This encyclopedic compilation, composed in 1230-1240 by the Franciscan Bartholomew Anglicus, became the reference book concerning the sciences of nature. It is very likely that our Christine knew its translation by Jean Corbechon made in 1372 at the request of Charles V. We know more than 40 manuscripts of this translation, with exceptional miniatures. See the site:
http://www.bnf.fr./enluminures

Barthemely l'Anglais, Le Livre des Propriétés des choses : une encyclopédie au XIVe siècle, Paris, Stock, 1999. Translation (c) Garay and Jeay.

109. Book four, first chapter: The qualities of the four elements.

There are four elements and four qualities which compose the matter of each body, especially the human body, the noblest of all; the human body is the most nobly composed and organized, in that it is the instrument of the reasonable soul, and devoted to all its works. It is composed of four elements which are earth, water, air, and fire. Each of them possesses its own qualities, deriving from the four primary fundamental qualities: hot, cold, dry and humid. They are called primary qualities because, from their origin, they stem from the elements in order to enter into the composition of bodies. They are also called principal because all the effects of composite bodies come from them.

Among these four qualities, two are active, that is hot and cold; two are passive, dry and humid. The first two are called active because, thanks to them, the others can be activated and retained. An example of that is shown in salted meat where the heat of salt sometimes causes dryness, sometimes humidity. This does not mean that the two other qualities cannot be activated: none is idle, but according to their nature, they are not as active as the first two.

110. The sixth chapter: Of humours, their origin and their actions.

Humour is a clear substance, generated in the body of the animal or the person by digestion. This substance comes from the union of elements in order to nourish the organs and sustain their natural functions, although it can sometimes be prevented by accident. Humour is the first and principal material origin of sensible bodies, which helps their functioning, because of the nourishment that it provides for them.

According to the philosophers, there are four humours, blood, phlegm, bile, and melancholy. They are called simple by comparison to the bodies where they are, even if it is not the case, compared with the elements from where they originate.

When these four humours are well balanced, in quantity and quality, they keep the bodies which have blood healthy. They nourish them and maintain them in good condition and health. On the other hand, when they are not well balanced, or when they are corrupted, they are the cause of sicknesses and of the corruption of the body.

These four humours are necessary for the composition, functioning and conservation of the body, as well as for the restoration of what is eliminated, as Galen says in his Aphorisms. The body is indeed subject to many alterations, which make it continually lose its elements; it can be, for instance, through sweat, or also through a sudden change from cold to hot which provokes a discharge, and a modification in the body. To compensate such a loss, and avoid the alteration of the bodies, the presence of the four humours is necessary, so that the body is healthy, and protected from corruption and sickness.

These four humours are engendered in the following way: when the body has ingested food, and has "put it in its kitchen", that is the stomach, the subtler part of this food is brought into the liver through the veins; there it is transformed in four humours by the power of natural heat. The generation of the humour, which begins in the liver does not end there, according to The Philosopher [Aristotle]. Because what is cold and humid is converted by heat into phlegm, what is hot and humid into blood, what is hot and dry into bile, and what is cold and dry into melancholy.

During that process, Nature acts in this way: phlegm is engendered first, as what is half-cooked; then blood, as what is perfectly cooked, and bile, as what is over cooked; finally melancholy--the most unrefined part--corresponds to the residue: it is, in a way, the waste of the others.

Avicenna says that these four humours change into one another according to the precise order of their generation, and not the opposite. Heated once again, the phlegm can be transformed into blood, but heat cannot convert blood into phlegm. And while blood can be transformed into bile by excess of heat, bile cannot return to blood. Bile also turns into melancholy, while blood cannot become melancholy.

The generation of these four humours can be compared to wine and must, as Constantine says. When the must boils, it produces scum on top, and the more coarse substance, the dregs, at the bottom. In the middle, there is a substance which is clear and strengthens constantly. It is the same with humours. There is a part which goes up because of its lightness: it is the bile. The part which goes down like the dregs is melancholy. The part which is weak and badly cooked like new wine, is phlegm. The part which is hot and well cooked, like old wine, is blood, purified and cleaned from the other humours.

There is no perfectly pure blood, however, not blended with other humours, and its composition and colour changes accordingly: when it is mixed with bile, it is pink; with melancholy, black; with phlegm, it is full of water and scum.

115. The eighth chapter about corrupted blood and its properties.

If there is too much blood in the body, it causes various and surprising diseases if it is not quickly extracted, either naturally or by the art of medicine. This is the case of periods which, if they stay in the body longer than usual, are because of excess of humidity and lack of heat, the cause of diseases such as loss of judgment, hydropisy, mental disorders and other illnesses, according to the corruption of the blood. If it is held for too long, it is spilled in different parts of the body, as Galen says. The best cure is to evacuate the corrupted blood.

It is not surprising that such a blood harms greatly the body, since we see that crops touched by it do not sprout, herbs die, trees lose their fruit, iron gets rusty, bronze and other metals get blackened. If a dog absorbs some of it, it is struck by rabies. Cement which is so hard that neither iron nor anything else can damage it, crumbles easily if it is touched by this matter, as Isidore says in his second chapter of his Etymologia. This vile matter is engendered in the body of the woman by the excess of humour and lack of heat. In order to protect her health, this matter is collected in the womb. When it evacuates itself normally, the body stays healthy and light, which disposes the womb for conception, according to Aristotle.

This matter appears generally in women at the end of the month, and then it is successfully evacuated. Aristotle says in the sixteenth chapter of his book on animals that, although this matter is not related to a specific moment, nevertheless, it appears often during the time of the decreasing moon. This is logical because the bodies are then colder and humours more profuse. If they go out, the body is healthier, but if they stay longer than normal, the body is infected and struck by various serious diseases. This is the truth about these things which happen generally between the ages of fourteen and fifty. Before fourteen, the ducts are narrow, lacking strength, and this matter cannot go out. After fifty, the blood diminishes and becomes colder, the vital breath and the heat are weaker. This is why both ages, youth and old age, are freed from that matter.

This matter is kept in the mother's body when she conceives, for nourishing and retaining the child. If the mother loses it during her pregnancy, she in danger of aborting because the child is weakened or dies because of lack of nourishment. When nature retains this matter, it means that the woman is pregnant. What is not used for the child's nourishment goes to her breast and becomes milk. Because milk is nothing else than cooked blood in the breast, as Aristotle says in his fifteenth and eighteenth chapters of his book on animals.

This matter must be in the woman's body before she conceives, like a tree must blossom before carrying fruit, according to Aristotle and Constantine. Birds and animals don't have this matter because all their superfluities become feathers or hair, according to Aristotle.

A naturalist called Rufus says that women who work and move too much do not have this matter, the opposite of those who rest and eat a lot and live in too much comfort, who are tormented by it.

When this matter cannot go out by the natural routes, it finds another outlet: either by the nose, or by the hemorrhoids. If it finds those closed, it spills in the other organs, causing serious diseases. According to Constantine, some women loose their appetite and hate good food: they yearn for powdered coal or tile dust and such things, because if that matter is retained it becomes altered into dangerous and aggressive fumes which, when they reach the stomach, disrupt the natural appetite and engender an unnatural one.

132. Book five: The thirty-fourth chapter on the breast.

The breast is full of milk or of the humour from which the milk comes. After a woman gives birth to a baby, if all the blood which was in the womb has not been corrupted, it goes to the breast through the natural ducts, and there it becomes white and turns into milk, according to Isidore.

According to Constantine, the breast is made up of a soft white substance composed various small glands. In the substance of the breast, there is a network of veins and arteries through which the blood and the breath enter into the breast, which is close to the heart so that the matter coming from it cooks the most rapidly and turns into milk.

[...]

According to Hippocrates in his Aphorisms, the breast of a woman about to abort becomes soft. If a woman bears two children, and her right breast softens, it is a sign that the male is in danger; if it is the left one, it is the girl who is in peril. If both soften, both are affected. Galen maintains that a weak breast is a sign of lack of milk, and when the foetus has not enough milk for its nourishment, it dies or is delivered prematurely.

[...]

If a pregnant woman has too much milk, it means that the child is weak. If her breast is hard, it is a sign that the foetus is healthy. A breast which is too thin and soft is a sign of miscarriage. If the woman has conceived a son, the right breast is bigger, while it is the left one for a girl.

137. Book six: The third chapter about the conception of a child.

In order to conceive a child, it is necessary to have a suitable matter, an appropriate location, and the participation of Nature. The efficient cause is heat and breath which give energy to the body. The matter of the child is the humour of the semen discharged by all the parts of the father and the mother. The matter when it spreads in the appropriate location, is collected in the chambers of the womb by the virtue of Nature which attracts it in that place. There, the seeds are blended thanks to the strength of the heat which is in operation. If the seeds of the father and the mother do not blend, the conception of the child cannot happen. Indeed, the father's semen is so thick that if it were not mixed with the mother's seed, which is clear and cold, and which tempers it, the matter of the child would be destroyed.

When this matter is collected in the right part of the womb, it engenders a male; when it goes to the left part, it is a female. This is due, according to Galen and Constantine, to the heat which is stronger in the right part than in the left one. This is why Aristotle says in the fifteenth chapter of his book on animals that if the seed of the male is stronger than the mother's, the child will look like him. If it is the opposite, the child will look like the mother, and if their respective strengths are equal, he or she will resemble both.

When this matter is cooked by the strength of natural heat, it is wrapped in a very thin membrane, and it curdles like milk. This membrane is the coat and blanket of the child in the womb of the mother. It grows with the child, and at birth, it goes out at the same time. If by chance, once the child was delivered, it stayed in the mother's body, she would be in great danger.

When this matter is collected and retained, Nature sends the corrupted blood called menstrual blood, for nourishing it with heat and humidity. This is the nourishment which sustains the child in the womb until birth.

[...]

The natural heat enclosed with this matter and this humour works for constituting the organs of the child. It forms from the seed, the brain, bones, tendons, membranes, nerves, veins, and arteries. From the corrupted blood which is there, nature forms the liver and all the organs the creation of which depends on blood. Nature first makes the main organs such as the heart, the brain and the liver which are the foundation of the others. At the beginning, all these organs are a single mass of blood, then they are pulled apart. From these three main organs come three others: from the brain come the nerves and the spinal chord; from the heart, the arteries; from the liver, the veins. Once this foundation is done, Nature makes the bones which protect these organs, for example the skull protecting the brain, the chest bones, the heart, and the ribs, the liver. The other organs which are not the main ones are then formed, like the feet and the hands. The organs are not made together, but little by little, the one after the other.

The child experiences four stages in the mother's womb. The first one, when the foetus is still close to the consistency of milk; the second, when the milky seed blends with the blood: the heart, the liver, and the brain are not yet totally formed, but are still a mass of blood; the third, after the formation of the heart, the brain, and the liver, when the other organs are constituted, without any distinction between them yet. The last stage is when all the organs are formed and distinct from one another: then we have a child, according to Hippocrates. This child is now disposed to receive soul and life, and to begin moving, kicking and hitting. If it is a son, the mother feels him first on the right; if it is a daughter, she is felt on the left, according to Galen.

The child remains at the stage of milk for seven days; at the one of a mass of flesh and blood for twelve days. At the fourth stage, before it is completely formed, it stays eighteen days. Before the foetus is alive and perfectly formed, there are forty six days from its conception. [...] Constantine says that the male who is born at the eight month is formed in thirty days; at the ninth month, in forty, and at the tenth month, in forty-six. He says also that the female is formed in twice the time required for the male. A son is formed earlier because he comes from a stronger and hotter matter, and because he is located higher than a girl in the mother's womb.

140. The fourth chapter: On the child.

The flesh of infants is flabby and very soft; this is why they need a lot of attention. Constantine says that, as soon as they come out of the mother's womb, children must be wrapped in roses mixed with salt in order to strengthen their members and to remove the sticky humour on their skin. Then one should gently rub the palate and the gums with a finger coated with honey for cleaning inside their mouth, and stimulate the appetite of the child with the sweetness of the honey. The child should be bathed frequently, and the boy must have his members anointed with oil of roses, the reason being that males have to be more robust than female because of the kind of work they do. Children must be placed in a dark place for their sleep, for them to have better vision: a place with too much light affects their vision and harms their eyes which are fragile. One should be very careful not to give corrupted milk to the infants because they might contract serious diseases like wounds in their mouth, vomiting, fever, fainting, diarrhea, and other troubles. When they are sick, they should not be given medicines which would be taken by the wet nurse; she should also fast if necessary. When the milk is of good quality, the child is in good health. If the blood of the nurse is bad and corrupted, the child's body is affected because it is fragile and soft, and absorbs the food easily, either good or bad.

Children absorb a lot of food; this is why they need much sleep in order to retain the natural heat for digesting in their bodies. This is also why they should be rocked so that the heat helps them to fall asleep, thanks to the vapours going in their brain. Nurses should sing to the infants in order to give them pleasure with the sweetness of their voices.

142. The seventh chapter: On mothers.

Mothers are very careful with their children because when they are in their womb, they nourish them with their own blood. When they are born, nature sends the blood which was feeding them to her breast, where it is changed into milk for their nourishment. Infants are better nourished from the milk of their mothers than that of any other woman. Women conceive in feeling pleasure and give birth in suffering pain. Mothers love their children tenderly, they kiss and caress them, and feed them attentively. As soon as she is pregnant, a woman has no periods because they are used for feeding the child. She is less tired when she bears a male than when it is a female, and her complexion is more radiant, her pace brisker.

When the time for delivering the baby approaches, the woman is tired, suffering from the movements of the baby. According to Aristotle and Galen, signs that a women is pregnant are the fact that she wants various things, her complexion changes, her eyes have dark shadows, and her breast swell. She vomits often because her heart is moved when the foetus grows in her womb. When she becomes too big, she cannot work.

When a mother gives birth she screams because of her great pain. Delivering may be dangerous, especially for young women who have small organs and narrow ducts. The more women suffer, the more they love their children and the more eager they are to take care of them after their birth.

143. The ninth chapter: About the nurse.

Isidore says that nurses act as mothers when they feed the infants. As if they were mothers, they are delighted at their cheerfulness, feel pity for them when they are sick, help them up when they fall, feed them when they weep, kiss them when they are quiet. They tie them up when they are restless; they wash and clean them when they are dirty. They raise them and teach them how to talk. They mimic their way of talking, as if they stuttered, for teaching them to talk better and faster. They use medicine for their health, carry them in their arms, on their shoulders or on their knees for consoling them when they cry. They chew food for them when they don't yet have teeth, so that they can swallow it without danger and make the most of it. They rock them with a song to put them to sleep. They tie their members in order to hold them straight so that their bodies have no infirmities. They bath and rub them.

The ninth chapter of the midwife.

The midwife is a woman who knows how to help women to give birth more easily and without danger for the child. She anoints the stomach of the woman in labour so that the child comes out more easily. When the baby arrives, the midwife cuts the umbilical chord four fingers long and makes a knot. Then she washes the child to remove the blood and rubs the skin with salt and honey to dry and comfort the members. Finally she wraps the baby with soft fabric.

172. Book eight: Ninth chapter on the zodiac.

The zodiac is a circle of the sky divided into twelve equal sections, called by the philosophers the twelve signs, teaching us in which part of the sky the sun and the planets reside. These twelve signs are equidistant from each other. Each of them is divided into thirty degrees, each degree in sixty minutes and each minute in sixty seconds.

Each of the signs has a name, like Aries, Taurus, and so on. They have been given names of animals, not because there are animals in the sky, but because in their action, they have properties similar to these animals, as we shall see below. The four main signs are, according to Isidore: Cancer which is the highest, Capricorn, the lowest, Aries and Libra in the middle of these two. The first two are called solstices because, when the sun is in the sign of Cancer, it is far from us, the days are long and the nights short. When it is in Capricorn, it stays close to us, the days are very short and the nights long. The two others are the equinoxes because, when the sun is in the sign of Aries, it is the equinox of autumn, when the length of days and nights is equal. This phenomenon occurs in the spring and in the fall.

Among these twelve signs, three belong to the nature of fire, that is Aries, Leo, Sagittarius. Three are of the nature of earth: Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn; three of the nature of water, Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius; three of the nature of air, Scorpio, Cancer, and Pisces. The signs which are of the nature of fire and air are hot, male and diurnal; those of the nature of water and earth are cold, female and nocturnal.

Four of these sites are mobile. They are Aries, Cancer, Libra , and Capricorn; four are immobile, Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius; four are common: Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces. These signs are called the houses because they are the abode of planets. [...] These signs or houses look at each other. For example, when a planet is in an ascending sign like Aries, it looks at the planet which is at the head of Gemini, before it, and at the one which is at the beginning of Aquarius which is after it. Conjunction and opposition are not aspects, even if they are erroneously called that. When a sign looks at its opposite, for example Aries looking at Libra, it is a very bad aspect because it is a sign of a perfect animosity, which means bad things to come. When two planets come in a sign together, this conjunction may be a good one if the planets are good, a bad one if they are bad.

176.

Planets work like magnets and iron, because like iron is attracted by the magnet, all the creatures living on the earth are ruled by the movement of planets: all the constructions and the destructions depend on the planets. They work differently according to the positions and the angles of countries, for instance they act differently in Ethiopia than in Germany. This is why The Philosopher says in the eighteenth chapter of his book, that the position of the planets in the signs should be considered. If several planets are in conjunction in a humid sign, it means heavy rain; if they are in conjunction in a sign of fire, the consequence is dryness and famine; if the conjunction happens in a sign of air, it announces wind and storms; if it happens in a sign of earth, it means cold to come.

Among planets, some are male, diurnal, heavy, cold, dry, and bad, like Saturn. Other ones are male, good, diurnal, moderate in heat and humidity like Jupiter. Mars is male, diurnal, and provokes heat and dryness. The Sun is male and brings heat and dryness. Venus is female and nocturnal, its temperate between heat and cold. Mercury has a temperate nature, and is sometimes male, sometimes female, borrowing the nature of the planet with which it enters in conjunction; it is good with the good ones, bad with the bad ones, medium with the medium ones.

These seven planets influence the birth of humans and animals. According to the astrologers as well as to Galen and the physicians, Saturn thickens the matter which is in the womb because it is cold and dry, something which happens in the first month of the gestation. In the second month, Jupiter provides the breath and the organs; in the third, Mars makes the blood and the humours thinner; in the fourth, the Sun gives the heat and the spirit of life to the heart and the liver; in the fifth, Venus brings to perfection the organs such as the ears, the nose, and all the instruments of the senses; in the sixth, Mercury organizes all the ducts of the body and the organs which are soft and vascular such as the tongue; in the seventh, the Moon divides and separates the organs.