BIOLOGICAL BEGINNINGS I 3 



ing offspring, but human reproduction takes place all the year round 

 and the period of gestation varies — in one case it may exceed six months, 

 in another seven, and it may even exceed ten: a child born before the 

 seventh month is usually still-born. Only those conceived the day before 

 or the day after the full moon, or when there is no moon, are bom in the 

 seventh month. 



On the tenth day from conception pains in the head, giddiness and dim 

 sight, distaste for food, and vomiting are symptoms of the formation of the 

 embryo. If the child is a male, the mother has a better colour and an easier 

 delivery; there is movement in the womb on the fortieth day. In the case 

 of the other sex, all the symptoms are the opposite: the burden is hard to 

 carry, there is a slight swelling of the legs and groin, but the first movement 

 is on the ninetieth day. But the greatest amount of faintness occurs when 

 the embryo begins to grow hair; and also at the full moon, which period 

 is also specially inimical to infants after birth. The gait in walking and 

 everything that can be mentioned are so important during pregnancy that 

 mothers eating food that is too salt bear children lacking nails, and that not 

 holding the breath makes the delivery more difficult; indeed, to gape dur- 

 ing delivery may cause death, just as a sneeze following copulation causes 

 abortion. 



It is against nature to be born feet foremost. It is Nature's method for a 

 human being to be born head first, and it is the custom for him to be carried 

 to burial feet first. 



It is also well known that sound parents may have deformed children 

 and deformed parents sound children or children with the same deformity, 

 as the case may be; that some marks and moles and even scars reappear in 

 the offspring, in some cases a birthmark on the forearm reappearing in the 

 fourth generation. 



Cases of likeness are indeed an extremely wide subject, and one which 

 includes the belief that a great many accidental circumstances are in- 

 fluential — recollections of sights and sounds and actual sense — impressions 

 received at the time of conception. Also a thought flitting across the mind 

 of either parent is supposed to produce likeness or to cause a combination 

 of features, and the reason why there are more differences in man than in 

 all the other animals is that his swiftness of thought and quickness of mind 

 and variety of mental character impress a great diversity of mental pat- 

 terns, whereas the minds of the other animals are sluggish and are alike for 

 all and sundry, each in their own kind. 



Particular individuals may have a certain physical incongruity be- 

 tween them, and persons whose union is infertile may have children when 

 they form other connexions. Also some women have only female or only 

 male children, though usually the sexes come alternately; some women are 

 childless in youth; on some parentage is bestowed once in a lifetime; cer- 

 tain women are always delivered prematurely, and those of this class, if 



