SECT. 2] TO THE RENAISSANCE 93 



special attention to it. The embryo was called peri habbetten (fruit of 

 the body), ]a2n ns. It grew through various definite stages: 



(i) golem (formless, rolled-up thing), nbu, 0-1-5 months. 



(2) shefir meruqqdm (embroidered foetus), api» T'Dit. 



(3) ^ubbar (something carried), imi?, 1-5-4 months. 



(4) walad (child), n*?!, 4-7 months. 



(5) walad shel qaydmd (viable child), so'^^p '7tri'?i, 7-9 months. 



(6) ben she-kallu khaddshdw (child whose months have been com- 

 pleted), rirnn I'^rir ]n. 



The ideas of the Talmudic writers on the life led by the embryo 

 in utero are well represented by the remark, "It floateth like a nut- 

 shell on the waters and moveth hither and thither at every touch" 



ms o*» "rtr ':'SDn niia TUNb las •'^lan n»n n'?i rrch ity'^s •'sn lasi 



And the classical passage, "Rabbi Simlai lectured: the babe in its 

 mother's womb is like a rolled-up scroll, with folded arms lying 

 closely pressed together, its elbows resting on its hips, its heels against 

 its buttocks, its head between its knees. Its mouth is closed, its navel 

 open. It eats its mother's food and sips its mother's drink: but it 

 doth not excrete for fear of hurting" 



bv rT* niioi "rsipa'!^ Q^ith las "'yan n»n n'^in rxh ''V^b's^^ •'in tJ^m 

 ittNtr na» nmtyi n'?sis las:^ n»» '?2isi mns "nuai miio rsi rsin ^■'n i"? 



It was thought, moreover, that the bones and tendons, the nails, 

 the marrow in the head and the white of the eye, were derived from 

 the father, "who sows the white", but the skin, flesh, blood, hair, 

 and the dark part of the eye from the mother, "who sows the red". 

 This is evidently in direct descent from Aristotle through Galen, and 

 may be compared with the following passage from the latter writer's 

 Commentary on Hippocrates: "We teach that some parts of the body 

 are formed from the semen and the flesh alone from blood. But 

 because the amount of semen which is injected into the uterus is 

 small, growth and increment must come for the most part from the 

 blood". It might thus appear that, just as the Jews of Alexandria 

 were reading Aristotle in the third century B.C., and incorporating 



IujILIBRAR Y 



V<^XN4?AI 



