In his controversial 1704 text Gonosologium Novum, English surgeon John Marten wrote extensively on matters of sexuality, conception and pregnancy, drawing on medical writers from Hippocrates to Ambroise Pare. Marten mentions several methods for “discovering a woman to be with child”, including:

“…putting the woman’s urine in a [tightly sealed] glass for three days… and then straining it through a fine linen cloth, wherein if she be with child, you will find many small living creatures.. and that by putting a green nettle into the woman’s urine and covering it close and letting it remain therein a whole night, if she be with child you will find the nettle next morning to be full of red spots…”

Source: John Marten, Gonosologium Novum, or a New System of All the Secret Infirmities and Diseases: Natural, Accidental, and Venereal in Men and Women, 1704. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.