The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher

e womb; How it is formed there, and

her delivery, it is necessary that the midwife be first made acquainted with the parts proper to a child in the womb, and also that she be shown how it is formed, and the manner of its situation and decumbiture th

Parts proper to a

in that dark repository of nature, and that help to clothe and defend it there and are cast away, as of no more use, after it is born, and these are two, viz., the umbilicar

icars, or Na

ne vein, two arteries, and the ve

concocting the food we have. This vein ariseth from the liver of the child, and is divided into two parts when it has passed the navel; and these two are divided and subdivided, the branche

branches of the great artery of the mother, and the vital blood is

ied there is such a thing, for Bartholomew Carbrolius, the ordinary doctor of anatomy to the College of Physicians at Montpellier in France, records the history of a maid, whose water being a long time stopped, at last issued out through the navel. And Johannes Fernelius speaks of the same thing that happened to a man of thirty years of age, who having a stoppage at the neck of the bladder, his urine is

ike a gut or rope, and are altogether void of sensibility, and this is that which women call the navel-string. The vessels are thus joined together, that so they may neither be

undine or

ns, it is called in English by the name of secundine, after

e greatest part of the secundine or after-birth. The flesh of it is like that of the melt or spleen, soft, red and tending something

is that which is most commonly called the secundine, as it is thick and white garnished with many small veins and arteries, ending in the placenta before named, being very light

s that there is not. Those who will have it to be a membrane, say it is white, soft and exceedingly thin, and just under the placenta, where it is knit to the ur

soft and transparent, being nourished by some very small veins and arteries. Its

parts of the body. Nerve is the same with sinew, and is that by which the brain adds sense and motion to the body. Placenta, properly signifies sugar cake; but in this section it is used to signify a spongy piece of flesh resembling a cake, full of veins and arteries, and is made to receive a mother's blood appointed for the infant's nourishment in the w

Formation of the

seed again, and partly to cherish it by an inward heat, the better to provoke it to action; which is one reason why women's bellies are so lank at their first conception. The woman having thus conceived, the first thing which is operative in conception is the spirit whereof the seed is full, which, nature quickening by the heat of the womb, stirs up the action. The internal spirit

red, which pierceth those skins, being yet very tender, and carries a drop of blood from the veins of the mother's womb to the seed; from which drop the vena cava, or chief vein, proceeds, from which all th

blood. After this the brain is formed, and then the nerves to give sense and motion to the infant. Afterwards the bones and flesh are formed; and of the bones, first of all, the vertebrae or chine bones, and then the skull, etc. As to the time in which this curious part of nature's

anner of the Child'

wo in ten that agree what is the form that the child lies in the womb, or in what fashion it lies there; and yet this may arise in a great measure from the different times

, will be more easily conceived by the understanding midwife. It ought, therefore, in the first place to be observed, that the infant, as well male as female, is generally situated in the midst of the wo

its mother's labour, which is not then far off (and indeed some children turn not at all until the very time of birth); for in this posture all its joints are most easily extended in coming forth; for by this means its arms and legs cannot hinder its birth, because they cannot be bent against the inner orifice of the womb and the rest of the body, being very supple, passeth without any difficulty after the head, which is hard and big; being passed the head is inclined forward, so that the chin toucheth the breast, in which posture, it resembles one sitting to ease nature, and stooping down with the head to see what comes from him. The spine of the back is at that time placed towards the mother's, the head uppermost, the face downwards; and proportionately to its growth, it extends its members by little and little, which were exactly folded in the first month. In this posture it usu