Book: The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher

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THE WORKS OF

ARISTOTLE

THE FAMOUS PHILOSOPHER

Containing his Complete Masterpiece and
Family Physician; his Experienced
Midwife, his Book of Problems
and his Remarks on
Physiognomy

COMPLETE EDITION, WITH ENGRAVINGS

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THE MIDWIFE'S VADE-MECUM

Containing

PARTICULAR DIRECTIONS FOR MIDWIVES, NURSES, ETC.

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SOME GENUINE RECIPES FOR CAUSING SPEEDY DELIVERY.

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APPROVED DIRECTIONS FOR NURSES.

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[Illustration: Medical Knowledge]

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PART I.--BOOK I

THE MASTERPIECE

_On marriage and at what age young men and virgins are capable of
it: and why so much desire it. Also, how long men and women are
capable of it._


There are very few, except some professional debauchees, who will not
readily agree that "Marriage is honourable to all," being ordained by
Heaven in Paradise; and without which no man or woman can be in a
capacity, honestly, to yield obedience to the first law of the creation,
"Increase and Multiply." And since it is natural in young people to
desire the embraces, proper to the marriage bed, it behoves parents to
look after their children, and when they find them inclinable to
marriage, not violently to restrain their inclinations (which, instead
of allaying them, makes them but the more impetuous) but rather provide
such suitable matches for them, as may make their lives comfortable;
lest the crossing of those inclinations should precipitate them to
commit those follies that may bring an indelible stain upon their
families. The inclination of maids to marriage may be known by many
symptoms; for when they arrive at puberty, which is about the fourteenth
or fifteenth year of their age, then their natural purgations begin to
flow; and the blood, which is no longer to augment their bodies,
abounding, stirs up their minds to venery. External causes may also
incline them to it; for their spirits being brisk and inflamed, when
they arrive at that age, if they eat hard salt things and spices, the
body becomes more and more heated, whereby the desire to veneral
embraces is very great, and sometimes almost insuperable. And the use of
this so much desired enjoyment being denied to virgins, many times is
followed by dismal consequences; such as the green weesel colonet,
short-breathing, trembling of the heart, etc. But when they are married
and their veneral desires satisfied by the enjoyment of their husbands,
these distempers vanish, and they become more gay and lively than
before. Also, their eager staring at men, and affecting their company,
shows that nature pushes them upon coition; and their parents
neglecting to provide them with husbands, they break through modesty and
satisfy themselves in unlawful embraces. It is the same with brisk
widows, who cannot be satisfied without that benevolence to which they
were accustomed when they had their husbands.

At the age of 14, the menses, in virgins, begin to flow; then they are
capable of conceiving, and continue generally until 44, when they cease
bearing, unless their bodies are strong and healthful, which sometimes
enables them to bear at 65. But many times the menses proceed from some
violence done to nature, or some morbific matter, which often proves
fatal. And, hence, men who are desirous of issue ought to marry a woman
within the age aforesaid, or blame themselves if they meet with
disappointment; though, if an old man, if not worn out with diseases and
incontinency, marry a brisk, lively maiden, there is hope of him having
children to 70 or 80 years.

Hippocrates says, that a youth of 15, or between that and 17, having
much vital strength, is capable of begetting children; and also that the
force of the procreating matter increases till 45, 50, and 55, and then
begins to flag; the seed, by degrees, becoming unfruitful, the natural
spirits being extinguished, and the humours dried up. Thus, in general,
but as to individuals, it often falls out otherwise. Nay, it is
reported by a credible author, that in Swedland, a man was married at
100 years of age to a girl of 30 years, and had many children by her;
but his countenance was so fresh, that those who knew him not, imagined
him not to exceed 50. And in Campania, where the air is clear and
temperate, men of 80 marry young virgins, and have children by them;
which shows that age in them does not hinder procreation, unless they be
exhausted in their youths and their yards be shrivelled up.

If any would know why a woman is sooner barren than a man, they may be
assured that the natural heat, which is the cause of generation, is more
predominant in the man than in the woman; for since a woman is more
moist than a man, as her monthly purgations demonstrate, as also the
softness of her body; it is also apparent that he does not much exceed
her in natural heat, which is the chief thing that concocts the humours
in proper aliment, which the woman wanting grows fat; whereas a man,
through his native heat, melts his fat by degrees and his humours are
dissolved; and by the benefit thereof are converted into seed. And this
may also be added, that women, generally, are not so strong as men, nor
so wise or prudent; nor have so much reason and ingenuity in ordering
affairs; which shows that thereby the faculties are hindered in
operations.

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CHAPTER II

_How to beget a male or female child; and of the Embryo and perfect
Birth; and the fittest time for the copula._


When a young couple are married, they naturally desire children; and
therefore adopt the means that nature has appointed to that end. But
notwithstanding their endeavours they must know that the success of all
depends on the blessing of the Gods: not only so, but the sex, whether
male or female, is from their disposal also, though it cannot be denied,
that secondary causes have influence therein, especially two. First, the
general humour, which is brought by the arteria praeparantes to the
testes, in form of blood, and there elaborated into seed, by the
seminifical faculty residing in them. Secondly, the desire of coition,
which fires the imagination with unusual fancies, and by the sight of
brisk, charming beauty, may soon inflame the appetite. But if nature be
enfeebled, some meats must be eaten as will conduce to afford such
aliment as makes the seed abound, and restores the exhaustion of nature
that the faculties may freely operate, and remove impediments
obstructing the procreating of children. Then, since diet alters the
evil state of the body to a better, those subject to barrenness must eat
such meats as are juicy and nourish well, making the body lively and
full of sap; of which faculty are all hot moist meats. For, according to
Galen, seed is made of pure concocted and windy superfluity of blood,
whence we may conclude, that there is a power in many things, to
accumulate seed, and also to augment it; and other things of force to
cause desire, as hen eggs, pheasants, woodcocks, gnat-snappers,
blackbirds, thrushes, young pigeons, sparrows, partridges, capons,
almonds, pine nuts, raisins, currants, strong wines taken sparingly,
especially those made of the grapes of Italy. But erection is chiefly
caused by scuraum, eringoes, cresses, crysmon, parsnips, artichokes,
turnips, asparagus, candied ginger, acorns bruised to powder and drank
in muscadel, scallion, sea shell fish, etc. But these must have time to
perform their operation, and must be used for a considerable time, or
you will reap but little benefit from them. The act of coition being
over, let the woman repose herself on her right side, with her head
lying low, and her body declining, that by sleeping in that posture,
the cani, on the right side of the matrix, may prove the place of
conception; for therein is the greatest generative heat, which is the
chief procuring cause of male children, and rarely fails the
expectations of those that experience it, especially if they do but keep
warm, without much motion, leaning to the right, and drinking a little
spirit of saffron and juice of hissop in a glass of Malaga or Alicant,
when they lie down and arise, for a week.

For a female child, let the woman lie on her left side, strongly
fancying a female in the time of procreation, drinking the decoction of
female mercury four days from the first day of purgation; the male
mercury having the like operation in case of a male; for this concoction
purges the right and left side of the womb, opens the receptacles, and
makes way for the seminary of generation. The best time to beget a
female is, when the moon is in the wane, in Libra or Aquaries. Advicenne
says, that when the menses are spent and the womb cleansed, which is
commonly in five or seven days at most, if a man lie with his wife from
the first day she is purged to the fifth, she will conceive a male; but
from the fifth to the eighth a female; and from the eighth to the
twelfth a male again: but after that perhaps neither distinctly, but
both in an hermaphrodite. In a word, they that would be happy in the
fruits of their labour, must observe to use copulation in due distance
of time, not too often nor too seldom, for both are alike hurtful; and
to use it immoderately weakens and wastes the spirits and spoils the
seed. And this much for the first particular.

The second is to let the reader know how the child is formed in the
womb, what accidents it is liable to there, and how nourished and
brought forth. There are various opinions concerning this matter;
therefore, I shall show what the learned say about it.

Man consists of an egg, which is impregnated in the testicles of the
woman, by the more subtle parts of the man's seed; but the forming
faculty and virtue in the seed is a divine gift, it being abundantly
imbued with vital spirit, which gives sap and form to the embryo, so
that all parts and bulk of the body, which is made up in a few months
and gradually formed into the likely figure of a man, do consist in, and
are adumbrated thereby (most sublimely expressed, Psalm cxxxix.: "I will
praise Thee, O Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.")

Physicians have remarked four different times at which a man is framed
and perfected in the womb; the first after coition, being perfectly
formed in the week if no flux happens, which sometimes falls out
through the slipperiness of the head of the matrix, that slips over like
a rosebud that opens suddenly. The second time of forming is assigned
when nature makes manifest mutation in the conception, so that all the
substance seems congealed, flesh and blood, and happens twelve or
fourteen days after copulation. And though this fleshy mass abounds with
inflamed blood, yet it remains undistinguishable, without form, and may
be called an embryo, and compared to seed sown in the ground, which,
through heat and moisture, grows by degrees to a perfect form in plant
or grain. The third time assigned to make up this fabric is when the
principal parts show themselves plain; as the heart, whence proceed the
arteries, the brain, from which the nerves, like small threads, run
through the whole body; and the liver, which divides the chyle from the
blood, brought to it by the vena porta. The two first are fountains of
life, that nourish every part of the body, in framing which the faculty
of the womb is bruised, from the conception of the eighth day of the
first month. The fourth, and last, about the thirtieth day, the outward
parts are seen nicely wrought, distinguished by joints, from which time
it is no longer an embryo, but a perfect child.

Most males are perfect by the thirtieth day, but females seldom before
the forty-second or forty-fifth day, because the heat of the womb is
greater in producing the male than the female. And, for the same reason,
a woman going with a male child quickens in three months, but going with
a female, rarely under four, at which time its hair and nails come
forth, and the child begins to stir, kick and move in the womb, and then
the woman is troubled with a loathing for meat and a greedy longing for
things contrary to nutriment, as coals, rubbish, chalk, etc., which
desire often occasions abortion and miscarriage. Some women have been so
extravagant as to long for hob nails, leather, horse-flesh, man's flesh,
and other unnatural as well as unwholesome food, for want of which thing
they have either miscarried or the child has continued dead in the womb
for many days, to the imminent hazard of their lives. But I shall now
proceed to show by what means the child is maintained in the womb, and
what posture it there remains in.

The learned Hippocrates affirms that the child, as he is placed in the
womb, has his hands on his knees, and his head bent to his feet, so that
he lies round together, his hands upon his knees and his face between
them, so that each eye touches each thumb, and his nose betwixt his
knees. And of the same opinion in this matter was Bartholinus. Columbus
is of opinion that the figure of the child in the womb is round, the
right arm bowed, the fingers under the ear, and about the neck, the head
bowed so that the chin touches the breast, the left arm bowed above both
breast and face and propped up by the bending of the right elbow; the
legs are lifted upwards, the right so much that the thigh touches the
belly, the knee the navel, the heel touches the left buttock, and the
foot is turned back and covers the secrets; the left thigh touches the
belly, and the leg lifted up to the breast.

* * * * *




CHAPTER III

_The reason why children are like their parents; and that the
Mother's imagination contributes thereto; and whether the man or
the woman is the cause of the male or female child._


In the case of similitude, nothing is more powerful than the imagination
of the mother; for if she fix her eyes upon any object it will so
impress her mind, that it oftentimes so happens that the child has a
representation thereof on some part of the body. And, if in act of
copulation, the woman earnestly look on the man, and fix her mind on
him, the child will resemble its father. Nay, if a woman, even in
unlawful copulation, fix her mind upon her husband, the child will
resemble him though he did not beget it. The same effect has imagination
in occasioning warts, stains, mole-spots, and dartes; though indeed they
sometimes happen through frights, or extravagant longing. Many women, in
being with child, on seeing a hare cross the road in front of them,
will, through the force of imagination, bring forth a child with a hairy
lip. Some children are born with flat noses and wry mouths, great
blubber lips and ill-shaped bodies; which must be ascribed to the
imagination of the mother, who has cast her eyes and mind upon some
ill-shaped creature. Therefore it behoves all women with child, if
possible, to avoid such sights, or at least, not to regard them. But
though the mother's imagination may contribute much to the features of
the child, yet, in manners, wit, and propension of the mind, experience
tells us, that children are commonly of the condition with their
parents, and possessed of similar tempers. But the vigour or disability
of persons in the act of copulation many times cause it to be otherwise;
for children begotten through the heat and strength of desire, must
needs partake more of the nature and inclination of their parents, than
those begotten at a time when desires are weaker; and, therefore, the
children begotten by men in their old age are generally weaker than,
those begotten by them in their youth. As to the share which each of the
parents has in begetting the child, we will give the opinions of the
ancients about it.

Though it is apparent that the man's seed is the chief efficient being
of the action, motion, and generation: yet that the woman affords seed
and effectually contributes in that point to the procreation of the
child, is evinced by strong reasons. In the first place, seminary
vessels had been given her in vain, and genital testicles inverted, if
the woman wanted seminal excrescence, for nature does nothing in vain;
and therefore we must grant, they were made for the use of seed and
procreation, and placed in their proper parts; both the testicles and
the receptacles of seed, whose nature is to operate and afford virtue to
the seed. And to prove this, there needs no stronger argument, say they,
than that if a woman do not use copulation to eject her seed, she often
falls into strange diseases, as appears by young men and virgins. A
second reason they urge is, that although the society of a lawful bed
consists not altogether in these things, yet it is apparent the female
sex are never better pleased, nor appear more blythe and jocund, than
when they are satisfied this way; which is an inducement to believe they
have more pleasure and titulation therein than men. For since nature
causes much delight to accompany ejection, by the breaking forth of the
swelling spirits and the swiftness of the nerves; in which case the
operation on the woman's part is double, she having an enjoyment both by
reception and ejection, by which she is more delighted in.

Hence it is, they say, that the child more frequently resembles the
mother than the father, because the mother contributes more towards it.
And they think it may be further instanced, from the endeared affection
they bear them; for that, besides their contributing seminal matters,
they feed and nourish the child with the purest fountain of blood, until
its birth. Which opinion Galen affirms, by allowing children to
participate most of the mother; and ascribes the difference of sex to
the different operations of the menstrual blood; but this reason of the
likeness he refers to the power of the seed; for, as the plants receive
more nourishment from fruitful ground, than from the industry of the
husbandman, so the infant receives more abundance from the mother than
the father. For the seed of both is cherished in the womb, and then
grows to perfection, being nourished with blood. And for this reason it
is, they say, that children, for the most part, love their mothers best,
because they receive the most of their substance from their mother; for
about nine months she nourishes her child in the womb with the purest
blood; then her love towards it newly born, and its likeness, do clearly
show that the woman affords seed, and contributes more towards making
the child than the man.

But in this all the ancients were very erroneous; for the testicles, so
called in women, afford not only seed, but are two eggs, like those of
fowls and other creatures; neither have they any office like those of
men, but are indeed the ovaria, wherein the eggs are nourished by the
sanguinary vessels disposed throughout them; and from thence one or more
as they are fecundated by the man's seed is separated and conveyed into
the womb by the ovaducts. The truth of this is plain, for if you boil
them the liquor will be of the same colour, taste and consistency, with
the taste of birds' eggs. If any object that they have no shells, that
signifies nothing: for the eggs of fowls while they are on the ovary,
nay, after they are fastened into the uterus, have no shell. And though
when they are laid, they have one, yet that is no more than a defence
with which nature has provided them against any outward injury, while
they are hatched without the body; whereas those of women being hatched
within the body, need no other fence than the womb, by which they are
sufficiently secured. And this is enough, I hope, for the clearing of
this point.

As for the third thing proposed, as whence grow the kind, and whether
the man or the woman is the cause of the male or female infant--the
primary cause we must ascribe to God as is most justly His due, who is
the Ruler and Disposer of all things; yet He suffers many things to
proceed according to the rules of nature by their inbred motion,
according to usual and natural courses, without variation; though indeed
by favour from on high, Sarah conceived Isaac; Hannah, Samuel; and
Elizabeth, John the Baptist; but these were all extraordinary things,
brought to pass by a Divine power, above the course of nature. Nor have
such instances been wanting in later days; therefore, I shall wave them,
and proceed to speak of things natural.

The ancient physicians and philosophers say that since these two
principles out of which the body of man is made, and which renders the
child like the parents, and by one or other of the sex, viz., seed
common to both sexes and menstrual blood, proper to the woman only; the
similitude, say they, must needs consist in the force of virtue of the
male or female, so that it proves like the one or the other, according
to the quantity afforded by either, but that the difference of sex is
not referred to the seed, but to the menstrual blood, which is proper to
the woman, is apparent; for, were that force altogether retained in the
seed, the male seed being of the hottest quality, male children would
abound and few of the female be propagated; wherefore, the sex is
attributed to the temperament or to the active qualities, which consists
in heat and cold and the nature of the matter under them--that is, the
flowing of the menstruous blood. But now, the seed, say they, affords
both force to procreate and to form the child, as well as matter for its
generation; and in the menstruous blood there is both matter and force,
for as the seed most helps the maternal principle, so also does the
menstrual blood the potential seed, which is, says Galen, blood well
concocted by the vessels which contain it. So that the blood is not only
the matter of generating the child, but also seed, it being impossible
that menstrual blood has both principles.

The ancients also say that the seed is the stronger efficient, the
matter of it being very little in quantity, but the potential quality of
it is very strong; wherefore, if these principles of generation,
according to which the sex is made were only, say they, in the menstrual
blood, then would the children be all mostly females; as were the
efficient force in the seed they would be all males; but since both have
operation in menstrual blood, matter predominates in quantity and in the
seed force and virtue. And, therefore, Galen thinks that the child
receives its sex rather from the mother than the father, for though his
seed contributes a little to the natural principle, yet it is more
weakly. But for likeliness it is referred rather to the father than to
the mother. Yet the woman's seed receiving strength from the menstrual
blood for the space of nine months, overpowers the man's in that
particular, for the menstrual blood rather cherishes the one than the
other; from which it is plain the woman affords both matter to make and
force and virtue to perfect the conception; though the female's be fit
nutriment for the male's by reason of the thinness of it, being more
adapted to make up conception thereby. For as of soft wax or moist clay,
the artificer can frame what he intends, so, say they, the man's seed
mixing with the woman's and also with the menstrual blood, helps to
make the form and perfect part of man.

But, with all imaginary deference to the wisdom of our fathers, give me
leave to say that their ignorance of the anatomy of man's body have led
them into the paths of error and ran them into great mistakes. For their
hypothesis of the formation of the embryo from commixture of blood being
wholly false, their opinion in this case must of necessity be likewise.
I shall therefore conclude this chapter by observing that although a
strong imagination of the mother may often determine the sex, yet the
main agent in this case is the plastic or formative principle, according
to those rules and laws given us by the great Creator, who makes and
fashions it, and therein determines the sex, according to the council of
his will.

* * * * *




CHAPTER IV

_That Man's Soul is not propagated by their parents, but is infused
by its Creator, and can neither die nor corrupt. At what time it is
infused. Of its immortality and certainty of its resurrection._


Man's soul is of so divine a nature and excellency that man himself
cannot comprehend it, being the infused breath of the Almighty, of an
immortal nature, and not to be comprehended but by Him that gave it. For
Moses, relating the history of man, tells us that "God breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul." Now, as for
all other creatures, at His word they were made and had life, but the
creature that God had set over His works was His peculiar workmanship,
formed by Him out of the dust of the earth, and He condescended to
breathe into his nostrils the breath of life, which seems to denote both
care and, if we may so term it, labour, used about man more than about
all other living creatures, he only partaking and participating of the
blessed divine nature, bearing God's image in innocence and purity,
whilst he stood firm; and when, by his fall, that lively image was
defaced, yet such was the love of the Creator towards him that he found
out a way to restore him, the only begotten son of the Eternal Father
coming into the world to destroy the works of the devil, and to raise up
man from that low condition to which sin and his fall had reduced him,
to a state above that of the angels.

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