Take parsley, bruise it, and press out the juice, and put it up (being so dipped) into the mouth of the womb, and it will presently cause the child to come away, though it be dead, and the after-burden also; besides it cleanseth the womb, and also the child in the womb, of all gross humours. Let no midwife ever force away a child, unless she is sure it is dead. I once was where a woman was in labour, which being very hard, her midwife sent for another midwife to assist her, which midwife sending the first down stairs, and designing to have the honour of delivering the woman herself, forced away the body of the child, and left the head behind; of which the woman was forced afterwards to be delivered by a man-midwife. After the child is born, great care is to be taken by the midwife in cutting the navel-string, which, though by some is accounted but a trifle, yet it requires none of the least skill of a midwife, to do it with that prudence and judgment that are requisite. And that it may be done so, you must consider, as soon as the child is free from its mother, whether it is weak or strong; if the child be weak, put back gently part of the vital and natural blood in the body of the child by its navel (for both the vital and natural spirits are communicated by the mother to the child by its navel-string); for that doth much recruit a weak child; but if the child be strong, you may forbear. As to the manner of cutting the child’s navel-string, let the ligature or binding be very strong; and be sure not to cut it off very near the binding, lest the binding unloose. You need not fear to bind the navel-string very hard, because it is void of sense; and that part of the navel-string which you leave on falls off of its own accord in a few days; the whole course of nature being now changed in the child, it having another way ordained to nourish it. It is no matter with what instrument you cut it off, so it be sharp and you do it cleverly. The piece of the navel-string that falls off, be sure you keep it from touching the ground; remember what I have before told you concerning this matter, and if you keep it by you it may be of use. The navel-string being cut off, put a little cotton or lint to the place, to keep it warm, lest the cold enter the body of the child, which it will be apt to do if it be not bound up hard enough.