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 94

Part 5

When women have partaken of salt in overabundance their children are apt to be born destitute of nails.

Milk that is produced earlier than the seventh month is unfit for use; but as soon as the child is fit to live the milk is fit to use. The first of the milk is saltish, as it is likewise with sheep. Most women are sensibly affected by wine during pregnancy, for if they partake of it they grow relaxed and debilitated.

The beginning of child-bearing in women and of the capacity to procreate in men, and the cessation of these functions in both cases, coincide in the one case with the emission of seed and in the other with the discharge of the catamenia: with this qualification that there is a lack of fertility at the commencement of these symptoms, and again towards their close when the emissions become scanty and weak. The age at which the sexual powers begin has been related already. As for their end, the menstrual discharges ceases in most women about their fortieth year; but with those in whom it goes on longer it lasts even to the fiftieth year, and women of that age have been known to bear children. But beyond that age there is no case on record.

Part 6

Men in most cases continue to be sexually competent until they are sixty years old, and if that limit be overpassed then until seventy years; and men have been actually known to procreate children at seventy years of age. With many men and many women it so happens that they are unable to produce children to one another, while they are able to do so in union with other individuals. The same thing happens with regard to the production of male and female offspring; for sometimes men and women in union with one another produce male children or female, as the case may be, but children of the opposite sex when otherwise mated. And they are apt to change in this respect with advancing age: for sometimes a husband and wife while they are young produce female children and in later life male children; and in other cases the very contrary occurs. And just the same thing is true in regard to the generative faculty: for some while young are childless, but have children when they grow older; and some have children to begin with, and later on no more.

Previous Page / First / Next Page of the HISTORY OF ANIMALS

Aristotle Home Page ||| Search Aristotle's works

Plato ||| Other Greek Philosophers ||| Elpenor's Free Greek Lessons

Development of Greek Philosophy ||| History of Greek Philosophy ||| History of Ancient Greece

Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-Greece/aristotle/history-animals-b.asp?pg=94