On the Eight-Month Birth — First Draft Translation

ON THE EIGHT-MONTH BIRTH. [5] Concerning the birth of the eight-month child, I maintain that two successive kinds of distress, occurring one after the other, make it impossible for such children to survive, and that this is why eight-month children do not pull through. For it falls to their lot to suffer distress in succession — both the distress that arises within the womb and that which occurs when the birth takes place — and for this reason none of the eight-month children survive. [5] For even what are called ten-month births, I say, are most often delivered within seven times forty days; and it is especially fitting for them to be brought to full nurture; and the child is most complete within this same span of forty days. But once it is born, more perish; for, being compelled to take on many changes in a short time, it falls into many sicknesses, from which the deaths arise. The child begins to suffer and to run the risk of perishing as the birth approaches, when it turns within the womb; for all children develop with the head uppermost; most are born head-first; and this makes for a safer delivery than those born feet-first — for the parts of the body that are bent do not yet obstruct the child's passage when it goes head-first; but rather, when it is set in motion feet-first, the blockages arise. For the turnings within the belly are a further danger; and the umbilical cords of children have often already been seen wound around their necks. For if, in the region on whichever side the umbilical cord happens to be stretched more tightly against the womb, the child makes its rotational turn of the head in that direction, the cord twisting either around the neck or even along the shoulder, the loop of the cord pulls back against the movement — and when this happens, the mother is necessarily put to greater suffering, and the child either perishes or emerges with greater difficulty. So that already many children have come out bearing within them the beginning of a disease, from which some have perished, while others, having been sick, have survived. As many as manage well and pass safely into the open — being suddenly released from the constriction that prevailed within the belly — straightaway became thicker and larger than was proportionate, not from growth but from swelling arising; and from this many perished. For unless the swelling subsides quickly — by the third day or a little longer — diseases arise from it. [12] Both the nourishments and the breathings are hazardous as they change over. For if anything morbid is taken in, it is taken in through the mouth and through the nostrils; and instead of as much entering as suffices and no more, far more enters, so that the body of the child is compelled both by the abundance of what enters and by the condition in which it already lies — to expel some things back out through the mouth and nostrils, and to pass others down through the gut and the bladder, none of these things having happened in this way before. And instead of pneuma and chymos so naturally akin — of the sort that by necessity always arise in the womb, carrying familiarity and benevolence — the child makes use of things altogether foreign, rawer and drier and less accustomed to human nature, from which many sufferings necessarily arise, and many deaths as well; since also in adults the changes of regions and of the diaita often bring on diseases. The same account holds also regarding clothing; for instead of being clothed in flesh and chymoi that are warm and moist and kindred, the children are dressed in such coverings as men wear. The umbilical cords are the sole inlets of the body for children; through these the child adheres to the womb and shares in what enters; all the other passages are closed; and they are not opened before the child is in the act of leaving the belly. But when it is in the act of leaving, the others are opened, while the umbilical cord thins and closes and dries off. Just as the fruits of plants growing from the earth, as they ripen, separate and fall away at the point of attachment, so too in children, as they ripen and come to completion, the umbilical cord closes up while the other passages are opened, so as to receive what enters and to have exits in accordance with nature, which the living must of necessity use. For each thing separates out as it inclines according to its syllochiai [natural groupings or birth-kindreds; the term is rare and its precise sense uncertain]; and those things nurtured longest in companionship with the sun prevail [the physiological meaning of this sentence is obscure; it may refer to warmth or to some cosmological principle of natural affinity]. Ten-month and eleven-month births arise from seven times forty days in the same manner as seven-month births arise from half of the year; for to most women it is necessary to conceive after the menses, if the discharge goes forward. One must therefore allow the woman a time within the month during which her purging will occur; and this time, for those in whom it is shortest, is three days, and for most women much longer. [20] There are also many other impediments, both for women and for men, from which conception is delayed. Above all else, one must reckon with this: that the new-moon day, being one day, is closest to being one-thirtieth of the month; two days are roughly one-fifteenth of the month; three days are one-tenth of the month; and the rest in proportion to these. And it is not possible, within the smaller portions at least, for either the discharge of the menses or the conception of embryos to occur. From all of this, then, it is necessary that for most women conception takes place around mid-month and later, so that the two hundred and eighty days often seem to extend into the eleventh month — for that is seven times forty. For whatever the woman conceives outside of mid-month, all of this must necessarily extend into the eleventh month, provided it reaches the final period [i.e., the final lunar cycle of the gestational count; the referent is the last of the seven forty-day periods, which would push the delivery past the ten-month boundary into the eleventh month].