the _SEED_ and obstruct the _CONCEPTION_[226]. HAVING thus defin’d the mediate and immediate _Causes_ of reputed STERILITY, I can scarce, because of either of _these_, call a _Woman_ really BARREN; Since I have known some of the most difficult of _these Cases_ to have been duly _cur’d_, and diverse _Women_ to have conceiv’d, after many Years _BARRENNESS_, and prov’d the Joyful MOTHERS of hopeful _Children_; of which I could give some signal _Instances_, if I took Pleasure in swelling this _Work_: Hence it is, that the great Philosopher and Physician, _Daniel Senertus_, only disswades the _Ingenuous_ from undertaking this _Cure_, in the Cases of vicious _Hereditary Dispositions_, venenated _Constitutions_, or other heavy _Diseases_[227].