in midwifery, signifies the membranes

† "Not satisfied (say these accounts) with devouring raw flesh, their custom is to cut collops from live animals, which they tear to pieces with their teeth while warm and palpitating with vital motion. The flesh of an animal after it is dead they account quite unfavourable. The most expert butcher among them is he who can cut most flesh from a heart before it is deprived of its life; for doing which the utmost attention is necessary to avoid the great arteries, or those parts the destruction of which will soon bring on death. A company of Abyssinians at dinner is a horrible spectacle: they are seated, each with a cake of flour in his hand; live cattle are brought to the door, and the inhuman butcher cuts morsels off them, which are instantly carried in to the company, who lay them upon their cakes, and eat them directly, all bathed in the tepid blood of the miserable animals, whose lowings and groanings, through violence of anguish, serve for a dinner-bell, or music, to the shocking barbarians." braces which surround the infant in the womb; generally called the fecundines.