The signs, therefore, of labour, some few days before, are, that the woman’s abdomen, which before lay high, sinks down, and hinders her from walking so easily as she used to do; also there flows from the womb slimy humours, which nature has appointed to moisten and smooth the passage, that its inward orifice may be the more easily dilated when there is occasion; which beginning to open at this time, suffers that slime to fall away, which proceeds from the glandules, called _prostata_. These are signs preceding the labour; but when she is presently falling into labour, the signs are, great pains about the region of the reins and loins, which, coming and retreating by intervals, are answered in the bottom of the abdomen by congruous throes, and sometimes the face is red and inflamed, the blood being much heated by the endeavours a woman makes to bring forth her child; and likewise, because during these strong throes her respiration is intercepted, which causes the blood to have recourse to her face; also her privy parts are swelled by the infant’s head lying in the birth, which, by often thrusting, causes those parts to descend outwards. She is much subject to vomiting, which is a sign of labour and speedy delivery, though by ignorant people thought otherwise; for good pains are thereby excited by the sympathy there is between the womb and the stomach. Also when the birth is near, women are troubled with a trembling in the thighs and legs, not with cold, like the beginning of an ague fit, but with the heat of the whole body; though, it must be granted, this does not happen always. Also, if the humours which then flow from the womb are discoloured with blood, which the midwives call _shows_, it is an infallible mark of the birth being near. And if then the midwife puts up her fingers into the neck of the womb, she will find the inner orifice dilated; at the opening of which, the membranes of the infant, containing the water, present themselves, and are strongly forced down with each pain she hath; at which time one may perceive them sometimes to resist, and then again press forward the finger, being more or less hard and extended, according as the pains are stronger or weaker. These membranes, with the waters in them when they are before the head of the child, which the midwives call _the gathering of the waters_, resemble to the touch of the finger those eggs which have no shell, but are covered only with a simple membrane. After this, the pains still redoubling, the membranes are broken by a strong impulsion of the waters, which flow away, and the head of the infant is presently felt naked, and presents itself at the inward orifice of the womb. When these waters come thus away, then the midwife may be assured the birth is very near, this being the most certain sign there can be; for the _amnios alantios_, which contained those waters, being broken by the pressing forward of the birth, the child is no better able to subsist