Chapter VIII.

By what Means it is that Monstrous Births are Effected.

Empedocles believes that monsters receive their origination from the abundance or defect of seed, or from its division into parts which are superabundant, or from some disturbance in the motion, or else that there is an error by a lapse into an unsuitable receptacle; and thus he presumes he hath given all the causes of monstrous conceptions. Strato, that it comes through addition, subtraction, or transposition of the seed, or the distension or inflation of the matrix. And some physicians say that the matrix suffers distortion, being distended with wind.