Note 158 — Second Part. (continued 2)

Leviticus ch. 20. v. 18. It is true Maimonides according to Selden, Uxor Hebraica (The Jewish Wife), Frankfurt 1673. 4to., p. 133., says: At vero si esset mensibus immunda, tametsi deducta fuerit, etiam et coitus sit secutus, nuptiae non perficiebantur. (But indeed if she were unclean with menstruation, though she had been led forth to a husband’s house, even if coition had followed, the marriage was not proceeded with)—but in that case of course it happened unwittingly; though no doubt it may very well on the other hand have been done not unfrequently wittingly. Festus explains the Latin word imbubinare by “menstruo mulierum sanguine inquinare” (to pollute with the menstrual blood of women), which might almost justify us in conjecturing, that buboes had been observed to originate from intercourse with women during menstruation. Hippocrates, De natura pueri (On the Bodily Constitution of the Boy), edit. Kühn Vol. I. p. 390., derives affections of the sort in women from arrested menstruation.