This disease is called by the Greeks mole; and is taken from the load or heavy weight of it, it being a mole or great lump of hard flesh burdening the womb. It is an inarticulate piece of flesh without form, begotten in the matrix as if it were a true conception. Note two things: first, a mole is said to be inarticulate and without form, it differs from monsters, which are both formate and articulate: secondly, it puts a difference between a true conception and a mole; first, in the genus, in that a mole cannot be said to be an animal: secondly, in the species, because it hath no human figure, and bears not the character of a man: thirdly, in the individual, for it hath no affinity with the parent, either in the whole body or any particular part. _Cause._—The true cause of this fleshy mole proceeds from both the man and from the woman, from corrupt and barren seed in man, and from the menstruous blood in the woman, both emitted together in the womb, where nature finding herself weak, labours to bring forth a vicious conception rather than none; and instead of a living creature, generates a lump of flesh. _Signs._—The menses are suppressed, the appetite is depraved, the breasts swell, and the belly is suddenly puffed up, and waxeth hard. Thus the signs of a breeding woman, and one that breedeth a mole, are one. The first sign of difference is in the motion of the mole; it may be felt to move in the womb before the third month, which an infant cannot; yet the motion cannot be understood of any intelligent power in the mole, but the faculty of the womb and the animal spirits diffused through the substance of the mole; for it hath not an animal but a vegetative source of life, in manner of a plant: secondly, if a mole, the belly is suddenly puffed up; but if a true conception, the belly is suddenly retracted; and then riseth up by degrees: thirdly, the belly being pressed with the hand, the mole gives way; and the hand being taken away, it returns to the place again; but a child in the womb, though pressed with the hand, moves not presently; and being removed, returns slowly, or not at all: lastly, the child continues in the womb not above ten months, but a mole continues sometimes four or five years, more or less, according as it is fastened in the matrix. I have known a mole to fall away in four or five months. If it remain until the eleventh month, the legs wax feeble, and the whole body consumes. _Prognostics._—If, at the delivery of a mole, the flux of the blood be great, it shows the more danger, because nutrition, having been violated by the flowing back of the superfluous humours, where the natural heat is consumed; and parting with so much of her blood, the woman is so weakened in all her faculties, that she cannot subsist without difficulty.