Q. Why hath a woman who is with child of a boy, the right pap harder than the left? A. Because the male child is conceived in the right side of the mother; and therefore the flowers do run to the right pap, and make it hard. Q. Why doth it show weakness of the child, when the milk doth drop out of the paps before the woman is delivered? A. Because the milk is the proper nutriment of the child in the womb of its mother, therefore if the milk run out, it is a token that the child is not nourished, and consequently is weak. Q. Why do the hardness of the paps betoken the health of the child in the womb? A. Because the flowers are converted into milk, and thereby strength is signified. Q. Why are women's paps hard when they be with child, and soft at other times? A. Because they swell then, and are puffed, and the great moisture which proceeds from the flowers doth run into the paps, which at other seasons remaineth in the matrix and womb, and is expelled by the place deputed for that end. Q. By what means doth the milk of the paps come to the matrix or womb? A. There is a certain knitting and coupling of the paps with the womb, and there are certain veins which the midwives do cut in the time of the birth of the child, and by those veins the milk flows in at the navel of the child, and so it receives nourishment by the navel. Q. Why is it a sign of a male child in the womb when the milk that runneth out of a woman's breast is thick, and not much, and of a female when it is thin? A. Because a woman that goeth with a boy hath a great heat in her, which doth perfect the milk and make it thick; but she who goes with a girl hath not so much heat, and therefore the milk is undigested, imperfect, watery and thin, and will swim above the water if it be put into it. Q. Why is the milk white, seeing the flowers are red, of which it is engendered? A. Because blood which is well purged and concocted becomes white, as appeareth in flesh whose proper colour is white, and being boiled, is white. Also, because every humour which is engendered of the body, is made like unto that part in colour where it is engendered as near as it can be; but because the flesh of the paps is white, therefore the colour of the milk is white. Q. Why doth a cow give milk more abundantly than other beasts? A. Because she is a great eating beast, where there is much monthly superfluity engendered, there is much milk; because it is nothing else but the blood purged and tried. Q. Why is not milk wholesome? A. 1. Because it curdeth in the stomach, whereof an evil breath is bred. 2. Because the milk doth grow sour in the stomach, where evil humours are bred, and infect the breath. Q. Why is milk bad for such as have the headache? A. Because it is easily turned into great fumosities, and hath much terrestrial substance in it, the which ascending, doth cause the headache.