B. VII ] THE HISTORY OF AHIUA.L3 185 



mon. In some women, however, the condition is contrary. 

 Pregnant women are apt to have all sorts of fancies, which 

 change very rapidly. Some persona call this longing. 

 These fancies are strongest when a female is conceived, and 

 there is but little pleasure in their gratification. In a few 

 women the condition of the body is better during preg 

 nancy ; they suffer most when the hair of the foetus begins 

 to grow. Pregnant women lose the hair which grows on 

 the parts that are hairy at birth, while it becomes more 

 thick upon the parts on which it appears subsequent to 

 birth. 



4. A male foetus usually moves more freely in the womb 

 than a female, and the parturition is not so long. If a fe 

 male, the parturition is slower. The pain in the birth of 

 female children is continuous, and dull ; in the birth of 

 males it is sharp, and far more severe. Those who, before 

 parturition, have sexual intercourse, suffer less in the pro 

 cess. Sometimes women seem to suffer, not from any pain 

 of their own, but from the turning of the head of the child ; 

 and this appears to be the commencement of the pain. 

 Other animals have a single exact period for parturition, 

 for one time is appointed for them all. The human subject 

 alone varies in this particular, for the period of gestation is 

 seven, eight, or nine months, or ten at the outside, though 

 some have even advanced as far as the eleventh month. 



5. If any are born before the seventh month, they never 

 live. Those of seven months are the first that are developed, 

 but these are usually weakly, wherefore, also, they wrap 

 them in wool. [Many of these infants have the passages, 

 as the ears and nostrils, im perforate. As they grow, how 

 ever, they assume a proper form, and many of them survive. 

 In Egypt, and some other places, where the women suffer 

 little pain in parturition, and where they bear many chil 

 dren with ease, those even at. the end of eight months are 

 capable of living, even although they should be monstrous ; 

 but in such places children born in the eighth mouth may 

 survive and be brought up. In Greece, however, few of 

 them survive, and most of them perish ; and people suspect 

 that if any of them survive, the exact period of conception 

 must have been mistaken by the mother. 



0. Women suffer most in the fourth and eighth mouth, 



