The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher Part 2

CHAPTER VIII

_The Opinion of the Learned concerning Children conceived and born within Seven Months; with Arguments upon the Subject to prevent Suspicion of Incontinency, and bitter Contest on that Account. To which are added Rules to Know the Disposition of Man's Body by the Genital Parts._

Many bitter quarrels happen between men and their wives upon the man's supposition that the child comes too soon, and by consequence, that he could not be the father; whereas, it is the want of understanding the secrets of nature which brings the man into that error; and which, had he known, might have cured him of his suspicion and jealousy.

To remove which, I shall endeavour to prove, that it is possible, and has been frequently known, that children have been born at seven months.

Paul, the Counsel, has this pa.s.sage in the 19th Book of Pleadings, viz.: "It is now a received truth, that a perfect child may be born in the seventh month, by the authority of the learned Hippocrates; and therefore, we must believe that a child born at the end of the seventh month in lawful matrimony may be lawfully begotten."

Galen is of opinion that there is no certain time set for the bearing of children; and that from Pliny's authority, who makes mention of a woman that went thirteen months with child; but as to what concerns the seventh month, a learned author says, "I know several married people in Holland that had twins born in the seventh month, who lived to old age, having l.u.s.ty bodies and lively minds. Wherefore their opinion is absurd, who a.s.sert that a child at seven months cannot be perfect and long lived; and that it cannot in all parts be perfect until the ninth month." Thereupon the author proceeds to tell a pa.s.sage from his own knowledge, viz.: "Of late there happened a great disturbance among us, which ended not without bloodshed; and was occasioned by a virgin, whose chast.i.ty had been violated, descending from a n.o.ble family of unspotted fame. Several charged the fact upon the Judge, who was president of a city in Flanders, who firmly denied it, saying he was ready to take his oath that he never had any carnal copulation with her, and that he would not father that, which was none of his; and farther argued, that he verily believed it was a child born in seven months, himself being many miles distant from the mother of it when it was conceived. Upon which the judges decreed that the child should be viewed by able physicians and experienced women, and that they should make their report. They having made diligent inquiry, all of them with one mind, concluded the child, without discussing who was the father, was born within the s.p.a.ce of seven months, and that it was carried in the mother's womb but twenty-seven weeks and some odd days; but if she should have gone full nine months, the child's parts and limbs would have been more firm and strong, and the structure of the body more compact; for the skin was very loose, and the breast bone that defends the heart, and the gristles that lay over the stomach, lay higher than naturally they should be, not plain, but crooked and sharp, rigid or pointed, like those of a young chicken hatched in the beginning of spring. And being a female, it wanted nails upon the joints of the fingers; upon which, from the masculous cartilaginous matter of the skin, nails that are very smooth do come, and by degrees harden; she had, instead of nails, a thin skin or film. As for her toes, there were no signs of nails upon them, wanting the heat which was expanded to the fingers from the nearness of the heart. All this was considered, and above all, one gentlewoman of quality that a.s.sisted, affirming that she had been the mother of nineteen children, and that divers of them had been born and lived at seven months, though within the seventh month. For in such cases, the revolution of the month ought to be observed, which perfects itself in four bare weeks, or somewhat less than twenty-eight days; in which s.p.a.ce of the revolution, the blood being agitated by the force of the moon, the courses of women flow from them; which being spent, and the matrix cleansed from the menstruous blood which happens on the fourth day, then, if a man on the seventh day lie with his wife, the copulation is most natural, and then the conception is best: and the child thus begotten may be born in the seventh month and prove very healthful. So that on this report, the supposed father was p.r.o.nounced innocent; the proof that he was 100 miles distant all that month in which the child was begotten; as for the mother she strongly denied that she knew the father, being forced in the dark; and so, through fear and surprise, was left in ignorance."

As for coition, it ought not to be used unless the parties be in health, lest it turn to the disadvantage of the children so begotten, creating in them, through the abundance of ill humours, divers languis.h.i.+ng diseases. Wherefore, health is no better discerned than by the genitals of the man; for which reasons midwives, and other skilful women, were formerly wont to see the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es of children, thereby to conjecture their temperature and state of body; and young men may know thereby the signs and symptoms of death; for if the cases of the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es be loose and feeble, which are the proofs of life, are fallen, but if the secret parts are wrinkled and raised up, it is a sign that all is well, but that the event may exactly answer the prediction, it is necessary to consider what part of the body the disease possesseth; for if it chance to be the upper part that is afflicted, as the head or stomach, then it will not so then appear by the members, which are unconnected with such grievances; but the lower part of the body exactly sympathising with them, their liveliness, on the contrary, makes it apparent; for nature's force, and the spirits that have their intercourse, first manifest themselves therein; which occasions midwives to feel the genitals of children, to know in what part the gulf is residing, and whether life or death be portended thereby, the symptoms being strongly communicated to the vessels, that have their intercourse with the princ.i.p.al seat of life.

CHAPTER IX

_Of the Green-Sickness in Virgins, with its causes, signs and cures; together with the chief occasions of Barrenness in Women, and the Means to remove the Cause, and render them fruitful._

The green-sickness is so common a complaint amongst virgins, especially those of a phlegmatic complexion, that it is easily discerned, showing itself by discolouring the face, making it look green, pale, and of a dusty colour, proceeding from raw and indigested humours; nor doth it only appear to the eye, but sensibly affects the person with difficulty of breathing, pains in the head, palpitation of the heart, with unusual beatings and small throbbings of the arteries in the temples, back and neck, which often cast them into fevers when the humour is over vicious; also loathing of meat and the distention of the hypochondriac part, by reason of the inordinate effluxion of the menstruous blood of the greater vessels; and from the abundance of humours, the whole body is often troubled with swellings, or at least the thighs, legs and ankles, all above the heels; there is also a weariness of the body without any reason for it.

The Galenical physicians affirm, that this distemper proceeds from the womb; occasioned by the gross, vicious and rude humours arising from several inward causes; but there are also outward causes which have a share in the production of it; as taking cold in the feet, drinking of water, intemperance of diet, eating things contrary to nature, viz., raw or burnt flesh, ashes, coals, old shoes, chalk, wax, nutsh.e.l.ls, mortar, lime, oatmeal, tobacco pipes, etc., which occasion both a suppression of the menses and obstructions through the whole body; therefore, the first thing necessary to vindicate the cause, is matrimonial conjunction, and such copulation as may prove satisfactory to her that is afflicted, for then the menses will begin to flow according to their natural and due course, and the humours being dispersed, will soon waste themselves; and then no more matter being admitted to increase them, they will vanish and a good temperament of body will return; but in case this best remedy cannot be had soon enough, then let blood in the ankles, and if she be about sixteen, you may likewise do it in the arm, but let her be bled sparingly, especially if the blood be good. If the disease be of any continuance, then it is to be eradicated by purging, preparation of the humour being first considered, which may be done by the virgin's drinking the decoction of guaiac.u.m, with dittany of erete; but the best purge in this case ought to be made of aloes, agaric, senna, rhubarb; and for strengthening the bowels and removing obstructions, chaly-beate medicines are chiefly to be used. The diet must be moderate, and sharp things by all means avoided.

And now, since barrenness daily creates discontent, and that discontent breeds indifference between man and wife, or, by immediate grief, frequently casts the woman into one or another distemper, I shall in the next place treat thereof.

OF BARRENNESS.

Formerly, before women came to the marriage-bed, they were first searched by the mid-wife, and those only which she allowed of as fruitful were admitted. I hope, therefore, it will not be amiss to show you how they may prove themselves and turn barren ground into fruitful soil. Barrenness is a deprivation of the life and power which ought to be in the seed to procreate and propagate; for which end men and women were made. Causes of barrenness may be over much cold or heat, drying up the seed and corrupting it, which extinguishes the life of the seed, making it waterish and unfit for generation. It may be caused also, by the not flowing or over-flowing of the courses by swellings, ulcers, and inflammation of the womb, by an excrescence of flesh growing about the mouth of the matrix, by the mouth of the matrix being turned up to the back or side by the fatness of the body, whereby the mouth of the matrix is closed up, being pressed with the omentum or caul, and the matter of the seed is turned to fat; if she be a lean and dry body, and though she do conceive, yet the fruit of her body will wither before it come to perfection, for want of nourishment. One main cause of barrenness is attributed to want of a convenient moderating quality, which the woman ought to have with the man; as, if he be hot, she must be cold; if he be dry, she must be moist; as, if they be both dry or both moist of const.i.tution, they cannot propagate; and yet, simply considering of themselves, they are not barren, for she who was before as the barren fig-tree being joined to an apt const.i.tution becomes as the fruitful vine. And that a man and woman, being every way of like const.i.tution, cannot create, I will bring nature itself for a testimony, who hath made man of a better const.i.tution than woman, that the quality of the one, may moderate the quality of the other.

SIGNS OF BARRENNESS.

If barrenness proceeds from overmuch heat, if she is a dry body, subject to anger, has black hair, quick pulse, and her purgations flow but little, and that with pain, she loves to play in the courts of Venus.

But if it comes by cold, then the signs are contrary to the above mentioned. If through the evil quality of the womb, make a suffumigation of red styrax, myrrh, ca.s.sia-wood, nutmeg, and cinnamon; and let her receive the fumes into her womb, covering her very close; and if the odour so received pa.s.ses through the body to the mouth and nostrils, she is fruitful. But if she feels not the fumes in her mouth and nostrils, it argues barrenness one of these ways--that the spirit of the seed is either extinguished through cold, or dissipated through heat. If any woman be suspected to be unfruitful, cast natural brimstone, such as is digged out of mines, into her urine, and if worms breed therein, she is not barren.

PROGNOSTICS.

Barrenness makes women look young, because they are free from those pains and sorrows which other women are accustomed to. Yet they have not the full perfection of health which other women enjoy, because they are not rightly purged of the menstruous blood and superfluous seed, which are the princ.i.p.al cause of most uterine diseases.

First, the cause must be removed, the womb strengthened, and the spirits of the seed enlivened. If the womb be over hot, take syrup of succory, with rhubarb, syrup of violets, roses, ca.s.sia, purslain. Take of endive, water-lilies, borage flowers, of each a handful; rhubarb, mirobalans, of each three drachms; make a decoction with water, and to the straining of the syrup add electuary violets one ounce, syrup of ca.s.sia half an ounce, manna three drachms; make a potion. Take of syrup of mugwort one ounce, syrup of maiden-hair two ounces, pulv-elect triasand one drachm; make a julep. Take prus. salt, elect. ros. mesua, of each three drachms, rhubarb one scruple, and make a bolus; apply to the loins and privy parts fomentations of the juice of lettuce, violets, roses, malloes, vine leaves and nightshade; anoint the secret parts with the cooling unguent of Galen.

If the power of the seed be extinguished by cold, take every morning two spoonfuls of cinnamon water, with one scruple of mithridate. Take syrup of calamint, mugwort and betony, of each one ounce; waters of pennyroyal, feverfew, hyssop and sage, of each two ounces; make a julep.

Take oil of aniseed two scruples and a half; diacimini, diacliathidiamosei and diagla-ongoe, of each one drachm, sugar four ounces, with water of cinnamon, and make lozenges; take of them a drachm and a half twice a day, two hours before meals; fasten cupping gla.s.ses to the hips and belly. Take of styrax and calamint one ounce, mastick, cinnamon, nutmeg, lign, aloes, and frankincense, of each half ounce; musk, ten grains, ambergris, half a scruple; make a confection with rosewater, divide it into four equal parts; one part make a pomatum oderation to smell at if she be not hysterical; of the second, make a ma.s.s of pills, and let her take three every other night: of the third make a pessary, dip it in oil of spikenard, and put it up; of the fourth, make a suffumigation for the womb.

If the faculties of the womb be weakened, and the life of the seed suffocated by over much humidity flowing to those parts: take of betony, marjoram, mugwort, pennyroyal and balm, of each a handful; roots of alum and fennel, of each two drachms; aniseed and c.u.mmin, of each one drachm, with sugar and water a sufficient quant.i.ty; make a syrup, and take three ounces every morning.

Purge with the following things; take of the diagnidium, two grains, spicierum of castor, a scruple, pill foedit two scruples, with syrup of mugwort, make six pills. Take apeo, diagem. diamoser, diamb. of each one drachm; cinnamon, one drachm and a half; cloves, mace and nutmeg, of each half a drachm; sugar six ounces, with water of feverfew; make lozenges, to be taken every morning. Take of decoction of sarsaparilla and virga aurea, not forgetting sage, which Agrippa, wondering at its operation, has honoured with the name of _sacra herba_, a holy herb. It is recorded by Dodonoeus in the _History of Plants_, lib. ii. cap. 77, that after a great mortality among the Egyptians, the surviving women, that they might multiply quickly, were commanded to drink the juice of sage, and to anoint the genitals with oil of aniseed and spikenard. Take mace, nutmeg, cinnamon, styrax and amber, of each one drachm; cloves, laudanum, of each half a drachm; turpentine, a sufficient quant.i.ty; trochisks, to smooth the womb. Take roots of valerian and elecampane, of each one pound; galanga, two ounces; origan lavender, marjoram, betony, mugwort, bay leaves, calamint, of each a handful; make an infusion with water, in which let her sit, after she hath her courses.

If barrenness proceed from dryness, consuming the matter of the seed; take every day almond milk, and goat's milk extracted with honey, but often of the root satyrion, candied, and electuary of diasyren. Take three wethers' heads, boil them until all the flesh comes from the bones, then take melilot, violets, camomiles, mercury, orchia with their roots, of each a handful; fenugreek, linseed, valerian roots, of each one pound; let all these be decocted in the aforesaid broth, and let the woman sit in the decoction up to the navel.

If barrenness be caused by any proper effect of the womb, the cure is set down in the second book. Sometimes the womb proves barren where there is no impediment on either side, except only in the manner of the act; as when in the emission of the seed, the man is quick and the woman is slow, whereby there is not an emission of both seeds at the same instant as the rules of conception require. Before the acts of coition, foment the privy parts with the decoction of betony, sage, hyssop and calamint and anoint the mouth and neck of the womb with musk and civet.

The cause of barrenness being removed, let the womb be strengthened as follows; Take of bay berries, mastic, nutmeg, frankincense, nuts, laudanum, giapanum, of each one drachm, styracis liquid, two scruples, cloves half a scruple, ambergris two grains, then make a pessary with oil of spikenard.

Take of red roses, lapididis hoematis, white frankincense, of each half an ounce. Dragon's blood, fine bole, mastic, of each two drachms; nutmeg, cloves, of each one drachm; spikenard, half a scruple, with oil of wormwood; make a plaster for the lower part of the belly, then let her eat candied eringo root, and make an injection only of the roots of satyrion.

The aptest time for conception is instantly after the menses have ceased, because then the womb is thirsty and dry, apt both to draw the seed and return it, by the roughness of the inward surface, and besides, in some, the mouth of the womb is turned into the back or side, and is not placed right until the last day of the courses.

Excess in all things is to be avoided. Lay aside all pa.s.sions of the mind, shun study and care, as things that are enemies to conception, for if a woman conceive under such circ.u.mstances, however wise the parents may be, the children, at best, will be but foolish; because the mental faculties of the parents, viz., the understanding and the rest (from whence the child derives its reason) are, as it were, confused through the multiplicity of cares and thought; of which we have examples in learned men, who, after great study and care, having connection with their wives, often beget very foolish children. A hot and moist air is most suitable, as appears by the women in Egypt, who often bring forth three or four children at one time.

CHAPTER X

_Virginity, what it is, in what it consists, and how vitiated; together with the Opinions of the Learned about the Change of s.e.x in the Womb, during the Operation of Nature in forming the Body._

There are many ignorant people that boast of their skill in the knowledge of virginity, and some virgins have undergone harsh censures through their ignorant conclusions; I therefore thought it highly necessary to clear up this point, that the towering imaginations of conceited ignorance might be brought down, and the fair s.e.x (whose virtues are so ill.u.s.triously bright that they excite our wonder and command our imitation), may be freed from the calumnies and detractions of ignorance and envy; and so their honour may continue as unspotted, as they have kept their persons uncontaminated and free from defilement.

Virginity, in a strict sense, signifies the prime, the chief, the best of anything; and this makes men so desirous of marrying virgins, imagining some secret pleasure is to be enjoyed in their embraces, more than in those of widows, or of such as have been lain with before, though not many years ago, a very great personage thought differently, and to use his own expression:--"The getting a maidenhead was such a piece of drudgery, that it was fitter for a coal heaver than a prince."[1] But this was only his opinion, for I am sure that other men think differently.

The curious inquirers into the secrets of Nature, have observed, that in young maidens in the _sinus pudoris_, or in what is called the neck of the womb, is that wonderful production usually called the _hymen_, but in French _bouton de rose_, or rosebud, because it resembles the expanded bud of a rose or a gilly flower. From this the word _defloro_, or, deflower, is derived, and hence taking away virginity is called deflowering a virgin, most being of the opinion that the virginity is altogether lost when this membrane is fractured and destroyed by violence; when it is found perfect and entire, however, no penetration has been effected; and in the opinion of some learned physicians there is neither hymen nor expanded skin which contains blood in it, which some people think, flows from the ruptured membrane at the first time of s.e.xual intercourse.

Now this _claustrum virginale_, or flower, is composed of four little buds like myrtle berries, which are full and plump in virgins, but hang loose and flag in women; and these are placed in the four angles of the _sinus pudoris_, joined together by little membranes and ligatures, like fibres, each of them situated in the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, or s.p.a.ces between each bud, with which, in a manner, they are proportionately distended, and when once this membrane is lacerated, it denotes _Devirgination_. Thus many ignorant people, finding their wives defective in this respect on the first night, have immediately suspected their chast.i.ty, concluding that another man had been there before them, when indeed, such a rupture may happen in several ways accidentally, as well as by s.e.xual intercourse, viz. by violent straining, coughing, or sneezing, the stoppage of the urine, etc., so that the entireness or the fracture of that which is commonly taken for a woman's virginity or maidenhead, is no absolute sign of immorality, though it is more frequently broken by copulation than by any other means.[2]

And now to say something of the change of the s.e.xes in the womb. The genital parts of the s.e.xes are so unlike each other in substance, composition, situation, figure, action and use that nothing is more unlike to each other than they are, and the more, all parts of the body (the b.r.e.a.s.t.s excepted, which in women swell, because Nature ordained them for suckling the infant) have an exact resemblance to each other, so much the more do the genital parts of one s.e.x differ, when compared with the other, and if they be thus different in form, how much more are they so in their use.

The venereal feeling also proceeds from different causes; in men from the desire of emission, and in women from the desire of reception. All these things, then, considered I cannot but wonder, he adds, how any one can imagine that the female genital organs can be changed into the male organ, since the s.e.xes can be distinguished only by those parts, nor can I well impute the reason for this vulgar error to anything but the mistake of inexpert midwives, who have been deceived by the faulty conformation of those parts, which in some males may have happened to have such small protrusions that they could not be seen, as appears by the example of a child who was christened in Paris under the name of _Ivan_, as a girl, and who afterwards turned out to be a boy, and on the other hand, the excessive tension of the clytoris in newly-born female infants may have occasioned similar mistakes. Thus far Pliny in the negative, and notwithstanding what he has said, there are others, such as Galen, who a.s.sert the affirmative. "A man," he says, "is different from a woman, only by having his genitals outside his body, whereas a woman has them inside her." And this is certain, that if Nature having formed a male should convert him into a female, she has nothing else to do but to turn his genitals inward, and again to turn a woman into a man by a contrary operation. This, however, is to be understood of the child whilst it is in the womb and not yet perfectly formed, for Nature has often made a female child, and it has remained so for a month or two, in its mother's womb; but afterwards the heat greatly increasing in the genital organs, they have protruded and the child has become a male, but nevertheless retained some things which do not befit the masculine s.e.x, such as female gestures and movements, a high voice, and a more effeminate temper than is usual with men; whilst, on the other hand, the genitals have become inverted through cold humours, but yet the person retained a masculine air, both in voice and gesture. Now, though both these opinions are supported by several reasons, yet I think the latter are nearer the truth, for there is not that vast difference between the genitals of the two s.e.xes as Pliny a.s.serts; for a woman has, in a way, the same _pudenda_ as a man, though they do not appear outwardly, but are inverted for the convenience of generation; one being solid and the other porous, and that the princ.i.p.al reason for changing s.e.xes is, and must be attributed to heat or cold, which operates according to its greater or lesser force.

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