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When the womb has conceived the seed, straightway in the majority of cases it closes up until seven months are fulfilled; but in the eighth month it opens, and the embryo, if it be fertile, descends in the eighth month. But such embryos as are not fertile but are devoid of breath at eight months old, their mothers do not bring into the world by parturition at eight months, neither does the embryo descend within the womb at that period nor does the womb open. And it is a sign that the embryo is not capable of life if it be formed without the above-named circumstances taking place.

After conception women are prone to a feeling of heaviness in all parts of their bodies, and for instance they experience a sensation of darkness in front of the eyes and suffer also from headache. These symptoms appear sooner or later, sometimes as early as the tenth day, according as the patient be more or less burthened with superfluous humours. Nausea also and sickness affect the most of women, and especially such as those that we have just now mentioned, after the menstrual discharge has ceased and before it is yet turned in the direction of the breasts.

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.

Children that come into the world before seven months can under no circumstances survive. The seven-months' children are the earliest that are capable of life, and most of them are weakly-for which reason, by the way, it is customary to swaddle them in wool,-and many of them are born with some of the orifices of the body imperforate, for instance the ears or the nostrils. But as they get bigger they become more perfectly developed, and many of them grow up.

In Egypt, and in some other places where the women are fruitful and are wont to bear and bring forth many children without difficulty, and where the children when born are capable of living even if they be born subject to deformity, in these places the eight-months' children live and are brought up, but in Greece it is only a few of them that survive while most perish. And this being the general experience, when such a child does happen to survive the mother is apt to think that it was not an eight months' child after all, but that she had conceived at an earlier period without being aware of it.

Women suffer most pain about the fourth and the eighth months, and if the foetus perishes in the fourth or in the eighth month the mother also succumbs as a general rule; so that not only do the eight-months' children not live, but when they die their mothers are in great danger of their own lives. In like manner children that are apparently born at a later term than eleven months are held to be in doubtful case; inasmuch as with them also the beginning of conception may have escaped the notice of the mother. What I mean to say is that often the womb gets filled with wind, and then when at a later period connexion and conception take place, they think that the former circumstance was the beginning of conception from the similarity of the symptoms that they experienced.

Such then are the differences between mankind and other animals in regard to the many various modes of completion of the term of pregnancy. Furthermore, some animals produce one and some produce many at a birth, but the human species does sometimes the one and sometimes the other. As a general rule and among most nations the women bear one child a birth; but frequently and in many lands they bear twins, as for instance in Egypt especially. Sometimes women bring forth three and even four children, and especially in certain parts of the world, as has already been stated. The largest number ever brought forth is five, and such an occurrence has been witnessed on several occasions. There was once upon a time a certain women who had twenty children at four births; each time she had five, and most of them grew up.

Now among other animals, if a pair of twins happen to be male and female they have as good a chance of surviving as though both had been males or both females; but among mankind very few twins survive if one happen to be a boy and the other a girl.

Of all animals the woman and the mare are most inclined to receive the commerce of the male during pregnancy; while all other animals when they are pregnant avoid the male, save those in which the phenomenon of superfoetation occurs, such as the hare. Unlike that animal, the mare after once conceiving cannot be rendered pregnant again, but brings forth one foal only, at least as a general rule; in the human species cases of superfoetation are rare, but they do happen now and then.

An embryo conceived some considerable time after a previous conception does not come to perfection, but gives rise to pain and causes the destruction of the earlier embryo; and, by the way, a case has been known to occur where owing to this destructive influence no less than twelve embryos conceived by superfoetation have been discharged. But if the second conception take place at a short interval, then the mother bears that which was later conceived, and brings forth the two children like actual twins, as happened, according to the legend, in the case of Iphicles and Hercules. The following also is a striking example: a certain woman, having committed adultery, brought forth the one child resembling her husband and the other resembling the adulterous lover.

The case has also occurred where a woman, being pregnant of twins, has subsequently conceived a third child; and in course of time she brought forth the twins perfect and at full term, but the third a five-months' child; and this last died there and then. And in another case it happened that the woman was first delivered of a seven-months' child, and then of two which were of full term; and of these the first died and the other two survived.

Some also have been known to conceive while about to miscarry, and they have lost the one child and been delivered of the other.

If women while going with child cohabit after the eighth month the child is in most cases born covered over with a slimy fluid. Often also the child is found to be replete with food of which the mother had partaken.