Having thus laid the foundation of this work. I will now proceed to speak of conception, and of those things that are necessary to be observed by women from the time of their conception to the time of their delivery. CHAPTER II. OF CONCEPTION; WHAT IT IS; HOW WOMEN ARE TO ORDER THEMSELVES AFTER CONCEPTION. SECT. I. _What Conception is._ Conception is nothing else but an action of the womb, by which the prolific seed is received and retained, that an infant may be engendered and formed out of it. There are two sorts of conception: the one according to nature, which is followed by the generation of the infant in the womb; the other false, and wholly against nature, in which the seed changes into water, and produces only false conceptions, moles, or other strange matter. SECT. II. _How a Woman ought to order herself after Conception._ My design in this treatise being brevity, I shall bring forward a little of what the learned have said of the causes of twins, and whether there be any such things as superfœtations, or a second conception, in a woman, (which is yet common enough) when I come to show you how the midwife ought to proceed in the delivery of the women that are pregnant with them. But, having already spoke of conception, I think it now necessary to show how such as have conceived ought to order themselves during their pregnancy, that they may avoid those inconveniences which often endanger the life of the child, and many times their own.