Aristotle, Second Part of THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS Complete

Translated by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

II: 128 pages - You are on Page 91

Moreover, some women suffer most at the beginning of their pregnancy and some at a later period when the embryo has had time to grow; and in some women it is a common occurrence to suffer from strangury towards the end of their time. As a general rule women who are pregnant of a male child escape comparatively easily and retain a comparatively healthy look, but it is otherwise with those whose infant is a female; for these latter look as a rule paler and suffer more pain, and in many cases they are subject to swellings of the legs and eruptions on the body. Nevertheless the rule is subject to exceptions.

Women in pregnancy are a prey to all sorts of longings and to rapid changes of mood, and some folks call this the 'ivy-sickness'; and with the mothers of female infants the longings are more acute, and they are less contented when they have got what they desired.

In a certain few cases the patient feels unusually well during pregnancy. The worst time of all is just when the child's hair is beginning to grow.

In pregnant women their own natural hair is inclined to grow thin and fall out, but on the other hand hair tends to grow on parts of the body where it was not wont to be. As a general rule, a man-child is more prone to movement within its mother's womb than a female child, and it is usually born sooner. And labour in the case of female children is apt to be protracted and sluggish, while in the case of male children it is acute and by a long way more difficult. Women who have connexion with their husbands shortly before childbirth are delivered all the more quickly. Occasionally women seem to be in the pains of labour though labour has not in fact commenced, what seemed like the commencement of labour being really the result of the foetus turning its head.

Now all other animals bring the time of pregnancy to an end in a uniform way; in other words, one single term of pregnancy is defined for each of them. But in the case of mankind alone of all animals the times are diverse; for pregnancy may be of seven months' duration, or of eight months or of nine, and still more commonly of ten months, while some few women go even into the eleventh month.

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